Frequent arguments with partners, relatives, or neighbours may boost the risk of death from any cause in middle age, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Men and those not in work seemed to be the most vulnerable, the findings indicate. The evidence suggests that supportive social networks and strong relationships are good for general health and wellbeing, but the authors wanted to find out if the stressors inherent in family relationships and friendships had any impact on the risk of death from any cause. They therefore ...

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita may have been responsible for up to half of all recorded stillbirths in the worst hit areas, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. And the true fetal death toll may even be higher, because of the displacement of people whose homes and way of life were destroyed, suggest the authors. Hurricane Katrina struck the state of Louisiana, USA, on August 29 2005, followed by Hurricane Rita a month later on September 24. Katrina was the costliest natural disaster in American history, while Rita was the ...

A team of scientists has found that the woody growth of forests in north Borneo is half as great again as in the most productive forests of north-west Amazonia, an average difference of 3.2 tons of wood per hectare per year. The new study, published today in the Journal of Ecology, examined differences in above-ground wood production (one component of the total uptake of carbon by plants) which is critically important in the global cycling of carbon. Trees are taller for a given diameter in Southeast Asia compared with South America, meaning they gain more biomass ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have identified a specific biochemical process that can cause normal and healthy skin cells to transform into cancerous melanoma cells, which should help predict melanoma vulnerability and could also lead to future therapies. More than 70,000 cases of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, develop in the U.S. every year. The work was published today in PLoS Genetics, in work supported by the National Institutes of Health. "We believe this is a breakthrough in understanding exactly what leads to cancer ...

Highly pathogenic (dangerous) influenza strains elicit a strong immune response which can lead to uncontrolled inflammation in the lung and potentially fatal lung injury. A study published on May 8th in PLOS Pathogens demonstrates the importance of IL-27 for the control of immunopathology—damage to the lung tissue caused by the immune system—and the therapeutic potential of well-timed IL-27 application to treat life-threatening inflammation during lung infection. Alf Hamann, from Deutsches Rheuma-Forschungszentrum and Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany, and colleagues, ...

Certain influenza strains are highly virulent—they cause more serious disease and kill more people. Some of the damage is caused by the stronger immune response such strains elicit, especially in the lung. A study published on May 8th in PLOS Pathogens identifies SOCS4 as a key regulator of the immune response against influenza virus. Lukasz Kedzierski, Sandra Nicholson, and colleagues from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and the University of Melbourne, Australia, studied mice with a mutation in the Socs4 gene, a member of a gene family whose ...

Washington, DC (May 8, 2014) — More frequent face-to-face physician visits in the month following hospital discharge may help reduce a kidney failure patient's chances of needing to be sent back to the hospital. That's the conclusion of a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The study also found that closer outpatient monitoring of kidney failure patients following hospital discharge could cut health care costs significantly. A major goal of health policy reform has been to reduce hospital readmissions within ...

Neurovance, Inc. today announced complete results from its phase 2a pilot study of EB-1020 SR, a non-stimulant, in adult male patients with all subtypes of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). EB-1020 SR is a norepinephrine- and dopamine-preferring triple reuptake inhibitor. The data showed a statistically significant improvement in ADHD symptoms on the ADHD-Rating Scale-IV (ADHD-RS-IV), the primary outcome measure, in a range similar to that reported in previously published trials with stimulants. EB-1020 SR appears to be well tolerated at the doses studied. ...

VIDEO: A protein called SOCS4 has been shown to act as a handbrake on the immune system's runaway reaction to flu infection, providing a possible means of minimising the impact of... Click here for more information. A protein called SOCS4 has been shown to act as a handbrake on the immune system's runaway reaction to flu infection, providing a possible means of minimising the impact of flu pandemics. Scientists from Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have found that ...

A genomic investigation by University of British Columbia researchers has revealed that a lethal parasite infecting a wide range of insects actually originated from pond scum, but has completely shed its green past on its evolutionary journey. A team led by UBC Botany Prof. Patrick Keeling sequenced the genome of Helicosporidium – an intracellular parasite that can kill juvenile blackflies, caterpillars, beetles and mosquitoes – and found it evolved from algae like another notorious pathogen: malaria. Keeling and colleagues had previously reported that malaria shared ...

Eating more fruits and vegetables may reduce the risk of stroke worldwide, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke. Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 20 studies published over the last 19 years to assess the effects of fruit and vegetable consumption on risk of stroke globally. The combined studies involved 760,629 men and women who had 16,981 strokes. Stroke risk decreased by 32 percent with every 200 grams of fruit consumed each day and 11 percent with every 200 grams of vegetables consumed each day. "Improving diet and lifestyle ...

Hamilton, ON (May 8, 2014) – New research from McMaster University suggests that a commonly performed test during certain types of heart surgery is not helpful and possibly harmful. The testing procedure, known as defibrillator testing (DT), is commonly used on people who require implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) to prevent sudden cardiac death. It involves putting the patient into cardiac arrest to determine if the defibrillator can first recognize, then successfully shock the patient back into a normal heart rhythm. It requires the use of general anesthesia ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Children with autism experience deficits in a type of immune cell that protects the body from infection. Called granulocytes, the cells exhibit one-third the capacity to fight infection and protect the body from invasion compared with the same cells in children who are developing normally. The cells, which circulate in the bloodstream, are less able to deliver crucial infection-fighting oxidative responses to combat invading pathogens because of dysfunction in their tiny energy-generating organelles, the mitochondria. The study is published ...

