Following several years of research and collaboration, physicians and engineers at Johns Hopkins and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center say they have developed a computer platform that provides rapid, real-time feedback before and during facial transplant surgery, which may someday improve face-jaw-teeth alignment between donor and recipient. Surgeons performed the first successful transplant of facial features, including the jaw and teeth, in 2008, mainly relying on visual judgment. Since then, approximately 30 facial transplants have been done worldwide, ...

Brown dwarfs are relatively cool, dim objects that are difficult to detect and hard to classify. They are too massive to be planets, yet possess some planetlike characteristics; they are too small to sustain hydrogen fusion reactions at their cores, a defining characteristic of stars, yet they have starlike attributes. By observing a brown dwarf 20 light-years away using both radio and optical telescopes, a team led by Gregg Hallinan, assistant professor of astronomy at Caltech, has found another feature that makes these so-called failed stars more like supersized planets--they ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC - The stem cells in our gut divide so fast that they create a completely new population of epithelial cells every week. But this quick division is also why radiation and chemotherapy wreak havoc on the gastrointestinal systems of cancer patients - such therapies target rapidly dividing cells. Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center found that a rare type of stem cell is immune to radiation damage thanks to high levels of a gene called Sox9. The discovery, which was made in mice and published in the journal ...

Washington, DC--The Endocrine Society today issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) on strategies for treating Cushing's syndrome, a condition caused by overexposure to the hormone cortisol. The CPG, entitled "Treatment of Cushing's Syndrome: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline," was published online and will appear in the August 2015 print issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of the Endocrine Society. Cushing's syndrome occurs when a person has excess cortisol in the blood for an extended period, according ...

Enrolling in an insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act is only the first step for consumers to be actively engaged in their health care, according to a new analysis from RAND Corporation researchers. To understand the issues facing consumers as well as the payers, providers and support organizations who work directly with them, RAND researchers conducted phone-based interviews with insurance companies, physician groups and community support nonprofit organizations. The analysis of the interviews shows more work is necessary to support consumers past the point of ...

Kindergarteners' social-emotional skills are a significant predictor of their future education, employment and criminal activity, among other outcomes, according to Penn State researchers. In a study spanning nearly 20 years, kindergarten teachers were surveyed on their students' social competence. Once the kindergarteners reached their 20s, researchers followed up to see how the students were faring, socially and occupationally. Students demonstrating better prosocial behavior were more likely to have graduated college, to be gainfully employed and to not have been arrested ...

TORONTO, ON - People who have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, have twice the odds of having a generalized anxiety disorder at some point in their lives when compared to peers without IBD, according to a new study published by University of Toronto researchers. "Patients with IBD face substantial chronic physical problems associated with the disease," said lead-author Professor Esme Fuller-Thomson, Sandra Rotman Endowed Chair at the University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. "The additional burden of ...

Today the nonprofit Alliance for Aging Research released a white paper, Our Best Shot: Expanding Prevention through Vaccination in Older Adults, that provides a comprehensive overview of the factors that drive vaccination underutilization in seniors and offers recommendations on how industry, government, and health care experts can improve patient compliance. Although influenza, pneumococcal, tetanus, and shingles vaccines are routinely recommended for older adults, are cost-effective, are covered to varying degrees by health insurance, and prevent conditions that have ...

The coalescence of two black holes -- a very violent and exotic event -- is one of the most sought-after observations of modern astronomy. But, as these mergers emit no light of any kind, finding such elusive events has been impossible so far. Colliding black holes do, however, release a phenomenal amount of energy as gravitational waves. The first observatories capable of directly detecting these 'gravity signals' -- ripples in the fabric of spacetime first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago -- will begin observing the universe later this year. When the gravitational ...

Johns Hopkins researchers say their review of 128 medical case histories suggests that financial penalties imposed on Maryland hospitals based solely on the total number of patients who suffer blood clots in the lung or leg fail to account for clots that occur despite the consistent and proper use of the best preventive therapies. "We have a big problem with current pay-for-performance systems based on 'numbers-only' total counts of clots, because even when hospitals do everything they can to prevent venous thromboembolism events, they are still being dinged for patients ...

Women who were socially well integrated had a lower risk for suicide in a new analysis of data from the Nurses' Health Study, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry. Suicide is among the top 10 leading causes of death among middle-age women in the United States. Most of the work in the field emphasizes the psychiatric, psychological or biological determinants of suicide. Alexander C. Tsai, M.D., Ph.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and coauthors estimated the association between social integration and suicide using data from 72,607 ...

The boxfish's unique armor draws its strength from hexagon-shaped scales and the connections between them, engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have found. They describe their findings and the carapace of the boxfish (Lactoria cornuta) in the July 27 issue of the journal Acta Materialia. Engineers also describe how the structure of the boxfish could serve as inspiration for body armor, robots and even flexible electronics. "The boxfish is small and yet it survives in the ocean where it is surrounded by bigger, aggressive fish, at a depth of 50 to ...

Orlando, Fla. (July 29, 2015) - Visits to emergency departments by children with sports-related head injuries have skyrocketed in the past decade, and new research finds that many patients undergo unnecessary computed tomography or CT scans that expose them to radiation and increase the cost of treatment. Fifty-three percent of patients studied received a CT scan, but only four percent of those actually had traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) on their CT scans. The new study was published online in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. "Research highlighting the risk ...

