Case Western Reserve University researchers have discovered that an existing drug used to help cancer patients has the potential to protect thousands of others from the often-deadly impact of vascular clots. In 2008, the Food and Drug Administration approved bortezomib (Velcade) to treat multiple myeloma, which is a type of bone cancer and mantle cell lymphoma — a particularly aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In addition to attacking cancer cells, the drug has been shown to help prevent clot development common to many forms of the disease. As hematologist Lalitha ...

PHILADELPHIA — Survivors of childhood cancers were hospitalized more often and for longer durations because of blood disorders and other problems, many years after cancer treatment was completed, compared with the general population, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Our findings demonstrate that childhood cancer survivors face ongoing problems that can lead to hospitalization, even for those who are decades past their original cancer diagnosis. This can negatively ...

A new study shows that walking reduces risk of functional limitation associated with knee osteoarthritis (OA). In fact, the study funded in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) journal, Arthritis Care & Research, suggests that walking 6,000 or more steps per day may protect those with or at risk of knee of OA from developing mobility issues, such as difficulty getting up from a chair and climbing stairs. Nearly 27 million Americans age 25 and older are diagnosed with OA according to a ...

People are often told to reduce their cholesterol to improve their heart health, but new research suggests that low cholesterol may increase kidney cancer patients' risk of dying from their disease. The findings, which are published in BJU International, indicate that cholesterol testing may help doctors as they monitor and treat patients with kidney cancer. Increasing evidence suggests that alterations in cholesterol and other lipids are associated with the development, progression, and prognosis of various cancers. To assess the situation as it relates to kidney cancer, ...

Much to the chagrin of gardeners, hikers, and virtually anyone enjoying the outdoors, one of the hazards of summer is picking up an itchy poison ivy rash. But researchers in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have found a natural and effective way to kill poison ivy using a naturally occurring fungus that grows on the fleshy tissue surrounding the plant's seed, potentially giving homeowners and forest managers the ability to rid landscapes of the pernicious pest. Their findings could make the maddening itch of the summer season a thing of the ...

In today's Information Age, it's easy get overwhelmed by online content. On YouTube alone, over 100 hours worth of video is uploaded every minute. Showcasing the most interesting content allows providers to convey a certain level of quality to its audiences and encourages users to stay on the website, consuming content and winning advertising dollars for its provider. However, this influx of information makes it difficult for both content providers and users to determine what is interesting and worth consuming. Due to the sheer volume of submitted content, some providers ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., June 11, 2013 – Spectrum Health is the first health system in Michigan and among the first in the nation to successfully implant a recently FDA-approved device that uses electric stimulation of the brain to treat adult epilepsy patients whose seizures have not responded to medication. The NeuroPace® Responsive Neurostimulation (RNS®) System is an implantable therapeutic device designed to detect abnormal electrical activity in the brain and respond by delivering imperceptible electrical stimulation to normalize brain activity before an individual ...

WASHINGTON, DC, June 11, 2014 — Adolescents tend to be more powerful in influencing their friends to start smoking than in helping them to quit, according to sociologists. In a study of adolescent friendship networks and smoking over time, the researchers found that friends exert influence on their peers to both start and quit smoking, but the influence to start is stronger. "What we found is that social influence matters — it leads nonsmoking friends into smoking and nonsmoking friends can turn smoking friends into nonsmokers," said Steven Haas, an associate professor ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Forgetful immune systems leave infants particularly prone to infections, according to a new Cornell University study. Upending the common theory that weak immune cells are to blame, the study has found that infants' immune systems actually respond to infection with more speed and strength than adults, but the immunities they create fail to last. Published in the Journal of Immunology, the discovery reveals a new angle immunizations could take in protecting infants and children from infectious diseases. "The perfect vaccine would be a single dose given ...

In a recently published study in the journal Experimental Physiology, Brazilian researchers have confirmed the importance of a specific group of neurons found in a region of the brain known as the retrotrapezoid nucleus (RTN) in detecting changes in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and in modulating the activity of the neuronal groups that control respiratory activity. Scientists from the Biomedical Sciences Institute of the University of São Paulo (USP) and the School of Dentistry at the São Paulo State University (Unesp) participated in the study. "CO2 is important for regulating ...

CHICAGO (June 1, 2014) – As central-line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) pose a danger to vulnerable patients, infection prevention and control experts released new practical recommendations to assist acute care hospitals in implementing and prioritizing prevention efforts. The guidance was published in the July issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology and produced in a collaborative effort led by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Hospital Association, the Association for ...

CHICAGO (June 11, 2014) – A new study found a nationwide effort to control carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) in Israel reduced CRE cases by improving compliance of infection control standards and using a coordinated intervention focused on long-term care facilities. The study was published in the July issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. "As the global threat of CRE continues to rise, there is a need to better control and understand this bacteria," said Debby Ben-David, MD, ...

Alexandria, Va. — In 2006, a fossil collector and his crew discovered a rare fossil on private land in Montana's Hell Creek Formation: the bones of two fully articulated dinosaurs that appeared to have died together, locked in battle. The fossil duo — a small, pony-sized carnivorous tyrannosaurid and a slightly larger herbivorous ceratopsian, both now preserved in plaster — became known as the "Montana Dueling Dinosaurs." Last November, the fossils were put on the block at Bonhams auction house in New York City — but they did not sell. Had the set fetched the nearly $9 ...

