Los Angeles, CA (November 16, 2014) A new article reports that despite a clear lack of research on male survivors of Ebola, the current recommended practice of waiting at least three months after recovery to have unprotected sex should be upheld. This study was published today in Reproductive Sciences, a SAGE journal. "Our exercise demonstrated that the current recommendations to prevent the sexual spread of Ebola are based on one mere observation," the researchers wrote. "Despite the evident need to conduct more research, for now, health care professionals should strongly ...

PHILADELPHIA - As the main component of connective tissue in the body, fibroblasts are the most common type of cell. Taking advantage of that ready availability, scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the Wistar Institute, Boston University School of Medicine, and New Jersey Institute of Technology have discovered a way to repurpose fibroblasts into functional melanocytes, the body's pigment-producing cells. The technique has immediate and important implications for developing new cell-based treatments for skin diseases such as ...

Two studies published in the January issue of Anesthesiology, the official medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists® (ASA®), shed new light on the prevalence of transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) and transfusion-associated circulatory overload (TACO), the number one and two leading causes of blood transfusion-related deaths in the United States. According to researchers, postoperative TRALI is significantly underreported and more common than previously thought, with an overall rate of 1.4 percent. While the rate of TACO was found ...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and is characterized by the formation of β-amyloid plaques throughout the brain. Proteins known as chemokines regulate inflammation and the immune response. In both patients with AD and mouse AD models, the chemokine CXCL10 is found in high concentrations in the brain and may contribute to AD. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation indicates that activation of the CXCL10 receptor, CXCR3, contributes to AD pathology. Using a murine model of AD, Michael Heneka and colleagues at the University ...

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disorder and affects approximately 1 billion people worldwide. It is not clear how this disease develops, but recent studies suggest that the bacterial population in the gut influences NAFLD. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation provides a link between molecular signaling pathways in the gut, the intestinal microbiome, and development of NAFLD. Frank Gonzalez and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute found that disruption of the gut microflora prevented development of NAFLD in mice fed ...

A pregnant woman in Africa who has contracted Ebola is likely to suffer with a spontaneous abortion, pregnancy-related hemorrhage, or the death of her newborn. Although the risk of caring for a pregnant woman with Ebola in the United States may be rare, the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) has published a practice brief in its Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing to guide nursing care for pregnant women and newborns. "Nurses play a vital role in caring for patients with Ebola," said Dr. Debra Bingham, who is Vice President ...

Emotions are complicated and never more so than in the realm of the scientific, where commonly accepted definitions are lacking. In a paper published in the journal Qualitative Inquiry, UC Santa Barbara's Thomas Scheff examines the basic emotions of grief, fear/anxiety, anger, shame and pride as they appear in scientific literature in an attempt to take a first step in defining them. "Emotion terms, especially in English, are wildly ambiguous," Scheff writes in the paper's introduction. An emeritus professor of sociology at UCSB, Scheff set out to explore why the language ...

VCU Massey Cancer Center physician-researcher Charles E. Geyer, Jr., M.D., was the National Protocol Officer for one component of a large national study involving two National Cancer Institute (NCI)-supported clinical trials that demonstrated that trastuzumab significantly improves the long-term survival of HER-2 positive breast cancer patients. The combined study was designed to determine the long-term safety and efficacy of the drug trastuzumab, which is commonly known as Herceptin and is primarily used alongside chemotherapy to treat HER2-positive breast cancer. The ...

Driving vehicles that use electricity from renewable energy instead of gasoline could reduce the resulting deaths due to air pollution by 70 percent. This finding comes from a new life cycle analysis of conventional and alternative vehicles and their air pollution-related public health impacts, published Monday, Dec. 15, 2014, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study also shows that switching to vehicles powered by electricity made using natural gas yields large health benefits. Conversely, vehicles running on corn ethanol or vehicles powered ...

NEW YORK, NY (December 15, 2014)--Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have found that, in addition to gluten, the immune systems of patients with celiac disease react to specific types of non-gluten protein in wheat. The results were reported online in the Journal of Proteome Research. Celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects about 1 percent of the U.S. population, is triggered by the ingestion of wheat and related cereals in genetically susceptible individuals. The immune response results in inflammation and tissue damage in the small intestine, ...

VIDEO: This animation (from March 2014) portrays the changes occurring in the surface elevation of the Greenland Ice Sheet since 2003 in three drainage areas: the southeast, the northeast and the... Click here for more information. For years NASA has tracked changes in the massive Greenland Ice Sheet. This week scientists using NASA data released the most detailed picture ever of how the ice sheet moves toward the sea and new insights into the hidden plumbing of melt water ...

ORANGE, Calif. - Researchers in Chapman University's Food Science Program and their collaborators at University of Washington have just published a study on the presence of Salmonella and E. coli on certain herbs sold at farmers' markets. The study focused on farmers' markets in Los Angeles and Orange counties in California, as well as in the Seattle, Washington, area. Specifically tested were samples of the herbs cilantro, basil and parsley. Of the 133 samples tested from 13 farmers' markets, 24.1 percent tested positive for E. coli and one sample tested positive for Salmonella. "While ...

HANOVER, N.H. - Dartmouth researchers have found a solution using visible light to reduce waste produced in chemically activated molecular switches, opening the way for industrial applications of nanotechnology ranging from anti-cancer drug delivery to LCD displays and molecular motors. The study appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. A PDF is available on request. Chemically activated molecular switches are molecules that can shift controllably between two stable states and that can be reversibly switched -- like a light switch -- to turn different ...

