Researchers at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center announced results today from a clinical trial of a drug shown to safely reduce the viral load and clinical illness of healthy adult volunteers intranasally infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Detailed results of this study were presented by lead researcher Infectious Disease Specialist John DeVincenzo, MD, this week during a poster discussion session at the American Thoracic Society 2014 International Conference in San Diego. He serves as medical director of ...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a previously unknown phase in a class of superconductors called iron arsenides. This sheds light on a debate over the interactions between atoms and electrons that are responsible for their unusual superconductivity. "This new magnetic phase, which has never been observed before, could have significant implications for our understanding of unconventional superconductivity," said Ray Osborn, an Argonne physicist and coauthor on the paper. Scientists and engineers are fascinated ...

Most headaches in pregnancy and the postnatal period are benign, but healthcare professionals must be alert to the rarer and more severe causes of headaches, suggests a new review published today (23 May) in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG). The review looks at common causes for headaches during pregnancy and the postnatal period, possible conditions that may be associated with headaches and how healthcare professionals should manage the care of the woman appropriately. There are 85 different types of headache. Approximately 90% of headaches in pregnancy are migraine ...

Tecnalia has collaborated in a study for the European Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA) on the future use of methanol, produced from carbon dioxide, in motorised transport. STOA is the panel that advises MEPs in the sphere of Science and Technology. The study analysed the barriers –technological, environmental and economic– to producing methanol using carbon dioxide as well as the options that would allow possible uses in automobile transport in the medium and long term. The costs and benefits were evaluated from the life cycle perspective ...

New research published today in Nature's Scientific Reports, identifies a new type of light sensor that could allow medical and security imaging, via low cost cameras. The team of researchers from the University of Surrey have developed a new 'multispectral' light sensor that detects the full spectrum of light, from ultra-violet (UV), to visible and near infrared light. Indeed, near infrared light can be used to perform non-invasive medical procedures, such as measuring the oxygen level in tissue and detecting tumours. It is also already commonly used in security camera ...

Wind energy is one of the most promising renewable energy resources in the world today. Dr. Hui Hu and his group at Iowa State University studied the effects of the relative rotation directions of two tandem wind turbines on the power production performance, the flow characteristics in the turbine wake flows, and the resultant wind loads acting on the turbines. The experimental study was performed in a large-scale Aerodynamics/Atmospheric Boundary Layer (AABL) Wind Tunnel available at Aerospace Engineering Department of Iowa State University. Their work, entitled "An experimental ...

Most headaches in pregnancy and the postnatal period are benign, but healthcare professionals must be alert to the rarer and more severe causes of headaches, suggests a new review published today (23 May) in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG). The review looks at common causes for headaches during pregnancy and the postnatal period, possible conditions that may be associated with headaches and how healthcare professionals should manage the care of the woman appropriately. There are 85 different types of headache. Approximately 90% of headaches in pregnancy are migraine ...

The news items below are from oral presentations or poster sessions scheduled for the 50th annual ASCO conference. Yale Cancer Center will have experts available to speak with the media before or during ASCO. Survival, response duration, and activity by BRAF mutation (MT) status of nivolumab (NIVO, anti-PD-1, BMS-936558, ONO-4538) and ipilimumab (IPI) concurrent therapy in advanced melanoma (MEL). (LBA #9003) Authors: Mario Sznol, Harriet M. Kluger, Margaret K. Callahan, Michael Andrew Postow, Ruth Ann Gordon, Neil Howard Segal, Naiyer A. Rizvi, Alexander M. Lesokhin, ...

Parents need to be convinced about the benefits of their children walking or cycling to school as much as the children themselves, according to research led at the University of Strathclyde. A study of children's habits in commuting to and from school discovered that, in the vast majority of cases, parents were the main decision makers in how the children travelled. Colder weather in autumn and winter led to a drop in the number of children in an intervention group, who were being encouraged to walk and cycle more, and the control group, who continued their normal ...

Serious mental illnesses reduce life expectancy by 10-20 years, an analysis by Oxford University psychiatrists has shown – a loss of years that's equivalent to or worse than that for heavy smoking. Yet mental health has not seen the same public health priority, say the Oxford scientists, despite these stark figures and the similar prevalence of mental health problems. 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year, it is estimated. Around 21% of British men and 19% of women smoke cigarettes. The researchers say ...

A systematic review and meta-analysis of some 850,000 people published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) shows that women with diabetes are 44% more likely to develop coronary heart disease (CHD) than men with diabetes independent of sex differences in the levels of other major cardiovascular risk factors. The research is by Professor Rachel Huxley, School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Australia; Dr Sanne Peters, University of Cambridge, UK, and University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, and ...

Italian scientists have developed a miniaturised kidney dialysis machine capable of treating the smallest babies, and have for the first time used it to safely treat a newborn baby with multiple organ failure. This technology has the potential to revolutionise the treatment of infants with acute kidney injury, according to new research published in The Lancet. The new continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) machine—named CARPEDIEM (Cardio-Renal Pediatric Dialysis Emergency Machine)—was created to overcome the problems of existing dialysis machines that are only designed ...