Quebecers are particularly hostile toward the development of shale gas, but this aversion is driven less by 'not in my backyard' (NIMBY) attitudes than 'not in anyone's backyard (NIABY), according to a comparative study of 2,500 Quebecers and Americans conducted by Éric Montpetit and Erick Lachapelle of the University of Montreal's Department of Political Science. Professors Barry G. Rabe of the University of Michigan and Christopher P. Borick of Muhlenberg College co-led the study in the United States. The study, commissioned by Quebec's Ministry of the Environment, ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – With news reports of toxic, cadmium-tainted rice in China, a new study describes a protein that transports metals in certain plants and holds promise for developing iron-rich but cadmium-free crops. Iron and cadmium are both found in soil and are interchangeably taken up by iron transporters in plants. Pollution and heavy fertilizer use have increased soil cadmium levels in China, for example. In humans, cadmium can damage internal organs and cause cancer. At the same time, iron is an essential nutrient for plants and humans. Iron deficiency affects 30 ...

An advance has been achieved towards next generation ultrasonic imaging with potentially 1,000 times higher resolution than today's medical ultrasounds. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated a technique for producing, detecting and controlling ultrahigh frequency sound waves at the nanometer scale. Through a combination of subpicosecond laser pulses and unique nanostructures, a team led by Xiang Zhang, a faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, produced acoustic ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – A sack-hauling time traveler from the 21st century lands in an Irish potato field in 1849, just before a terrible famine, and asks: If you thought genetically modified potatoes could avert late blight disease, spare a million countrymen from starvation and keep another million from emigrating off the Emerald Isle, would you plant these newfangled spuds? Fast forward to the Internet Age, when communication researchers ran 859 U.S. grocery shoppers through a similar thought experiment: Half the subjects in an online survey read the story of the 1850s Irish ...

(June 11, 2014 Seattle, Wash.) Researchers at Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) used cutting-edge tetramer technology developed at BRI to find the T cells that drive rheumatoid arthritis (RA). "By using tetramer technology, we were able to examine whether T cells in people with rheumatoid arthritis were increased in number or were unique in other ways," says BRI Associate Director Jane Buckner, MD, who led the study with BRI Tetramer Core Laboratory Manager Eddie James, PhD. The findings were recently reported online in Arthritis & Rheumatology. This ...

CHICAGO (June 11, 2014) – New guidelines aim to reduce the prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), improve patient safety and prioritize current prevention efforts underway in hospitals. This drug resistant bacterium is a common source of patient morbidity and mortality in U.S. hospitals, causing nearly twice the number of deaths, significantly longer hospital stays and higher hospital costs than other forms of the bacteria. The strategies were published in the July issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology and produced in a collaborative ...

New Rochelle, NY, June 11, 2014–Disagreeing with comments made by Richard Friedman in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst (ret.), states that there is "a critical and significant difference" between being able to predict and prevent mass shootings. Dr. O'Toole, who is Editor-in-Chief of Violence and Gender, calls on the media to stop using the names of mass murders, which only fuels their desire for fame and is "a very powerful motivator," in a Perspective in the new peer-reviewed journal from ...

Research aimed at developing germ cells—the progenitors of eggs and sperm—in vitro should be held to especially rigorous scientific standards, a distinguished team of reproductive biologists declares in the journal Cell. In the article, authors John Schimenti, Ph.D., of Cornell University and his Jackson Laboratory colleagues, Mary Ann Handel, Ph.D., and John Eppig, Ph.D., note that because "germ cells are the ultimate stem cells," laboratories are racing to develop these cells in vitro for assisted reproduction. Yet the researchers claim that no one has yet conclusively ...

The world of astronomy has changed. An astronomer used to have to travel to a remote location and endure long, cold nights, patiently guiding a telescope to collect precious photons of light. Now, a proliferation of online archives allows astronomers to make discoveries from the comfort of their own offices. By mining such archives, a team of astronomers led by Ivana Damjanov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) has found a treasure trove of "red nugget" galaxies. These galaxies are compact and densely packed with old, red stars. Their abundance provides ...

A new theoretical advance explains where the power of quantum computation comes from, and will help researchers design and build better computers and algorithms. The strange properties of quantum mechanics give quantum computers the potential to perform some computations exponentially faster than conventional computers. But where the extra power comes from – and how best to take advantage of it – is in many ways still an open question. A new paper in the journal Nature by CIFAR Fellow Joseph Emerson of the program in Quantum Information Science, along with colleagues ...

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team of researchers reports the first-ever detection of molecular gas -- the fuel for star formation -- in two galaxies that were previously rocked by gamma ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest explosions in the Universe. These new observations revealed that the molecular gas was concentrated toward the centers of the galaxies, while the GRBs occurred in unusual environments that were surprisingly bereft of gas yet rich in dust. The researchers speculate that the dearth of molecular gas around the GRBs was due ...

DETROIT – A recently published clinical study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has answered an urgent question that long puzzled ER pediatricians: Is the drug lorazepam really safer and more effective than diazepam – the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved medication as first line therapy most often used by emergency room doctors to control major epileptic seizures in children? The answer to that question – based on a double-blind, randomized clinical trial that compared outcomes in 273 seizure patients, about half of whom were given lorazepam ...