For breast cancer patients, the era of personalized medicine may be just around the corner, thanks to recent advances by USC Stem Cell researcher Min Yu and scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In a July 11 study in Science, Yu and her colleagues report how they isolated breast cancer cells circulating through the blood streams of six patients. Some of these deadly cancer cells are the "seeds" of metastasis, which travel to and establish secondary tumors in vital organs such as the bone, lungs, liver and brain. Yu and her colleagues ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new model analyzing how birds in western North America will respond to climate change suggests that for most species, regional warming is not as likely to influence population trends as will precipitation changes. Several past studies have found that temperature increases can push some animal species – including birds – into higher latitudes or higher elevations. Few studies, however, have tackled the role that changes in precipitation may cause, according to Matthew Betts, an Oregon State University ecologist and a principal investigator on the study. "When ...

Previous research has shown that men perceive the color red on a woman to be a signal of sexual receptivity. Women are more likely to wear a red shirt when they are expecting to meet an attractive man, relative to an unattractive man or a woman. But do women view other women in red as being more sexually receptive? And would that result in a woman guarding her mate against a woman in red? A study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin sought to answer these questions. Perceptions of Sexual Receptivity Nonverbal communication via body language, facial ...

SEATTLE, WA – Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) reconstructions occur more than 200,000 times a year, but the type of material used to create a new ligament may determine how long you stay in the game, say researchers presenting their work today at the Annual Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society of Sports Medicine (AOSSM). "Our study results highlight that in a young athletic population, allografts (tissue harvested from a donor) fail more frequently than using autografts (tissue harvested from the patient)," said Craig R. Bottoni, MD, lead author from Tripler ...

SEATTLE, WA – Re-tearing a repaired knee Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) happens all too frequently, however a recent study being presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting suggests that identification and patient education regarding modifiable risk factors may minimize the chance of a future ACL tear. "Our research suggests that a few risk factors such as, age, activity level and type of graft utilized may point to the possibility of re-injury," said lead author, Christopher C. Kaeding, MD of the Ohio State University. ...

Using spider toxins to study the proteins that let nerve cells send out electrical signals, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have stumbled upon a biological tactic that may offer a new way to protect crops from insect plagues in a safe and environmentally responsible way. Their finding—that naturally occurring insect toxins can be lethal for one species and harmless for a closely related one—suggests that insecticides can be designed to target specific pests without harming beneficial species like bees. A summary of the research, led by Frank Bosmans, Ph.D., an assistant ...

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil- In the brains of all vertebrates, information is transmitted through synapses, a mechanism that allows an electric or chemical signal to be passed from one brain cell to another. Chemical synapses, which are the most abundant type of synapse, can be either excitatory or inhibitory. Synapse formation is crucial for learning, memory, perception and cognition, and the balance between excitatory and inhibitory synapses critical for brain function. For instance, every time we learn something, the new information is transformed into memory through synaptic ...

Mice consuming a supplement of omega 3 fatty acids had healthier joints than those fed diets high in saturated fats and omega 6 fatty acids, according to Duke Medicine researchers. The findings, published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-205601) on July 11, 2014, suggest that unhealthy dietary fats – not just obesity – may contribute to worsening osteoarthritis. "Our results suggest that dietary factors play a more significant role than mechanical factors in the link between obesity and osteoarthritis," said Farshid Guilak, Ph.D., Laszlo ...

In Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and other major cities in New Mexico, nearly every public golf course is now watered with treated municipal wastewater rather than precious potable water supplies. Across the U.S. Southwest as a whole, more than 40% of all golf courses receive treated effluent. Reusing the effluent increases the sustainability of golf courses. Additionally, golf courses and homeowners alike fertilize their lawns during the growing season. The major nutrient in fertilizer is nitrate. A New Mexico State University turfgrass expert has a new vision for even more ...

Testing for the presence of specific molecules present in the urine of pregnant women can give an indication in early pregnancy of whether a baby will be born premature or the fetus will suffer poor growth, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Medicine. Identifying these conditions early in pregnancy could potentially help reduce complications and manage any difficulties, although more work is needed before the findings can be translated to clinical settings. Researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Crete analyzed the metabolites ...

Women are under-represented in academic medicine resulting in a waste of public investment due to loss of research talent. Writing in the July issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, authors of an essay on women and academic medicine say that as a consequence of female under-representation, some areas of medicine are under-researched at a cost to patients and society. Discriminatory practices and unconscious bias, they say, continue to occur in academic medicine, despite a substantial fall in traditional discrepancies between men and women in medicine in ...

A reduction in alcohol consumption, even for light-to-moderate drinkers, could be linked to improved cardiovascular health, including a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, lower body mass index and blood pressure, according to new research published in The BMJ. These latest findings challenge the results of previous observational studies which found that the consumption of light-to-moderate amounts of alcohol (12-25 units per week) may have a protective effect on cardiovascular health. The research, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine with University ...

Re-introducing a type of polio vaccine that fell out of favour in the 1960s could hasten eradication of the disease, according to new research. The study, by Imperial College London and the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, suggests that the injected polio vaccine (IPV), which is rarely used today in countries affected by polio, could provide better and longer lasting protection against infection if used in combination with the more commonly used live oral polio vaccine (OPV). The findings are published today in The Lancet. Vaccination protects an individual ...

