Beginning readers who focus on letter-sound relationships, or phonics, instead of trying to learn whole words, increase activity in the area of their brains best wired for reading, according to new Stanford research investigating how the brain responds to different types of reading instruction. In other words, to develop reading skills, teaching students to sound out "C-A-T" sparks more optimal brain circuitry than instructing them to memorize the word "cat." And, the study found, these teaching-induced differences show up even on future encounters with the word. The ...

(PHILADELPHIA) -- Despite advances in managing and curing some forms of breast cancer, women whose disease becomes metastatic have fewer effective options. A new phase 3 study in some of the most difficult-to-treat patients, women with endocrine-resistant disease, showed that the newly approved drug, palbociclib, more than doubled the time to cancer recurrence for women with hormone-receptor (HR+) positive metastatic breast cancer. The results will be presented at the 2015 annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO, abstract LBA-502) and published in the New England ...

Anastrozole provides a significant benefit compared with tamoxifen in preventing recurrence after a lumpectomy and radiation therapy in postmenopausal women ages 60 years or younger who had DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ), a common diagnosis of non-invasive breast cancer. In women over age 60, it works as well as tamoxifen. These findings were presented today at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. The benefit reported in this trial appeared later in follow up of the women in the study. "This study provides a new option for postmenopausal women undergoing treatment ...

DURHAM, N.C. - A modified poliovirus therapy that is showing promising results for patients with glioblastoma brain tumors works best at a low dosage, according to the research team at Duke's Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center where the investigational therapy is being pioneered. The dosage findings for the first 20 patients in the phase 1 trial will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago at the end of the month (abstract #2068). "The purpose of a phase 1 trial is to identify the optimal dose to minimize toxicity," said ...

Queensland scientists have discovered two more species of suicidally-sexed marsupials and one is already destined for the threatened list. Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) Dr Andrew Baker and his team have named two new species of Dusky Antechinus. One new species was discovered in remote, south-eastern Tasmania and another mainland form was raised to species status. The team has now discovered five new species of antechinus in the past three years, a 50 per cent increase in diversity within this long-known genus of mammals. However, the researchers believe ...

(New York - May 26, 2015) Mount Sinai Health System faculty will be presenting research updates on a lymphoma vaccine clinical trial, the best dosing for a drug against metastatic cancer, and new treatment strategies in relapsed multiple myeloma at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, May 29 - June 2, 2015, in Chicago. ASCO is the world's largest oncology meeting, with more than 25,000 researchers presenting their latest study results. Key abstract presentations include: * In situ vaccine for low-grade lymphoma: Combination of intratumoral ...

This news release is available in German. A team led by DESY scientists has designed, fabricated and successfully tested a novel X-ray lens that produces sharper and brighter images of the nano world. The lens employs an innovative concept to redirect X-rays over a wide range of angles, making a high convergence power. The larger the convergence the smaller the details a microscope can resolve, but as is well known it is difficult to bend X-rays by large enough angles. By fabricating a nano-structure that acts like an artificial crystal it was possible to mimic ...

A study analysing the Finnish homicide and prescription drug databases discovered that the use of certain drugs that affect the central nervous system are associated with an increased risk of committing a homicide. The greatest risk was associated with the use of painkillers and tranquillizing benzodiazepines, while anti-depressants were linked only to a slightly elevated risk. The study is the first one of its kind in the world. Professor Jari Tiihonen's research group analysed the use of prescription drugs of 959 persons convicted of a homicide. In the recent years, ...

WASHINGTON, DC, May 27, 2015 -- Both men and women are more likely to cheat on their spouses the more economically dependent they are on them, according to a new study. "You would think that people would not want to 'bite the hand that feeds them' so to speak, but that is not what my research shows," said study author Christin L. Munsch, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut. "Instead, the findings indicate people like feeling relatively equal in their relationships. People don't like to feel dependent on another person." According to ...

Boston, MA -- After a prostate cancer diagnosis, eating a diet higher in red and processed meat, high-fat dairy foods, and refined grains--known as a Western diet--may lead to a significantly higher risk of both prostate cancer-related mortality and overall mortality compared with eating a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, fish, whole grains, and healthy oils, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study, which appears online June 1, 2015 in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, offers insight on how diet may help improve survivorship ...

More than 90 per cent of educational materials written for kidney disease patients is higher than an average patient's literacy, according to a new study published in the June issue of the National Kidney Foundation's American Journal of Kidney Diseases. "Our study suggests most patient information materials are not fit for their intended purpose, and that organisations are producing materials that may be too difficult for their intended audience to understand," said Angela Webster, lead researcher and an Associate Professor Clinical Epidemiology at the University of ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill., June 1, 2015 - An increase in the number of weight loss surgeries in the U.S. is beginning to have a ripple effect in plastic surgery, according to new data released today by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Procedures specifically associated with massive weight loss, including tummy tucks, thigh lifts, breast lifts and upper arm lifts, grew at their fastest rate in four years in 2014, according to the report. That follows a similar increase in the growth of weight loss surgeries. "We think there is a correlation between the two ...

