Sockeye salmon that sprint to spawning grounds through fast-moving waters may be at risk, suggests new research by University of British Columbia scientists. When salmon encounter turbulent, fast-moving water – such as rapids or areas downstream of dams – they must move upstream using a behaviour known as "burst swimming" that is similar to sprinting for humans. "Days after sockeye passed through extremely fast-moving water, we started to see fish dying only a short distance from their spawning grounds," said Nicholas Burnett, a research biologist at UBC and lead author ...

University of Adelaide researchers have discovered that the immune system is defective in people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, which is a major reason why sufferers have ongoing issues with pain. The research – the first of its kind in the world – could also help to explain why some painkillers may not offer satisfactory relief to sufferers. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) affects up to 10% of the community. There are different forms of IBS but all of them involve unexplained gut pain, which often has the greatest impact on sufferers' quality of life. Scientists ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – In a study of 158 pregnant teenagers in Rochester, NY, nearly half engaged in pica – the craving and intentional consumption of ice, cornstarch, vacuum dust, baby powder and soap, and other nonfood items, reports a new Cornell study. Moreover, such teens had significantly lower iron levels as compared with teens who did not eat nonfood substances. Pregnant teens, regardless of pica, are at higher risk for low hemoglobin, which can lead to iron deficiency and anemia. Low iron in pregnant teens raises the risk of premature births and babies with low birth ...

New research co-written by a University of Illinois expert in urban economics indicates that tax benefits for housing, including the ever-popular mortgage interest deduction and the property tax deduction, are not as distortionary as previous research and some prominent critics suggest. The existing system of tax benefits for housing caused the typical house to be 4 percent too large in 2007, creating a national economic waste of $7 billion per year – a figure that is substantially smaller than recent estimates by other economists, including some who have pegged the figure ...

Advances in the treatment of muscular dystrophy: For the first time, a research team has succeeded in restoring a missing repair protein in skeletal muscle of patients with muscular dystrophy. Researchers from the University and the University Hospital of Basel, Department of Biomedicine and Clinic of Neurology, report their recent findings in the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine. When muscle cell membranes are damaged, the repair protein dysferlin is activated and reseals muscle membrane tears. If this repair protein is altered due to a genetic mutation, ...

NEW YORK -- The most common cause of endophthalmitis, a potentially blinding condition that can occur after eye trauma, eye surgery, and eye injections, are the well-known staphylococci ("staph") and streptococci ("strep") bacterial strains, according to a study published in the August issue of Ophthalmology and based on a review of 25 years of cases at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai (NYEE). The new study found that gram-positive bacteria, which include staph and strep infections, accounted for 95 percent of endophthalmitis cases. The findings could lead ...

In contrast to evidence that the amygdala stimulates stress responses in adults, researchers at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University have found that the amygdala has an inhibitory effect on stress hormones during the early development of nonhuman primates. The results are published this week in Journal of Neuroscience. The amygdala is a region of the brain known to be important for responses to threatening situations and learning about threats. Alterations in the amygdala have been reported in psychiatric disorders such as depression, post-traumatic ...

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 20, 2014 – A common approach to treating kidney failure by removing waste products from the blood did not improve survival chances for people who suddenly developed the condition, in an analysis led by experts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Their findings, published online in the journal PLOS One, suggest acute hemodialysis, an aggressive method that is standardly used for people with sudden kidney failure, may not provide a definitive benefit to the patient. "Our findings question the accepted notion that acute hemodialysis decreases ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Many of life's problems are also civil legal problems, but people don't see them that way. As a result, they often deal with them on their own, and rarely involve lawyers or courts, or even other third parties, according to a recent study. They rarely say that concern about the cost of legal help is a factor, contrary to common assumptions. Those were among the findings presented by University of Illinois professor Rebecca Sandefur Aug. 8 at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in Boston, in a report titled "Accessing Justice in the Contemporary ...

Scientists from the University of Tübingen, Arizona State University, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) isolated Mycobacterium pinnipedii from skeletons found in Peru which are at least 1000 years old. The pathogen is a relative of the TB bacterium that affects seals but only occasionally causes disease in humans today. These researchers assume that seals carried the pathogens from Africa to the Peruvian coast. "The link to sea lions was unexpected" comments Sebastien Gagneux, from the Swiss Tropical and Public ...

NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center noted that Tropical Storm Karina's next move is based on its interaction with Tropical Storm Lowell. Lowell is positioned to the east of Tropical Storm Karina in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Karina is still well over 1,000 miles away from Hawaii and has become almost stationary as the mammoth Tropical Storm Lowell creeps closer to it. The CPHC expects Karina to start drifting eastward and away from Hawaii starting Thursday, August 21, as Karina starts being affected by Lowell's massive circulation. On August 20, NOAA's GOES-West ...

The Beaver Complex is comprised of the Salt Creek Fire (20 miles northwest of Medford) and the Oregon Gulch Fire (15 miles east of Ashland), lightning-started fires that started on July 30-31, 2014. After it was first discovered on July 31, the Oregon Gulch Fire rapidly moved southeast from the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument into the Soda Mountain Wilderness Area, from Jackson County into Klamath County, and then into California. To date 35,302 acres have been affected. The wildfire complex is currently 100% contained. Per the Inciweb site total cost of this complex ...

