Australia's hottest year on record in 2013 along with the accompanying droughts, heat waves and record-breaking seasons of that year was virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused global warming. New research from ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) researchers and colleagues, over five different Australian papers in a special edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), has highlighted the powerful influence of global warming on Australia's climate. "We often talk about the fingerprint of human-caused ...

DARIEN, IL – Public health and safety are threatened by the increasing prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea, which now afflicts at least 25 million adults in the U.S., according to the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project. Several new studies highlight the destructive nature of obstructive sleep apnea, a chronic disease that increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, stroke and depression. "Obstructive sleep apnea is destroying the health of millions of Americans, and the problem has only gotten worse over the last two decades," said ...

A world-first study in today's New England Journal of Medicine heralds the efficacy of a targeted combination drug therapy after reporting major declines in the risk of disease progression and death in people with metastatic melanoma. The multi-centre, double-blind, randomised, phase 3 trial compared oral dabrafenib (150 mg twice daily) and oral trametinib (2 mg once daily) combination therapy with oral dabrafenib (150 mg twice daily) and placebo. All trial patients had inoperable stage 3C or 4 metastatic melanoma that had a BRAF gene mutation V600E or V600K. Among ...

The literature describes Listeria as ubiquitous bacteria with widespread occurrence. Yet they only become a problem for humans and animals when they contaminate food processing facilities, multiply, and enter the food chain in high concentrations. An infection with Listeria monocytogenes can even be fatal for humans or animals with weakened immune systems. Listeria in soil or water are not dangerous "Listeria in soil or water represent a relatively low risk to humans," explains study director Beatrix Stessl. "The concentrations are too low. The aim of our study was ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Sept. 29, 2014 — Analysis of more than 8,000 women who participated in the world's largest study of two treatments for HER2-positive breast cancer reinforces other findings from the clinical trial showing that trastuzumab (Herceptin) should remain the standard of care for this cancer, says a Mayo Clinic researcher. This study, being presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress in Madrid, reveals that when used as a single HER2-targeted therapy in addition to standard chemotherapy, trastuzumab offers a better outcome than ...

At the beginning of the age of dinosaurs, gigantic reptiles—distant relatives of modern crocodiles—ruled the earth. Some lived on land and others in water and it was thought they didn't much interact. But a tooth found by a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researcher in the thigh of one of these ancient animals is challenging this belief. Stephanie Drumheller, an earth and planetary sciences lecturer, and her Virginia Tech colleagues Michelle Stocker and Sterling Nesbitt examined 220-million-year-old bite marks in the thigh bones of an old reptile and found evidence ...

Researchers from Guillermo Montoya's team at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), in collaboration with Isabelle Vernos' Group from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), have uncovered the molecular interaction between TACC3 and chTOG, key proteins in forming the internal cellular framework that enables and sustains cell division. Published today in Nature Communications, the observations may help to optimise current oncological therapies specifically designed to fight against this framework, named by the scientific community as microtubules. KEY MOLECULES ...

The research found that a combination of a real-time feedback system together with a human energy delegate in eight halls of residence resulted in a reduction of 37% in energy consumption when compared to normal consumption. The savings were 1360.49 kWh, which is equivalent to a reduction of 713.71 kg of CO2 over four weeks. In contrast, another eight halls, exposed only to the real-time feedback and a weekly email alert, resulted in saw a 3.5% reduction in energy consumption. Student's energy-use behaviour is complex as they cannot easily identify how much electricity ...

Dolphins are indeed sensitive to magnetic stimuli, as they behave differently when swimming near magnetized objects. So says Dorothee Kremers and her colleagues at Ethos unit of the Université de Rennes in France, in a study in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften – The Science of Nature. Their research, conducted in the delphinarium of Planète Sauvage in France, provides experimental behavioral proof that these marine animals are magnetoreceptive. Magnetoreception implies the ability to perceive a magnetic field. It is supposed to play an important role in how some ...

This news release is available in Spanish. This study compares the existing legislation on this subject in European countries and analyzes both the level of protection afforded to the victims and the measures taken to avoid this crime; in addition, it proposes of code of best practices that favors the enactment of new European guidelines aimed at ending this activity. Specifically, it shows that one of the first obstacles to change is that the magnitude of the problem is not known, points out one of the authors of the report, Begoña Marugán Pintos, of the department ...

Solving global challenges in food security, emerging diseases and biodiversity loss requires evolutionary thinking, argues a new study published online in Science Express that was co-authored by Bruce Tabashnik of the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. For the first time, an international team of nine scientists has reviewed progress in addressing a broad set of challenges in agriculture, medicine and environmental management using approaches that consider evolutionary histories and the likelihood of rapid adaptation to human activities. The ...

Patients whose lung cancer has developed resistance to the drug gefitinib experience no statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival from continued treatment with the drug in addition to chemotherapy, a phase III trial presented at the ESMO 2014 Congress has shown. The IMPRESS trial is a randomised phase III study that compared continuation of gefitinib in addition to chemotherapy against chemotherapy alone in patients with lung cancer that carried mutations in the EGFR cell surface receptor. Gefitinib is a type of drug known as a tyrosine kinase ...

Patients with HER2-positive breast cancer that has spread to other parts of their body live around 16 months longer if treated with a combination of pertuzumab, trastuzumab and chemotherapy compared to those treated with trastuzumab and chemotherapy alone, updated results from the CLEOPATRA study reveal. CLEOPATRA was a pivotal phase III study where researchers evaluated the safety and efficacy of pertuzumab, trastuzumb and chemotherapy in 808 patients with previously untreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer has historically ...

