SEATTLE, WA – The common elbow surgery made famous by Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher, Tommy John, definitely does its job to return pitchers to the mound, but risks for having the surgery may be able to be recognized earlier in a player's career, say researchers presenting their work at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting today. The study was the largest cohort of MLB pitchers, to date, that have undergone UCL reconstruction. "Our results suggest that UCL reconstructive surgery does a tremendous job in allowing players to ...

SEATTLE, WA – Young patients who wait for ACL surgery may be at increased risk for secondary knee injuries, according to research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting. The study adds to existing research noting the risk of secondary meniscal and chondral injuries in pediatric patients. "In reviewing records of young patients who received ACL reconstructions, our data showed higher rates and severity of secondary meniscus injuries when surgery is delayed," noted lead author Allen F. Anderson, MD, from the Tennessee ...

SEATTLE, WA – College athletes experiencing in-season shoulder instability regularly return to play within one week of injury, but developed recurrent instability in 63% of cases, according to research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting. This latest information may help guide team physicians in providing the most optimal treatment plans for injured players. "We examined 45 athletes who suffered an anterior shoulder instability event, and found that 33 (73%) returned to play for at least part of the season after ...

SEATTLE, WA – Shoulder instability is a common injury in football players but the rate of return to play has not been regularly determined following surgery. A new study, discussed at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting today details that return rates for NFL players is approximately 90 percent no matter what the stabilization procedure (open vs. arthroscopic). "Our study highlighted the success rate of return to play following shoulder stabilization surgery. Age, number of games before surgery, and career length were not statistically ...

A recent study by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign provides new insights on the physical mechanisms governing the interplay of spin and heat at the nanoscale, and addresses the fundamental limits of ultrafast spintronic devices for data storage and information processing. "Electrons carry a charge as well as spin-angular momentum. In a typical charge current, electrons' spin-angular-momentum is random so there is no spin current," explained David Cahill, a professor of materials science and engineering at Illinois. "However when electrons ...

A hard drive stores bits in the form of tiny magnetic domains. The directions of the magnetic north and south poles of these domains, which are referred to as the magnetization, determine whether they are a 0 or a 1. Data is stored by changing the direction of the magnetization of the associated bits. At present this is done using a write head to create a local magnetic field, which makes a bit change direction. Limit reached The stronger the local magnetic field, the faster the switch takes place. But this is subject to a limit which has now almost been reached. "The ...

WASHINGTON, DC (July 10, 2014) — If you think winning is one of the key determinants that makes organized sports fun for kids think again: Winning along with other mental bonuses ranked near the bottom of 81 determinants of fun, each of which falls into one of 11 big fun factors, according to a new study. Despite the common belief that winning is all important when it comes to the "fun" factor, very little research had been done to actually identify and quantify what goes into this elusive concept—until now. The results of this study might help researchers develop proven ...

Cincinnati, OH, July 10, 2014 -- The World Health Organization recommends that youth participate in a minimum of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) each day. Studies have shown that youth experience most of their MVPA during school hours. Therefore, it stands to reason that increasing outdoor time after school hours would increase MVPA. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers confirmed that time spent outdoors after school was positively associated with MVPA. Drs. Lee Schaefer and Jonathan McGavock, ...

Australian researchers reveal that sudden, acute episodes of low back pain are not linked to weather conditions such as temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind direction and precipitation. Findings published in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), indicate that the risk of low back pain slightly increases with higher wind speed or wind gusts, but was not clinically significant. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) nearly everyone experiences low back pain at some point in their life, making it the most prevalent ...

Philadelphia, PA, July 10, 2014 – Inflammatory diseases can occur simultaneously in distinct sites in the same patient, complicating treatment because a medication effective for one disorder may exacerbate the other. One such example is the anti-arthritic medication dexamethasone, which alleviates joint disease but can worsen periodontal bone disease. A study in the August issue of The American Journal of Pathology highlights the effects of a new class of anti-arthritic drugs, specifically DTrp8-ɣMSH (DTrp), that acts via the melanocortin (MC) system to reduce both ...

TORONTO, July 10, 2014 – For the first time, researchers have access to detailed information about how an urban Aboriginal population in Canada uses health care. A new study, called Our Health Counts, uses this health database to clearly demonstrate the unique challenges faced by urban Aboriginal people in Canada – according to researchers at St. Michael's Hospital. The findings, published today in BMJ Open, illustrate striking disparities between urban First Nations individuals and the general population. Researchers interviewed 554 First Nations adults in Hamilton, ...

While Tofu is considered a healthy source of protein, that's not why the Millennials are eating it, according to a new study to be presented at Tops Club Inc.'s annual International Recognition Days convention July 10th in Milwaukee. Tofu's new champion recruits are 20-something women who want dishes that are quick, easy to cook and that can help keep them trim. "They basically seem to care less about any health benefits of Tofu," said lead Cornell researcher Brian Wansink, "They eat it to look good and because it's quick to cook and it's filling." The study of 502 ...

New research has uncovered how a complex protein pivotal in the development of cancer, viral infection and autoimmune diseases is activated. The discovery answers a key question about one of the most widely-researched proteins in human biology, which has been the subject of tens of thousands of research papers and millions of pounds in research funding. Jiazhen Zhang, a research student in Professor Sir Philip Cohen's laboratory at the University of Dundee, uncovered how the protein complex, called NF-κB, is activated. The results are published today in the Biochemical ...

