A low platelet count can occur as the result of a variety of medical conditions and as a medication side effect. Platelet transfusion is often required for individuals with a critically low platelet level. Currently, the primary source of platelets is volunteer donors. Unfortunately, donated platelets have an extremely short shelf life and can be in limited supply. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation reports on a method to generate progenitor cells from murine embryonic stems that are able to produce a large number of functional platelets. Mitchell Weiss ...

Bacterial meningitis is a life-threating infection of the central nervous system. Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is the leading cause of meningitis in newborn babies and can cause severe complications in those that survive the infection. GBS must cross the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) to cause disease but it is not clear how these organisms breach this barrier. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation identifies a pathway that is induced by GBS and disrupts junctions between cells. Kelly Doran and colleagues at San Diego State University determined that GBS induces ...

PROSSER, Wash. - Washington wine grape vineyards experimenting with sustainable pest management systems are seeing an unexpected benefit: an increase in butterflies. Over the years, loss in natural habitat has seen the decline in numbers of around 50 species of butterflies in eastern Washington. But in a recent Washington State University study published in the June issue of the Journal of Insect Conservation, researchers found that vineyards that create nearby natural habitats have three times the number of butterfly species and four times more butterflies than conventional ...

In what marks a significant step forward for artificial intelligence, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have demonstrated the functionality of a simple artificial neural circuit. For the first time, a circuit of about 100 artificial synapses was proved to perform a simple version of a typical human task: image classification. "It's a small, but important step," said Dmitri Strukov, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. With time and further progress, the circuitry may eventually be expanded and scaled to approach something like the human brain's, which has ...

TORONTO (May 11, 2015) -- Immigrants from the Caribbean and Bermuda, as well as refugees from East Africa and South Asia, have a 1.5 to 2 times higher risk of psychotic disorders compared to the general population of Ontario, Canada, according to a new study by researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The study also found that immigrants from Northern Europe, Southern Europe and East Asia had about half the risk of psychotic disorders compared to the general population. The study published ...

By combining 3D holographic lithography and 2D photolithography, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a high-performance 3D microbattery suitable for large-scale on-chip integration with microelectronic devices. "This 3D microbattery has exceptional performance and scalability, and we think it will be of importance for many applications," explained Paul Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering at Illinois. "Micro-scale devices typically utilize power supplied off-chip because of difficulties in miniaturizing ...

U.S. Congress approval ratings are at record lows. Now a new study suggests that this may be partly due to a decline in the use of warm, agreeable language in the House. The study, co-authored by University of British Columbia business professor Karl Aquino, found that the use of prosocial words -- language such as cooperate or contribute -- by lawmakers predicts public approval of Congress six months later. "If members of Congress want to be viewed more positively by the public, it appears that the words they use matter," says Aquino, a marketing and behavioural science ...

Researchers report that as the world population increases and food demand has grown, globalization of trade has made the food supply more sensitive to environmental and market fluctuations. This leads to greater chances of food crises, particularly in nations where land and water resources are scarce and therefore food security strongly relies on imports. The study assesses the food supply available to more than 140 nations (with populations greater than 1 million) and demonstrates that food security is becoming increasingly susceptible to perturbations in demographic ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - May 11, 2015) Childhood cancer survivors - especially those whose treatment included brain irradiation or chemotherapy with glucocorticoids - are 14 percent more likely to be obese than their healthy peers. The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital study appears today in the journal Cancer. Of the 1,996 childhood cancer survivors in this study, 36.2 percent had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kilograms per meters squared or more, which qualifies as obese. That was 14 percent greater than the expected prevalence based on federal health survey data of a ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - May 11, 2015) Researchers have identified three genes that play a pivotal role in the brain tumor choroid plexus carcinoma (CPC), a discovery that lays the groundwork for more effective treatment of this rare, often fatal cancer. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists led the study, which appears today in the journal Cancer Cell. The genes - TAF12, NFYC and RAD54L - are involved in DNA repair and regulation. Researchers showed that CPC often has at least one extra copy of each gene and demonstrated that the genes work cooperatively to launch ...

A new study finds that men with prostate cancer that has spread to nearby lymph nodes, who have a significant risk of dying from the disease, can benefit from the addition of radiation therapy to treatments that block the effects of testosterone. The findings imply that the almost half of patients with node-positive disease nationwide who this study found had not received combination therapy were not receiving the treatment that could best control their tumor and possibly save their lives. The report from investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. - When it comes to winning evolutionary fitness races, the tortoise once again prevails over the hare. In the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of BEACON scientists centered at Michigan State University found that limiting migrations among populations of bacteria produced better adaptations. The cost, however, was that the bacteria evolved slower. Taking your time, however, isn't always a bad thing, said Joshua Nahum, MSU biocomputational research associate. "We name this the Tortoise-Hare pattern, as it is ...

Achieving sustainability requires a sophisticated understanding of continuously evolving resource, production, and consumption systems that make up society's relationship to nature. In a special new issue, Yale's Journal of Industrial Ecology illustrates how the field is increasingly turning to complexity science for tools and insights in its pursuit of reduced environmental impacts. In the special issue, "Advances in Complex Adaptive Systems and Industrial Ecology," a group of international researchers show how integration of complex adaptive system into the study of ...

