ATLANTA, GA (November 7, 2014) - Millions of children across the country need emergency epinephrine at school because they could suffer a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) to food or an insect sting. As schools across the country implement policies to stock emergency epinephrine, some are seeing dramatic results. According to a new study being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting, stock epinephrine was used on 38 children and adults in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) during ...

Children with asthma and hay fever often struggle with their breathing. Add secondhand smoke, kerosene and biomass fuel to the mix and allergy and asthma symptoms increase. According to a study being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting in Atlanta, November 6-10, increased levels of asthma and allergic rhinitis (hay fever) were found in children in India who were exposed to more indoor pollutants. The study examined 70 households where no children had symptoms of asthma and/or hay fever, while the other 70 ...

Past research has been inconsistent in determining the relative effects of mouse droppings vs. cockroach exposure on asthma in children. According to a study being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting in Atlanta, November 6-10, mice infestation is a stronger predictor of asthma symptoms in young children than exposure to cockroaches. The study examined 49 children under the age of 4, residing in the Bronx, New York. Both skin prick testing and blood tests were done to determine allergic response. Children ...

ATLANTA, GA (November 7, 2014) - Coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath are symptoms asthma sufferers are used to. They are also the symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). For sufferers, as well as physicians, it can be difficult to tell the difference between the two conditions. According to a presentation at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting, as many as 50 percent of older adults with obstructive airway disease have overlapping characteristics of asthma and COPD. And this percentage increases ...

AUDIO: In the first study comparing packed lunches to National School Lunch Program lunches, researchers from Virginia Tech found that school lunches have greater nutritional quality. Findings suggest that nutrition education... Click here for more information. PHILADELPHIA, PA, November 7, 2014 - Approximately 60% of the more than 50 million public elementary and secondary education students obtain a substantial portion of their daily calories from school lunches. The 2012-2013 ...

AUDIO: In a systematic, in-depth review focused on the use of behavior theory in interventions aimed to increase fruit and vegetable intake among children, researchers found theory-based interventions to be beneficial... Click here for more information. PHILADELPHIA, PA, November 7, 2014 - Researchers try to develop interventions that are most likely to work. Some times that involves deciding which activities should be included, such as whether to have cooking classes or be ...

An experimental drug aimed at treating a common liver disease showed promising results and potential problems in a multicenter clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health. The FLINT study found that people with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) who took obeticholic acid (OCA) had improved liver health during that period, including decreased inflammation and fat in the liver and decreased body weight versus people receiving a placebo. OCA was also associated with increases in itching and total cholesterol. The findings of FLINT, or the Farnesoid X Receptor ...

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have completed the largest and most sensitive visible-light imaging survey of dusty debris disks around other stars. These dusty disks, likely created by collisions between leftover objects from planet formation, were imaged around stars as young as 10 million years old and as mature as more than 1 billion years old. "It's like looking back in time to see the kinds of destructive events that once routinely happened in our solar system after the planets formed," said survey leader Glenn Schneider of the University of Arizona's ...

Philadelphia - Olaparib, an experimental twice-daily oral cancer drug, produces an overall tumor response rate of 26 percent in several advanced cancers associated with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, according to new research co-led by the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The positive response provides new hope for patients with ovarian, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers whose conditions have not responded to standard therapies. Results of the phase II study are available online in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. For ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A groundbreaking paper from a team of Florida State University biologists could lead to a better understanding of how plants could adapt to and survive environmental swings such as droughts or floods. The research, published in the latest issue of the journal The Plant Cell, sheds light on how chromatin (the complex of DNA and proteins) is organized in a cell and how plants regulate genetic material, so that some genes are turned on and others are turned off. "If you understand how plants regulate their genetic material, you can possibly manipulate ...

Humane transport of livestock is important for both carcass quality and animal welfare. However, it is difficult to mitigate stress for animals in-transit. During a typical journey, calves lose weight due to the stress of weaning and being withdrawn from feed and water during transport. Many factors contribute to this stress, including welfare of the calves before transportation, and temperature and space allowance inside the trailer during transportation. A better understanding of the pre- and post-transportation risk factors and in-transit factors that influence calf ...

Food waste has become a serious problem in the United States and other countries. Approximately 34 million tons of food waste is deposited in landfills each year in the United States alone (EPA, 2014). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized the use of food waste as animal feed as one of the best means to add value to food waste, while reducing landfill costs and greenhouse gas emissions, and at the same time improving food security. In an article published in the November 2014 issue of the Journal of Animal Science ("Nutritional value of ensiled grocery ...

Wheat, along with corn and barley, is one of the three major feed grains used in North America. Most of the feed-class wheat is fed to poultry and swine. Beef producers are reluctant to use large quantities of wheat in diets of feedlot cattle because wheat ferments considerably more rapidly in the rumen than corn or barley and increases the risk of ruminal acidosis, which can compromise the health, wellbeing, and productivity of cattle. In a study published in the November 2014 issue of the Journal of Animal Science ("Impact of hard vs. soft wheat and monensin level on ...

