Determining whether your snoring is merely annoying, or crosses the threshold into a life-threatening problem, isn't convenient or cheap. The gold standard for diagnosing sleep apnea -- a disease which affects roughly 1 in 13 Americans -- requires an overnight hospital stay and costs thousands of dollars. The patient sleeps in a strange bed, gets hooked up to a tangle of wires, and undergoes an intensive polysomnography test to count how many times a night he or she struggles to breathe. By contrast, a new app developed at the University of Washington uses a smartphone ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (April 27, 2015) -- Two wrongs can make a right, at least in the world of visual perception and motor functioning, according to two University of Oregon brain scientists. In a two-experiment study, published last month in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, UO neuroscientists Paul Dassonville and Scott A. Reed used eye-tracker technology in a dark laboratory to test a developing theory about how the brain determines the locations of nearby objects. In a test of perception, 20 students were asked to report whether a line was tilted left or right ...

BOSTON - Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight knows that it's no fun to feel hungry. In fact, the drive to tame gnawing hunger pangs can sabotage even the best-intentioned dieter. But how exactly is it that fasting creates these uncomfortable feelings - and consuming food takes them away? Working to unravel the complex wiring system that underlies this intense physiological state, investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health ...

Although closely related to the notorious carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex, a new lineage of dinosaur discovered in Chile is proving to be an evolutionary jigsaw puzzle, as it preferred to graze upon plants. Palaeontologists are referring to Chilesaurus diegosuarezi as a 'platypus' dinosaur because of its extremely bizarre combination of characters that include a proportionally small skull and feet more akin to primitive long-neck dinosaurs. Chilesaurus diegosuarezi is nested within the theropod group of dinosaurs, the dinosaurian group that gathers the famous meat eaters ...

If you're finding it difficult to stick to a weight-loss diet, scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus say you can likely blame hunger-sensitive cells in your brain known as AGRP neurons. According to new experiments, these neurons are responsible for the unpleasant feelings of hunger that make snacking irresistible. The negative emotions associated with hunger can make it hard to maintain a diet and lose weight, and these neurons help explain that struggle, says Scott Sternson, a group leader at Janelia. In an environment where food ...

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that neurons are risk takers: They use minor "DNA surgeries" to toggle their activity levels all day, every day. Since these activity levels are important in learning, memory and brain disorders, the researchers think their finding will shed light on a range of important questions. A summary of the study will be published online in the journal Nature Neuroscience on April 27. "We used to think that once a cell reaches full maturation, its DNA is totally stable, including the molecular tags attached to it to control its genes and ...

Eating 3,000 mg per day of salt or more appears to have no adverse effect on blood pressure in adolescent girls, while those girls who consumed 2,400 mg per day or more of potassium had lower blood pressure at the end of adolescence, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics. The scientific community has historically believed most people in the United States consume too much salt in their diets. The current Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends limiting sodium intake to less than 2,300 mg per day for healthy individuals between the ages of 2 and ...

Survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma appear to be at higher risk for cardiovascular diseases and both physicians and patients need to be aware of this increased risk, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a curable cancer with 10-year survival rates exceeding 80 percent. Treatment for HL has been associated with increased risks for other cancers and cardiovascular diseases, and those later cardiovascular complications may be the consequence of radiotherapy and chemotherapy in HL treatment, according to the study background. Flora ...

Researchers have developed a large-scale sequencing technique called Genome and Transcriptome Sequencing (G&T-seq) that reveals, simultaneously, the unique genome sequence of a single cell and the activity of genes within that single cell. The study, published today in Nature Methods, has experimentally established for the first time that when a cell loses or gains a copy of a chromosome during cell division, the genes in that particular region of DNA show decreased or increased expression. While this has long been assumed by genetic researchers, it has not been seen ...

CHESTNUT HILL, MA (April 27, 2015) - Add water to a half-filled cup and the water level rises. This everyday experience reflects a positive material property of the water-cup system. But what if adding more water lowers the water level by deforming the cup? This would mean a negative compressibility. Now, a quantum version of this phenomenon, called negative electronic compressibility (NEC), has been discovered, a team of researchers led by physicists at Boston College reports today in the online edition of the journal Nature Materials. Physicists have long theorized ...

Reluctance to share data about personal energy use is likely to be a major obstacle when implementing 'smart' technologies designed to monitor use and support energy efficient behaviours, according to new research led by academics at The University of Nottingham. The study, published online by the journal Nature Climate Change, found that while more than half of people quizzed would be willing to reduce their personal energy consumption, some were wary about sharing their information with third parties. Increasing energy efficiency and encouraging flexible energy use ...

April 27, 2015 -- A new breast cancer gene has been identified in a study led by Women's College Hospital (WCH) researcher Dr. Mohammad Akbari, who is also an assistant professor with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. The study, which was published online today in Nature Genetics, describes how mutations in a gene called RECQL are strongly linked to the onset of breast cancer in two populations of Polish and French-Canadian women. "Our work is an exciting step in identifying all of the relevant genes that are associated with inherited ...

New York, New York -- A multi-year study led by researchers from the Simons Center for Data Analysis (SCDA) and major universities and medical schools has broken substantial new ground, establishing how genes work together within 144 different human tissues and cell types in carrying out those tissues' functions. The paper, to be published online by Nature Genetics on April 27 (at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.3259), also demonstrates how computer science and statistical methods may combine to aggregate and analyze very large -- and stunningly diverse -- genomic 'big-data' ...

Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have discovered that mitochondria, the major energy source for most cells, also play an important role in stem cell development -- a purpose notably distinct from the tiny organelle's traditional job as the cell's main source of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy needed for routine cell metabolism. Specifically, the NYU Langone team found that blocking the action of the mitochondrial ATP synthase enzyme stalled egg cell development from stem cells in experiments in fruit flies, one of the main organisms used to study cell ...

An international team of scientists has discovered what amounts to a molecular reset button for our internal body clock. Their findings reveal a potential target to treat a range of disorders, from sleep disturbances to other behavioral, cognitive, and metabolic abnormalities, commonly associated with jet lag, shift work and exposure to light at night, as well as with neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression and autism. In a study published online April 27 in Nature Neuroscience, the authors, led by researchers at McGill and Concordia universities in Montreal, report ...

Bethesda, MD (April 27, 2015) -- Patients are always interested in understanding what they should eat and how it will impact their health. Physicians are just as interested in advancing their understanding of the major health effects of foods and food-related diseases. To satisfy this need, the editors of Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association, are pleased to announce the publication of this year's highly anticipated special 13th issue on food, the immune system and the gastrointestinal tract. "This special issue provides ...

DARIEN, IL - A new study of night shift workers suggests that overnight occupational and cognitive impairment is more strongly correlated to insomnia than it is to sleepiness. Results show that night shift workers classified as alert insomniacs had the highest level of impairment in work productivity and cognitive function, which was significantly worse than controls. This occupational impairment was more severe in alert insomniacs than in insomniacs with excessive sleepiness. The study also found that alert insomniacs reported significantly greater fatigue than sleepy ...

New research out of Queen's University shows early benefits from the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in young girls. The HPV vaccine, which protects against four types of HPV shown to cause cervical cancer and anogenital warts, is offered free through school-based programs to young girls across Canada. Despite the fact the vaccine is free, vaccine rates are lower than expected a number of regions, in part because parents perceive their daughter's level of sexual activity as low at young ages. "We observed a large and significant reduction in cervical dysplasia, a precursor ...

The peak time for seeking information on topics related to HIV, such as prevention and testing, is at the beginning of the week, while risky sexual behaviors tend to increase on the weekends, according to a new analysis by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Monday Campaigns. The researchers also found that among people living with HIV, adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) is slightly lower on weekends, and evidence indicates an association between breaks in daily routine and sporadic interruptions to ART adherence. The researchers ...

Scientists from the Gladstone Institutes have discovered a way to prevent the development of multiple sclerosis (MS) in mice. Using a drug that blocks the production of a certain type of immune cell linked to inflammation and autoimmunity, the researchers successfully protected against the onset of MS in an animal model of the disease. The scientists say the next step is to test this strategy using other autoimmune disorders. "We are very excited about these findings," says Eric Verdin, MD, a senior investigator at Gladstone and co-senior author on the study. "In light ...

Stroke is a frequent and dreaded complication of atrial fibrillation. But predicting which of the estimated six million Americans with a-fib are at highest risk has long challenged physicians weighing stroke risk against the serious side effects posed by lifelong therapy with warfarin and other blood thinners. Now researchers from Johns Hopkins performing sophisticated motion studies of heart MRI scans have found that specific altered function in the left atrium -- one of the heart's four chambers -- may signal stroke risk in those with a-fib and, possibly, those without ...

Olive oil is universally considered a much healthier alternative to meat fat. Plant-derived oils (such as olive oil, canola oil, and vegetable oil) largely consist of unsaturated fatty acids, whereas animal fat is richer in the saturated ones. After a typical meal, carbohydrates are the primary source of energy production by the heart. Under fasting conditions, however, free fatty acids become the major energy producer. Saturated fat in a diet is known to be detrimental to heart health, but its impact on the cardiac muscle has been studied only recently. Interestingly, ...

Researchers from the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (IBB-UAB) and from the University of Warsaw have developed a new computational method called AGGRESCAN3D which will allow studying in 3D the structure of folded globular proteins and substantially improve the prediction of any propensity for forming toxic protein aggregates. With this new algorithm proteins can also be modelled to study the pathogenic effects of the aggregation or redesign them for therapeutic means. Current knowledge of the molecular bases of ...

This news release is available in German. At first glance, there is not the slightest doubt: to us, the universe looks three dimensional. But one of the most fruitful theories of theoretical physics in the last two decades is challenging this assumption. The "holographic principle" asserts that a mathematical description of the universe actually requires one fewer dimension than it seems. What we perceive as three dimensional may just be the image of two dimensional processes on a huge cosmic horizon. Up until now, this principle has only been studied in exotic ...

Hot vents on the seabed could have spontaneously produced the organic molecules necessary for life, according to new research by UCL chemists. The study shows how the surfaces of mineral particles inside hydrothermal vents have similar chemical properties to enzymes, the biological molecules that govern chemical reactions in living organisms. This means that vents are able to create simple carbon-based molecules, such as methanol and formic acid, out of the dissolved CO2 in the water. The discovery, published in the journal Chemical Communications, explains how some of ...