More than half of long-term smokers and ex-smokers who are considered disease-free because they passed lung-function tests have respiratory-related impairments when more closely evaluated with lung imaging, walking and quality-of-life tests. Many of those people likely have the earliest stages of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an incurable progressive disease (COPD) that is the third leading cause of death in the United States. "The impact of chronic smoking on the lungs and the individual is substantially underestimated when using lung-function tests alone," ...

A gene previously suspected of wielding the single greatest genetic influence on human obesity actually has nothing to do with body weight, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital. The work not only overturns a major finding about the genetics of obesity but also provides the first effective ways to analyze "particularly ornery and confusing" parts of the genome, such as the locus of this gene, said the study's co-senior author, Steven McCarroll, assistant professor of genetics at HMS. The techniques described ...

In 2002, archaeologists discovered the jawbone of a human who lived in Europe about 40,000 years ago. Geneticists have now analyzed ancient DNA from that jawbone and learned that it belonged to a modern human whose recent ancestors included Neanderthals. Neanderthals lived in Europe until about 35,000 years ago, disappearing at the same time modern humans were spreading across the continent. The new study, co-led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator David Reich at Harvard Medical School and Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, ...

The island Isla Santa María in the south of central Chile is the document of a complete seismic cycle. Charles Darwin and his captain Robert Fitzroy witnessed the great earthquake of 1835 in south central Chile. The „Beagle"-Captain's precise measurements showed an uplift of the island Isla Santa María of 2 to 3 meters after the earthquake. What Darwin and Fitzroy couldn't know was the fact that 175 years later nearly at the same position such a strong earthquake would recur. At the South American west coastline the Pacific Ocean floor moves under the ...

Originally it became famous as an anesthetic gas used by dentists. However, laughing gas, or chemically correct nitrous oxide, is also found in large quantities in nature and has serious effects on climate: In the lower atmosphere it is a strong greenhouse gas, and in higher layers of the atmosphere it contributes indirectly to the destruction of ozone. "A global assessment of marine nitrous oxide emissions is, however, difficult because we do not know exactly where and how much nitrous oxide is produced," says marine chemist Damian L. Arévalo-Martínez from GEOMAR ...

Despite the passage of Georgia's Smokefree Air Act in 2005, the number of restaurants and bars that allow smoking has doubled in recent years, according to researchers at Georgia State University's School of Public Health. Researchers found a significant number of restaurant and bar owners have taken advantage of exemptions in the laws to create smoking zones. "The increase in smoking-allowed establishments may be attributed to the increase in the percentage of establishments permitting smoking in designated dining areas and the large percentage of establishments that ...

Virginia Tech engineers have shed light on what happens to a nearby particle when bubbles burst. Sunghwan Jung, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics in the College of Engineering, has discovered new information about a phenomenon called cavitation, the process of bubble formation in a fluid like water. These bubbles eventually collapse under the pressure of the surrounding fluid, sending out pressure waves that can affect anything nearby. For example, shrimp use cavitation bubbles to hunt because the waves can kill small fish. Cavitation ...

A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers has found a way to expand the use and precision of the powerful gene-editing tools called CRISPR-Cas9 RNA-guided nucleases. In their report receiving advance online release in Nature, the investigators describe evolved versions of the DNA-cutting Cas9 enzyme that are able to recognize a different range of nucleic acid sequences than is possible with the naturally occurring form of Cas9 that has been used to date. "In our paper we show that sites in human and zebrafish genes that could not previously be modified ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Doctors have many concerns about online crowdsourced ratings, which are intended to make patients better-informed consumers of health care, but this is a big one: They worry that complainers will be the most outspoken contributors to rating sites, skewing scores and resulting in a kind of heckler's veto. A new study from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland finds that that fear is unwarranted. Researchers compared the ratings of 1,425 doctors in three metropolitan areas -- Denver, Kansas City and Memphis -- on the popular ...

A new review by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) has confirmed the success of the Capture the Fracture®; Best Practice Framework as a single set of quality standards which can be used effectively to benchmark Fracture Liaison Services within a variety of health-care systems worldwide. Worldwide, osteoporosis causes more than 8.9 million fractures annually, resulting in an osteoporotic fracture every 3 seconds. Among those at highest risk of fractures are individuals who have already experienced a first fracture. Fracture Liaison Services, commonly ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Patients with atrial fibrillation who stopped taking blood thinners before they had elective surgery had no higher risk of developing blood clots and less risk of major bleeding compared to patients who were given a "bridge" therapy, according to research led by Duke Medicine. The findings add much-needed clarity to inconsistent practice guidelines that annually affect an estimated 250,000 patients with atrial fibrillation/flutter who take the blood thinner warfarin. The Duke-led study was presented June 22, 2015, at the International Society on Thrombosis ...

Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is a surface protein that is normally present on healthy prostate cells, but is found at much higher levels on prostate cancer cells. It is barely found in the rest of the body. "Therefore, PSMA is an ideal target for diagnostic purposes as well as targeted therapies against prostate cancer," says biotechnologist Dr. Matthias Eder of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ). Eder's group has developed a small molecule (PSMA-617) that is capable of specifically attaching to PSMA and can be labeled ...

New research conducted by a team at King's College London has found an increasing trend in the number of people in the UK reaching age 100 over the past two decades. The study also found that, whilst women were far more likely to reach 100 than men, males tended to be healthier and had fewer diagnosed chronic illnesses compared to women. The study, published today in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, used electronic health records to examine some of the main age-related chronic illnesses, including diabetes, stroke, arthritis and cancer, as well as old ...

