A new star rating system can help hockey players to know just how well each helmet on the market can protect them from suffering head injuries and concussions during the course of a season. The "Hockey STAR" (Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk) rating is an extension of a similar rating system developed for football helmets. It was developed by researchers from Virginia Tech in the US, led by Bethany Rowson, and reported on in Springer's journal Annals of Biomedical Engineering. More ice hockey players suffer concussion while playing hockey than their counterparts ...

Researchers at MIT and Northwestern University have developed a new peer-to-peer networking tool that enables sufferers of anxiety and depression to build online support communities and practice therapeutic techniques. In a study involving 166 subjects who had exhibited symptoms of depression, the researchers compared their tool with an established technique known as expressive writing. The new tool yielded better outcomes across the board, but it had particular advantages in two areas: One was in training subjects to use a therapeutic technique called cognitive reappraisal, ...

PHILADELPHIA -- Intensive care units across the United States vary widely in how they manage the care of patients who have set preexisting limits on life-sustaining therapies, such as authorizing do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and prohibiting interventions such as feeding tubes or dialysis, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Their work is published in the current issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. "We've long known that end-of-life and critical care varies across nations, regions and centers, whether from ...

Bacteria have been discovered in the bladders of healthy women, discrediting the common belief that normal urine is sterile. This finding and its implications were addressed in an editorial published by researchers from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine (SSOM) in the latest issue of European Urology. "Clinicians previously equated the presence of bacteria in urine to infections. The discovery of bacteria in the urine of healthy females provides an opportunity to advance our understanding of bladder health and disease," said Alan Wolfe, PhD, lead author ...

A key protein previously implicated in Lou Gehrig's disease and other neurological diseases plays an important role in the response to viral infection, according to a study led by scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai published today in Nature Immunology. Neurological diseases have long been associated with inflammation, part of the body's response to injury or infection that occurs when immune cells home in to attack invaders like bacteria and viruses, and to drive healing, but the link between them has not been understood. This new study result ...

The body's immune system fights disease, infections and even cancer, acting like foot soldiers to protect against invaders and dissenters. But it turns out the immune system has traitors amongst their ranks. Dr. Karin de Visser and her team at the Netherlands Cancer Institute discovered that certain immune cells are persuaded by breast tumors to facilitate the spread of cancer cells. Their findings are published advanced online on March 30 in the journal Nature. In Western countries about one in eight women will develop breast cancer. Of the women who die of this disease, ...

Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have captured images of the underlying biological activity within brain cells and their tree-like extensions, or dendrites, in mice that show how their brains sort, store and make sense out of information during learning. In a study to be published in the journal Nature online March 30, the NYU Langone neuroscientists tracked neuronal activity in dendritic nerve branches as the mice learned motor tasks such as how to run forward and backward on a small treadmill. They concluded that the generation of calcium ion spikes -- which ...

A lower percentage of children are eating fast food on any given day and calories consumed by children from burger, pizza and chicken fast food restaurants also has dropped, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics. Colin D. Rehm, Ph.D., M.P.H., formerly of the University of Washington, Seattle, now of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Boston, and Adam Drewnowski, Ph.D., of the University of Washington, Seattle, analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2003 to 2010 to examine ...

The medication glyburide, which has been increasingly used to treat gestational diabetes in pregnant women, was associated with higher risk for newborns to be admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit, have respiratory distress, hypoglycemia (low blood glucose), birth injury and be large for gestational age compared with infants born to women treated with insulin, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics. The prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in the United States has more than doubled during the last 20 years. Given the widespread and ...

Turns out, an apple a day won't keep the doctor away but it may mean you will use fewer prescription medications, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. The apple has come to symbolize health and healthy habits. But can apple consumption be associated with reduced health care use because patients who eat them might visit doctors less? Matthew A. Davis, D.C., M.P.H., Ph.D., of the University of Michigan School of Nursing, Ann Arbor, and coauthors analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2008 and 2009-2010) ...

Scientists have developed tiny 'nanoneedles' that have successfully prompted parts of the body to generate new blood vessels, in a trial in mice. The researchers, from Imperial College London and Houston Methodist Research Institute in the USA, hope their nanoneedle technique could ultimately help damaged organs and nerves to repair themselves and help transplanted organs to thrive. The nanoneedles work by delivering nucleic acids to a specific area. Nucleic acids are the building blocks of all living organisms and they encode, transmit and express genetic information. ...

Characterizing associations between socioeconomic factors and children's brain development, a team including investigators from nine universities across the country reports correlative links between family income and brain structure. Relationships between the brain and family income were strongest in the lowest end of the economic range - suggesting that interventional policies aimed at these children may have the largest societal impact. The study, led by researchers at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles and Columbia University Medical Center, ...

A new study has confirmed the existence of a positive feedback operating in climate change whereby warming itself may amplify a rise in greenhouse gases resulting in additional warming. The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that in addition to the well understood effect of greenhouse gases on the Earth's temperature, researchers can now confirm directly from ice-core data that the global temperature has a profound effect on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. This means that as the Earth's temperature rises, the positive feedback in the ...