May 11, 2015 -- (BRONX, NY) -- A survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults has found that misperceptions about miscarriage and its causes are widespread. Results of the survey, conducted by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Health System, show that feelings of guilt and shame are common after a miscarriage and that most people erroneously believe that miscarriages are rare. The findings were published online today in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. Nearly one million miscarriages occur in the U.S. each year. Miscarriages ...

May 11, 2015 -- Ongoing efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reduce the population impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) are documented in the May/June issue of The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, official journal of the Brain Injury Association of America. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. "This special issue draws attention to the need for strategies to prevent TBI and to lessen the substantial physical, psychological, economic, and social effects among people who experience it," write co-editors Jeneita M. Bell, MD, MPH ...

As the nation observes the May 17 anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that ended racial segregation in public schools, a new study has found that desegregated schooling is tied to better performance for certain cognitive abilities in older African American Adults. This research is published in an article titled "Education Desegregation and Cognitive Change in African American Older Adults," appearing in the May 2015 issue of The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences. "Our findings suggest that there is a slight, but statistically ...

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Treatments used by traditional healers in Nigeria have inspired scientists at Northwestern University to synthesize four new chemical compounds that could one day lead to better therapies for people with psychiatric disorders. In a paper published online in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, the scientists detail how they created these natural compounds by completing the first total syntheses of two indole alkaloids -- alstonine and serpentine. These alkaloids, found in various plant species used by healers in Nigeria to treat people ...

LOS ANGELES (May 11, 2015) - The new 9-valent human papillomavirus vaccine, can potentially prevent 80 percent of cervical cancers in the United States, if given to all 11- or 12-year-old children before they are exposed to the virus. In addition to protecting against 80 percent of cervical cancers, the new 9-Valent human papillomavirus vaccine, which includes seven cancer causing HPV-types - 16,18,31,33,45,52 and 58 - has the potential to protect against nearly 19,000 other cancers diagnosed in the United States, including anal, oropharyngeal and penile cancers. This ...

HECTOR, N.Y. (May 11, 2015): Research by the U.S. Forest Service at the Finger Lakes National Forest (FLNF) is exploring whether native trees can restore a degraded stream corridor and whether degraded stream corridors can help one of those native trees -- the American elm -- stage a comeback. "Forest Service research is a vital part of keeping our rural and urban forests healthy, sustainable and more resilient to disturbances now and for future generations," said Michael T. Rains, Director of the Forest Service's Northern Research Station and the Forest Products Laboratory. ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University scientists have discovered a previously unknown dual mechanism that slows peat decay and may help reduce carbon dioxide emissions from peatlands during times of drought. "This discovery could hold the key to helping us find a way to significantly reduce the risk that increased drought and global warming will change Earth's peatlands from carbon sinks into carbon sources, as many scientists have feared," said Curtis J. Richardson, director of the Duke University Wetland Center and professor of resource ecology at Duke's Nicholas School ...

Fifty miles out to sea from San Diego, in the middle of April, under a perfectly clear blue sky, NOAA Fisheries scientists Tomo Eguchi and Jeff Seminoff leaned over the side of a rubber inflatable boat and lowered a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle into the water. That turtle was a trailblazer -- the first of its kind ever released off the West Coast of the United States with a satellite transmitter attached. Once he was in the water, the little guy -- "he's about the size of a dinner plate," Seminoff said -- paddled away to begin a long journey. He's been beaming back ...

Going to the dentist might have just gotten a little less scary for the estimated 1 in 68 U.S. children with autism spectrum disorder as well as children with dental anxiety, thanks to new research from USC. In an article published on May 1 by the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, researchers from USC and Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) examined the feasibility of adapting dental environments to be more calming for children with autism spectrum disorder. "The regular dental environment can be quite frightening for children with autism who, not knowing ...

PITTSBURGH, May 11, 2015 - A computer simulation, or "in silico" model, of the body's inflammatory response to traumatic injury accurately replicated known individual outcomes and predicted population results counter to expectations, according to a study recently published in Science Translational Medicine by a University of Pittsburgh research team. Traumatic injury is a major health care problem worldwide. Trauma induces acute inflammation in the body with the recruitment of many kinds of cells and molecular factors that are crucial for tissue survival, explained senior ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Over nearly 15 years spent studying ticks, Indiana University's Keith Clay has found southern Indiana to be an oasis free from Lyme disease, the condition most associated with these arachnids that are the second most common parasitic disease vector on Earth. He has also seen signs that this low-risk environment is changing, both in Indiana and in other regions of the U.S. A Distinguished Professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Biology, Clay has received support for his research on ticks from over $2.7 million ...

Around 55 million years ago, an abrupt global warming event triggered a highly corrosive deep-water current through the North Atlantic Ocean. The current's origin puzzled scientists for a decade, but an international team of researchers has now discovered how it formed and the findings may have implications for the carbon dioxide emission sensitivity of today's climate. The researchers explored the acidification of the ocean that occurred during a period known as the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when the Earth warmed 9 degree Fahrenheit in response to a ...