Black-footed ferrets, a critically endangered species native to North America, have renewed hope for future survival thanks to successful efforts by a coalition of conservationists, including scientists at Lincoln Park Zoo, to reproduce genetically important offspring using frozen semen from a ferret who has been dead for approximately 20 years. The sire, "Scarface," as he is affectionately called by the team, was one of the last 18 black-footed ferrets to exist in the world in the 1980s. Eight kits, including offspring of Scarface, were born recently, significantly increasing ...

One of the more heartbreaking realities of Alzheimer's is the moment when a loved one struggling with the disease no longer fully recognizes a family member or close friend who is caring for them. Now, new research from Washington University in St. Louis has identified a novel learning and memory brain network that processes incoming information based on whether it's something we've experienced previously or is deemed to be altogether new and unknown, helping us recognize, for instance, whether the face before us is that of a familiar friend or a complete stranger. Forthcoming ...

Multigene testing of women negative for BRCA1 and BRCA2 found some of them harbored other harmful genetic mutations, most commonly moderate-risk breast and ovarian cancer genes and Lynch syndrome genes, which increase ovarian cancer risk, according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology. Multigene panel genetic tests are increasingly recommended for patients evaluated for a predisposition to hereditary breast/ovarian cancer (HBOC). However, the rapid introduction of these tests has raised concerns because many of the tested genes are low- to moderate-risk genes ...

A study by researchers at three academic medical centers has shown that screening women with a suspected risk of hereditary breast or ovarian cancer for risk-associated genes other than BRCA1 and 2 provides information that can change clinical recommendations for patients and their family members. The report from a team led by a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center investigator is being published in the August issue of JAMA Oncology. "The traditional approach has been to test most women with suspected hereditary risk for breast and/or ovarian cancer for ...

A University of Manchester study which followed up 38,415 people admitted to hospital with self-harm has, for the first time, investigated the association between the treatment patients receive in hospital and their subsequent risk of death. Published in the Lancet Psychiatry, the study looked at adults who had self-harmed and attended five hospital emergency departments in Manchester, Oxford and Derby between 2000 and 2010. The researchers found that within 12 months, 261 had died by suicide and a further 832 had died from other causes. The study also examined the ...

Organ transplant recipients are twice as likely to develop melanoma as people who do not undergo a transplant, and three times more likely to die of the dangerous skin cancer, suggests new research led by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health student. The findings, reported Aug. 13 in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, suggest that the immunosuppressive medications that transplant recipients receive to keep them from rejecting their new organs -- especially the high doses administered at the time of transplant -- may make them more susceptible to later ...

A study on granting local sales people pricing discretion shows that profits improve by up to 11% when local sales forces are empowered to negotiate with customers. However a centralized system that uses optimization techniques and limits local sales discretion improves profits still further, by an additional 20%. The research appears in the current issue of Management Science, a publication of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the leading professional association in analytics and operations research. "This hybrid approach balances ...

Summary: Children born with the major congenital heart defect hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) often must undergo a series of corrective surgeries beginning at birth. While most have the standard three-stage Norwood procedure, a hybrid strategy has been introduced to offset some disadvantages associated with the Norwood surgeries. In a report in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, investigators compare whether outcomes can be improved if an arterial shunt is used as a source of pulmonary blood flow rather than the more conventional venous shunt as ...

For smokers, the number of cigarettes smoked per day and current body mass index are predictive of changes in weight after quitting smoking, according to researchers at Penn State College of Medicine. Quitting smoking may lead to some weight gain but how much weight gain depends on the individual. Previous research shows that for some it can be just a few pounds, but for others it can be more than 25 pounds. Unfortunately, factors that can help predict the amount of weight a smoker may gain are not well understood. "Many smokers are concerned about gaining weight after ...

PHOENIX -- A multicenter study involving Mayo Clinic researchers has found that the National Cancer Institute's Patient Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE), was accurate, reliable and responsive, compared to other, established patient-reported and clinical measures. The study is published today in the journal JAMA Oncology. "In most cancer clinical trials, information on side effects is collected by providers who have limited time with their patients and current patient questionnaires are limited in scope and depth," ...

Early humans were the dominant cause of the extinction of a variety of species of giant beasts, new research has revealed. Scientists at the universities of Exeter and Cambridge claim their research settles a prolonged debate over whether mankind or climate change was the dominant cause of the demise of massive creatures in the time of the sabretooth tiger, the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhino and the giant armadillo. Known collectively as megafauna, most of the largest mammals ever to roam the earth were wiped out over the last 80,000 years, and were all extinct by ...

The discovery of antidepressant drugs in the 1950s led to the first biochemical hypothesis of depression, known as the monoamine hypothesis. This hypothesis proposes that an imbalance of certain brain chemicals is the key cause of depression. Research has investigated whether and to what degree the "reward and pleasure" chemical dopamine and, more recently, the "happiness" chemical serotonin, could be the neurotransmitters involved in the malady. However, the monoamine hypothesis does not seem to fully explain the complexity of human depression. Now a new study offers one ...

August 13, 2015--A visit to the dentist has the potential to be more than a checkup of our teeth as patients are increasingly screened for medical conditions like heart disease and diabetes. A new study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health focuses on dental screenings for drug misuse, finding 77 percent of dentists ask patients about illicit drug use, and 54 percent of dentists believe that such screenings should be their responsibility. Results of the study are online in the journal Addiction. "There are a sizeable number of people ...

