A new study out today in the journal Neurology examines the question of quality of life for individuals with a common form of lower back pain called lumbar spinal stenosis. The findings show that, when asked to choose between treatments that reduced pain or would help them stand or walk, patients overwhelmingly chose pain relief. "There has long been a debate in the medical community over striking the right balance between pain relief and physical function," said John Markman, M.D., director of the Translational Pain Research Program in the University of Rochester ...

This news release is available in German. Ten percent of the world's cotton is produced in the Xinjiang region in northwestern China. Irrigating the cotton fields, however, is causing ecological problems. After many years of research, a team of international researchers headed by Prof. Markus Disse at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a set of recommendations aimed at preserving the local environment. The Tarim basin in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China is unique. No other natural landscape is located as far from the ocean. It has ...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- In both blacks and whites, everyday feelings of discrimination can mess with the body's levels of the primary stress hormone, cortisol, new research suggests. In African-Americans, however, the negative effects of perceived discrimination on cortisol are stronger than in whites, according to the study, one of the first to look at the biological response to the cumulative impact of prejudicial treatment. The team of researchers, led by Northwestern University, also found that the teenage years are a particularly sensitive period to be experiencing ...

Are black voters more likely to vote for black candidates, regardless of political party affiliation? A new study by a University of Cincinnati researcher presents discouraging news for Republican leaders hoping to win over this Democratic stronghold by nominating black Republican candidates for political offices. "There are some very successful African-American Republicans, but those folks don't attract African-American votes," said the study's author, David Niven, a University of Cincinnati professor of political science. "Party matters so much more than race." In ...

Michigan hospitals participating in the American College of Cardiology's "See You in 7" program demonstrated important reductions in 30-day readmission rates for Medicare heart failure patients when compared to non-participating hospitals despite only modest increases in seven-day follow-up appointments, according to a study today in JACC: Heart Failure. "See You in 7" is part of the ACC's Hospital-to-Home initiative, a national quality improvement program aimed at reducing heart disease-related hospital readmissions and improving the transition from hospital to home. ...

The barbastelle bat may emit two different types of weak echolocation signals alternately, one upward through the nose and one downward through the mouth, to find prey while undetected and to sufficiently keep track of the environment, respectively, according to a study published September 9, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Anna-Maria Seibert and colleagues from the University of Tübingen, Germany. Barbastelle bats prey almost exclusively on eared moths, using "stealth echolocation" signals that are 10-100 times weaker than those of other aerial hawking ...

Clinical trials for a dengue fever treatment could start within a year, following a discovery by University of Queensland scientists. UQ's School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences Head Professor Paul Young said the researchers had identified similarities in how the body reacted to dengue virus and bacterial infections, in a finding that would allow them to re-purpose existing drugs. "We have discovered that the dengue virus NS1 protein acts as a toxin in the body, in a similar manner to the way bacterial cell wall products lead to septic shock in bacterial infections," ...

US fans of the National Football League (NFL) and sports reporters assigned to specific teams have unrealistic expectations about how well their team will perform, finds new research from UCL and Oxford University. The study, published in PLOS ONE, also reveals which teams are most liked and disliked, as well as which teams have the most optimistic fans. The main results are from an April 2015 survey of 1,116 US-based NFL fans, who were asked to predict how many games their favourite and least favourite teams would win in the 2015 season. As each team plays 16 games ...

New research suggests that offering financial incentives for farming industries to mitigate the impact agriculture has on the environment, by reducing fertiliser use and 'sparing' land for conservation, for example, actually has a positive effect on critical areas such as greenhouse gas reduction and increased biodiversity. It has been a point of contention whether such 'cash for conservation' initiatives succeed. For the latest study, researchers aggregated investment in environmental incentives at a national level for the first time, and, by comparing them to broad ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A new study suggests that changes in immune function can occur as long as five years before the diagnosis of a brain tumor that typically produces symptoms only three months before it is detected. Using blood samples collected an average of 15 years before brain tumor diagnosis to analyze interactions between 12 allergy-related proteins, researchers looked at how those relationships differed between people later diagnosed with brain tumors and cancer-free controls. Among people who were subsequently diagnosed with this brain tumor, called a glioma, ...

The Wilson Center's Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP) is releasing a five-episode video series looking at the potential for additive manufacturing to transform how we build things - and what we need to do to fully realize this potential. Beyond the Desktop explores how additive manufacturing could affect the fields of medicine, aerospace, space technology and more. Beginning Sept. 9, 2015, a new episode will be released each Wednesday through early October. Episodes will be posted on the Wilson Center homepage: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/3dprinting Many ...

Researchers have shown for the first time that phytoplankton (plant life) in remote ocean regions can contribute to rare airborne particles that trigger ice formation in clouds. Results published this week (Wednesday 9 September) in the journal Nature show that the organic waste from life in the oceans, which is ejected into the atmosphere along with sea spray from breaking waves, stimulates cloud droplets to freeze into ice particles. This affects how clouds behave and influence global climate, which is important for improved projections of future climate change. Clouds ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Dirac cone, named after British physicist Paul Dirac, started as a concept in particle and high-energy physics and has recently became important in research in condensed matter physics and material science. It has since been found to describe aspects of graphene, a two dimensional form of carbon, suggesting the possibility of applications across various fields. Now physicists at MIT have found another unusual phenomenon produced by the Dirac cone: It can spawn a phenomenon described as a "ring of exceptional points." This connects two fields of ...

