CORVALLIS, Ore. - Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered how vitamin E deficiency may cause neurological damage by interrupting a supply line of specific nutrients and robbing the brain of the "building blocks" it needs to maintain neuronal health. The findings - in work done with zebrafish - were just published in the Journal of Lipid Research. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health. The research showed that zebrafish fed a diet deficient in vitamin E throughout their life had about 30 percent lower levels of DHA-PC, which is a ...

PITTSBURGH, April, 13, 2015 - A serendipitous combination of technology and scientific discovery, coupled with a hunch, allowed University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) researchers to reveal a previously invisible biological process that may be implicated in the rapid growth of some cancers. The project, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is described in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "I was so amazed by what I was seeing," said lead author Masahiro Shuda, Ph.D., research assistant professor in Pitt's ...

HOUSTON - (April 13, 2015) - For decades, scientists and physicians have puzzled over the fact that infants with the postnatal neurodevelopmental disorder Rett syndrome show symptoms of the disorder from one to two years after birth. In a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Huda Zoghbi and her colleagues from Baylor College of Medicine and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital, unravel the mystery by looking at when and how the causal gene involved (methyl-CpG binding protein 2 or MECP2) binds ...

Fresh insights into how bacteria protect themselves - by forming a waterproof raincoat - could help develop improved products to protect plants from disease. Researchers have discovered how communities of beneficial bacteria form a waterproof coating on the roots of plants, to protect them from microbes that could potentially cause plant disease. Their insights could lead to ways to control this shield and improve its efficiency, which could help curb the risk of unwanted infections in agricultural or garden plants, the team says. Scientists at the Universities of ...

A new analysis of the chemical make-up of meteorites has helped scientists work out when the Earth formed its layers. The research by an international team of scientists confirmed the Earth's first crust had formed around 4.5 billion years ago. The team measured the amount of the rare elements hafnium and lutetium in the mineral zircon in a meteorite that originated early in the solar system. "Meteorites that contain zircons are rare. We had been looking for an old meteorite with large zircons, about 50 microns long, that contained enough hafnium for precise analysis," ...

Diversity of life abounds on Earth, and there's no need to look any farther than the ocean's surface for proof. There are over 200,000 species of phytoplankton alone, and all of those species of microscopic marine plants that form the base of the marine food web need the same basic resources to grow--light and nutrients. A study by a team of scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), University of Rhode Island (URI), and Columbia University, published April 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals how species of diatoms--one ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - One of the brain's main jobs is information processing - what is critical, however, is that information in the brain gets transferred to the right places at the right times. Research on large-scale brain networks by the University of Michigan Medical School reveals that "hubs" in the brain - highly connected regions that like hubs of the airport system - tend to consistently attract information flow. "Understanding how information transfer occurs in the brain is critical, especially if network hubs are taken off line by anesthesia, tumor or stroke," ...

This news release is available in German. How can a pleasant vehicle climate be achieved efficiently? Researchers at the Technische Universität München (TUM) pursued this question in the context of the research project Visio.M funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) with a total of 7.1 million euro. The results of their research show that the potential of energy efficient air conditioning is all but exhausted. And this applies also to gasoline powered cars. Inefficiency has its advantages, too: In the past, waste heat ...

Researchers are beginning to explore whether the genetics of patients who experience a placebo effect are different from those of patients who don't. It's well known that people can feel better if they believe they are receiving treatment, but the biological pathways involved are relatively unexplored. In a new review, publishing April 13 in Trends in Molecular Medicine, scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center discuss what we know as well as possible ethical issues related to conducting genetic tests to determine whether a patient is a placebo responder. "Understanding ...

A new strategy to rule-out and rule-in heart attacks in emergency departments will help physicians treat patients faster, found a clinical trial published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Acute myocardial infarction (MI) is a common cause of death and disability around the world. Early diagnosis is critical for treatment and survival. Swiss and Spanish researchers conducted a clinical trial to determine whether a new technique, previously tested in a small pilot study, would be effective in determining whether a patient has had a heart attack. They enrolled ...

Family physicians have an important role in advising women about the benefits and risks of egg freezing, argues an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "With growing public awareness of social egg freezing, Canadian women may increasingly approach physicians in search of information and advice about the procedure," writes Dr. Angel Petropanagos, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, with coauthors Alana Cattapan, Françoise Baylis and Arthur Leader. "Family physicians are uniquely positioned at the front lines of medical ...

Melanoma cells become drug resistant by using surrounding healthy cells to provide a 'safe haven' from treatment, according to new research* published in Cancer Cell today (Monday). Around half of melanomas are caused by a mutation in a gene called BRAF. Drugs called BRAF inhibitors treat these melanomas by targeting the faulty gene. But these cancers can quickly develop resistance to these targeted treatments. Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute, funded by Cancer Research UK, and at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute have discovered that a side effect ...

A drug with the potential to reverse resistance to immunotherapy has been developed by scientists at the University of Southampton. It has shown great promise in pre-clinical models and will be available to patients with certain leukaemias and non-Hodgkin lymphomas in clinical trials later this year. Targeted drugs made from engineered immune proteins - called monoclonal antibodies - have revolutionised treatment for several types of cancer in recent years. They work by sticking to specific proteins found on the surface of cancer cells, flagging them up to be killed by ...

