Native American ancestry is associated with a lower asthma risk, but African ancestry is associated with a higher risk, according to the largest-ever study of how genetic variation influences asthma risk in Latinos, in whom both African and Native American ancestry is common. The study, led by UC San Francisco researchers, was published online October 6, 2014 in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Although differences in the environments in which people live often are suspected when asthma risks among populations differ, the new findings illustrate the importance ...

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute scientists have discovered a small molecule that blocks a form of cell death that triggers inflammation, opening the door for potential new treatments for inflammatory disease such as rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and psoriasis. The researchers made the discovery while investigating how a protein called MLKL kills cells in a process known as necroptosis. Their findings were published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Necroptosis is a recently discovered cell death pathway linked to immune disorders. ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2014 — Organic chemistry: It's among the most feared courses undergraduate science students take. Whether you call it "orgo" or "o-chem," it has reduced many hopeful scholars to tears. One professor thinks he has a solution. William Dichtel, Ph.D., of Cornell University shares his thoughts on making organic chemistry classes more interesting and relevant to students in the newest episode of Prized Science from the American Chemical Society. Watch the interview at http://youtu.be/A6j1qAOOeHs. Subscribe to the ACS channel at http://bit.ly/ACSYoutube ...

Based on current scientific literature, gastrostomy tube (G-tube) placement or other long-term enteral access devices should be withheld or withdrawn in patients with advanced dementia or other near end-of-life conditions, according to a special report published today in the OnlineFirst version of Nutrition in Clinical Practice (NCP), the official journal of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.). Written by the International Clinical Ethics Section of A.S.P.E.N., the report suggests that advanced dementia be seen by health care providers ...

Past research shows physical beauty can be detrimental to women applying for masculine jobs. But belles can put the brakes on discrimination by acknowledging their looks during an interview, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. The paper, published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, is the first to provide a method for curtailing such prejudice against attractive women. In the study, when an attractive woman applied for a job typically filled by men -- a construction job -- and said, "I know I don't look like your ...

This news release is available in German. Because of the deforestation of tropical rainforests in Brazil, significantly more carbon has been lost than was previously assumed. As scientists of the Hemholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) write in the scientific journal Nature Communications, the effect of the degradation has been underestimated in fragmented forest areas, since it was hitherto not possible to calculate the loss of the biomass at the forest edges and the higher emission of carbon dioxide. The UFZ scientists have now closed this knowledge gap. ...

If a scientist has a good reputation among his colleagues, other scientists are more likely to cite his publications. According to a study, reputation is crucial for the impact of publications. Author reputation is key in driving a paper's citation count early in its life cycle, before a tipping point, after which reputation has much less influence compared to the paper's citation count, says Aalto University Professor Santo Fortunato, pointing out that this is a key finding of the study. Quality – not quantity – of publications build authors' reputation As ...

The results of a four-year international study of 2060 cardiac arrest cases across 15 hospitals published and available now on ScienceDirect. The study concludes: The themes relating to the experience of death appear far broader than what has been understood so far, or what has been described as so called near-death experiences. In some cases of cardiac arrest, memories of visual awareness compatible with so called out-of-body experiences may correspond with actual events. A higher proportion of people may have vivid death experiences, but do not recall them due ...

A new study suggests that drops of fuel spilled at gas stations — which occur frequently with fill-ups — could cumulatively be causing long-term environmental damage to soil and groundwater in residential areas in close proximity to the stations. Few studies have considered the potential environmental impact of routine gasoline spills and instead have focused on problems associated with large-scale leaks. Researchers with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, publishing online Sept. 19 in the Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, developed a mathematical ...

Washington, DC—A researcher who found that testosterone raised the risk of prostate tumors and exacerbated the effects of carcinogenic chemical exposure in rats is urging caution in prescribing testosterone therapy to men who have not been diagnosed with hypogonadism, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's journal Endocrinology. Testosterone use has soared in the last decade among older men seeking to boost energy and feel younger. One study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that the number of American men ...

Until now, if you want to print a greeting card for a loved one, you can use colorful graphics, fancy typefaces or special paper to enhance it. But what if you could integrate paper-thin displays into the cards, which could be printed at home and which would be able to depict self-created symbols or even react to touch? Those only some of the options computer scientists in Saarbrücken can offer. They developed an approach that in the future will enable laypeople to print displays in any desired shape on various materials and therefore could change everyday life completely. For ...

In a ground-breaking research project at the University of Gothenburg, seven Swedish women have had embryos reintroduced after receiving wombs from living donors. Now the first transplanted woman has delivered a baby – a healthy and normally developed boy. The world-unique birth was acknowledged in The Lancet on 5 October. The uterus transplantation research project at the University of Gothenburg started in 1999 and has been evaluated in over 40 scientific articles. The goal of the Gothenburg project is to enable women who were born without a womb or who have lost ...

