Many of us take a healthy immune system for granted. But for certain infants with rare, inherited mutations of certain genes, severe infection and death are stark consequences of their impaired immune responses. Now, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have identified an important role for calcium signaling in immune responses to chronic infection resulting from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium causing tuberculosis (TB). Specifically, they determined that the immune systems in genetically altered mice lacking the critically important calcium channel ...

Uninsured people don't have any more difficulty getting appointments with primary care doctors than those with insurance, but they get them at prices that are likely unaffordable to a typical uninsured person, according to new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-led research. And payment options are not very flexible, with only one in five people told they could be seen without paying the whole cost up front, suggests the new study published in the May issue of the journal Health Affairs. "There's a discouragement factor for uninsured people when it comes ...

A new screening method can detect twice as many women with ovarian cancer as conventional strategies, according to the latest results from the largest trial of its kind led by UCL. The method uses a statistical calculation to interpret changing levels in women's blood of a protein called CA125, which is linked to ovarian cancer. This gives a more accurate prediction of a woman's individual risk of developing cancer, compared to the conventional screening method which uses a fixed 'cut-off' point for CA125. The new method detected cancer in 86% of women with invasive epithelial ...

ATLANTA -- May 4, 2015 -- While black and white men under age 65 diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer received similar treatment, blacks had a 76% higher risk of death than whites, according to a new study. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that the disparity was significantly reduced after accounting for differences in insurance and income. Male breast cancer is a rare disease, accounting for less than 1% of all cancers in men and approximately 2% of all breast cancers in the United States. Black men have a higher incidence of breast ...

Oxidative stress has been long known to fuel disease, but how exactly it damages various organs has been challenging to sort out. Now scientists from Johns Hopkins say research in mice reveals why oxidation comes to be so corrosive to heart muscle. A report on the results, published online May 4 in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, shows that oxidation inside the cardiac cells precipitates heart failure by disrupting the work of a heart-shielding protein called PKG, known to act as a natural "brake" against biological stressors like chronically elevated blood pressure, ...

Over the last ten years, public health campaigns in New York City around smoking, obesity, and HIV underwent a dramatic shift to use fear and disgust to spur behavior change, sometimes with the unintended consequence of stigmatizing affected populations. In a new article published in the May issue of the journal Health Affairs, scholars at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health explore the implications of this shift to fear-based campaigns in the present public health environment. Beginning in 2005, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Alzheimer's disease (AD) may affect as many as 5.5 million Americans. Scientists currently are seeking treatments and therapies found in common foods that will help stave off the disease or prevent it completely. Now, University of Missouri researchers have determined that a compound found in green tea, and voluntary exercise, slows the progression of the disease in mice and may reverse its effects. Further study of the commonly found extract could lead to advancements in the treatment and prevention ...

(NEW YORK - May 4) Applying palliative care principles to emergency departments may reduce the number of geriatric patients admitted to intensive care units, possibly extending lives and reducing Medicare costs, according to a three-year analysis by Mount Sinai researchers set to be published in the May edition of Health Affairs, which can be found online. "Data show that more than half of Americans ages 65 and older are seen in the emergency department in the last month of their lives, and that the number and rate of admissions to intensive care units among older adults ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- People with depression or bipolar disorder often feel their thinking ability has gotten "fuzzy", or less sharp than before their symptoms began. Now, researchers have shown in a very large study that effect is indeed real - and rooted in brain activity differences that show up on advanced brain scans. What's more, the results add to the mounting evidence that these conditions both fall on a spectrum of mood disorders, rather than being completely unrelated. That could transform the way doctors and patients think about, diagnose and treat them. In ...

Premature birth can alter the connectivity between key areas of the brain, according to a new study led by King's College London. The findings should help researchers to better understand why premature birth is linked to a greater risk of neurodevelopmental problems, including autistic spectrum disorders and attention deficit disorders. The NIHR-funded study, published in the journal PNAS, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at specific connections in the brains of 66 infants, 47 of whom were born before 33 weeks and were therefore at high risk ...

PITTSBURGH, May 4, 2015 -- A study team led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who used specially developed technologies to "follow the zinc" have uncovered a previously unknown pathway the brain uses to fine-tune neural signaling -- and that may play a role in Alzheimer's and other diseases. Their findings appear online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists have long observed the presence of bubble-like vesicles that contain the neurotransmitter glutamate and zinc at the synapses, specialized contacts ...

In the mountains of Virginia, millipedes have bright yellow and black colors to warn enemies that they are toxic and not worth eating. Their cousins in California convey this warning in a very different way -- by glowing in the dark. But bioluminescence at least in one millipede may have evolved as a way to survive in a hot, dry environment, not as a means to ward off predators, according to scientists publishing this week (Monday, May 4) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery, based on a millipede that hadn't been seen in 50 years, shows ...

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. - May 4, 2015 - The May issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), features a meta-analysis pointing to botulinum toxin A as a possible obesity treatment; a study reporting that, in some cases, it may be safe to store endoscopes longer than five days after reprocessing; and an article reviewing a promising group of procedures for patients with advanced illness from gastric obstruction. "Effect of intragastric injection of botulinum toxin A for ...

