New Rochelle, NY, December 11, 2014--In cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI), predicting the likelihood of a cranial lesion and determining the need for head computed tomography (CT) can be aided by measuring markers of bone injury in the blood. The results of a new study comparing the usefulness of two biomarkers released into the blood following a TBI are presented in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Neurotrauma website at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/neu.2013.3245 ...

MAYWOOD, Il. - Riding a couple roller coasters at an amusement park appears to have triggered an unusual stroke in a 4-year-old boy, according to a report in the journal Pediatric Neurology. The sudden acceleration, deceleration and rotational forces on the head and neck likely caused a tear in the boy's carotid artery. This tear, called a dissection, led to formation of a blood clot that triggered the stroke, Loyola University Medical Center neurologist Jose Biller, MD and colleagues report. Strokes previously have been reported in adult roller coaster riders, but ...

Worcester, Mass. - A new statistical model developed by a research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) may enable physicians to create personalized cancer treatments for patients based on the specific genetic mutations found in their tumors. Just as cancer is not a single disease, but a collection of many diseases, an individual tumor is not likely to be comprised of just one type of cancer cell. In fact, the genetic mutations that lead to cancer in the first place also often result in tumors with a mix of cancer cell subtypes. The WPI team developed a new ...

The once mighty super typhoon has weakened to a depression in the South China Sea as it heads for a final landfall in southern Vietnam. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of the storm that showed it was weakening. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Hagupit on Dec. 11 at 05:20 UTC (12:20 a.m. EST) and the MODIS instrument captured a visible image of the storm. The MODIS image showed that the thunderstorms had become fragmented around the circulation center. On Dec. 11 at 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST) Tropical Depression Hagupit's maximum sustained winds dropped to 30 knots ...

San Antonio -- December 11, 2014 -- Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is preparing to unveil a new, miniature portable solar observatory for use onboard a commercial, manned suborbital spacecraft. The SwRI Solar Instrument Pointing Platform (SSIPP) will be on exhibit at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), Dec. 16-19, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif. Using reusable suborbital commercial spacecraft for the SSIPP development effort improves on a traditional space instrument development process that goes back to the dawn of the space ...

DARIEN, IL - A new study shows that paid work time is the primary waking activity exchanged for sleep and suggests that chronic sleep loss potentially could be prevented by strategies that make work start times more flexible. Results show that work is the dominant activity exchanged for less sleep across practically all sociodemographic categories. Compared to normal sleepers, short sleepers who reported sleeping 6 hours or less worked 1.55 more hours on weekdays and 1.86 more hours on weekends or holidays, and they started working earlier in the morning and stopped working ...

December 11, 2014 - Hospitals with robotic surgical systems are more likely to perform "nephron-sparing" partial nephrectomy--a recommended alternative to removal of the entire kidney--in patients with kidney cancer, reports a study in the December issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "Hospital acquisition of the surgical robot is associated with greater proportion of partial nephrectomy, an underutilized, guideline-encouraged procedure," write Dr Ganesh Sivarajan of New York University Langone ...

An interstellar mystery of why stars form has been solved thanks to the most realistic supercomputer simulations of galaxies yet made. Theoretical astrophysicist Philip Hopkins of the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) led research that found that stellar activity -- like supernova explosions or even just starlight -- plays a big part in the formation of other stars and the growth of galaxies. "Feedback from stars, the collective effects from supernovae, radiation, heating, pushing on gas, and stellar winds can regulate the growth of galaxies and explain why ...

Unlike mammals, birds have no external ears. The outer ears of mammals play an important function in that they help the animal identify sounds coming from different elevations. But birds are also able to perceive whether the source of a sound is above them, below them, or at the same level. Now a research team from Technische Universität München (TUM) has discovered how birds are able to localize these sounds, namely by utilizing their entire head. Their findings were published recently in the PLOS ONE journal. It is springtime, and two blackbirds are having ...

NEW YORK, NY - Patients with operable kidney cancers were more likely to have a partial nephrectomy -- the recommended treatment for localized tumors -- when treated in hospitals that were early adopters of robotic surgery, according to a new study. Researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere, publishing online December 11 in the journal Medical Care, report that by 2008, hospitals that had adopted robotic surgery at the start of the current century (between 2001 and 2004) performed partial nephrectomies in 38% of kidney cancer cases compared to late adopters ...

Novel research reveals that the risk of acute gout attacks is more than two times higher during the night or early morning hours than it is in the daytime. The study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), confirms that nocturnal attacks persist even among those who did not consume alcohol and had a low amount of purine intake during the 24 hours prior to the gout attack. The body produces uric acid from the process of breaking down purines--natural substances in cells in the body and in most foods--with especially ...

Parkinson's disease sufferers have a different microbiota in their intestines than their healthy counterparts, according to a study conducted at the University of Helsinki and the Helsinki University Central Hospital (HUCH). "Our most important observation was that patients with Parkinson's have much less bacteria from the Prevotellaceae family; unlike the control group, practically no one in the patient group had a large quantity of bacteria from this family," states DMSc Filip Scheperjans, neurologist at the HUCH Neurology Clinic. The researchers have not yet ...