To explore any possible limits of the two theories, they have been experimentally verified many times already and both have passed all the tests so far. Hence, scientists look for deviations in experiments with increasing precision or under extreme conditions. For this purpose, Nörtershäuser's team has now accelerated ions to velocities near the speed of light and illuminated them with a laser. The results, which are presented in two new publications, confirm the time dilation predicted for high velocities in the theory of relativity with an accuracy that ...

Deerfield, Ill. (October 8, 2014) — The annual number of dengue fever cases in India is 282 times higher than officially reported, and the disease inflicts an economic burden on the country of at least US$1.11 billion each year in medical and other expenses, according to a new study published online today in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene. The study, led by researchers at Brandeis University's Schneider Institute for Health Policy in Waltham, Massachusetts, the INCLEN Trust International in New Delhi, and the Indian Council of Medical Research's ...

The battle against AIDS cannot be won in the laboratory alone. To fight the potentially deadly virus that 34 million people are suffering from we need help from computers. Now research fron University of Southern Denmark turns computers into powerful allies in the battle. Effective treatment of HIV-virus is a race against time: Many of the drugs that have been potent killers of HIV-virus, have today lost their power, because the virus has become resistant to them. As a result science must constantly develop new drugs that can attack the virus in new ways. Now researchers ...

Scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), Monash University and RIKEN Centre for Developmental Biology have used a combination of small molecules to generate mouse cells that can form bone and cartilage. This new method is easily scalable, and hence is a promising approach for the repair of human bone and cartilage defects. The research has just been published at http://dev.biologists.org/ in the scientific journal Development. Current strategies to regenerate bone and cartilage use adult stem cells that are committed to forming ...

Boston, MA – The main function of the immune system is to protect against diseases and infections. For unknown reasons our immune system attacks healthy cells, tissues and organs in a process called autoimmunity, which can result in diseases such as multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. There are currently no existing cures for these diseases. Now, in a new study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), a potential treatment maybe on the horizon. Researchers found that NAD+, a natural molecule found in living cells, plants ...

Boston, MA — A new, large-scale study has identified six new genetic variants associated with habitual coffee drinking. The genome-wide meta-analysis, led by Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital researchers, helps explain why a given amount of coffee or caffeine has different effects on different people and provides a genetic basis for future research exploring the links between coffee and health. "Coffee and caffeine have been linked to beneficial and adverse health effects. Our findings may allow us to identify subgroups of people most ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique can detect signs of cognitive decline in the brain even before symptoms appear, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology. The technique has the potential to serve as a biomarker in very early diagnosis of preclinical dementia. The World Health Organization estimates that dementia affects more than 35 million people worldwide, a number expected to more than double by 2030. Problems in the brain related to dementia, such as reduced blood flow, might be present for years but are ...

A new model for stroke care is being studied in rural Alberta to reduce inequities in health across communities. This model, presented at the Canadian Stroke Congress, shows how hospitals in rural areas can mimic the type of care that's often only available in larger centres. In geographically diverse Canada, stroke care can seem like tale of two cities – or more like a city and a small town. The ideal is stroke unit care, where a multidisciplinary staff of doctors, nurses and therapists collaborate on treatment and the road to recovery. In Alberta, that type of ...

People who have had a stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA or mini-stroke) are at high risk for a second similar event or other serious medical problems for at least five years and need better follow up and strategies to prevent these problems, according to data presented at the Canadian Stroke Congress. At present, most stroke or TIA patients in Canada are followed closely by specialty clinics for about 90 days after an event, during the period they are considered at highest risk for a repeat event. If no such incident occurs during that period, they are often transferred ...

WASHINGTON, DC – October 7, 2014 -- Yogurt containing probiotic bacteria successfully protected children and pregnant women against heavy metal exposure in a recent study. Working with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Canadian and Tanzanian researchers created and distributed a special yogurt containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus bacteria and observed the outcomes against a control group. The work is published this week in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. A research team from the Canadian Centre for Human ...

Targets to eliminate tuberculosis (TB) by 2050 are more likely to be met if new vaccines are developed for adults and adolescents instead of for infants, according to new research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Stop TB Department at the World Health Organization found that a vaccine given to adolescents and adults in low- and middle-income countries could have a much larger impact on the burden of TB worldwide and is more likely to be cost-effective, even ...

Tiny vesicles containing protective substances which they transmit to nerve cells apparently play an important role in the functioning of neurons. As cell biologists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have discovered, nerve cells can enlist the aid of mini-vesicles of neighboring glial cells to defend themselves against stress and other potentially detrimental factors. These vesicles, called exosomes, appear to stimulate the neurons on various levels: they influence electrical stimulus conduction, biochemical signal transfer, and gene regulation. Exosomes are ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 6, 2014—Self-management of diabetes, including medication, nutrition, and lifestyle strategies, is essential for optimal glycemic control and minimizing complications of the disease. Education to teach and improve self-management skills is critical for success and, when delivered via the Internet, can lead to better glycemic control and enhanced diabetes knowledge compared to usual care, according to a Review article in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics (DTT), a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is ...