The Ebola epidemic is continuing to spread, particularly in West Africa. According to the latest report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) dated 17 October, 9,216 cases of Ebola have been recorded and 4,555 people have died of the virus. With the current situation of the Ebola epidemic, it quickly became necessary for French research to be mobilised rapidly. In August 2014, the French Minister of Health and Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research made Aviesan responsible for preparing and organising the response of French research to infectious emergencies. ...

A collaboration between researchers at the Universities of Leicester and Innsbruck has developed a completely new way of forming charged molecules which offers tremendous potential for new areas of chemical research. Professor Andrew Ellis from our Department of Chemistry has been working for several years with colleagues at the Institute of Ion Physics in Austria on exploring the chemistry of molecules inside liquid helium. The team's latest and most startling discovery is that helium atoms can acquire an excess negative charge which enables them to become aggressive ...

The critically endangered Saimaa ringed seal, which inhabits Lake Saimaa in Finland, has extremely low genetic diversity and this development seems to continue, according to a recent study completed at the University of Eastern Finland. In her doctoral dissertation, Mia Valtonen, MSc, analysed the temporal and regional variation in the genetic diversity of the endangered Saimaa ringed seal. The population is only around 300 individuals divided into smaller sub-populations and with very little migration among between them. The study developed a method allowing the identification ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A new study is helping to rewrite Ebola's family history. The research shows that filoviruses — a family to which Ebola and its similarly lethal relative, Marburg, belong — are at least 16-23 million years old. Filoviruses likely existed in the Miocene Epoch, and at that time, the evolutionary lines leading to Ebola and Marburg had already diverged, the study concludes. The research was published in the journal PeerJ in September. It adds to scientists' developing knowledge about known filoviruses, which experts once believed came ...

Adherent cells, the kind that form the architecture of all multi-cellular organisms, are mechanically engineered with precise forces that allow them to move around and stick to things. Proteins called integrin receptors act like little hands and feet to pull these cells across a surface or to anchor them in place. When groups of these cells are put into a petri dish with a variety of substrates they can sense the differences in the surfaces and they will "crawl" toward the stiffest one they can find. Now chemists have devised a method using DNA-based tension probes to ...

Tempe, Ariz. (Oct. 23, 2014) - New research findings from a team of prevention scientists at Arizona State University demonstrates that a family-focused intervention program for middle-school Mexican American children leads to fewer drop-out rates and lower rates of alcohol and illegal drug use. "This is the first randomized prevention trial that we're aware of to show effects on school dropout for this population," said Nancy Gonzales, Foundation Professor in the REACH Institute and Psychology Department, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Plant breeders have long identified and cultivated disease-resistant varieties. A research team at the University of California, Riverside has now revealed a new molecular mechanism for resistance and susceptibility to a common fungus that causes wilt in susceptible tomato plants. Study results appeared Oct. 16 in PLOS Pathogens. Katherine Borkovich, a professor of plant pathology and the chair of the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, and colleagues started with two closely related tomato cultivars: "Moneymaker" is susceptible ...

ORLANDO, Fla. – New research shows obese children with asthma may mistake symptoms of breathlessness for loss of asthma control leading to high and unnecessary use of rescue medications. The study was published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI), the official scientific journal of the American Association of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. "Obese children with asthma need to develop a greater understanding of the distinct feeling of breathlessness in order to avoid not just unnecessary medication use, but also the anxiety, reduced quality ...

Just three years ago, a patient at Sahlgrenska University Hospital received a blood vessel transplant grown from her own stem cells. Suchitra Sumitran-Holgersson, Professor of Transplantation Biology at The Univerisity of Gothenburg, and Michael Olausson, Surgeon/Medical Director of the Transplant Center and Professor at Sahlgrenska Academy, came up with the idea, planned and carried out the procedure. Missing a vein Professors Sumitran-Holgersson and Olausson have published a new study in EBioMedicine based on two other transplants that were performed in 2012 at Sahlgrenska ...

Gossip is pervasive in our society, and our penchant for gossip can be found in most of our everyday conversations. Why are individuals interested in hearing gossip about others' achievements and failures? Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands studied the effect positive and negative gossip has on how the recipient evaluates him or herself. The study is published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. In spite of some positive consequences, gossip is typically seen as destructive and negative. However, hearing gossip may help individuals ...

New data shows that healthcare and personal costs to support survivors of stroke remains high 10 years on. The Monash University research, published today in the journal Stroke, is the first to look at the long-term costs for the two main causes of stroke; ischemic where the blood supply stops due to a blood clot, and hemorrhagic, which occurs when a weakened blood vessel supplying the brain bursts. Previous studies based on estimating the lifetime costs using patient data up to 5 years after a stroke, suggested that costs peaked in the first year and then declined ...

Metamaterials, a hot area of research today, are artificial materials engineered with resonant elements to display properties that are not found in natural materials. By organizing materials in a specific way, scientists can build materials with a negative refractivity, for example, which refract light at a reverse angle from normal materials. However, metamaterials up to now have harbored a significant downside. Unlike natural materials, they are two-dimensional and inherently anisotropic, meaning that they are designed to act in a certain direction. By contrast, three-dimensional ...