The largest trees in a forest may command the most attention, but the smallest seedlings and youngest saplings are the ones that are most critical to the composition and diversity of the forest overall. While many people gaze up into the forest canopy, renowned scientist Joseph Connell has spent much of his career looking down quite closely at the forest understory. Connell, who is a professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, established one of the world's longest, in-depth ecological research ...

According to experts' statistical analyses, if you're expecting 10 guests for dinner on Christmas day, 15 crackers--those festive cardboard tubes filled with a one-size-fits-no-one paper hat, a small toy, and a groan-inducing joke--should be enough to send everyone home happy. The experts came to their estimation by simulating 10,000 parties, with guest numbers ranging from 2 to 50. Their results are published in Significance. In the traditional approach, all dinner guests sit around the table, cross arms, and pull crackers with their two immediate neighbors. In this ...

A small stone container found by archaeologists a half-century ago has now been recognized as further evidence of a Viking or Medieval Norse presence in Arctic Canada during the centuries around 1000 A.D. Researchers reporting in the journal Geoarchaeology discovered that the interior of the container, which was found at an archaeological site on southern Baffin Island, contains fragments of bronze as well as small spherules of glass that form when rock is heated to high temperatures. The object is a crucible for melting bronze, likely in order to cast it into small tools ...

A new study highlights the complex factors at play for parasites that infect animal populations residing on small islands. The findings are important for understanding colonization and extinction as drivers of island biogeography. Investigators who studied the mechanisms that contribute to colonization and persistence of avian malaria parasites in an island bird population found that increases in the prevalence and diversity of parasites were associated with episodes of offshore winds and less so with infected vagrant birds arriving from the mainland. "We were surprised ...

They steal, raid nests, and keep the company of witches, but the unpopular crow may not be as big a menace as people think. A new Ibis study has found that crows--along with their avian cousins the magpie and the raven--have surprisingly little impact on the abundance of other bird species. Collectively known as corvids, these birds are in fact being menaced by mankind in the mistaken belief that removing them is good for conservation. "These results have big implications for the likely benefits of corvid control," said senior author Dr. Arjun Amar. "They suggest that ...

Researchers have discovered a new pollination system that involves food-thieving flies as pollinators. These flies feed on insect secretions, available when a spider, a praying mantis, or other predatory arthropods feed on insects. The plant mimics compounds released from freshly killed insects to deceive flies that are in search of food. This pollination strategy applies to Aristolochia rotunda--an herbaceous Mediterranean plant--but likely evolved in other plants as well. "The finding was unexpected as Aristolochia species were believed to mimic egg-laying sites of ...

Despite numerous studies, publications, and commentaries on human female sexual arousal and orgasm, there is still so much to study and understand about women's sexual pleasure. A new review deals critically with many aspects of the genital anatomy of the human female in relation to inducing sexual arousal and its relevance to both procreation and recreation. A number of questions remain, including why there are so many sites for arousal, why multiple orgasms occur, and how sexual stimulation affects the brain. "The review is an attempt to show the weaknesses in some ...

A new study indicates that women with mobility disabilities often experience problems during pregnancy related to their functional impairments. The study included 8 women with spinal cord injuries, 4 with cerebral palsy, and 10 with other conditions. Impairment-related complications during pregnancy included falls, urinary tract and bladder problems, wheelchair fit and stability problems, significant shortness of breath, increased spasticity, bowel management difficulties, and skin integrity problems. "Relatively little information is available about the pregnancy ...

Researchers recently completed one of the most extensive investigations to date of prenatal hormones in first-time expectant couples. Women showed large prenatal increases in salivary testosterone, cortisol, estradiol, and progesterone, while men showed significant prenatal declines in testosterone and estradiol, but no detectable changes in cortisol or progesterone. While the results in women were expected, the results seen in men suggest that impending fatherhood might cause men's hormone levels to change. Additional studies are warranted to understand whether partners' ...

Detroit - The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may have provided health care insurance to an estimated 20 million Americans who lacked coverage, but it has not eased the demand on the nation's emergency departments. In fact, since the law's passage, reliance upon the nation's emergency rooms for non-emergency care has increased. That's the finding of a study published online in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine by a second-year medical student at the Wayne State University School of Medicine and his colleagues. In "Access to care issues and the role ...

A review of more than a decade's worth of research on osteonecrosis of the jaw--when the bone in the jaw is exposed and begins to starve from a lack of blood--points to an increased risk for patients taking certain drugs for osteoporosis, anticancer drugs or glucocorticoids, those undergoing dental surgery, and people with poor oral hygiene, chronic inflammation, diabetes, or ill-fitting dentures. A number of prevention strategies may help protect at-risk individuals, and treatments that are available or under study include the use of antibiotics, surgery, teriparatide, ...

Research by City College of New York psychology Professor Irvin Schonfeld in the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership suggests a strong connection between burnout and depression. In a study of more than 5,500 school teachers to estimate the prevalence of depressive disorders in workers with burnout, 90% of the subjects identified as burned out met diagnostic criteria for depression. The study also examined the overlap of burnout with the atypical subtype of depression. Features of atypical depression were observed in 63% of the burned-out participants ...