Last month WHO issued a report that warned of an increase of antimicrobial-resistance and the renewed threat of bacterial infections world-wide and called for a concerted effort to develop new and better antimicrobial drugs. A study published on May 22nd in PLOS Pathogens reveals how a new type of anti-microbial substance interferes with biofilms formed by several dangerous bacteria. When growing on surfaces (including human skin, lung, heart, or bladder) many bacteria form so-called biofilms that consist of structured communities of identical bacteria. 65% of human ...

Washington, DC (May 22, 2014) — Patients with a certain form of kidney disease may have a reduced risk of cancer compared with patients with other kidney diseases, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is a kidney disorder passed down through families in which many cysts form in the kidneys, causing them to become enlarged. It's thought to have cancer-like features, but cancer risk has never been compared between PKD patients and others with kidney disease. Cancer ...

Washington, DC (May 22, 2014) — Compared with long and frequent home hemodialysis, kidney transplantation may allow kidney failure patients to be successfully treated and to live longer, but it may also increase their risk of being hospitalized within the first year. Those are the findings of study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The results support the need to encourage transplantation for potential candidates who are receiving home hemodialysis, but they also indicate that long and frequent home hemodialysis ...

(TORONTO, Canada – May 22, 2014) – A first-ever study from a large Canadian centre found that kidney transplant recipients lived longer and had better treatment success than patients on intensive home hemodialysis, but also had an increased risk of being hospitalized within the first year. These findings were reported in a study entitled, "Survival and hospitalization for intensive home hemodialysis and kidney transplantation", by lead author Dr. Karthik Tennankore, nephrologist at Dalhousie University, and Drs. Chris Chan and Joseph Kim, nephrologists at Toronto General ...

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have identified a small molecule that prevents bacteria from forming into biofilms, a frequent cause of infections. The anti-biofilm peptide works on a range of bacteria including many that cannot be treated by antibiotics. "Currently there is a severe problem with antibiotic-resistant organisms," says Bob Hancock, a professor in UBC's Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology and lead author of the study published today in PLOS Pathogens. "Our entire arsenal of antibiotics is gradually losing effectiveness." Many bacteria ...

Children who receive cochlear implants (CI) to help alleviate severe to profound hearing loss are at greater risk of having deficiencies in executive functioning (EF), which are the skills to organize, control and process information in a goal-directed manner. Permanent hearing loss is a common condition of early childhood, occurring in about 1.5 of every 1,000 births. Cochlear implants help children to achieve spoken language because the devices help them perceive sound. Still, children with cochlear implants can struggle with reading and writing skills and other ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Children with profound deafness who receive a cochlear implant had as much as five times the risk of having delays in areas of working memory, controlled attention, planning and conceptual learning as children with normal hearing, according to Indiana University research published May 22 in the Journal of the American Medical Association Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery. The authors evaluated 73 children implanted before age 7 and 78 children with normal hearing to determine the risk of deficits in executive functioning behaviors in everyday life. Executive ...

VIDEO: This video depicts microneurosurgical clipping of an unruptured intracranial aneurysm, which is arising from the bifurcation i.e. branching point of two right middle cerebral arteries. In brief, the aneurysm locates in this... Click here for more information. The lifetime risk for rupture of a brain aneurysm depends heavily on the patient's overall load of risk factors. However, a recent study by researchers from the University of Helsinki and Helsinki University ...

PHILADELPHIA— In the largest group of results to date, researchers from Penn Medicine's Abramson Cancer Center and other institutions have shown in clinical trials that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) blocked autophagy in a host of aggressive cancers—glioblastoma, melanoma, lymphoma and myeloma, renal and colon cancers—and in some cases helped stabilize disease. Autophagy—an essential process cancer cells need to fuel their growth—is a key troublemaker spurring tumor growth. Block this pathway, many preclinical studies suggest, and anti-cancer agents such as chemotherapy ...

New Haven, CT – A pair of Yale Cancer Center interventional studies involving breast cancer survivors found that lifestyle changes in the form of healthy eating and regular exercise can decrease biomarkers related to breast cancer recurrence and mortality. The abstracts are scheduled to be presented at the 2014 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago May 30-June 3rd. "The findings of both studies support a growing body of research that suggests lifestyle interventions lower biomarkers associated with breast cancer recurrence and mortality, ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – According to recent studies, one in five adult women and one in 100 adult men have reported being raped. The prevalence increases to two in five among women and one in five among men who report experiencing other forms of sexual violence, such as repeated unwanted sexual contact and sexual coercion. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have determined that those victims who are repeatedly assaulted, but not necessarily violently raped, show greater levels of psycho-behavioral consequences than earlier thought. The researchers suggest that understanding ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (May 22, 2014) – The way in which the sex of an organism is determined may require lifelong maintenance, finds new research from the University of Minnesota. According to the study published today in the journal Developmental Cell, sex-specific transcription factors perform lifelong work to maintain sexual determination and protect against reprogramming of cells from one sex to the other. Previous research at the University of Minnesota's Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development showed sex determination is not permanent. Using a mouse ...

NEW YORK, NY (May 22, 2014) — Researchers have discovered how a gene commonly linked to obesity—FTO—contributes to weight gain. The study shows that variations in FTO indirectly affect the function of the primary cilium, a little-understood hair-like appendage on brain and other cells. Specific abnormalities of cilium molecules, in turn, increase body weight, in some instances, by affecting the function of receptors for leptin, a hormone that suppresses appetite. The findings, made in mice, suggest that it might be possible to modify obesity through interventions that alter ...