FREMONT, CA (May 19, 2014): Newly published research demonstrates the ability of BioMAP® Systems, a unique set of primary human cell and co-culture assays that model human disease and pathway biology, to identify important safety aspects of drugs and chemicals more efficiently and accurately than can be achieved by animal testing. Data from BioMAP Systems analysis of 776 environmental chemicals, including reference pharmaceuticals and failed drugs, on their ability to disrupt physiologically important human biological pathways were published online this week in Nature ...

New research out of New Zealand's world-renowned Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study does not support claims that fluoridating water adversely affects children's mental development and adult IQ. The researchers were testing the contentious claim that exposure to levels of fluoride used in community water fluoridation is toxic to the developing brain and can cause IQ deficits. Their findings are newly published in the highly respected American Journal of Public Health. The Dunedin Study has followed nearly all aspects of the health and development of around 1000 people born ...

Shenzhen, May 18, 2014---Chinese scientists from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and BGI successfully deciphered the genome sequence of another diploid cotton-- Gossypium arboreum (AA) after the completed sequencing of G. raimondii (DD) in 2012. G. arboreum, a cultivated cotton, is a putative contributor for the A subgenome of cotton. Its completed genome will play a vital contribution to the future molecular breeding and genetic improvement of cotton and its close relatives. The latest study today was published online in Nature Genetics. As one of the most ...

SALT LAKE CITY— In the body, a skin cell will always be skin, and a heart cell will always be heart. But in the first hours of life, cells in the nascent embryo become totipotent: they have the incredible flexibility to mature into skin, heart, gut, or any type of cell. It was long assumed that the joining of egg and sperm launched a dramatic change in how and which genes were expressed. Instead, new research shows that totipotency is a step-wise process, manifesting as early as in precursors to sperm, called adult germline stem cells (AGSCs), which reside in the testes. ...

University of Leicester researchers have captured stunning images of Saturn's auroras as the planet's magnetic field is battered by charged particles from the Sun. The team's findings provide a "smoking gun" for the theory that Saturn's auroral displays are often caused by the dramatic collapse of its "magnetic tail". Just like comets, planets such as Saturn and the Earth have a "tail" – known as the magnetotail – that is made up of electrified gas from the Sun and flows out in the planet's wake. When a particularly strong burst of particles from the Sun hits Saturn, ...

Installing state-of-the-art solar panels on a quarter of a million roofs could meet one-sixth of Scotland's electricity demands, experts say. Scientists say the strategy could ease the plight of one in three Scottish households, which currently struggle to provide themselves with adequate heat and hot water. Researchers, business leaders and public sector experts have contributed to a report which sets out how Scotland could benefit from solar power. They say harnessing energy from the sun on the roofs of south-facing buildings could have significant economic, ...

Three years of observations show that the Antarctic ice sheet is now losing 159 billion tonnes of ice each year – twice as much as when it was last surveyed. A team of scientists from the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, led by researchers at the University of Leeds, have produced the first complete assessment of Antarctic ice sheet elevation change. They used measurements collected by the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite mission, which carries an altimeter specially designed for this task. In sharp contrast to past altimeter missions, CryoSat-2 ...

Boston, United States of America – May 19, 2014 – Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY), presented Phase II (H-030-012) trial results for an investigational vaccine for the prevention of Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection (CDI) at the 114th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). The Phase II trial met its primary objectives, reactions were generally mild and of short duration, and the candidate vaccine generated an immune response against C. diff toxins A and B. These toxins are largely responsible ...

Coral Gables, Fla. (May 19, 2014)—A team of researchers led by Michael T. French, professor of health economics at the University of Miami (UM), finds that high school grade point average (GPA) is a strong predictor of future earnings. The findings, published recently in the Eastern Economic Journal, show that a one-point increase in high school GPA raises annual earnings in adulthood by around 12 percent for men and 14 percent for women. Although previous studies have found a relationship between higher levels of education and greater earnings, less is known about ...

Much like key players in social networks, University of Kansas scientists have found evidence that there are keywords in word networks that hold together groups of words in our memory. In a study published in the Journal of Memory and Language, Michael Vitevitch, KU professor of psychology, showed that research participants recognized these keywords more quickly and accurately than other words that were like the keywords in many respects except for their position in a network of 20,000 similar-sounding English words that he and colleagues created in 2008. "If words ...

NEW YORK, N.Y., May 19, 2014: It's estimated that more than 970 million people have hypertension1 and, globally, the disease is responsible for more than nine million deaths every year, making it one of the leading causes of death worldwide. In an effort to help manage the epidemic, leading scientists from the American Society of Hypertension (ASH), American Heart Association (AHA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened a joint panel to discuss a global project aiming to improve the treatment and control of hypertension worldwide. The joint ...

Athens, 19 May 2014: Home telemonitoring is equally effective in ICD and CRT-D patients, a subanalysis of the IN-TIME trial has shown. The findings were presented for the first time today at the Heart Failure Congress 2014, held 17-20 May in Athens, Greece. The Congress is the main annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. The prospective IN-TIME multicentre trial included 664 patients with chronic heart failure, class II or III New York Heart Association (NYHA) symptoms and left ventricular ejection fraction END ...