Boston - A new study by Boston University and Boston Medical Center (BMC) researchers reveals that U.S. states with stronger alcohol policies have lower rates of youth overall drinking and binge drinking. The study's results, published in the journal Pediatrics, further suggest that the link is largely a result of policies intended mostly for adults and their effects on reducing adult binge drinking. The first-of-its kind study, led by a multi-disciplinary research team at BMC and the BU School of Public Health (BUSPH), reviewed data on 29 youth-specific and adult policies ...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Why do some people immediately burst into laughter after a humorous moment, while others can barely crack a smile? New research examining emotional reactivity suggests one of the answers may lie in a person's DNA. In a new study linking a gene to positive emotional expressions such as smiling and laughing, researchers demonstrated that people with a certain genetic variant -- those with short alleles of the gene 5-HTTLPR -- smiled or laughed more while watching cartoons or subtly amusing film clips than people with long alleles. Previous research ...

VANCOUVER, Wash.--Washington State University researchers have found that the more hunter-gatherers smoke cannabis, the less they are infected by intestinal worms. The link suggests that they may unconsciously be, in effect, smoking medical marijuana. Ed Hagen, a WSU Vancouver anthropologist, explored cannabis use among the Aka foragers to see if people away from the cultural and media influences of Western civilization might use plant toxins medicinally. "In the same way we have a taste for salt, we might have a taste for psychoactive plant toxins, because these things ...

Cancer Research UK scientists have discovered how giving a class of drugs called AKT inhibitors in combination with radiotherapy might boost its effectiveness across a wide range of cancers, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation today*. Tumours often grow so quickly that some of the cells do not have access to the body's blood supply, causing them to become oxygen-starved. This rapid growth usually sends signals to the cells to die, but in cancers with faults in a gene called p53 -- present in at least half of all cancers -- this signal ...

A debate at this year's Euroanaesthesia meeting in Berlin will focus on whether laughing gas (nitrous oxide) should be banned from the operating room. The debate coincides with an article on the "Current place of nitrous oxide in clinical practice" published in the European Journal of Anaesthesiology, that concludes there is "no clinically relevant evidence for the withdrawal of nitrous oxide from the armamentarium of anaesthesia practice or procedural sedation." The article has been prepared by a special taskforce of the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA), which ...

New research presented at this year's Euroanaesthesia conference in Berlin shows that American patients undergoing orthopaedic surgery* receive more treatments for pain and that their experience of pain differs in some aspects to orthopaedic patients internationally. The study is by Drs Winfried Meissner and Ruth Zaslansky, University Hospital Jena, Germany, and Dr C. Richard Chapman Utah, Pain Research Center, Salt Lake City, USA. All researchers are part of the international PAIN OUT** research group. Poorly controlled pain after surgery is a major problem internationally ...

Research presented at this year's Euroanaesthesia exploring the protective effect of various heart medications that patients are taking before undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery concludes that statins reduce the risk of death by two thirds, or 67 percent, while no consistent effects were seen for other medications. The study is reported by Assistant Professor Dr. Robert Sanders, Anesthesiology & Critical care Trials & Interdisciplinary Outcomes Network (ACTION), Department of Anesthesiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WN, USA, and Drs. Puja Myles ...

In a head-to-head clinical trial comparing standard chemotherapy with the immunotherapy drug nivolumab, researchers found that people with squamous-non-small cell lung cancer who received nivolumab lived, on average, 3.2 months longer than those receiving chemotherapy. Squamous non-small cell lung cancer accounts for 25 to 30 percent of all lung malignancies. Results of the trial, reported in the May 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology 2015 annual meeting, also showed that after a year, the nivolumab ...

Using high-precision genetic tests to differentiate the thousands of bacteria that make up the human microbiome, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center suggest that they have found a possible -- and potentially surprising -- root cause of the increased frequency of certain eye infections among contact lens wearers. In a study report on their work to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology on May 31 in New Orleans, NYU Langone researchers say they have identified a diverse set of microorganisms in the eyes of daily contact lens wearers ...

CHICAGO, IL, MAY 31, 2015 -- Treating advanced melanoma patients with either a combination of the immunotherapy drugs nivolumab (Opdivo™) and ipilimumab (Yervoy™) or nivolumab alone significantly increases progression-free survival (PFS) over using ipilimumab alone, according to new findings from researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) simultaneously presented today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Examining specific characteristics of each ...

New Haven, Conn. -- Removing more tissue during a partial mastectomy could spare thousands of breast cancer patients a second surgery, according to a Yale Cancer Center study. The findings were published online May 30 in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. Nearly 300,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer each year; more than half undergo breast-conserving surgery with a partial mastectomy to remove the disease. However, between 20% and 40% of patients ...

CHICAGO -- Use of the targeted agent pacritinib significantly reduced the symptoms and burden of advanced myelofibrosis in patients, says a Mayo Clinic researcher who co-led PERSIST-1, the worldwide phase III clinical trial that tested the therapy. Specifically, pacritinib substantially reduced severe enlargement of the spleen, a typical feature of advanced myelofibrosis, in more than 20 percent of patients and alleviated debilitating side effects in more than 46 percent. Investigators further found that pacritinib could be used safely in patients with myelofibrosis who ...

CHICAGO -- Because of the significant benefit found in combining the targeted drug ibrutinib with standard chemotherapy for relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), an interim analysis has closed the international HELIOS phase III clinical trial. Led by Mayo Clinic, researchers found that ibrutinib and chemotherapy (bendamustine and rituximab, known as BR) reduced the risk of death or cancer progression by almost 80 percent in patients with previously treated CLL or SLL, compared to use of BR alone. The announcement was made at ...