A large clinical trial led by researchers at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa has found that contrary to expectations, a CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis does not improve cancer detection in people with unexplained blood clots in their legs and lungs. The results, published in the June 22 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, are expected to improve patient care and reduce screening costs around the world. More than 500,000 Canadians and Americans are diagnosed with blood clots in the lungs and legs each year (called venous thromboembolism). ...

Through a rare mixed-species association observed between a carnivorous predator and a potential prey, Dartmouth-led research has identified that solitary Ethiopian wolves will forage for rodents among grazing gelada monkey herds. Through consistent non-threatening behavior, the Ethiopian wolves have habituated gelada herds to their presence, foregoing opportunities to attack the juvenile geladas in order to better capture the rodents. Gelada monkeys are a close relative of baboons. As grazing primates, they eat grass and some herbs. They live in large herds, between ...

Nanoparticles are the smallest particles capable of reaching virtually all parts of the body. Researchers use various approaches to test ways in which nanoparticles could be used in medicine - for instance, to deliver substances to a specific site in the body such as a tumor. For this purpose, nanoparticles are generally coated with organic materials because their surface quality plays a key role in determining further targets in the body. If they have a water-repellent shell, nanoparticles are quickly identified by the body's immune system and eliminated. How gold particles ...

Researchers from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have demonstrated, in a preclinical setting, the protective effect of a candidate vaccine directed against the coronavirus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. Planning for the first clinical trial is now underway. Currently, no protective vaccine is available against the coronavirus strain responsible for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The need for such a vaccine is underlined by the current outbreak of the disease in South Korea, which has led to the infection of over 150 people and ...

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS--The "Black Lives Matter" hashtag evolved as a call for social change aimed at increasing the conversation about racial inequality. But what if social change was less dependent on talking and more dependent on nonverbal communication? New research finds observing a white American engage in small nonverbal acts such as smiling more often, making eye contact for longer periods of time, and standing in closer proximity to a black American makes the observer less prone to racial biases. Specifically, small acts ...

(PHILADELPHIA) - Recently, researchers have discovered that the hormone progesterone, an ingredient in contraceptives and menopausal hormone replacement therapies, might stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells that are resistant to anti-estrogen therapy and chemotherapy. Now, new research published June 22nd in the journal Oncogene, a Nature publication, shows that additional hormones, including stress hormones that are frequently used to treat the side effects of common chemotherapy, could make these effective cancer drugs fail sooner in some women with breast cancer. ...

Milan, Italy, June 22 -- Cardiac device wearers should keep a safe distance from smartphones to avoid unwanted painful shocks or pauses in function, reveals research presented today at EHRA EUROPACE -- CARDIOSTIM 2015 by Dr. Carsten Lennerz, first author and cardiology resident in the Clinic for Heart and Circulatory Diseases, German Heart Centre, Munich, Germany. The joint meeting of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and Cardiostim is being held in Milan, Italy. The scientific programme is here: http://www.flipsnack.com/Escardio/ehra-europace-cardiostim-2015-advance-programme.html. Lennerz ...

Milan, Italy - 22 June 2015: Patients are test driving a pacemaker outside the skin before deciding whether to have a permanent implant, reveals novel research presented today at EHRA EUROPACE - CARDIOSTIM 2015 by Professor Michael Giudici, director of arrhythmia services in the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, US.1 "Wow, I didn't realise how terrible I felt. This is great. When can we schedule my pacemaker?" The joint meeting of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) ...

US researchers have published the first large population-based study of nationwide trends in erectile dysfunction and its surgical management from 2001 to 2010. Using data from Medicare beneficiaries, the investigators found that while the prevalence of erectile dysfunction increased by 165%, the use of penile prostheses decreased by 50%, from 4.6% in 2001 to 2.3% in 2010. Prostheses have been increasingly used in sicker patients with significant comorbidities, however. Age, ethnicity, and geography often influenced whether patients would undergo penile prosthetic placement. "The ...

A new analysis indicates that rates of high-grade cervical lesions decreased in young U.S. women after vaccines were made available to protect against human papillomavirus (HPV), but the trend may be due in part to changes in cervical cancer screening recommendations. Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study illustrates some of the challenges in monitoring a vaccine's impact during a time of concurrent changes in screening. More than half of high-grade cervical lesions, which are abnormal tissue changes that can ...

Ottawa, Ontario, June 22 -- Children are more likely to have a repeat, delayed anaphylactic reaction from the same allergic cause, depending on the severity of the initial reaction. The first pediatric study to look at the predictors for this phenomenon was published today in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Anaphylaxis is a severe, allergic reaction that is rapid in onset and can result in death. Some children are at risk of delayed ('biphasic') anaphylactic reactions. Delayed reactions occur when the initial symptoms of allergic reaction go away but then return ...

An investigation into how owls fly and hunt in silence has enabled researchers to develop a prototype coating for wind turbine blades that could significantly reduce the amount of noise they make. Early tests of the material, which mimics the intricate structure of an owl's wing, have demonstrated that it could significantly reduce the amount of noise produced by wind turbines and other types of fan blades, such as those in computers or planes. Since wind turbines are heavily braked in order to minimise noise, the addition of this new surface would mean that they could ...