A study by Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) researchers finds that body mass index (BMI) plays a role in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients' ability to achieve a sustained remission. Looking at patients who had received an RA diagnosis within the past 12 months, investigators found that those who were significantly underweight or overweight/obese were the least likely to remain in remission. The study, titled, "Very Low or High Body Mass Index Negatively Affects Patients' Ability to Achieve Sustained Remission in Early RA in a Multicenter Canadian Cohort," was presented ...

When you think of hip replacement surgery, you generally envision an older adult with painful osteoarthritis. But the procedure is also used for younger patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) whose joints have been severely damaged by the disease. A new study by Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) researchers finds that total hip replacement (THR) is an excellent option for patients under age 35 when conservative treatments fail to provide relief. The study, presented at the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting on November 16, found that hip replacement ...

Physicists have engineered a spiral laser beam and used it to create a whirlpool of hybrid light-matter particles called polaritons. "Creating circulating currents of polaritons - vortices - and controlling them has been a long-standing challenge," said leader of the team, theoretician Dr Elena Ostrovskaya, from the Research School of Physics and Engineering at The Australian National University (ANU). "We can now create a circulating flow of these hybrid particles and sustain it for hours." Polaritons are hybrid particles that have properties of both matter and light. ...

CHICAGO and BOSTON - Nov. 16, 2014 - The Harvard Clinical Research Institute (HCRI) announced today results of the DAPT Study, a major international study that investigated the duration of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT, the combination of aspirin and a thienopyridine/antiplatelet medication to reduce the risk of blood clots) following coronary stent implantation. The continuation of dual antiplatelet therapy beyond one year resulted in significant benefits compared with aspirin alone, including reducing the rare but serious problem of stent thrombosis and preventing heart ...

Leading coral reef scientists in Australia and the USA say there needs to be a new approach to protecting the future of marine ecosystems, with a shift away from the current focus on extinction threat. "Extinction is the final endpoint, but coral reefs are in deep trouble long before we get to that point. We need to take action much earlier," says Professor David Bellwood from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University. "The goal should be to maintain reefs that can support corals, fish and humans" Professor Bellwood says. In ...

VIDEO: The neurons in this video contain a dye that fluoresces when it encounters calcium ions. When the neuron is excited, calcium floods into the cell and the neuron fluoresces. The... Click here for more information. Synapse, the name for the signal-receiving site on a neuron, comes from the Greek word for contact. Neuroscientists used to maintain that neurons form one-to-one relationship to contact one another. Yet more researchers are finding evidence that shows how neurons ...

VIDEO: The movement of bone marrow B cells was limited in the absence of VCAM-1, as shown in this time-lapse video. B cells (green) were tracked before (left) and after (right)... Click here for more information. Newly formed B cells take the easy way out when it comes to exiting the bone marrow, according to a study published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. For infection-fighting T and B cells to defend the body, they must first leave their birthplace--the thymus for ...

This news release is available in German. Infections due to the sexually transmitted bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis often remain unnoticed. The pathogen is not only a common cause of female infertility; it is also suspected of increasing the risk of abdominal cancer. A research team at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin has now observed the breakdown of an important endogenous protective factor in the course of chlamydial infection. By activating the destruction of p53 protein, the bacterium blocks a key protective mechanism of infected cells, ...

Doctors tell us that the frenzied pace of the modern 24-hour lifestyle -- in which we struggle to juggle work commitments with the demands of family and daily life -- is damaging to our health. But while life in the slow lane may be better, will it be any longer? It will if you're a reptile. A new study by Tel Aviv University researchers finds that reduced reproductive rates and a plant-rich diet increases the lifespan of reptiles. The research, published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, was led by Prof. Shai Meiri, Dr. Inon Scharf, and doctoral student ...

If you want to see into the future, you have to understand the past. An international consortium of researchers under the auspices of the University of Bonn has drilled deposits on the bed of Lake Van (Eastern Turkey) which provide unique insights into the last 600,000 years. The samples reveal that the climate has done its fair share of mischief-making in the past. Furthermore, there have been numerous earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The results of the drilling project also provide a basis for assessing the risk of how dangerous natural hazards are for today's population. ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Two or more serious hits to the head within days of each other can interfere with the brain's ability to use sugar - its primary energy source - to repair cells damaged by the injuries, new research suggests. The brain's ability to use energy is critical after an injury. In animal studies, Ohio State University scientists have shown that brain cells ramp up their energy use six days after a concussion to recover from the damage. If a second injury occurs before that surge of energy use starts, the brain loses its best chance to recover. In mice, ...

Mikhail Kosiborod, M.D., of Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, and colleagues evaluated the efficacy and safety of the drug zirconium cyclosilicate in patients with hyperkalemia (higher than normal potassium levels). The study appears in JAMA and is being released to coincide with its presentation at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014. Hyperkalemia is a common electrolyte disorder which can cause potentially life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias and is associated with chronic kidney disease, heart failure, and diabetes mellitus. ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An Indiana University-Dartmouth College team has identified genes and regulatory patterns that allow some organisms to alter their body form in response to environmental change. Understanding how an organism adopts a new function to thrive in a changing environment has implications for molecular evolution and many areas of science including climate change and medicine, especially in regeneration and wound healing. The study, which appears in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, provides insight into phenotypic plasticity, a phenomenon that ...

