A new study by Brigham Young University and the Fox affiliate in Salt Lake City shows that choosing to broadcast a local favorite isn't always the smartest ratings decision. The new study shows how TV execs should decide which games to air when the home-town team isn't playing - or in markets like Utah that don't have their own team. Traditionally the most popular teams in Utah have been the Broncos, Cowboys and 49ers. "When you look at the difference between the average team effect, like say the Miami Dolphins, and the next top tier after the Denver Broncos, the results ...

HOUSTON -- ( Nov. 7, 2014 ) -- By transforming human scar cells into blood vessel cells, scientists at Houston Methodist may have discovered a new way to repair damaged tissue. The method, described in an upcoming issue of Circulation (early online), appeared to improve blood flow, oxygenation, and nutrition to areas in need. Cardiovascular scientists at Houston Methodist, with colleagues at Stanford University and Cincinnati Children's Hospital, learned that fibroblasts -- cells that causes scarring and are plentiful throughout the human body -- can be coaxed into becoming ...

LAWRENCE -- New study results from the University of Kansas to be presented this weekend at the Gerontological Society of America's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., bolster the adage that "heart healthy is brain healthy." The investigation shows neighborhoods that motivate walking can stave off cognitive decline in older adults. "People can walk either to get somewhere or for leisure," said Amber Watts, assistant professor of clinical psychology, who will share her findings at a symposium Sunday, Nov. 9, in Liberty Salon K at the Washington Marriott Marquis. "Depending ...

A detailed analysis by cybersecurity experts from the University of Maryland found that website administrators nationwide tasked with patching security holes exploited by the Heartbleed bug may not have done enough. First disclosed in April 2014, Heartbleed presents a serious vulnerability to the popular OpenSSL (Secure Sockets Layer) software, allowing anyone on the Internet to read the memory of systems that are compromised by the malicious bug. Assistant Research Scientist Dave Levin and Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Tudor Dumitras were ...

BOSTON (November 7, 2014) -- Researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center have found a way to defeat one of the most tantalizing yet elusive target proteins in cancer cells - employing a strategy that turns the protein's own molecular machinations against it. In a study published online by the journal Cell, the scientists used a specially crafted compound to disrupt the protein's ability to rev up its own production and that of other proteins involved in tumor cell growth. The result, in laboratory samples of neuroblastoma cancer cells ...

NASA's newest Earth observing mission, the International Space Station-Rapid Scatterometer, or ISS-RapidScat provided a look at the winds within post-tropical cyclone Nuri on Nov. 5 and 6 as it moved parallel to Japan. Nuri has moved across the Pacific and is expected to bring hurricane-force wind gusts to Alaska's Aleutian Islands today, Nov. 7. "RapidScat passed over Nuri, near Japan, three times within a 24 hour period," said Doug Tyler of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "The progression [in three images] showed Nuri's path." RapidScat measured ...

New York - As Americans face growing health and financial burdens from preventable, non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers, a new study demonstrates employers have a unique opportunity to improve Americans' health. The research is led by Dr. Katherine Tryon and Dr. Derek Yach from the Vitality Institute and is published in the November issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The study, which involved a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of existing research into workplace health programs, notes ...

In a new study published in the scientific journal Oncotarget researchers from Uppsala University show that a therapeutic vaccine directed against tumor vessels can reduce tumor burden and suppress formation of spontaneous lung metastases in a mouse model for metastatic breast cancer. The target molecule of the immunization strategy is the extra domain-A (ED-A) of fibronectin, a protein domain which is highly selective for the tumor vasculature in the adult. "The vaccination approach we have employed is not prophylactic but therapeutic, meaning that immunity was induced ...

Tropical Cyclone 05B was meandering in the Bay of Bengal on Nov. 8, but forecasters expect it to move west and head toward east-central India for landfall. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of the tropical storm off India's coast. When Suomi NPP flew over Tropical Cyclone 05B (TC05B) on Nov. 7 at 08:09 UTC (3:09 a.m. EST), the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite or VIIRS instrument aboard captured a visible image of the storm. The VIIRS image showed a band of thunderstorms wrapping into the center from the northern quadrant, and fragmented ...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a very severe disease that mainly affects the motor system. Recently the focus of public attention thanks to a viral campaign (remember last summer's ALS Ice Bucket Challenge?), ALS leads to progressive paralysis and ultimately death. Among the lesser known symptoms of the disease are cognitive impairments, which may even involve full-blown dementia. One of them is a selective difficulty in understanding and using verbs denoting actions, which these patients find much more challenging to process compared to nouns denoting objects. ...

This news release is available in German. How can a sequence of dance steps best be learned? This question was the subject of a project led by researchers from Bielefeld University and the Palucca University of Dance in Dresden, who developed the study along with dancers and dance instructors. Together they researched whether dancers learn a dance sequence better by seeing or by listening, that is, if a dance instructor first demonstrates the sequence, or if he or she first gives a spoken explanation. The research article detailing the results of this study was recently ...

Through the careful study of modern and early fossil tortoise, researchers now have a better understanding of how tortoises breathe and the evolutionary processes that helped shape their unique breathing apparatus and tortoise shell. The findings published in a paper, titled: Origin of the unique ventilatory apparatus of turtles, in the scientific journal, Nature Communications, on Friday, 7 November 2014, help determine when and how the unique breathing apparatus of tortoises evolved. Lead author Dr Tyler Lyson of Wits University's Evolutionary Studies Institute, the ...