A team of researchers led by North Carolina State University has found that stacking materials that are only one atom thick can create semiconductor junctions that transfer charge efficiently, regardless of whether the crystalline structure of the materials is mismatched - lowering the manufacturing cost for a wide variety of semiconductor devices such as solar cells, lasers and LEDs. "This work demonstrates that by stacking multiple two-dimensional (2-D) materials in random ways we can create semiconductor junctions that are as functional as those with perfect alignment" ...

Researchers have found new evidence that explains how some aspects of our personality may affect our health and wellbeing, supporting long-observed associations between aspects of human character, physical health and longevity. A team of health psychologists at The University of Nottingham and the University of California in Los Angeles carried out a study to examine the relationship between certain personality traits and the expression of genes that can affect our health by controlling the activity of our immune systems. The study did not find any results to support ...

Could there finally be tangible evidence for the existence of dark matter in the Universe? After sifting through reams of X-ray data, scientists in EPFL's Laboratory of Particle Physics and Cosmology (LPPC) and Leiden University believe they could have identified the signal of a particle of dark matter. This substance, which up to now has been purely hypothetical, is run by none of the standard models of physics other than through the gravitational force. Their research will be published next week in Physical Review Letters. When physicists study the dynamics of galaxies ...

In the hunt for better knowledge on the aging process, researchers from Lund University have now enlisted the help of small birds. A new study investigates various factors which affect whether chicks are born with long or short chromosome ends, called telomeres. The genetic make-up of our cells consists of genes lined up on chromosomes. The ends of the chromosomes are called telomeres, and they protect the chromosomes from sticking to each other. The longer the telomeres, the longer time the chromosomes are able to function. And conversely, the shorter these ends, ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Invasive plant and animal species can cause dramatic and enduring changes to the geography and ecology of landscapes, a study from Purdue University and the University of Kentucky shows. A review of studies on how life forms interact with and influence their surroundings concluded that invasive species can alter landscapes in myriad ways and with varying degrees of severity. These changes can be quick, large-scale and "extremely difficult" to reverse, said study author Songlin Fei, a Purdue associate professor of quantitative ecology. "Invaders ...

A species of small fish uses a homemade coral-scented cologne to hide from predators, a new study has shown, providing the first evidence of chemical camouflage from diet in fish. Filefish evade predators by feeding on their home corals and emitting an odor that makes them invisible to the noses of predators, the study found. Chemical camouflage from diet has been previously shown in insects, such as caterpillars, which mask themselves by building their exoskeletons with chemicals from their food. The new study shows that animals don't need an exoskeleton to use chemical ...

Researchers at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine may have identified a way to assess who is at risk for developing a urinary tract infection (UTI) following pelvic-floor surgery. These findings were reported in the latest issue of PLOS ONE. Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the most common type of bacterial infection and have estimated treatment costs exceeding $1 billion a year in the United States. Women who undergo surgery for pelvic-organ prolapse or urinary incontinence are more likely to develop a UTI following the procedure. Clinicians have ...

Three studies presented by University of Colorado Cancer Center researchers at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2014 demonstrate the effects of blocking androgen receptors in breast cancer. One shows that, counterintuitively, blocking the action of androgen receptors reduces the growth of estrogen-positive (ER+) breast cancers. The second study found that even triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs), which are without known hormone drivers and carry the poorest prognosis, are dependent on androgen receptor activation. And the third study finds that targeting androgen ...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Kent State University a $300,000 grant for three College of Arts and Sciences faculty members to study how human dynamics across social media and social networks can be modeled. The grant is part of a $999,887 collaboration with San Diego State University and the University of Arkansas. Professor Jay Lee and Assistant Professor Xinyue Ye of Kent State's Department of Geography and Associate Professor Ruoming Jin of Kent State's Department of Computer Science will use information diffusion, visualization and simulations ...

Dr. Damon Little, Associate Curator of Bioinformatics in the Cullman Program for Molecular Systematics at The New York Botanical Garden, has just published a new study in the journal Genome investigating the use of DNA barcoding to test the authenticity of Ginkgo biloba (G. biloba), an herbal dietary supplement sold to consumers that is supposed to boost cognitive capacity. Unfortunately, herbal supplements on the market are subject to mislabelling, and therefore consumers may not be getting the products and benefits they believe they are getting. Dr. Little's research ...

Tampa, FL (Dec. 11, 2014) -- Despite emerging evidence otherwise, many college students consider hookah smoking safer than smoking cigarettes, reports a University of South Florida (USF) College of Public Health study published this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study, appearing online in the CDC journal Preventing Chronic Disease, examined the prevalence of hookah use and described social and behavioral factors associated with hookah smoking among students at USF, a large urban public university in Tampa, Fla. The research suggests ...

A cold 'sensor' which triggers the skin's vascular response to the cold could represent an exciting new therapeutic target for the treatment of frostbite and hypothermia, according to scientists at King's College London. Known to be linked to pain sensitivity and currently used in the development of painkillers, this is the first time the TRPA1 gene has been implicated in the response of blood vessels in the skin to cold. Published today in Nature Communications, the research was funded by the British Heart Foundation and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research ...

The rise in tourism, fishing and sea transport between the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands is compromising the wellbeing of a small population of common bottlenose dolphins living in coastal waters off the Pityusic Islands. This is the conclusion of a study led by the University of Barcelona (Spain), which has, for the first time, counted these mammals in summer and spring, which are crucial seasons for them. Despite being one of the most common cetaceans in the Mediterranean Ocean, the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) resides in areas close to ...