new web-based program developed by University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center researchers will provide a simple, free way for healthcare providers to determine which brain tumor cases require testing for a genetic mutation. Gliomas – a type of tumor that begins in the brain or spine – are the most common and deadly form of brain cancer in adults, making up about 80 percent of malignant brain cancer cases. In some of these cases, patients have a mutation in a specific gene, known as an IDH1 mutation – and patients who have this tend to survive years longer than those ...

LAWRENCE — It's not a monkey. It's not a lemur. It's not an African Bush Baby or even a Madagascan Mouse. Meet the Philippine tarsier: a tiny, adorable and downright "cool" primate from Southeast Asia. "It's really not like any animals that Americans are familiar with," said Rafe Brown, curator-in-charge at the University of Kansas' Biodiversity Institute. "A tarsier has giant eyes and ears; an extremely cute, furry body; a long tail with a furry tuft at the end; and interesting expanded fingers and toe tips that look a bit like the disks on the digits of tree frogs." Brown ...

In many parts of the world, leprosy and tuberculosis live side-by-side. Worldwide there are approximately 233,000 new cases of leprosy per year, with nearly all of them occurring where tuberculosis is endemic. The currently available century-old vaccine Bacille Calmette-Guerin, or BCG, provides only partial protection against both tuberculosis and leprosy, so a more potent vaccine is needed to combat both diseases. UCLA-led research may have found a stronger weapon against both diseases. In a study published in the September issue of the peer-reviewed journal Infection ...

New measurements from fish purchased at retail seafood counters in 10 different states show the extent to which mislabeling can expose consumers to unexpectedly high levels of mercury, a harmful pollutant. Fishery stock "substitutions"—which falsely present a fish of the same species, but from a different geographic origin—are the most dangerous mislabeling offense, according to new research by University of Hawai'i at Mānoa scientists. "Accurate labeling of seafood is essential to allow consumers to choose sustainable fisheries," said UH Mānoa biologist Peter ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT chemical engineers have devised a new implantable tissue scaffold coated with bone growth factors that are released slowly over a few weeks. When applied to bone injuries or defects, this coated scaffold induces the body to rapidly form new bone that looks and behaves just like the original tissue. This type of coated scaffold could offer a dramatic improvement over the current standard for treating bone injuries, which involves transplanting bone from another part of the patient's body — a painful process that does not always supply enough bone. ...

Handwashing with antibacterial soap exposes hospital workers to significant and potentially unsafe levels of triclosan, a widely-used chemical currently under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to a study led by researchers from UC San Francisco. Triclosan, a synthetic antibacterial agent, is found in thousands of consumer products, including soaps, cosmetics, acne creams and some brands of toothpaste. The FDA is reviewing its safety based on a growing body of research indicating that it can interfere with the action of hormones, potentially causing ...

A team of researchers at Michigan State University has developed a new type of solar concentrator that when placed over a window creates solar energy while allowing people to actually see through the window. It is called a transparent luminescent solar concentrator and can be used on buildings, cell phones and any other device that has a flat, clear surface. And, according to Richard Lunt of MSU's College of Engineering, the key word is "transparent." Research in the production of energy from solar cells placed around luminescent plastic-like materials is not new. ...

Earth's magnetic field, a familiar directional indicator over long distances, is routinely probed in applications ranging from geology to archaeology. Now it has provided the basis for a technique which might, one day, be used to characterize the chemical composition of fluid mixtures in their native environments. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) conducted a proof-of-concept NMR experiment in which a mixture of hydrocarbons and water was analyzed using a high-sensitivity magnetometer and a magnetic ...

Two Northwestern University scientists have identified a biomarker strongly associated with basal-like breast cancer, a highly aggressive carcinoma that is resistant to many types of chemotherapy. The biomarker, a protein called STAT3, provides a smart target for new therapeutics designed to treat this often deadly cancer. Using breast cancer patient data taken from The Cancer Genome Atlas, molecular biologists Curt M. Horvath and Robert W. Tell used powerful computational and bioinformatics techniques to detect patterns of gene expression in two cancer subtypes. They ...

Hospital staffing levels have been associated with patient outcomes, but staffing on weekends has not been well studied, despite a recent UK mandate to make physician specialist care 7 days a week a policy and service improvement priority for the National Health Service. To help address the paucity of research on the association of weekend staffing with patient outcomes, Dr. Benjamin Bray of King's College London and Royal College of Physicians, United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted a prospective cohort study of weekend staffing with stroke specialist physicians for ...

Blood glucose levels measured in hospitalized adults during acute illness can be used to predict risk of developing type 2 diabetes over the following 3 years, according to a study published by David McAllister and colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, UK in this week's PLOS Medicine. The researchers obtained measurements of blood glucose levels on admission for 86,634 patients aged 40 years or older who were admitted to a hospital for an acute illness between 2004 and 2008 in Scotland and identified those patients who developed type 2 diabetes up to December 2011 ...

Edmonton—The invention of fibre optics revolutionized the way we share information, allowing us to transmit data at volumes and speeds we'd only previously dreamed of. Now, electrical engineering researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada are breaking another barrier, designing nano-optical cables small enough to replace the copper wiring on computer chips. This could result in radical increases in computing speeds and reduced energy use by electronic devices. "We're already transmitting data from continent to continent using fibre optics, ...

