The immune-boosting properties of breast milk have long been known. Now a team of scientists led by Johns Hopkins pediatric surgeon-in-chief David Hackam, M.D., Ph.D., says experiments in mice reveal how breast milk works to ward off the development of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a devastating intestinal disorder that affects 12 percent of premature babies and claims the lives of one in four of those who have it. If affirmed in human studies, the experiments could pave the way to new preventive approaches to stave off NEC in premature babies and spark the development ...

Over the past few years, extracellular vesicles, or membrane sacs secreted from cells, have emerged as important mediators by which cells communicate with their surroundings to regulate a diverse range of biological processes. In addition, specialized roles for extracellular vesicles are beginning to be recognized in various diseases including cancer, infectious diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. Moreover, engineered extracellular vesicles are likely to have applications in drug delivery. The laboratory of Crislyn D'Souza-Schorey, Morris Pollard Professor and Chair ...

Beverages sweetened with low, medium and high amounts of high-fructose corn syrup significantly increase risk factors for cardiovascular disease, even when consumed for just two weeks by young, healthy men and women, reports a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis. The study is the first to demonstrate a direct, dose-dependent relationship between the amount of added sugar consumed in sweetened beverages and increases in specific risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The data reinforce evidence from an earlier epidemiological study showing that ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -Due to the ever-increasing number of people using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, businesses and organizations, such as professional sports teams, are expanding their marketing and communication efforts to engage people with their brands through those sites. Now, Nicholas Watanabe, an assistant teaching professor at the University of Missouri, along with colleagues from MU and Louisiana State University, analyzed Major League Baseball (MLB) teams' use of Twitter to engage and increase fan interest. They found that the more individual teams ...

LEXINGTON, KY. (Apr. 22, 2015) -- It was once thought that effects of a mild head injury -- dizziness, headaches, memory problems -- were only temporary, and the brain would heal over time. However, while the long-term consequences of head trauma are not fully known, growing evidence suggests that even a mild head injury can increase the risk for later-in-life development of dementias such as Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging have been attempting to understand the cascade of events following mild head injury ...

From AGU's blogs: Volcanic soundscapes reveal differences in undersea eruptions New research matching different types of underwater volcanic eruptions with their unique sound signatures could help scientists better detect and understand emissions occurring on the seafloor. From Eos.org: Is the Shale Boom Reversing Progress in Curbing Ozone Pollution? Concentrations of volatile organic compounds--precursors to ground-level ozone formation--are on the rise in areas over and downwind of a major shale oil and gas field in Texas. From AGU's journals: When the Sun ...

How aware are you of the birds that live in your neighborhood? Do you know how many different species there are? Do enjoy your local birds, or find them annoying? J. Amy Belaire of St. Edward's University, Lynne Westphal of the U.S. Forest Service, and Emily Minor and Christopher Whelan of the University of Illinois at Chicago visited urban neighborhoods in the Chicago area to answer these questions and learn more about how people see their backyard birds. Their results, published in a new paper in The Condor: Ornithological Applications, provide a fascinating look at the ...

Life as a wild baby bird can involve a lot of stress; competing with your siblings, dealing with extreme weather, and going hungry due to habitat loss are just a few examples. However, birds have an amazing capacity to overcome stresses experienced early in life and go on to reproductive success as adults, according to a new Perspective paper in The Auk: Ornithological Advances by Hugh Drummond and Sergio Ancona of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Some experiments with birds in captivity have found that increasing early-life stress through food deprivation, ...

TEMPE, Ariz. - As the search continues for Earth-size planets orbiting at just the right distance from their star, a region termed the habitable zone, the number of potentially life-supporting planets grows. In two decades we have progressed from having no extrasolar planets to having too many to search. Narrowing the list of hopefuls requires looking at extrasolar planets in a new way. Applying a nuanced approach that couples astronomy and geophysics, Arizona State University researchers report that from that long list we can cross off cosmic neighbor Tau Ceti. The ...

Scientists have found something they can't quite explain in one of the most barren environments on Earth: a bacterium whose DNA sequence contains elements usually only found in a much higher organism. Trichodesmium is a type of bacteria known as an oligotroph, meaning that it can survive in incredibly nutrient-poor regions of the ocean. In fact, it thrives there -- to the point that great blooms of the microorganism can be seen both with the naked eye and from satellites in space, earning it the name "sea sawdust" from ancient mariners. This is because Trichodesmium ...

A new type of graphene aerogel will make for better energy storage, sensors, nanoelectronics, catalysis and separations. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have made graphene aerogel microlattices with an engineered architecture via a 3D printing technique known as direct ink writing. The research appears in the April 22 edition of the journal, Nature Communications. The 3D printed graphene aerogels have high surface area, excellent electrical conductivity, are lightweight, have mechanical stiffness and exhibit supercompressibility (up to 90 percent ...

Montréal, April 22, 2015 - Researchers at the IRCM led by Artur Kania, PhD, uncovered the critical role in pain processing of a gene associated with a rare disease. Their breakthrough, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, paves the way for a better understanding of chronic pain conditions. Dr. Kania's team studies the way neural circuits transform harmful stimuli (such as cold, heat, and pinch) into the perception of pain. More precisely, they examined the gene Lmx1b and its involvement in pain processing. Mutations in this gene also cause a rare human disease ...