A survey of U.S. veterans receiving mental health services from the Veterans Health Administration finds general satisfaction, but also significant room for improvement among all areas studied. The RAND Corporation study, conducted in 2008 and 2009, found that patients with a substance use disorder were less satisfied than other veterans who received mental health services. Those with substance abuse problems also were less likely than others to report that staff listened to them or respected their decisions. The findings, published in the journal Psychiatric Services, ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- When are athletes who have suffered concussions ready to return to action? A new University of Oregon study has found that high school athletes who head back on the field with medical clearance within 60 days experience a significant regression in their abilities to simultaneously walk and do simple mental tasks. The regression, as seen in changes in their balance and/or altered walking speed, was found in 12 of 19 athletes. Ten of the 12 had returned to activity in less than a month. Seven athletes, who performed similarly to uninjured control subjects, ...

Cancer Research UK scientists have discovered that acral melanomas – the rare type of skin cancer that caused reggae musician Bob Marley's death – are genetically distinct from other more common types of skin cancer, according to a study (link is external) published in the journal Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research. Acral melanoma most often affects the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, nail-beds and other hairless parts of the skin. Unlike other more common types of melanoma, it's not caused by UV damage from the sun. The team, from the Cancer Research UK Manchester ...

From management consulting projects to research and development laboratories to hospital trauma centers, organizations of all types are increasingly creating teams whose members have diverse professional backgrounds. While the allure of these cross-functional teams is their ability to use their diverse knowledge to solve complex problems, not all such teams are able to reach their full potential. According to new research led by Christian Resick, PhD, an associate professor of management in Drexel University's LeBow College of Business, these teams need to master the ...

Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany have used satellite data to map elevation and elevation changes in both Greenland and Antarctica. The new maps are the most complete published to date, from a single satellite mission. They also show the ice sheets are losing volume at an unprecedented rate of about 500 cubic kilometres per year. The results are published today in The Cryosphere, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). "The new elevation maps are snapshots of the current state of the ice sheets," says lead-author Veit Helm ...

Your chairs, synthetic rugs and plastic bags could one day be made out of cocoa, rice and vegetable waste rather than petroleum, scientists are now reporting. The novel process they developed and their results, which could help the world deal with its agricultural and plastic waste problems, appear in the ACS journal Macromolecules. Athanassia Athanassiou, Ilker S. Bayer and colleagues at the Italian Institute of Technology point out that plastic's popularity is constantly growing. In 2012, its production reached 288 million tons worldwide, but its ubiquity comes at a ...

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of a revolutionary technique that underpins much of modern science, Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) magazine last week released a special edition on X-ray crystallography — its past, present and a tantalizing glimpse of its future. C&EN is the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The technique got its start when German physicist Max von Laue published the first paper on X-ray diffraction from a crystal in 1912. In the century following von Laue's discovery, which was ...

Teenagers who don't get enough sleep may wake up to worse consequences than nodding off during chemistry class. According to new research, risk of being obese by age 21 was 20 percent higher among 16-year-olds who got less than six hours of sleep a night, compared with their peers who slumbered more than eight hours. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends nine to ten hours of sleep for teenagers.) Researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health are the first ...

New York, NY, August 20, 2014 – Transrectal ultrasound guided biopsy is the gold standard for detecting prostate cancer, but international reports have suggested that the number of risks associated with the procedure is increasing. In a new nationwide population-based study, Swedish researchers found that six percent of men filled a prescription for antibiotics for a urinary tract infection within 30 days after having a prostate biopsy, with a twofold increase in hospital admissions over five years, reports The Journal of Urology®. Earlier studies reported serious adverse ...

WASHINGTON, August 11, 2014 — Many people think of crystals as little more than sparkly things behind glass cases in museums. But crystals are everywhere, from the dinner table to the human body. Because 2014 is the International Year of Crystallography, Reactions is celebrating with a video highlighting five surprising facts about crystals. The video is available at: http://youtu.be/urq8SuPMZ_w. Have a favorite crystal? Our friends at Chemical & Engineering News want to hear about it! Vote at http://cen.acs.org/favecrystals, and while you're there, you can learn a lot ...

Multiple fires are visible in in this image of the Para and Mato Grosso states of Brazil. Many of these were most likely intentionally set in order to deforest the land. Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use. The herringbone-patterned tan lines cutting through the dark green of the Amazon Rainforest in the middle of the image are evidence of deforestation in the Brazilian state of Pará. The deforestation ...

WORCESTER, MA – Using population-based screening outcomes of approximately 3 million infants, a team of scientists across 14 states, including four researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, have shown that newborn screening for severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) can be successfully implemented across public health newborn screening programs. Data from 11 newborn screening programs published in the Aug. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed the rate of SCID in newborns is higher than previously thought and believed ...

SILICON VALLEY, Calif., August 19, 2014 -- Bay Area Lyme Foundation, which aims to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure, applauds new research published in an upcoming issue of the Elsevier peer review journal Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases. The findings show that ticks that carry Lyme disease in Northwest California are active throughout the year, making the threat of Lyme disease year-round. The research was conducted by researchers at California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Vector-borne Disease Section and University of California, Berkeley (UC-B). "These ...