The quality of cardiac rehabilitation programs across Canada is strong, with specific criteria areas now identified as requiring further enhancement to improve patient outcomes, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, York University and UHN. "We are the first to comprehensively assess cardiac rehabilitation quality --- what we are doing well and where we should do better --- to this degree across the country," says Dr. Sherry Grace, study author, Director of Research, GoodLife Fitness Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Unit, University ...

This news release is available in German. Wind and solar power are inherently intermittent energy sources. If a large amount of electricity is to be produced with renewable energy sources in the future, excess energy will have to be stored during productive periods so that these fluctuations can be compensated for. However, existing storage capacities are far from adequate for the purpose. Science and industry are therefore working on new, better technologies. One important focus lies on battery systems that used to be too expensive or unsophisticated to be employed ...

From this week's Eos: Long-Term Ecological Research and Network-Level Science Imagine if we had the ability to track how a wide range of ecosystems was responding to global changes in real time. Such a tool would be particularly powerful if it coupled multiple decades of information about ecological responses to environmental change with large-scale, long-term experiments and models from dozens of different ecosystem types. In fact, this tool exists: It is the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, which will soon celebrate its 35th anniversary. From ...

HOUSTON -- ( Aug. 19, 2014 ) -- Scientists at the Houston Methodist Research Institute have figured out how to pick up and transfer single cells using a pipette -- a common laboratory tool that's been tweaked slightly. They describe this engineering feat and preliminary test results in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. "Studying single cells and their unique functions has become a frontier in current biomedical research," said nanomedicine department. faculty member Lidong Qin, Ph.D., the project's principal investigator. "One of the biggest ...

This news release is available in French. Montreal, August 19, 2014 -- Weight-loss advertising tends to target people ready, willing and able to pay for diet programs, special meals or gym memberships. But it's those who live below the poverty line who are more likely to be overweight or obese. When it comes to weight-loss for the poor, it turns out that it's more than just cash-flow that stands in the way. A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine by researchers from Concordia University shows that those who struggle the most financially also are ...

BATON ROUGE – LSU Sociology Professor Samuel Stroope is the lead author of a new study, "Neighborhood Ethnic Composition and Problem Drinking among Older Mexican American Men," that will appear in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. Stroope – and co-authors at Baylor University and the University of Texas Medical Branch – found that older Mexican-American men are less likely to engage in problem drinking as residents of neighborhoods with a higher proportion of Mexican-Americans. The study used data on 350 men aged 75 and older from the "Hispanic Established ...

VIDEO: This video shows the delivery of a viable merozoite via optical tweezers to a healthy erythrocyte and subsequent invasion. Click here for more information. Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by a parasite that invades one red blood cell after another. Little is known about this infection process because it happens so quickly, potentially explaining why there is currently no approved malaria vaccine. In a study published by Cell Press August 19th in the Biophysical ...

Anyone who has ever had a glass of fizzy soda knows that bubbles can throw tiny particles into the air. But in a finding with wide industrial applications, Princeton researchers have demonstrated that the bursting bubbles push some particles down into the liquid as well. "It is well known that bursting bubbles produce aerosol droplets, so we were surprised, and fascinated, to discover that when we covered the water with oil, the same process injected tiny oil droplets into the water," said Howard Stone, the Donald R. Dixon '69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical ...

The drug perampanel (trade name Fycompa) has been approved since July 2012 as adjunctive ("add-on") therapy for adults and children aged 12 years and older with epileptic fits (seizures). In a new early benefit assessment according to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether perampanel offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy. However, such an added benefit cannot be derived from the new dossier either, as the drug manufacturer did not ...

Ruxolitinib (trade name: Jakavi) has been approved since August 2012 for the treatment of adults with myelofibrosis. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether this new drug offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy specified by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA). According to the results, there is an indication of considerable added benefit in comparison with "best supportive care" (BSC) because ...

Students who have books and computers at home, who take extramural cultural classes, and whose parents give advice and take part in school activities are most likely to enroll for a four-year college degree. Also, more American black students – irrespective of their class or background – will set off on this education path than their white counterparts. So says David Merolla of Wayne State University and Omari Jackson of Colby-Sawyer College in the US, in Springer's journal Race and Social Problems. Merolla and Jackson studied class and race differences in college enrollment, ...

WASHINGTON D.C., Aug. 19, 2014 – Organic photovoltaic cells -- a type of solar cell that uses polymeric materials to capture sunlight -- show tremendous promise as energy conversion devices, thanks to key attributes such as flexibility and low-cost production. But one giant hurdle holding back organic photovoltaic technologies have been the complexity of their power conversion processes, which involve separate charge formation and transport processes. To maneuver around this problem, a team of researchers in Japan has developed a method to determine the absolute value ...

Love and commitment can make sex physically more satisfying for many women, according to a Penn State Abington sociologist. In a series of interviews, heterosexual women between the ages of 20 and 68 and from a range of backgrounds said that they believed love was necessary for maximum satisfaction in both sexual relationships and marriage. The benefits of being in love with a sexual partner are more than just emotional. Most of the women in the study said that love made sex physically more pleasurable. "Women said that they connected love with sex and that love actually ...