Being shown pictures of others being loved and cared for reduces the brain's response to threat, new research from the University of Exeter has found. The study discovered that when individuals are briefly presented pictures of others receiving emotional support and affection, the brain's threat monitor, the amygdala, subsequently does not respond to images showing threatening facial expressions or words. This occurred even if the person was not paying attention to the content of the first pictures. Forty-two healthy individuals participated in the study, in which ...

Last year CERN announced the finding of a new elementary particle, the Higgs particle. But maybe it wasn't the Higgs particle, maybe it just looks like it. And maybe it is not alone. Many calculations indicate that the particle discovered last year in the CERN particle accelerator was indeed the famous Higgs particle. Physicists agree that the CERN experiments did find a new particle that had never been seen before, but according to an international research team, there is no conclusive evidence that the particle was indeed the Higgs particle. The research team has ...

This news release is available in German. Microbiologists and molecular biologists at ETH Zurich and the University of Bonn have discovered a new agent in fungi that kills bacteria. The substance, known as copsin, has the same effect as traditional antibiotics, but belongs to a different class of biochemical substances. Copsin is a protein, whereas traditional antibiotics are often non-protein organic compounds. The researchers led by Markus Aebi, Professor of Mycology, discovered the substance in the common inky cap mushroom Coprinopsis cinerea that grows on horse ...

An international research project, which includes researchers from the U. of Granada, has proved the need for campaigns to persuade parents of the benefits involved in having their children walk to school. This also includes work on the perception about the security of the paths their children need to follo won the way to school. This research points out, besides, the need for public administrations to actively campaign to persuade children and their families to walk more often as part of their daily routines. Many different surveys have demonstrated that walking to school ...

Since suitable studies are lacking, it remains unclear in which sperm analysis parameters assisted reproduction using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) can be superior to in vitro fertilization (IVF). This is the conclusion of the final report published by the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) on 6 November 2014. Benefit assessment depending on parameters The Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) commissioned IQWiG with the examination of two research questions: First, the researchers were to assess the benefit of ICSI in comparison with IVF ...

Eribulin (trade name: Halaven) is approved for women with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer in whom the disease has progressed despite prior drug therapy. The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined in a dossier assessment whether the drug offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy in these patient groups. According to the findings, there are both positive and negative effects. There is proof of minor added benefit for one group of patients. For other groups, there are hints or indications of lesser ...

The current classification system for colorectal cancer, which is based on genetic expression profiles, cannot be used to predict drug responses to FOLFIRI. This is the conclusion reached by a team from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), formed by members from the Gastrointestinal Cancer Clinical Research Unit and the Structural Computational Biology Group. The study, published this week in the journal Nature Medicine, will assist oncologists in making better-informed decisions regarding how to treat their colorectal cancer patients in the clinic. Conclusions ...

Published in Nature Biotechnology, the study showed that specially engineered lipid (fat) bodies, called liposomes, can be used to prevent bacterial toxins from killing human cells. This could prevent unnecessary deaths from diseases such as pneumonia and sepsis. The treatment is a valuable alternative to current medications, particularly for infections that have become resistant to antibiotics. The bacterial toxins, produced by major human pathogens such as Streptococcus pneumonia, Streptococcus pyogenes and Methicillin Resistant Staphlycoccus aureus (MRSA) were ...

During hibernation, dormice enter into 'torpor' to save energy and water. In this state, the dormice become inactive and show a marked decrease in their metabolic rate, causing their body temperature to reduce. Torpor was then found to be a strategy used when food availability was limited. The researchers compared two groups of juveniles born late in the season - one able to feed freely and the other intermittently fasted on alternate days. The fasted dormice showed considerably greater use of torpor, enabling them to maintain high growth rates and accumulate sufficient ...

Muscle-specific protein cofilin-2 controls the length of actin filaments in muscle cells. Sliding of myosin and actin filaments past each other provides the force for muscle contraction. In contrast to most non-muscle cells, the actin filaments in muscle sarcomeres are of precise length and relatively stable. Defects in the organization of these actin filament arrays result in various heart and muscle disorders, such as myopathies. The research group of professor Pekka Lappalainen at Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, has now revealed a new mechanism ...

Bethesda, MD -- After many generations, rats bred for their bad attitude behave differently from those selected for a calm demeanor around humans. Research published November 7 in the journal GENETICS identifies gene regions that contribute to differences between nasty and nice rats in their behavior and the activity of genes in the brain. These results may provide important clues as to which genes make tame animals like dogs behave so differently from their wild ancestors. "Tameness is one trait that all domestic animals share. Whether it's pigs or cats or horses, domestication ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Legal restriction of abortion has a negative connotation since the idea of women resorting to illegal abortion -risking their own lives- is strongly rooted in the public opinion worldwide. However, a series of independently peer-reviewed articles, challenge this notion in some countries. The latest data in this subject have been discussed by the Chilean epidemiologist Elard Koch, Director of Research of the MELISA Institute, in the current issue of the official journal of the Chilean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology. ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Nov. 7, 2014 - Myriad Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq: MYGN) today presented results from a prospective clinical utility study of its Myriad myPath Melanoma test at the 2014 American Society of Dermatopathology (ASDP) annual meeting in Chicago, Ill. Myriad myPath Melanoma is a genetic test that differentiates malignant melanoma from benign skin lesions across all major melanoma subtypes. Key findings of this clinical utility study included a 43 percent reduction in indeterminate diagnoses and a 49 percent change in physicians' treatment recommendations for ...