PHILADELPHIA - In the first major study to examine the use of a computer-assisted, photo-driven differential diagnosis generator for skin conditions, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found physicians routinely used the tool, without an increase in calling for inpatient dermatology consultations. The software diagnostic tool, VisualDx, aids in diagnosing dermatologic conditions by allowing physicians to enter information such as the type and location of a rash, and associated symptoms such as pain or itching, and then generating ...

SAN FRANCISCO--It may seem unlikely that a large earthquake would take place hundreds of kilometers away from a tectonic plate boundary, in areas with low levels of strain on the crust from tectonic motion. But major earthquakes such as the Mw 7.9 2008 Chengdu quake in China and New Zealand's 2011 Mw 6.3 quake have shown that large earthquakes do occur and can cause significant infrastructure damage and loss of life. So what should seismologists look for if they want to identify where an earthquake might happen despite the absence of historical seismic activity? Roger ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Researchers have uncovered the first evidence of a genetic link between prodigy and autism. The scientists found that child prodigies in their sample share some of the same genetic variations with people who have autism. These shared genetic markers occur on chromosome 1, according to the researchers from The Ohio State University and Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus. The findings confirm a hypothesis made by Joanne Ruthsatz, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State's Mansfield campus. In a previous study, ...

WASHINGTON - Vehicle cost, current battery technology, and inadequate consumer knowledge are some of the barriers preventing widespread adoption of plug-in electric vehicles, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. Developing less expensive, better performing batteries is essential to reducing overall vehicle cost, and a market strategy is needed to create awareness and overcome customer uncertainty. The report recommends a range of incentives that the federal government can offer to address these and other barriers. The report ...

The brain is a privileged organ in the body. So vital to life, the brain is protected from alterations elsewhere in the body by a highly regulated gateway known as the blood-brain barrier, which allows only selected molecules to pass through. In certain diseases, however, such as multiple sclerosis, the barrier can be improperly breached. These "leaks" can allow immune cells and inflammatory molecules to pass through, causing inflammation that leads to neuronal damage. In a new study, researchers have made insights into how the blood-brain barrier, or BBB, is maintained, ...

The widespread use of cloth masks by healthcare workers may actually put them at increased risk of respiratory illness and viral infections and their global use should be discouraged, according to a UNSW study. The results of the first randomised clinical trial (RCT) to study the efficacy of cloth masks were published today in the journal BMJ Open. The trial saw 1607 hospital healthcare workers across 14 hospitals in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, split into three groups: those wearing medical masks, those wearing cloth masks and a control group based on usual practice, ...

(Boston)-- Individuals with mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI), particularly those who have had loss of consciousness (LOC), show structural brain abnormalities in their white matter as measured by Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). These findings, which appear in the journal NeuroImage: Clinical, is the only study to date to demonstrate that mTBI with LOC is associated with brain abnormalities that lead to decreased performance in verbal memory. Blast-related TBI has been a common injury among returning troops due to the widespread use of improvised explosive devices ...

WASHINGTON (April 22, 2015) -- New research published this week in Nature has found several drugs could lead to new treatment options for multiple sclerosis (MS), including two drugs that effectively treat MS at the source, in vivo. When administered at the peak of disease, these two drugs showed a striking reversal of disease severity. At the pathological level, MS is a disease in which the immune system attacks the protective myelin sheath, a type of insulation that covers nerves, ultimately disrupting communication between the brain and the body and leading to nerve ...

April 22, 2014 (SILVER SPRING, Md.) - Ebola survivors experienced negative health effects that persisted more than two years after the 2007-2008 Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV) outbreak in Uganda that claimed 39 lives. These findings are detailed in a paper published online today in Lancet ID. This represents the largest long-term study to-date on Ebola survivors, and examines health events more than two years after initial exposure to BDBV. "Defining EVD-related health consequences could help improve patient care for survivors," said Dr. Hannah Kibuuka, the principal ...

As baby boomers age, the number of people diagnosed with Parkinson's disease is expected to increase. Patients who develop this disease usually start experiencing symptoms around age 60 or older. Currently, there's no cure, but scientists are reporting a novel approach that reversed Parkinson's-like symptoms in rats. Their results, published in the journal ACS Nano, could one day lead to a new therapy for human patients. Rajnish Kumar Chaturvedi, Kavita Seth, Kailash Chand Gupta and colleagues from the CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research note that among other ...

If you've studied ingredient labels on food packaging, you've probably noticed that soy lecithin is in a lot of products, ranging from buttery spreads to chocolate cake. Scientists have now found a potential new role for this all-purpose substance: dispersing crude oil spills. Their study, which could lead to a less toxic way to clean up these environmental messes, appears in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. Ram B. Gupta and colleagues explain that applying chemical dispersants is one of the most effective ways to help get rid of oil spills quickly. The dispersants ...

For years, health advocates have been pushing to ban some flame retardants for their potentially harmful effects, especially on young children and infants. Now scientists report these compounds could play a role in a common health problem for one of our most beloved pets: cats. In the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, a new study found that cats with hyperthyroidism had high levels of certain flame retardants, hinting at a possible link. Jessica Norrgran and colleagues explain that more than 10 percent of older cats develop hyperthyroidism, a hormonal disorder ...

In the last 10 years, computer security researchers have shown that malicious hackers don't need to see your data in order to steal your data. From the pattern in which your computer accesses its memory banks, adversaries can infer a shocking amount about what's stored there. The risk of such attacks is particularly acute in the cloud, where you have no control over whose applications are sharing server space with yours. An antagonist could load up multiple cloud servers with small programs that do nothing but spy on other people's data. Two years ago, researchers in ...