When the dinosaurs ruled the earth, they were already bugged by creatures who had gotten there many millions of years earlier: Dragonflies and damselflies. In fact, says Rutgers University-Newark biologist, Dr. Jessica Ware, the first creatures to take to the skies of earth did so 406 million years ago. Ware knows of what she speaks: She is part of an international team of 100 researchers that just finished an unprecedented two-year project to map the evolution of insects using a molecular data set of unparalleled quality and dimensions. The initial report on their ...

Most cancer deaths occur because of metastasis, yet progress in preventing and treating migratory cancer cells has been slow. "It's been particularly challenging to design drugs that work against metastasis," said Taran Gujral, research fellow in systems biology at Harvard Medical School. "Unfortunately, many cancers aren't detected until after they've already metastasized." Gujral and colleagues have now identified a cellular culprit that should help researchers better understand how metastasis begins. Their findings may also inform the design of new treatments ...

Pain is a common symptom of cancer and side effect of cancer treatment, and treating cancer-related pain is often a challenge for health care providers. The Penny George Institute for Health and Healing researchers found that integrative medicine therapies can substantially decrease pain and anxiety for hospitalized cancer patients. Their findings are published in the current issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monographs. "Following Integrative medicine interventions, such as medical massage, acupuncture, guided imagery or relaxation response ...

MADISON, Wis. -- Here is an idea worth following: "share" for tenure; "like" to get cited. Academic researchers are turning to social media more and more, according to Dominique Brossard, and not just to post family photos or crack wise via hashtag. "I've been in science communication for a while now, and I am really seeing a change -- especially among the younger scientists -- in their willingness to share their work," says Brossard, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication. It's the venue for that sharing that has inspired work ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 6, 2014 - For much the same reason LCD televisions offer eye-popping performance, a thermomagnetic processing method developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory can advance the performance of polymers. Polymers are used in cars, planes and hundreds of consumer products, and scientists have long been challenged to create polymers that are immune to shape-altering thermal expansion. One way to achieve this goal is to develop highly directional crystalline structures that mimic those of transparent liquid crystal diode, or ...

PITTSBURGH--Speed is an asset for a predator. Except when that predator runs so fast that it essentially blinds itself. The tiger beetle, relative to its size, is the fastest creature on Earth. Some of these half-inch-long beetles cover about 120 body lengths per second (at about five miles per hour). The fastest human can do about five body lengths. To take the sprinting gold from the tiger beetle, a person would have to hit 480 miles per hour. BUT! The tiger beetle has a problem. At peak speeds, everything becomes a blur. They can't gather enough light with their ...

LAWRENCE -- The number of children diagnosed with autism has increased in recent years, but a new study co-authored by a University of Kansas professor shows that while the number of students with autism increased in every state from 2000 to 2007, black and Hispanic children were significantly underrepresented. Jason Travers, assistant professor of special education, co-authored a study that analyzed administrative identification of autism in every state under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for the years 2000 and 2007. The disparity in the odds of white ...

The distribution of birds in the United States today will probably look very different in 60 years as a result of climate, land use and land cover changes. A new U.S. Geological Survey study predicts where 50 bird species will breed, feed and live in the conterminous U.S. by 2075. While some types of birds, like the Baird's sparrow, will likely lose a significant amount of their current U.S. range, other ranges could nearly double. Human activity will drive many of these shifts. The study was published today in the journal PLOS ONE. "Habitat loss is a strong predictor ...

NASA's Terra satellite passed over Tropical Storm Nuri on Nov. at captured an infrared picture of the storm. The storm looked more like a frontal system as it stretched from northeast to southwest. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite flew over Nuri on Nov. 6 at 1240 UTC (7:40 a.m. EST). The MODIS image showed some strong thunderstorms remaining in a small area around Nuri's center, but the storm appeared stretched out from northeast to southwest. Wind shear was affecting the storm, stretching it ...

(SALT LAKE CITY)--One of the big hurdles in bringing drugs to market is the difficulty of producing large enough quantities of potential compounds to conduct clinical trials. This is particularly true with compounds made by organisms, which usually are produced in exceedingly small amounts and are difficult to synthesize in the laboratory. Researchers from the University of Utah College of Pharmacy have made an important stride in addressing those problems. In a study in ACS Synthetic Biology, researchers led by Eric W. Schmidt, Ph.D., professor of medicinal chemistry, ...

The fifth tropical cyclone of the Northern Indian Ocean season formed in the Bay of Bengal as NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead and captured an image of the storm. When Terra passed over Tropical Cyclone 5B on Nov. 6 at 05:05 UTC (12:05 a.m. EST), the MODIS instrument aboard took a visible image of the storm. The MODIS image showed a concentrated storm with strong thunderstorms circling tight around the center and in the northeastern quadrant. By 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST), Tropical Cyclone 5B was located near 13.4 north latitude and 87.9 east longitude. That's about ...

NEW YORK (November 6, 2014) -- Inappropriate, disruptive, or hostile behavior between nursing home residents is a sizable and growing problem, according to new research from Weill Cornell Medical College and Cornell University. The study found that nearly one in five nursing home residents were involved in at least one negative and aggressive encounter with one or more fellow residents over the previous four weeks. These included acts of verbal or physical abuse, inappropriate sexual behavior, or invasion of privacy, among other incidents, known collectively as resident-to-resident ...