The first dengue vaccine candidate (CYD-TDV) to reach phase 3 clinical testing has shown moderate protection (56%) against the disease in Asian children, according to new research published in The Lancet. Dengue is a mosquito-borne disease that infects around 390 million people each year, of whom about 96 million suffer from symptomatic infection. WHO estimates that the global burden of dengue has risen 30-fold over the past 50 years, with over half of the world's population at risk of the disease. There is no licensed vaccine available to treat or prevent dengue ...

Giving children under 5 years old an extra dose of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) helps to boost their immunity to the poliovirus and should be added to vaccination programmes in polio-endemic countries and those facing a high risk of imported cases, suggests new research published in The Lancet. Lead author Dr Jacob John from Christian Medical College, India explains, "Adding a supplementary IPV dose to children already vaccinated with oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) may hasten polio eradication by boosting herd immunity in endemic regions, act as a booster to prevent ...

In a viewpoint published this week in The Lancet, the Community Research Advisors Group (CRAG) argue that research into bedaquiline – a new drug, fast tracked for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) – should proceed cautiously in people with drug-sensitive tuberculosis. CRAG, an international, community-based advisory board for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Tuberculosis Trials Consortium, writing in The Lancet independently, urge researchers to balance the goal of shortening treatment for drug-sensitive TB with patient safety. Bedaquiline ...

Washington, DC (July 10, 2014) — Using an expensive agent to prevent blood clots in kidney failure patients' dialysis catheters may turn out to be less costly overall due to its ability to reduce medical complications, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). Recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) is a medication used to break up blood clots that occur in the vessels of patients having a heart attack. A recent clinical trial revealed that using rt-PA once per week plus the anticlotting agent ...

Higher levels of stress, hostility and depressive symptoms are associated with significantly increased risk of stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) in middle-age and older adults, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke. A TIA is a stroke caused by a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain. Researchers investigated how psychological factors might influence risk for chronic disease, using data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), an ongoing study on cardiovascular disease risk factors in participants living ...

CHICAGO – After a concussion, teens who are sensitive to light or noise may be more likely to also have emotional symptoms such as anxiety, according to a study released today that will be presented at The Sports Concussion Conference in Chicago, July 11 to 13, 2014, hosted by the American Academy of Neurology, the world's leading authority on diagnosing and managing sports concussion. The conference will feature the latest scientific advances in diagnosing and treating sports concussion from leading experts in the field. The symptoms after a concussion can vary widely ...

The controversy centres around a family of enzymes known as heme enzymes, due to the presence of a heme group in their active site. At the centre of the heme cofactor is an iron (Fe) atom, which becomes oxidised (ferryl) when a reacting heme is in an intermediate state called Compound I. The question that has remained unanswered for decades is whether this oxidation involves just an oxygen atom (O), or a hydroxyl group (OH). Resolving this fundamental question has implications for understanding oxidative processes within living cells, which is critically important for drug ...

Meet the seven new dwarf galaxies. Yale University astronomers, using a new type of telescope made by stitching together telephoto lenses, recently discovered seven celestial surprises while probing a nearby spiral galaxy. The previously unseen galaxies may yield important insights into dark matter and galaxy evolution, while possibly signaling the discovery of a new class of objects in space. For now, scientists know they have found a septuplet of new galaxies that were previously overlooked because of their diffuse nature: The ghostly galaxies emerged from the night ...

VIDEO: This is the one-of-a-kind, Alfred C. Glassell, Jr., SUSTAIN research facility at the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, where Haus and colleagues will conduct further studies on... Click here for more information. MIAMI – New research from University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science suggests that physical conditions at the air-sea interface, where the ocean and atmosphere meet, is a key component to improve forecast ...

Poor peepers are a problem, even if you are a big, bad sea scorpion. One minute, you're an imperious predator, scouring the shallow waters for any prey in sight. The next, thanks to a post-extinction eye exam by Yale University scientists, you're reduced to trolling for weaker, soft-bodied animals you stumble upon at night. Such is the lot of the giant pterygotid eurypterid, the largest arthropod that ever lived. A new paper by Yale paleontologists, published in the journal Biology Letters, dramatically re-interprets the creature's habits, capabilities, and ecological ...

Washington, D.C.—July 10, 2014—In response to today's announcement that the "Mississippi Baby," believed to have been functionally cured of HIV, has now been found to have detectable levels of the virus, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) expresses disappointment in this setback but remains hopeful that the scientific breakthrough that allowed the child's HIV levels to remain undetectable for more than two years will continue to help researchers understand how to control HIV and ultimately develop a cure. "Although we had high hopes that the child ...

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed an unusual structure 100,000 light years long, which resembles a corkscrew-shaped string of pearls and winds around the cores of two colliding galaxies. The unique structure of the star spiral may yield new insights into the formation of stellar superclusters that result from merging galaxies and gas dynamics in this rarely seen process. "We were surprised to find this stunning morphology. We've long known that the 'beads on a string' phenomenon is seen in the arms of spiral galaxies and in tidal bridges between interacting ...