November 17, 2014, PORTLAND, Ore. -- People who received automated reminders were more likely to refill their blood pressure and cholesterol medications, according to a study published today in a special issue of the American Journal of Managed Care. The study, which included more than 21,000 Kaiser Permanente members, found that the average improvement in medication adherence was only about 2 percentage points, but the authors say that in a large population, even small changes can make a big difference. "This small jump might not mean a lot to an individual patient, ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Although maize was originally domesticated in Mexico, the country's average yield per hectare is 38% below the world's average. In fact, Mexico imports 30% of its maize from foreign sources to keep up with internal demand. To combat insect pests, Mexican farmers rely primarily on chemical insecticides. Approximately 3,000 tons of active ingredient are used each year just to manage the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), in addition to even more chemicals used to control other pests such as the corn earworm (Helicoverpa ...

In the aquatic environment, suction feeding is far more common than biting as a way to capture prey. A new study shows that the evolution of biting behavior in eels led to a remarkable diversification of skull shapes, indicating that the skull shapes of most fish are limited by the structural requirements for suction feeding. "When you look at the skulls of biters, the diversity is astounding compared to suction feeders," said Rita Mehta, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz. With more than 800 species, including both suction feeders ...

For the first time, scientists have vividly mapped the shapes and textures of high-order modes of Brownian motions--in this case, the collective macroscopic movement of molecules in microdisk resonators--researchers at Case Western Reserve University report. To do this, they used a record-setting scanning optical interferometry technique, described in a study published today in the journal Nature Communications. The new technology holds promise for multimodal sensing and signal processing, and to develop optical coding for computing and other information-processing ...

Chronic myeloid leukemia develops when a gene mutates and causes an enzyme to become hyperactive, causing blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrow to grow rapidly into abnormal cells. The enzyme, Abl-kinase, is a member of the "kinase" family of enzymes, which serve as an "on" or "off" switch for many functions in our cells. In chronic myeloid leukemia, the hyperactive Abl-kinase is targeted with drugs that bind to a specific part of the enzyme and block it, aiming to ultimately kill the fast-growing cancer cell. However, treatments are often limited by the fact that ...

One of the key reasons the Ebola outbreak got out of control in West Africa in the early days of the crisis was a lack of trust among community members, frontline health workers and the broader health system, suggests new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research. Had the citizens and their health care community developed a trusting relationship prior to the outbreak, important messages about the disease and how to stop its spread would likely have gotten through to people much sooner and slowed the march of Ebola, says Timothy Roberton, MPH, MA, a DrPH ...

People who frequently cook meals at home eat healthier and consume fewer calories than those who cook less, according to new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research. "When people cook most of their meals at home, they consume fewer carbohydrates, less sugar and less fat than those who cook less or not at all - even if they are not trying to lose weight," says Julia A. Wolfson, MPP, a CLF-Lerner Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and lead author of the study. The findings also suggest that those who frequently cooked at home - six-to-seven ...

You can offer young children healthier food choices in the elementary school cafeteria, but will they actually put it on their trays and eat it? Probably not, suggests a new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study. Researchers observed 274 children in kindergarten through second grade in 10 New York City public schools as they selected from the offerings during one lunch period when a chicken-and-vegetable entrée was on the menu. They watched to see whether each of the six-through-eight-year-olds chose a fruit, vegetable, whole grain, low-fat milk ...

Black children are less likely to be diagnosed with and less likely to receive broad-spectrum antibiotics for ear infections than white children are, a new study has found. But the discrepancy in prescribing fewer broad-spectrum antibiotics means black children actually are more likely to receive care that aligns with the recommended guidelines for treating ear infections. Two explanations for the observed disparities in care are overtreatment and overdiagnosis in white children, and undertreatment and underdiagnosis in black children. Addressing behaviors that contribute ...

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 17, 2014 - Commercially available datasets containing a wealth of information about food and alcohol establishments differ significantly, raising concerns about their reliability as sources of information that could be used to set public policy or conduct scientific research, according to a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health investigation. The analysis, funded by the Aetna Foundation, will be presented Monday at the American Public Health Association's (APHA) annual meeting in New Orleans. It examined systematic differences in two ...

Organs can become significantly damaged during transplantation, but a new article published in the BJS (British Journal of Surgery) offers a protective strategy that could keep them safe and allow them to function optimally after the procedure. When an organ is transplanted from a donor to a recipient, there is a period of time when the organ is deprived of normal blood flow. While this in itself can cause tissue damage, additional damage may also occur when blood flow is restored to the organ due to a high risk of blood clotting. Investigators led by Thierry Hauet, ...

Researchers working on artificial intelligence at Queen Mary University of London have taught a computer to create magic tricks. The researchers gave a computer program the outline of how a magic jigsaw puzzle and a mind reading card trick work, as well the results of experiments into how humans understand magic tricks, and the system created completely new variants on those tricks which can be delivered by a magician. The magic tricks created were of the type that use mathematical techniques rather than sleight of hand or other theatrics, and are a core part of many ...