An unprecedented boom in hydropower dam construction is underway, primarily in developing countries and emerging economies. While this is expected to double the global electricity production from hydropower, it could reduce the number of our last remaining large free-flowing rivers by about 20% and pose a serious threat to freshwater biodiversity. A new database has been developed to support decision making on sustainable modes of electricity production. It is presented today at the international congress Global Challenges: Achieving Sustainability hosted by the University ...

October 24, 2014 – For patients with a severe type of stroke called subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), treatment at a hospital that treats a high volume of SAH cases is associated with a lower risk of death, reports a study in the November issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. After adjustment for other factors, the mortality rate after SAH is about one-fifth lower at high-volume hospitals, according to the report by Dr. Shyam Prabhakaran ...

The Roman-British population from c. 200-400 AD appears to have had far less gum disease than we have today, according to a study of skulls at the Natural History Museum led by a King's College London periodontist. The surprise findings provide further evidence that modern habits like smoking can be damaging to oral health. Gum disease, also known as periodontitis, is the result of a chronic inflammatory response to the build-up of dental plaque. Whilst much of the population lives with mild gum disease, factors such as tobacco smoking or medical conditions like diabetes ...

These so called 'swingers' need to be offered more tailored interventions by sexual health services to help encourage safer sexual practices and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Swingers are described as heterosexuals who, as a couple, practise mate swapping or group sex, and/or visit sex clubs for couples. Recreational drug use is associated with high-risk sexual behaviour or sexually transmitted infections and previous studies on the association between drug use and STI focused on women and on men who have sex with men, but there is little ...

Clinical trials carried out in the former East Germany in the second half of the 20th century were not always with the full knowledge or understanding of participants with some questionable practices taking place, according to a paper published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Moreover, the country agreed to the trials due to impending bankruptcy there and Western pharmaceutical companies took advantage of the situation, said researchers who have studied documents from the time. The German Democratic Republic (GDR), known as East Germany, was a state within ...

As many as 4 million Europeans and 3.5 million Americans experience homelessness every year, and the numbers are rising. Homeless people 'are the sickest in our society,' but just treating ill health might not be enough to help get people off the streets, according to a new two-part series on homelessness in high-income countries, published in The Lancet. The Series highlights that being homeless is not only bad for your physical and mental health but also has dramatic effects on life expectancy [Paper 1]. Rates of tuberculosis infection, for example, are at least 20 ...

New modeling research, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, has found that the number of Ebola treatment center beds and other measures needed to control the epidemic in Montserrado County, Liberia substantially exceeds the total pledged by the international community to date. The research shows that, without expanded control efforts, up to 170996 total reported and unreported Ebola cases, and 90122 deaths are projected in Montserrado by 15 December, 2014. The study estimates that of these, 42669 cases and 27175 deaths will have been reported by that time. However, ...

The Ebola virus disease epidemic already devastating swaths of West Africa will likely get far worse in the coming weeks and months unless international commitments are significantly and immediately increased, new research led by Yale researchers predicts. The findings are published online first in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. A team of seven scientists from Yale's Schools of Public Health and Medicine and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in Liberia developed a mathematical transmission model of the viral disease and applied it to Liberia's most populous ...

TORONTO, Oct. 24, 2014—Health care providers should recognize that any effective strategy to address homelessness needs to include both interventions to improve the health of homeless individuals as well as larger-scale policy changes, according to a paper published today. "It is essential to recognize that homelessness is equally the result of structural factors within a society, such as systematic inequities in educational and employment opportunities, a shortage of affordable housing, and social policies that are targeted against marginalized populations," said ...

Washington, DC (October 23, 2014) — People who develop kidney stones may be at increased risk of experiencing bone fractures, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). The findings suggest that preventive efforts may be needed to help protect stone formers' bone health. People who form stones in the kidneys and urinary tract—a condition called urolithiasis—may have reduced bone mineral density and an increased risk of bone fractures. To assess the link between urolithiasis ...

Costs to treat strokes caused by bleeding in the brain may increase significantly 10 years later, according to a study in the American Heart Association journal Stroke. The Australian study is the first to include 10 years of follow-up data on stroke cost estimates, which may also apply to the United States, researchers said. Generally, expenses associated with a stroke peak within the first year and decline over time. Previous estimates of lifetime costs in Australia were based on a five-year average and may have underestimated costs, specifically for hemorrhagic (bleeding) ...

Having age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in one eye was associated with an increased incidence of AMD and accelerated progression of the debilitating disease in the other eye, writes author Ronald E. Gangnon, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, and colleagues. AMD is thought to be a symmetric disease, although one eye may precede the other in progression. The authors examined the effect of severity of AMD in one eye on the incidence, progression and regression in the other eye. Data from 4,379 participants in the ...

Two new studies suggest that while individuals enrolling in the armed forces do not share the exact psychological profile as socio-demographically comparable civilians, they are more similar than previously thought. The first study found that new soldiers and matched civilians are equally likely to have experienced at least one major episode of mental illness in their lifetime (38.7 percent of new soldiers; 36.5 percent of civilians) but that some mental disorders (generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and conduct disorder) are more common among ...