BOSTON -Placebos have helped to ease symptoms of illness for centuries and have been a fundamental component of clinical research to test new drug therapies for more than 70 years. But why some people respond to placebos and others do not remains under debate. With the advent of genomics, researchers are learning that placebo responses are modified by a person's genetics, a discovery that raises important new questions regarding the role of the placebo in patient care and in drug development: How many genetic biomarkers exist? Can the medical field harness the placebo ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Through his latest research, Javier Polavieja, a professor Sociology in the Social Sciences Department who holds a UC3M- Santander Named Chair of (Cátedra de Excelencia), has shown how European women who emigrate to other countries within the same continent take the cultural norms of their home countries with them. Those norms are decisive when it comes to determining their work behavior. To reach this conclusion, the researcher compared the attitudes of over three thousand immigrant women from some twenty European countries ...

This news release is available in French. Dancing the Argentine tango could have potential benefits for people at certain stages in the development of Parkinson's disease (PD), according to findings in a new study by researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -The Neuro, McGill University and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. The study looked at changes in patients' motor abilities following a 12-week tango course, and is also the first study to assess the effect that tango has on non-motor symptoms. The study looked ...

A single intravenous dose of the osteoporosis drug zoledronic acid improved bone mineral density in a group of frail elderly women living in nursing homes and long-term-care facilities, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. Nearly 2 million frail elderly Americans live in long-term care facilities and many of them have osteoporosis and bone fracture rates higher than less impaired elderly individuals. A hip fracture can be dire, decreasing mobility, independence and often leading to death, according to background in the study. Susan L. ...

Pediatric readiness at emergency departments (EDs) throughout the United States appears to have improved based on self-reported online assessments of compliance with national guidelines, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics. The importance of EDs maintaining a state of readiness to care for children cannot be overemphasized because day-to-day readiness affects disaster planning and response and patient safety. The Emergency Nurses Association joined the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Emergency Physicians in cosponsoring ...

BOSTON - Targeted cancer therapies work by blocking a single oncogenic pathway to halt tumor growth. But because cancerous tumors have the unique ability to activate alternative pathways, they are often able to evade these therapies -- and regrow. Moreover, tumors contain a small portion of cancer stem cells that are believed to be responsible for tumor initiation, metastasis and drug resistance. Thus, eradicating cancer stem cells may be critical for achieving long-lasting remission, but there are no drugs available that specifically attack cancer stem cells. Now a research ...

Popular North Sea fish such as haddock, plaice and lemon sole could become less common on our menus because they will be constrained to preferred habitat as seas warm, according to a study published today in Nature Climate Change. Fish distributions are limited by water temperature and some species can only thrive in certain habitats and depths. In the last 40 years the North Sea has warmed four times faster than the global average and further warming is predicted over the coming century, leading fisheries scientists to study how this will impact on commercial species. The ...

About a quarter of all atrial fibrillation (AF) patients at the lowest risk for stroke receive unnecessary blood thinners from cardiology specialists, according to UCSF researchers, and these providers must be made aware of the resulting potential health risks. Their research letter appears online and will be in the June 1 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. "The irony is that there is a general push to get providers to prescribe these drugs, and they are also generally under-prescribed among many AF patients who actually need them," said senior author Gregory Marcus, ...

MADISON, Wis. - Take a material that is a focus of interest in the quest for advanced solar cells. Discover a "freshman chemistry level" technique for growing that material into high-efficiency, ultra-small lasers. The result, disclosed today [Monday, April 13] in Nature Materials, is a shortcut to lasers that are extremely efficient and able to create many colors of light. That makes these tiny lasers suitable for miniature optoelectronics, computers and sensors. "We are working with a class of fascinating materials called organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites that ...

Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), a drug withdrawal syndrome in infants following birth, has historically been associated with illicit drug use among pregnant women. But a study by a team at Vanderbilt University Medical Center shows that pregnant women are commonly being prescribed opioids -- narcotic pain relievers such as hydrocodone -- which results in an increased likelihood of NAS. In addition, the study found that opioid type and duration of exposure combined with tobacco use or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor use (for treating depression and anxiety) ...

ARGONNE, Ill. - Scientists have developed a new approach that combines ptychographic X-ray imaging and fluorescence microscopy to study the important role trace elements play in biological functions on hydrated cells. A team of researchers using the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility at Argonne National Laboratory, demonstrated unparalleled sensitivity for measuring the distribution of trace elements in thicker specimens at cryogenic temperatures, in this case at about 260 degrees below Fahrenheit. Trace metals are important ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- When people find out -- usually from a diagnostic scan looking at something else -- that they have a lesion in their pancreas that could morph into pancreatic cancer, they can panic. They insist on having frequent CT scans and biopsies to monitor the lesion, or they ask for surgery. Physicians also don't know if these abnormalities are dangerous, so the patients end up in surgery having part of their pancreas removed. Often the lesion is nothing to worry about. But a team of international physicians, led by researchers at Mayo Clinic's campus in ...