For patients with cervical cancer that has recurred after treatment or has spread elsewhere in the body, adding the experimental drug cediranib to standard chemotherapy improves tumour shrinkage and adds a modest improvement in progression-free survival, researchers report at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid. In Europe, about 70% of patients with cervical cancer are cured by either surgery or chemo-radiotherapy. Those patients with recurrent or secondary cancer have a very poor outlook. Only about 20-30% have tumour shrinkage after conventional chemotherapy and survival ...

More than three quarters of oncology specialists in Europe, South America and Asia believe their patients are not always well enough informed about the treatment options available to them, survey results have revealed at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid, Spain. The results come from an online survey of 895 doctors from 12 countries in Europe, South America and Asia. All were practicing oncology specialists, with more than three years' experience, treating more than fifteen patients a month. While 82% of those surveyed believed that deciding on a course of treatment ...

A growing number of oncologists in Greece are female, but women continue to be under-represented in leadership positions, according to a survey reported at the ESMO 2014 Congress. "In Greece, and across Europe, women oncologists still find it hard to access leadership or academic positions," said Dr Helena Linardou, Associate Director of the 1st Department of Oncology at the Metropolitan Hospital, Athens, Greece, who presented the survey results at the congress. "Women are indeed increasingly choosing oncology specialties in Greece, however, most decision-making posts ...

A recent study based on a Chinese sample gives an answer to this question. The research shows that in Chinese culture, emotion- expressive suppression is not only able to dampen negative emotion effectively, but also dampen negative emotion faster than Cognitive reappraisal. This sheds much light on how to quickly regulate negative emotion in urgent situations, particularly when people from East-Asian cultures are concerned. This study has been published in SCIENCE CHINA： Life Sciences (IN CHINESE) , which is titled "The efficiency of negative emotion regulation: ...

You're waiting at a bus stop, expecting the bus to arrive any time. You watch the road. Nothing yet. A little later you start to pace. More time passes. "Maybe there is some problem", you think. Finally, you give up and raise your arm and hail a taxi. Just as you pull away, you glimpse the bus gliding up. Did you have a choice to wait a bit longer? Or was giving up too soon the inevitable and predictable result of a chain of neural events? In research published on 09/28/2014 in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists show that neural recordings can be used to forecast ...

Present-day lithium batteries are efficient but involve a range of resource and environmental problems. Using materials from alfalfa (lucerne seed) and pine resin and a clever recycling strategy, Uppsala researchers have now come up with a highly interesting alternative. Their study will be presented soon in the scientific journal ChemSusChem. 'We think our discovery can open several doors to more environment-friendly, energy-efficient solutions for the batteries of the future,' says Daniel Brandell, Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Uppsala University, ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—September 28, 2014—Researchers at the Gladstone Institutes have shown that low levels of the protein progranulin in the brain can increase the formation of amyloid-beta plaques (a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease), cause neuroinflammation, and worsen memory deficits in a mouse model of this condition. Conversely, by using a gene therapy approach to elevate progranulin levels, scientists were able to prevent these abnormalities and block cell death in this model. Progranulin deficiency is known to cause another neurodegenerative disorder, frontotemporal ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2014—Optical fiber sensors are used around the world to monitor the condition of difficult-to-access segments of infrastructure—such as the underbellies of bridges, the exterior walls of tunnels, the feet of dams, long pipelines and railways in remote rural areas. Now, a team of researchers in Italy are expanding the reach of optical fiber sensors "to the hills" by embedding them in shallow trenches within slopes to detect and monitor both large landslides and slow slope movements. The team will present their research at The Optical Society's (OSA) ...

How the brain ages is still largely an open question – in part because this organ is mostly insulated from direct contact with other systems in the body, including the blood and immune systems. In research that was recently published in Science, Weizmann Institute researchers Prof. Michal Schwartz of the Neurobiology Department and Dr. Ido Amit of Immunology Department found evidence of a unique "signature" that may be the "missing link" between cognitive decline and aging. The scientists believe that this discovery may lead, in the future, to treatments that can slow or ...

The monoclonal antibody nivolumab achieves superior response rates and a longer duration of response than standard chemotherapy[1] in patients whose melanoma has progressed after treatment with ipilimumab, according to phase III data presented at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid, Spain. "Previously-treated advanced melanoma patients have limited options," says the study's principal investigator, Professor Jeffrey Weber, Director of the Donald A. Adam Comprehensive Melanoma Research Center of Excellence at the Moffitt Cancer Centre, Tampa, Florida. Nivolumab is an antibody ...

Combination therapy with both BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib and MEK inhibitor cobimetinib achieves greater progression-free survival and response rates than vemurafenib plus placebo in BRAF-mutation positive melanoma, according to phase III data presented at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid, Spain. "Before the results of this study, we knew that cobimetinib plus vemurafenib could be safely delivered together with highly promising rates of tumour shrinkage; however until the performance of a scientifically rigorous randomised trial the potential magnitude of this benefit ...

Treating patients with high-dose radiotherapy after chemotherapy and surgery for malignant pleural mesothelioma does not achieve improvements in local relapse and overall survival, according to data from a prospective randomized phase II trial presented at ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid. "Mesothelioma remains a difficult disease to find better treatment options for, so we asked whether high-dose hemithoracic radiotherapy would decrease the rate or delay the time of local recurrence after chemotherapy and radical surgery," says lead author Prof Rolf A. Stahel, from the ...