June 16, 2014 – Specialists who treat prostate cancer agree that active surveillance is an effective option—yet most don't recommend it when appropriate for their own patients, according to a study in the July issue of Medical Care . The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins , a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Rather, urologists are more likely to recommend surgery and radiation oncologists are more likely to recommend radiation therapy—the treatments provided by their own specialties. "Given the growing concerns about the overtreatment of prostate ...

A randomized controlled trial has found that cryoprobes, which are tools that apply extreme cold to tissues, are better than conventional forceps for performing so-called transbronchial lung biopsies in patients who are being assessed for certain lung conditions. Cryoprobes allowed for improved diagnosis of interstitial lung diseases because they collected larger sized samples that were of higher quality. "These positive results are very promising although larger multicenter randomized trials are required to confirm the benefits and safety profile for this technique," ...

Due to their previously discovered fractal nature, financial data patterns are self-similar when scaling up. New research shows that the most extreme events in financial data dynamics—reflected in very large price moves—are incompatible with multi-fractal scaling. These findings have been published in EPJ B by physicist Elena Green from the National University of Ireland in Maynooth and colleagues. Understanding the multi-fractal structure of financially sound markets could, ultimately, help in identifying structural signs of impending extreme events. The concept of multi-fractality—referring ...

Land use policies and preferential tax treatment for housing – in the form of federal income tax deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes – have increased carbon emissions in the United States by about 2.7 percent, almost 6 percent annually in new home construction, according to a new Georgia State University study. Economist Kyle Mangum, an assistant professor in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, measures the effect of various housing policies on energy use and carbon output in "The Global Effects of Housing Policy," which he recently presented at ...

Using a worm's contracting and expanding motion, researchers have designed a way for gels to swim in water. The advance, which is described in a Journal of Applied Polymer Science paper, involves the use of a hand-held laser to shrink and swell polymer gels comprised mostly of water. "This new method of mobility may allow such hydrogels to be used as environmental and biotechnological tools by allowing them to explore surface waters to combat toxic elements or travel within cavities inside the human body," said co-author Dr. Lilit Yeghiazarian. INFORMATION: ...

An infrared image from NOAA's GOES-West satellite showed what appeared to be a ghostly ring of clouds and no convection in former Hurricane Cristina on Monday, June 16 as the system weakened to a remnant low pressure area. Convection is rising air that forms the thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone and when there is none, there are no thunderstorms to keep it going. That's exactly what happened to Cristina in the Eastern Pacific Ocean on Sunday, June 15. At 11 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. PDT) on Sunday, June 15, Cristina had weakened to a tropical depression near latitude ...

Physicists at the University of Rochester have created a silicon nanocavity that allows light to be trapped longer than in other similarly-sized optical cavities. An innovative design approach, which mimics evolutionary biology, allowed them to achieve a 10-fold improvement on the performance of previous nanocavities. In a paper published in Applied Physics Letters today and featured on the cover, the scientists demonstrate they have confined light in a nanocavity – a nanostructured region of a silicon wafer – for nanoseconds. Typically light would travel several meters ...

A clinical trial involving nearly 300 Chinese men and women residing in one of China's most polluted regions found that daily consumption of a half cup of broccoli sprout beverage produced rapid, significant and sustained higher levels of excretion of benzene, a known human carcinogen, and acrolein, a lung irritant. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, working with colleagues at several U.S. and Chinese institutions, used the broccoli sprout beverage to provide sulforaphane, a plant compound already demonstrated to have cancer preventive ...

In their investigations or so-called genome-wide association studies, the team of researchers compared the genetic profile of study participants to the forced vital capacity (FVC), a volume parameter of lung function. Six gene loci here displayed a clear association with the FVC values. Involvement in lung development or certain pulmonary diseases is furthermore suspected for these genes. Better understanding of the association between genes, lung function and lung diseases The identified genes open up new molecular biological approaches for a better understanding of ...

WASHINGTON - Kindergarteners from lower-income families who were babies when their mothers went to work outside the home fare as well as or even better than children who had stay-at-home moms, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. This finding, in a study published in APA's journal Developmental Psychology, is contrary to the findings of previous studies of children born two to three decades ago. Family income is apparently a key factor, with the new research finding children from low-income families had slightly higher cognitive ...

A London School of Economics researcher examining the public and private dangers of drugs argues against demonizing e-cigarettes in a presentation being given at a conference of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). He also calls on public officials to recognize that alcohol causes greater harm than other recreational drugs and more public attention should be paid to controlling its harmful effects. Lawrence D. Phillips, an emeritus professor at the London School of Economics, will present his research group's findings about the relative ...

T cells use a novel mechanism to fight leukemia. They may recognize unique lipids produced by cancer cells and kill tumor cells expressing these lipid molecules. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Basel shows that a tumor-associated lipid stimulates specific T cells, which efficiently kill leukemia cells both in vitro and in animal models. The results have been published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Leukemias are cancer diseases affecting blood cells . Acute leukemias prevent development of normal bold cells and thereby are severe life-threatening ...