Hamilton, ON (March 30, 2015) - Researchers from McMaster University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York have discovered that a protein associated with neurodegenerative diseases like ALS also plays an important role in the body's natural antiviral response. The study, published today in Nature Immunology, offers new insight into the link between neurodegenerative disorders and inflammation, and provides a framework to explore more fully the possibility that viral infection may lead to onset of these diseases. Matthew Miller, an investigator at ...

There are electrical signals in the nervous system, the brain and throughout the human body and there are tiny magnetic fields associated with these signals that could be important for medical science. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have just developed a method that could be used to obtain extremely precise measurements of ultra-small magnetic fields. The results are published in the scientific journal Nature Physics. The tiny magnetic fields are all the way down on the atomic level. The atoms do not stand still, they revolve around themselves and the axis is ...

Washington, D.C.-- The 2000-2003 drought in the American southwest triggered a widespread die-off of forests around the region. A Carnegie-led team of scientists developed a new modeling tool to explain how and where trembling aspen forests died as a result of this drought. It is based on damage to the individual trees' ability to transport water under water-stressed conditions. If the same processes and threshold govern the future, their results suggest that more widespread die-offs of aspen forests triggered by climate change are likely by the 2050s. Tree mortality ...

Researchers studying cancer and other invasive diseases rely on high-resolution imaging to see tumors and other activity deep within the body's tissues. Using a new high-speed, high-resolution imaging method, Lihong Wang, PhD, and his team at Washington University in St. Louis were able to see blood flow, blood oxygenation, oxygen metabolism and other functions inside a living mouse brain at faster rates than ever before. Using photoacoustic microscopy (PAM), a single-wavelength, pulse-width-based technique developed in his lab, Wang, the Gene K. Beare Professor of Biomedical ...

DENVER - Low pre-surgery uptake of a labeled glucose analogue, a marker of metabolic activity, in the primary tumor of patients with stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is associated with increased overall survival and a longer time before tumor recurrence. Patients with high labeled glucose uptake may benefit from additional therapy following surgery. Surgery is the standard of care for patients with stage I NSCLC but not all patients are cured, as demonstrated by a 5-year survival rate of less than 60% in these patients. There is a clear need for a diagnostic ...

DETROIT - A "perverse disincentive" for hospitals that have invested in expensive technology for robotic surgery may be jeopardizing prostate cancer patients who seek out the procedure, concluded a new study led by Henry Ford Hospital researchers. The study, which compared complication rates in hospitals with low volumes of robot-assisted radical prostatectomies (RARPs) to institutions with high volumes of the procedure, suggested that current pay-for-performance healthcare models are to blame. The new study was published online this month by BJU International. "Patients ...

March 30, 2015 - In women undergoing breast augmentation, a technique using transplantation of a small amount of the patient's own fat cells can produce better cosmetic outcomes, reports a study in the April issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). In particular, the fat grafting technique can achieve a more natural-appearing cleavage--avoiding the "separated breasts" appearance that can occur after breast augmentation, according to the report by Dr. Francisco G. Bravo of Clinica ...

Researchers have shown that a known antibiotic and antifungal compound produced by a soil microbe can inhibit another species of microbe from forming biofilms--microbial mats that frequently are medically harmful--without killing that microbe. The findings may apply to other microbial species, and can herald a plethora of scientific and societal benefits. The research is published online ahead of print on March 30, 2015, in the Journal of Bacteriology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. The study will be printed in a special section of the journal ...

From smartphones and tablets to computer monitors and interactive TV screens, electronic displays are everywhere. As the demand for instant, constant communication grows, so too does the urgency for more convenient portable devices -- especially devices, like computer displays, that can be easily rolled up and put away, rather than requiring a flat surface for storage and transportation. A new Tel Aviv University study, published recently in Nature Nanotechnology, suggests that a novel DNA-peptide structure can be used to produce thin, transparent, and flexible screens. ...

(TORONTO, Canada - March 30, 2015) - Biomedical researchers led by Dr. Gang Zheng at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre have successfully converted microbubble technology already used in diagnostic imaging into nanoparticles that stay trapped in tumours to potentially deliver targeted, therapeutic payloads. The discovery, published online today in Nature Nanotechnology, details how Dr. Zheng and his research team created a new type of microbubble using a compound called porphyrin - a naturally occurring pigment in nature that harvests light. In the lab in pre-clinical ...

Maternal diet during pregnancy and lactation may prime offspring for weight gain and obesity later in life, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers, who looked at rats whose mothers consumed a high-fat diet and found that the offsprings' feeding controls and feelings of fullness did not function normally. Previous research shows that obesity compromises the neurocircuits that control how the stomach and intestine work to regulate how much we eat, and that the time around pregnancy and lactation is important in the development of these circuits. In both ...

A new study shows that workplace wellness programs can be effective in helping people lose weight by providing healthier food choices and increasing opportunities for physical activity, particularly if these efforts are designed with the input and active participation of employees. The two-year project - the results of which appear in the American Journal of Public Health - successfully reduced the number or people considered overweight or obese by almost 9 percent. "Worksites are self-contained environments with established communication systems where interventions ...