TORONTO, (Aug. 13, 2015) - Low birth weight and preterm birth appear to increase the risk of schizophrenia among individuals with a genetic condition called the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, a new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows. The research, published in Genetics in Medicine, is "...part of ongoing efforts among schizophrenia researchers to predict and prevent illness at the earliest stages possible," says senior author Dr. Anne Bassett, Clinician-Scientist in CAMH's Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute and Canada Research ...

MANHATTAN, Kansas -- A Kansas State University biochemistry professor has reached a milestone in building a better biofuel: producing high levels of lipids with modified properties in oil seeds. Timothy Durrett, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, and collaborators at Michigan State University and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln have modified Camelina sativa -- a nonfood oilseed crop -- and produced the highest levels of modified seed lipids to date. By modifying the oilseed biochemistry in camelina, the researchers have achieved very high ...

CLEMSON, S.C. -- Parishioners who participate in small groups within a religious congregation are generally more likely to be civically engaged than their fellow worshipers unless a church has high overall small-group participation, according to research recently released by Clemson and Louisiana State universities. The study, "Small groups, contexts, and civic engagement: A multilevel analysis of United States Congregational Life Survey data," published in the July issue of the journal Social Science Research, reveals that the positive effect small-group participation ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A report concludes that blooms of toxic cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, are a poorly monitored and underappreciated risk to recreational and drinking water quality in the United States, and may increasingly pose a global health threat. Several factors are contributing to the concern. Temperatures and carbon dioxide levels have risen, many rivers have been dammed worldwide, and wastewater nutrients or agricultural fertilizers in various situations can cause problems in rivers, lakes and reservoirs. No testing for cyanobacteria is mandated by state ...

SEATTLE, WA, AUGUST 13, 2015 - Advances in the field of statistics are helping to unlock the mysteries of the human microbiome--the vast collection of microorganisms living in and on the bodies of humans, said Katherine Pollard, a statistician and biome expert, during a session today at the 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM 2015) in Seattle. Pollard, senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, delivered a presentation titled "Estimating Taxonomic and Functional Diversity ...

SEATTLE, WA, AUGUST 13, 2015 - The results of the first population survey of Mogadishu, Somalia, conducted in a quarter century were presented today at a session of the 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM 2015) in Seattle. Jesse Driscoll, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, presented the results in an invited presentation titled "Representative Surveys in Insecure Environments: A Case Study of Mogadishu, Somalia." The representative survey, conducted in March 2012, combined the use of smartphone technology and remote-sensing ...

12.08.2015: When the western part of the super-continent Gondwana broke up around 130 Million years ago, today's Africa and South-America started to separate and the South Atlantic was born. It is commonly assumed that enormous masses of magma ascended from the deep mantle up to higher levels, and that this hot mantle plume (the Tristan mantle plume) weakened the continental lithosphere, eventually causing the break-up of the continental plate of Gondwana. A group of German scientists are now questioning this theory. On the basis of seismic measurements published in ...

This news release is available in German. Kalmar/Halle(Saale). Why some species of plants and animals vary more in number than others is a central issue in ecology. Now researchers at Linnaeus University in Sweden and from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have found an important finding to answer this question: Individual differences have a positive and stabilizing effect on the number of moths. Species with varying colour drawing are generally more numerous and fluctuate less in number from year to year. The results were recently published ...

Stillbirths have dropped by almost eight per cent in England since the smoking ban was introduced, research shows. The number of babies dying shortly after birth has also dropped by almost eight per cent, the study estimates. The findings add to growing evidence that anti-smoking laws have had significant benefits for infant and child health. Researchers led by the University of Edinburgh looked at information on more than ten million births in England between 1995 and 2011. Their findings suggest that almost 1500 stillbirths and newborn deaths were averted in ...

The team of Prof. Carsten Schmidt-Weber and Prof. Jan Gutermuth of the Center of Allergy & Environment (ZAUM) at Helmholtz Zentrum München and TU München investigated the influence of pollen extract of common ragweed, also known as Ambrosia artemisiifolia*, on B cells. These cells can produce immunoglobulin E (IgE**), the key trigger and an important diagnostic marker of allergic reactions. "We were able to show that pollen extract enhances the secretion of allergy driving IgE antibodies in vitro and in vivo", explains Dr. Sebastian Öder who is leading author ...

At home on the sofa, in a hospital bed, or in a care home: where a death takes place is always recorded on the death certificate. Until now, however, this information has never been collated and evaluated. In an Original Article in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztbl Int 112:496-504), Burkhard Dasch and his co-authors analyze for the first time the place of death records for Germany. What they found was that every second person died in a hospital; only one in four died at home. The study evaluated more than 24 000 death certificates ...

More and more mothers facing childbirth are asking for a cesarean. There are many reasons for this, ranging from the social and cultural to the personal, such as fear about the birth. A review article in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztbl 112: 489-95) by two Munich gynecologists, Ioannis Mylonas and Klaus Friese, considers the risks and benefits of cesarean delivery on maternal request. Delivery by cesarean section is much more popular than it used to be. In 1991 a little over one delivery in six was by cesarean; now it is almost ...