DALLAS – June 16, 2014 – A mechanism that could underlie the development of cells that drive asthma and allergies has been uncovered by immunology researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Asthma and allergies are both driven by an inappropriate activation of the immune system, primarily a subtype of white blood cells known as T helper 2 cells, or Th2 cells. These cells are normally responsible for defense against parasites, but are also the main culprits behind the symptoms of asthma and allergies. Dr. David Farrar, Associate Professor of Immunology and Molecular ...

NEW YORK, NY (16 June 2014) — Studies in Family Planning, a leading journal published by the Population Council, released "Unmet Need for Family Planning"—a special issue featuring ten articles, including a comprehensive introduction to the topic of unmet need. Distinguished researchers explore trends related to unmet need for contraception, and many articles point to practical strategies for increasing contraceptive knowledge and uptake, and for overcoming barriers that prevent women from practicing contraception. "Unmet need has been an important indicator for measuring ...

Tropical storm Hagibis only lived through 6 bulletins issued by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in its short lifetime in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. The final bulletin was issued on June 15 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) after Hagibis made landfall in China. Hagibis was born in the South China Sea on June 14 at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT) near 20.7 north latitude and 117.0 east longitude, about 183 nautical miles east-southeast of Hong Kong when a low pressure system quickly consolidated and maximum sustained winds jumped to 35 knots (40 mph/62 kph). Hagibis is the seventh ...

Before it can fertilize an egg, a sperm has to bind to and bore through an outer egg layer known as the zona pellucida. Despite decades of research, some of the biological mechanisms behind this process remain unclear. A study in The Journal of Cell Biology now identifies the protein in the zona pellucida that sperm latch onto. The zona pellucida protects the egg and the early embryo before implantation. Its structure seems simple—in humans it contains four kinds of glycoproteins, and in mice it only contains three. But researchers haven't been able to identify the sperm's ...

At 33, conflicts in the world last year increased by one compared to 2012. This is reported by peace researchers at Uppsala University's Conflict Data Program. The number has remained stable over the past decade. 2012 saw an increase in the number of battle-related deaths with the number of casualties in Syria completely overshadowing any other ongoing conflict. In 2012, two out of five people dying in battles, died in Syria. The new dataset is described by peace researchers at Uppsala University's Conflict Data Program (UCDP) in an article which will soon be published ...

Philadelphia, PA, June 16, 2014 – The amygdala is a key "fear center" in the brain. Alterations in the development of the amygdala during childhood may have an important influence on the development of anxiety problems, reports a new study in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry. Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine recruited 76 children, 7 to 9 years of age, a period when anxiety-related traits and symptoms can first be reliably identified. The children's parents completed assessments designed to measure the anxiety levels of the children, ...

There are indications that unborn children who are exposed to severe stress levels, have an increased risk of becoming overweight or developing obesity as adults. This is shown by a new registry study from Aarhus University published in PloS ONE. The researchers have previously shown that severe stress experienced by pregnant women can lead to weight problems for children between 10 and 13 years; however, a correlation between the mother's level of stress during pregnancy and the risk of developing overweight or obesity as an adult is new: "Overall our results indicate ...

US researchers have carried out an environmental lifecycle assessment of 2-megawatt wind turbines mooted for a large wind farm in the US Pacific Northwest. Writing in the International Journal of Sustainable Manufacturing, they conclude that in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online. Wind turbines are frequently touted as the answer to sustainable electricity production ...

Taxation in the UK has become increasingly regressive since the financial crisis, particularly since the coalition government came to office, according to academics at the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI). The latest evidence on tax revenue shows that progressive taxes such as income tax and capital gains tax contribute 54 per cent of total tax receipts, down from 58 per cent five years earlier. In contrast, regressive taxes such as VAT contribute 28 per cent of total tax receipts, an increase from 25 per cent.Tax Research found that of all the ...

IDIBELL researchers, led by the director of the Program for Epigenetics and Cancer Biology, ICREA researcher and Professor of Genetics at the University of Barcelona, Manel Esteller, have shown that a combination of effective drugs for Parkinson's disease in mice that are used as a model of human Rett syndrome reduces some of the symptoms associated with this disease. The results of the study are published in the journal Neurophsycopharmacology Second leading cause of mental retardation in females Rett syndrome is the second most common cause of mental retardation in ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Most research examining growing income inequality in the United States has focused on economic causes, for seemingly obvious reasons. But a new study suggests that a different cause – the politically induced decline in the strength of worker unions – may play a much more pivotal role than previously understood. In fact, the role that union decline has played in growing income inequality may actually be larger than many of the favorite explanations offered by economists, such as the education gap in the United States. Among their contributions to income ...

New Rochelle, NY, June 14, 2014—The Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare) is dramatically changing health care delivery in the U.S. Specific parts of the new law, which will be phased in through 2020, will have a significant impact on patients with diabetes and prediabetes, as explored in a comprehensive Review article published in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics (DTT), a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the DTT website at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/dia.2014.0171. In "Diabetes ...

Researchers at the University of Florida, USA, led by Dr. K. Wang have demonstrated that inhibition of Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) and subsequent cofilin dephosphorylation is mediating neurite outgrowth in PC12 cells. The lack of axonal regeneration in adult central nervous system (CNS) is one of the main cause of neurodegenerative disorders. Thus ROCK inhibition mediated neurite outgrowth is clinically relevant to treat CNS diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury and stroke (Zhang et al., 2006). In a follow up study by Prof. W.S. ...