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 6:07 a.m. EDT on May 8, 2014, and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, captured images of it. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. To see how this event may impact Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's ...

Leptin-dependent regulation of reproduction Individuals that lack the adipose-derived hormone leptin fail to complete puberty and are infertile. Leptin-deficient mice recapitulate human phenotypes; however, it is not clear how leptin and leptin signaling impact the reproductive axis. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Vincent Prevot and colleagues at INSERM U837 evaluated leptin deficient animals and determined that leptin acts directly on neurons in the preoptic region of the hypothalamus that synthesize nitric oxide to regulate peripheral levels ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Looking at a smooth sheet of plastic in one University of Illinois laboratory, no one would guess that an impact had recently blasted a hole through it. Illinois researchers have developed materials that not only heal, but regenerate. Until now, self-repairing materials could only bond tiny microscopic cracks. The new regenerating materials fill in large cracks and holes by regrowing material. Led by professor Scott White, the research team comprises professors Jeffry S. Moore and Nancy Sottos and graduate students Brett Krull, Windy Santa Cruz and ...

A Case Western Reserve University student and his mentor have discovered an ancient kitten-sized predator that lived in Bolivia about 13 million years ago—one of the smallest species reported in the extinct order Sparassodonta. Third-year undergraduate student Russell Engelman and Case Western Reserve anatomy professor Darin Croft made the finding by analyzing a partial skull that had been in a University of Florida collection more than three decades. The researchers report their finding in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2013.827118#.U2p8-S8njhM. "The ...

A key challenge in the biofuels landscape is to get more advanced biofuels—fuels other than corn ethanol and vegetable oil-based biodiesel—into the transportation pool. Utilization of advanced biofuels is stipulated by the Energy Independence and Security Act; however, current production levels lag behind proposed targets. Additionally, certain transportation sectors, such as aviation, are likely to continue to require liquid hydrocarbon fuels in the long term even as light duty transportation shifts to alternative power sources. A multi-university team lead by George ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- MIT researchers have devised a novel cancer treatment that destroys tumor cells by first disarming their defenses, then hitting them with a lethal dose of DNA damage. In studies with mice, the research team showed that this one-two punch, which relies on a nanoparticle that carries two drugs and releases them at different times, dramatically shrinks lung and breast tumors. The MIT team, led by Michael Yaffe, the David H. Koch Professor in Science, and Paula Hammond, the David H. Koch Professor in Engineering, describe the findings in the May 8 online ...

Ozone pollution across the continental United States will become far more difficult to keep in check as temperatures rise, according to new research results. The study shows that Americans face the risk of a 70 percent increase in unhealthy summertime ozone levels by 2050. The results appear online this week in a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, published by the American Geophysical Union. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy. Warmer temperatures and other changes in the atmosphere ...

UPTON, NY—Scientists seeking to understand the intricacies of high-temperature superconductivity—the ability of certain materials to carry electrical current with no energy loss—have been particularly puzzled by a mysterious phase that emerges as charge carriers are added that appears to compete with superconductivity. It's also been a mystery why, within this "pseudogap" phase, the movement of superconducting electrons appears to be restricted to certain directions. So exploring the pseudogap and whether and how it affects the movement of electrons has been a pivotal challenge. ...

A new cultural psychology study has found that psychological differences between the people of northern and southern China mirror the differences between community-oriented East Asia and the more individualistic Western world – and the differences seem to have come about because southern China has grown rice for thousands of years, whereas the north has grown wheat. "It's easy to think of China as a single culture, but we found that China has very distinct northern and southern psychological cultures and that southern China's history of rice farming can explain why people ...

Magnetic devices like hard drives, magnetic random access memories (MRAMs), molecular magnets, and quantum computers depend on the manipulation of magnetic properties. In an atom, magnetism arises from the spin and orbital momentum of its electrons. 'Magnetic anisotropy' describes how an atom's magnetic properties depend on the orientation of the electrons' orbits relative to the structure of a material. It also provides directionality and stability to magnetization. Publishing in Science, researchers led by EPFL combine various experimental and computational methods to ...

Flowers aren't just pretty to look at, they are how plants reproduce. In agricultural plants, the timing and regulation of flower formation has economic significance, affecting a crop's yield. A new paper by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania published in the journal Science has revealed that a plant hormone once believed to promote flower formation in annual plants also plays a role in inhibiting flowers from forming. The dual role of this hormone, gibberellin, could be exploited to produce higher-yielding crop plants. The study was led by Nobutoshi Yamaguchi ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — By simply carrying around their cellphones, patients who suffer from chronic disease could soon have an accurate health monitor that warns their doctors when their symptoms worsen. GaitTrack, an app developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U. of I. at Chicago, turns a smartphone into a sophisticated medical device. Unlike other apps that merely count steps, GaitTrack uses eight motion parameters to perform a detailed analysis of a person's gait, or walking pattern, which can tell physicians much about a patient's ...