Scooting around in the shallow, coastal waters of Puget Sound is one of the world's best suction cups. It's called the Northern clingfish, and its small, finger-sized body uses suction forces to hold up to 150 times its own body weight. These fish actually hold on better to rough surfaces than to smooth ones, putting to shame industrial suction devices that give way with the slightest uneven surface. Researchers at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories on San Juan Island are studying this quirky little fish to understand how it can summon such massive ...

A recent study reported in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine compared use of the novel Ga-68-PSMA-ligand PET/CT with other imaging methods and found that it had substantially higher detection rates of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) in patients with biochemical recurrence after radical prostatectomy. Discovering a recurrence early can strongly influence further clinical management, so it is especially noteworthy that this hybrid PSMA-ligand identified a large number of positive findings in the clinically important range of low PSA-values ( END ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - As greater atmospheric carbon dioxide boosts sea temperatures, tropical corals face a bleak future. New climate model projections show that conditions are likely to increase the frequency and severity of coral disease outbreaks, reports a team of researchers led by Cornell University scientists, published today (May 4) in Nature Climate Change. Download study, FAQ and photos: https://cornell.box.com/coral-disease Conserving coral reefs is crucial to maintaining the biodiversity of our oceans and sustaining the livelihoods of the 500 million people that ...

A new study published in Marketing Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), shows double-digit revenue growth for firms that create their own brand-specific online communities. The study, Social Dollars: The Economic Impact of Customer Participation in a Firm-Sponsored Online Customer Community, is by professors Puneet Manchanda of the University of Michigan, Grant Packard of Wilfrid Laurier University, and Adithya Pattabhiramaiah of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Engaging consumers through online social ...

Nerves aren't known for being stretchy. In fact, "nerve stretch injury" is a common form of trauma in humans. But researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 4 have discovered that nerves in the mouths and tongues of rorqual whales can more than double their length with no trouble at all. "These large nerves actually stretch and recoil like bungee cords," says A. Wayne Vogl of the University of British Columbia. "This is unlike other nerves in vertebrates, where the nerve is of a more fixed length that has enough slack in it to accommodate changes ...

University of British Columbia (UBC) researchers have discovered a unique nerve structure in the mouth and tongue of rorqual whales that can double in length and then recoil like a bungee cord. The stretchy nerves explain how the massive whales are able to balloon an immense pocket between their body wall and overlying blubber to capture prey during feeding dives. "This discovery was totally unexpected and unlike other nerve structures we've seen in vertebrates, which are of a more fixed length," says Wayne Vogl of UBC's Cellular and Physiological Sciences department. "The ...

BOSTON, MA - The Emergency Department (ED) is at the convergence of the opioid epidemic as emergency physicians (EPs) routinely care for patients with adverse effects from opioids, including overdoses and those battling addiction, as well as treating patients that benefit from opioid use. Increasingly, EPs are required to distinguish between patients who are suffering from a condition that warrants opioids to relieve pain, and those who may be attempting to obtain these medications for other purposes, such as abuse or diversion. Overall, opioid pain reliever prescribing ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- May 4, 2015) Researchers led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have identified a mechanism that helps leukemia cells resist glucocorticoids, a finding that lays the foundation for more effective treatment of cancer and possibly a host of autoimmune diseases. The findings appear online today in the scientific journal Nature Genetics. The research focused on glucocorticoids, a class of steroid hormones. These hormones have been key ingredients in the chemotherapy cocktail that has helped to push long-term survival for the most common ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - May 4, 2015) St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have developed a significantly better computer tool for finding genetic alterations that play an important role in many cancers but were difficult to identify with whole-genome sequencing. The findings appear today in the scientific journal Nature Methods. The tool is an algorithm called CONSERTING, short for Copy Number Segmentation by Regression Tree in Next Generation Sequencing. St. Jude researchers created CONSERTING to improve identification of copy number alterations (CNAs) in the ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Within the knee, two specialized, C-shaped pads of tissue called menisci perform many functions that are critical to knee-joint health. The menisci, best known as the shock absorbers in the knee, help disperse pressure, reduce friction and nourish the knee. Now, new research from the University of Missouri shows even small changes in the menisci can hinder their ability to perform critical knee functions. The research could provide new approaches to preventing and treating meniscal injuries as well as clues to understanding osteoarthritis; meniscal problems ...

(New York -- May 4, 2015) Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai researchers presented several landmark studies at the 2015 American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) meeting in Seattle. AATS Highlights include: First Successful 3D Printed Trachea A team of researchers from Icahn School of Medicine have combined 3D printing technology with human stem cells to create the first successful 3D-printed biologic tracheal graft in an animal model. Using a biocompatible polymer, researchers created a customized 3D-printed tracheal graft seeded with stem cells. The ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - The decline of the world's large herbivores, especially in Africa and parts of Asia, is raising the specter of an "empty landscape" in some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, according to a newly published study. Many populations of animals such as rhinoceroses, zebras, camels, elephants and tapirs are diminishing or threatened with extinction in grasslands, savannahs, deserts and forests, scientists say. An international team of wildlife ecologists led by William Ripple, Oregon State University distinguished professor in the College of ...