A number of studies suggest that children delivered by Caesarean section have a different intestinal flora than children delivered by natural birth. But it is still unknown why this is the case and what it means for the immune system. Researchers from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences therefore decided to scrutinise the impact of birth on the development of the immune system in a study of newborn mouse pups. The study shows that pups delivered by Caesarean section had developed a lower number of cells that strengthen the immune system, says Camilla Hartmann ...

Boston, MA -- Vasectomy was associated with a small increased risk of prostate cancer, and a stronger risk for advanced or lethal prostate cancer according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The researchers found that the association remained even among men who received regular PSA screening, suggesting the increased risk of lethal cancer cannot be explained by diagnostic bias. It is the largest and most comprehensive study to date to look at the link between vasectomy and prostate cancer. The study appears online July 7, 2014 in Journal of Clinical ...

Bacteria found in the bladders of healthy women differ from bacteria in women with a common form of incontinence, according to researchers from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. These findings, published July 9, 2014, in the American Society for Microbiology's online journal mBio, suggest that bacterial communities may play a role in female urinary health. "Urgency urinary incontinence (UUI) is a common, yet poorly understood, condition with symptoms similar to urinary tract infections," said Alan Wolfe, PhD, co-investigator and professor of Microbiology ...

As anybody who has started a campfire by rubbing sticks knows, friction generates heat. Now, computer modeling by NASA scientists shows that friction could be the key to survival for some distant Earth-sized planets traveling in dangerous orbits. The findings are consistent with observations that Earth-sized planets appear to be very common in other star systems. Although heat can be a destructive force for some planets, the right amount of friction, and therefore heat, can be helpful and perhaps create conditions for habitability. "We found some unexpected good news ...

Understanding the sun from afar isn't easy. How do you figure out what powers solar flares – the intense bursts of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots – when you must rely on observing only the light and particles that make their way to near-Earth's orbit? One answer: you get closer. NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft -- which orbits Mercury, and so is as close as 28 million miles from the sun versus Earth's 93 million miles -- is near enough to the sun to detect solar neutrons that are created in solar flares. The average lifetime for ...

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, July 9, 2014 – The spread of damaging invasive forest pests is only partially powered by the insects' own wings. People moving firewood for camping can hasten and widen the insects' spread and resulting forest destruction. A new U.S. Forest Service study gives state planners a tool for anticipating the most likely route of human-assisted spread they can use to enhance survey and public education efforts. The study, "Using a Network Model to Assess Risk of Forest Pest Spread via Recreational Travel," was published July 9 in the journal PLOS ...

Scientists from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have discovered that NANOG, an essential gene for embryonic stem cells, also regulates cell division in stratified epithelia—those that form part of the epidermis of the skin or cover the oesophagus or the vagina—in adult organisms. According to the conclusions of the study, published in the journal Nature Communications, this factor could also play a role in the formation of tumours derived from stratified epithelia of the oesophagus and skin. The pluripotency factor NANOG is active during just two days ...

LA JOLLA-The ability to switch out one gene for another in a line of living stem cells has only crossed from science fiction to reality within this decade. As with any new technology, it brings with it both promise--the hope of fixing disease-causing genes in humans, for example--as well as questions and safety concerns. Now, Salk scientists have put one of those concerns to rest: using gene-editing techniques on stem cells doesn't increase the overall occurrence of mutations in the cells. The new results were published July 3 in the journal Cell Stem Cell. "The ability ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Regulated deer hunts in Indiana state parks have helped restore the health of forests suffering from decades of damage caused by overabundant populations of white-tailed deer, a Purdue study shows. A research team led by Michael Jenkins, associate professor of forest ecology, found that a 17-year-long Indiana Department of Natural Resources policy of organizing hunts in state parks has successfully spurred the regrowth of native tree seedlings, herbs and wildflowers rendered scarce by browsing deer. Jenkins said that while hunting may be unpopular ...

Using an innovative tool that captures heretofore hidden ways that cells are regulated, scientists at Rockefeller University have identified a protein that makes breast cancer cells more likely to metastasize. What's more, the protein appears to trigger cancer's spread in part by blocking two other proteins that are normally linked to neurodegeneration, a finding that suggests these two disease processes could have unexpected ties. The study, which appears in the July 10 issue of Nature, points to the possibility of new cancer therapies that target this "master regulator" ...

As climate change shifts the geographic ranges in which animals can be found, concern mounts over the effect it has on their parasites. Does an increased range for a host mean new territory for its parasites as well? Not necessarily, says a team of UC Santa Barbara scientists, including parasitologists Ryan Hechinger and Armand Kuris. In a study published in the Journal of Biogeography, Hechinger, Kuris and colleagues show that for some species, the opposite may happen: Hosts may actually lose their parasites when the hosts shift or increase their range. Theirs is one ...

Cellphone metadata has been in the news quite a bit lately, but the National Security Agency isn't the only organization that collects information about people's online behavior. Newly downloaded cellphone apps routinely ask to access your location information, your address book, or other apps, and of course, websites like Amazon or Netflix track your browsing history in the interest of making personalized recommendations. At the same time, a host of recent studies have demonstrated that it's shockingly easy to identify unnamed individuals in supposedly "anonymized" data ...