Putnam Valley, NY. (Sept. 9, 2015) - Alzheimer's disease (AD), which affects an estimated 26 million people worldwide, is the fourth leading cause of death among the elderly and the leading cause of dementia. Predictions are that the number of AD cases will quadruple by 2050. Although pharmacological methods for treating AD have been discovered, none significantly delay the progression of the disease. However, cell transplantation research using animals modeled with AD has indicated that human umbilical cord blood cells (HUCBCs) can ameliorate some cognitive deficits ...

The high frequency and magnitude of volcanic eruptions could have been the cause of the progressive cooling of ocean surfaces over a period of 1,800 years. This is made apparent in an international study published recently in the journal Nature Geoscience, involving researcher P. Graham Mortyn of the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) and the UAB Department of Geography. The study emphasises that this trend came to an end with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the resulting global warming caused by human activity. It further shows ...

The world's grassy biomes are key contributors to biodiversity and ecosystem services, and are under immense pressure from conversion to agriculture and tree planting, report Joseph W. Veldman, of Iowa State University, and his colleagues in an article for the October issue of BioScience. The authors argue that forest- and tree-focused environmental policies and conservation initiatives have potentially dire ecological consequences for undervalued ecosystems, such as grasslands, savannas, and open-canopy woodlands. To illustrate this forest bias and its consequences, ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., September 9, 2015 - A consortium of investigators led by scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have found that a new class of drugs may be used to purge pockets of dormant HIV from a patient's body, eliminating the virus once and for all. Since these agents are already being explored in clinical trials for treating cancer, the route to approval for treating HIV may be significantly shorter than usual. Antiretroviral therapies have made it possible for people to live with HIV for decades. However, patients continue to ...

Scientists at Disney Research and the University of Washington (UW) have shown that a network of energy-harvesting sensor nodes equipped with onboard cameras can automatically determine each camera's pose and location using optical cues. This capability could help to enable networks of hundreds or thousands of sensors that could operate without batteries or external power and require minimal maintenance. Such networks could be part of the Internet of Things (IoT) in which objects can communicate and share information to create smart environments. Previous work at UW ...

A newly published research study by U.S. Forest Service researchers demonstrates that the social vulnerability indices used in climate change and natural hazards research can also be used in other contexts such as disease outbreaks. Authors of the article include Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) researchers John Stanturf, Scott Goodrick, Mel Warren, and Christie Stegall, and Susan Charnley from the Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station. Published in the online journal PLOS ONE, the study illustrates how census and household survey data, when ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- A new study reveals a pressing need to better understand water use in America's rivers, with implications for drought-stricken regions of the country. Findings from the study showed that virtually all of the water entering the Wabash River in Indiana during summer months is withdrawn and then returned to the waterway. "In a nutshell, in the summertime we generally use what is equivalent to the entire volume of the Wabash River so that by the time the river reaches the confluence of the Ohio River, the water in the Wabash on average has been through ...

GeoSpace Mercury's movements give scientists peek inside the planet The first measurements of Mercury's movements from a spacecraft orbiting the planet reveal new insights about the makeup of the solar system's innermost world and its interactions with other planetary bodies, found a new study recently accepted in Geophysical Research Letters. New research calls for rethinking of New Zealand's Alpine Fault The major fault line of New Zealand's Alpine Fault, which runs almost the entire length of the South Island, has been assumed to be a near vertical crack. However, ...

A deadly parasite that causes Chagas disease is widespread in a common Texas insect, according to a new study by University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) researchers. The finding suggests that the risk of Texans contracting the disease may be higher than previously thought. The parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), which causes Chagas disease can be transmitted to humans by blood-sucking insects known as "assassin bugs" or "kissing bugs." Unlike mosquitoes that transmit malaria through the bite, kissing bugs drop feces on the subject while filling up with blood. The feces, ...

A low resting heart rate in late adolescence was associated with increased risk for violent criminality in men later in life, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry. Low resting heart rate is related to antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. Low resting heart rate (RHR) has been viewed either as an indicator of a chronically low level of psychological arousal, which may lead some people to seek stimulating experiences, or as a marker of weakened responses to aversive and stressful stimuli, which can lead to fearless behavior and risk taking. ...

Among patients 70 years or older who underwent elective surgery, major complications contributed significantly to a prolonged length of hospital stay while delirium contributed significantly to several adverse outcomes, including length of stay and hospital readmission, according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery. Major postoperative complications and delirium contribute independently to adverse outcomes and high resource use in patients who undergo major surgery; however, their interrelationship has not been well examined. Understanding the risks of adverse ...

A follow-up of nearly 60,000 women who received a synthetic vaginal mesh sling for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence finds the risk is low for needing a second surgery for mesh removal or revision (about 1 in 30 women ten years after surgery), according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery. Female stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a common condition that is often treated with surgery when conservative management options are unsuccessful. An estimated 1 in 7 women will undergo surgery for SUI during their lifetime. Synthetic mesh slings are the most ...