Five years ago, the cost of rare-earth materials that are critical for today's electronics went through the roof. An export quota set by China, which mines most of the world's rare earths, caused the price run-up. Though short-lived, the occurrence spurred calls for developing mines outside China, but whether others can challenge the country's dominance remains to be seen, reports Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Melody Bomgardner, a senior editor at C&EN, notes that in the U.S., there is currently only one ...

GeoSpace Dusty comet releases mysterious clumps Images of an unusually dusty comet have revealed strange streaming clumps that could hold the secrets to how comets create their beautiful, sweeping, striated tails. Watch a video of Comet C/2011 L4, the comet profiled in a new study in Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physics. Eos.org Dissolved organic matter in the ocean carbon cycle Controversy leads to a better understanding of carbon cycling through a massive pool of organic matter dissolved in the Earth's oceans. New research papers Crustal deformation ...

For consumers searching for just the right sunblock this summer, the options can be overwhelming. But scientists are now turning to the natural sunscreen of algae -- which is also found in fish slime -- to make a novel kind of shield against the sun's rays that could protect not only people, but also textiles and outdoor materials. They report on their development in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Existing sunblock lotions typically work by either absorbing ultraviolet rays or physically blocking them. A variety of synthetic and natural compounds can ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN - Growing vegetables in greenhouses extends crop production seasons in northern latitudes, but the greenhouse environment is far from ideal for providing plants with optimal photosynthetic light. In fact, available photosynthetic daily light in greenhouses can be reduced by up to 50% or more by the structures' glazing material, superstructure, and shading. In northern latitudes, low light is considered the most limiting environmental factor in greenhouse vegetable production. For example, low light levels can result in the formation of loose heads and ...

To help address the global obesity epidemic, scientists are developing a new class of compounds called "micelle sequestrant polymers," or MSPs, that could prevent fat particles from getting absorbed in the body and thus potentially reduce weight gain. They report on their novel agents, which they tested on mice, in the ACS journal Biomacromolecules. Research has shown that worldwide, obesity rates have been climbing for years. Treatments for overweight and obesity include diet and exercise, surgery and prescription medications. But currently available drugs can have serious ...

HANNOVER, GERMANY -- "Cracking" is a problem for sweet cherry production wherever the high-value crop is grown. However, despite considerable research, the reason that this phenomenon occurs has not been clear. In a new study, Andreas Winkler, Max Ossenbrink, and Moritz Knoche reveal their discovery of what makes sweet cherries crack. Knoche, lead author of the study published in the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science, said the scientists from the Institute for Horticultural Production Systems at Leibniz University set out to investigate consequences ...

Wine-making is steeped in age-old traditions, but to address the threat of pests and concerns over heavy pesticide use, vintners are turning to science. With the goal of designing better grape breeds, scientists are parsing the differences between wild American grapes -- which make terrible wine but are pest-resistant -- and the less hardy grape species pressed for fine wines worldwide. They report their findings in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. With every sip of their preferred drink, wine lovers from across the globe are appreciating the taste of ...

With 2.5 million daily users, the Tor network is the world's most popular system for protecting Internet users' anonymity. For more than a decade, people living under repressive regimes have used Tor to conceal their Web-browsing habits from electronic surveillance, and websites hosting content that's been deemed subversive have used it to hide the locations of their servers. Researchers at MIT and the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) have now demonstrated a vulnerability in Tor's design. At the Usenix Security Symposium this summer, they show that an adversary ...

Two decades ago, the Brain Trauma Foundation published its first set of guidelines for treating traumatic brain injury. Now, a study by the Los Angeles County Trauma Consortium -- which includes several physicians from UCLA -- has found that compliance with those guidelines doesn't necessarily translate into better results for patients. In research published online by the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Surgery, the consortium analyzed 2009 and 2010 data from all 14 L.A. County trauma centers and found no evidence that compliance with the guidelines led to lower mortality ...

Researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute have spent years of medical sleuthing across three continents to uncover a brain surgery that changed history. After more than two-years of international investigation, the scientists have concluded that Napoleon likely would have conquered Russia in 1812 if not for the life-saving brain surgery performed on Russian general Mikhail Kutuzov by the French surgeon Jean Massot, who operated on Kutuzov after bullets twice passed through his head. "It's a story of how medicine changed the course of civilization," says Mark C. Preul, ...

Berlin, 29th July 2015 - Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of cancer in children. It can occur in various forms, differing not only by specific changes in the genetic material of the leukemia cells but also by their response to therapies. Now, an international team of scientists from Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hannover, Heidelberg, Kiel, and Zurich have succeeded in decoding the molecular characteristics of an as yet incurable subtype of leukemia, paving the way for new therapeutic approaches. Their results have been published in the current issue ...

Politicians, children, teachers, Europeans... what do they have in common? As discovered in a study led by Luca Piretti and his colleagues from SISSA (International School for Advanced Studies) of Trieste, they are all social groups, a special semantic category for the human brain that is closely linked with emotions. Until recently, most neuroscientists believed that the representation of knowledge in the brain was based on two distinct systems: one involved in representing animate objects (or, generally, anything organic), and the other for representing inanimate objects ...