Athens, 19 May 2014: A novel device implanted under the skin like a pacemaker successfully treats central sleep apnoea (CSA) in heart failure patients, according to research presented today at the Heart Failure Congress 2014, held 17-20 May in Athens, Greece. The Congress is the main annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. The one year results of the remede® system pilot study were revealed for the first time by lead author Professor William T. Abraham from the Ohio State University. He said: "The remede® system is the first ...

Adolescents with chronic diseases (ACD), such as cystic fibrosis, gastrointestinal disorders (including Crohn's disease) and Type 1 diabetes, often find the transition of managing their health care needs into adulthood to be challenging. Preparations for this transition are often clinic-based, costly and do not fully or effectively engage with this patient population. A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine found the answer to developing independent, self-management skills in ACD could be right at the patient's fingertips. ...

One of the most comprehensive studies of the potential link between reduced sleep and childhood obesity finds compelling evidence that children who consistently received less than the recommended hours of sleep during infancy and early childhood had increases in both obesity and in adiposity or overall body fat at age 7. The study from MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) investigators, published in the June issue of Pediatrics, also finds no evidence of a specific period during which insufficient sleep has greater influence on later obesity. "Our study found convincing ...

More and more men who believe they have low-risk prostate cancers are opting for active surveillance, forgoing treatment and monitoring the cancer closely with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests, digital rectal exams and ultrasounds at regular intervals to see if their tumors are growing. Nearly 400 men are now enrolled in the UCLA Active Surveillance program, the largest in Southern California. However, according to a new UCLA study, selection of men for active surveillance should be based not on the widely used conventional biopsy, but with a new, image-guided targeted ...

WASHINGTON - Low-income Latino children who experienced one year of Montessori pre-K education at age 4 made dramatic improvements in early achievement and behavior even though they began the year at great risk for school failure, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. In contrast, although low-income black children made gains in school readiness when enrolled in Montessori classrooms as well, they exhibited slightly greater gains when they attended more conventional public school pre-kindergarten programs. The research was published ...

LIVERPOOL, UK – 9 May 2014: A University of Liverpool study of fruit flies has revealed that males forced to compete with other males become less attractive to females and die young. In the test, male fruit flies of the species Drosophila subobscura were kept either alone or in groups. The females of this species are monandrous – they only mate once in their lives, meaning that males have to get very lucky to mate at all. As a result males compete furiously for access to females. Evolutionary biologist, Dr Anne Lizé, who led the study said: "When we see stags fighting ...

Today, the majority of cancers are detected on the macroscopic level, when the tumor is already composed of millions of cancer cells and the disease is starting to advance into a more mature phase. But what if we could diagnose cancer before it took hold- while it was still only affecting a few localized cells? It would be like putting a fire out while it was still just a few sparks versus after having already caught on and spread to many areas of the house. An international team of researchers, led by ICFO- Institute of Photonic Sciences in Castelldefels, announce ...

Adding vitamin D to asthma treatment to improve breathing only appears to benefit patients who achieve sufficient levels of the supplement in the blood. Overall, the ability to control asthma did not differ between a study group that received vitamin D supplements and a group that received placebo, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Previous studies suggested that if you have asthma and low levels of vitamin D in the blood, you have worse lung function, more asthma attacks and more emergency room visits than asthma patients ...

Researchers at MIT and the University of Vienna have created an imaging system that reveals neural activity throughout the brains of living animals. This technique, the first that can generate 3-D movies of entire brains at the millisecond timescale, could help scientists discover how neuronal networks process sensory information and generate behavior. The team used the new system to simultaneously image the activity of every neuron in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, as well as the entire brain of a zebrafish larva, offering a more complete picture of nervous system ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) today report a discovery that they hope will lead to the development of a powerful new way of treating an aggressive form of breast cancer. The breast cancer subtype in question is commonly called "HER2-positive"; it's a subset of the disease affecting about one patient in four, in which tumor cells overexpress a signaling protein called HER2. The blockbuster drug Herceptin is a treatment of choice for many women with HER2-positive breast cancer, but in most cases, resistance to the treatment ...

ATS 2014, SAN DIEGO ─ As if increased risks of high blood pressure, respiratory infections, lung cancer and even depression weren't enough, researchers say patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have another complication to worry about: heart failure. That's according to a new study from the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, which found the prevalence of heart failure is significantly higher in patients with COPD compared to the rest of the study population. They also found that the risk was especially high among African-American patients ...

ATS 2014, SAN DIEGO ─ Patients with chronic pulmonary thromboembolic disease may benefit from pulmonary thromboendarterectomy (PTE), even if the patients don't have severe pulmonary hypertension, according to University of California, San Diego, researchers. The study was presented at the 2014 American Thoracic Society International Conference. UCSD pioneered PTE in the 1970s for patients who suffered from chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). During PTE, surgeons put a patient on a heart-lung machine, cool the body to reduce its need for oxygen ...

ATS 2014, SAN DIEGO ─ A new study by researchers from California and Canada indicates a simple urine test can indicate the presence of venous thromboembolism, a blood clot that has broken free from its point of origin and which travels through the bloodstream, eventually lodging in a vein. The test evaluates the levels of fibrinopeptide B (FPB), a small peptide that's released when a thrombosis forms and which is removed from the body through urine. The results of the study will be presented at the American Thoracic Society's 2014 International Conference here. Study ...