WORCESTER, MA – Using population-based screening outcomes of approximately 3 million infants, a team of scientists across 14 states, including four researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, have shown that newborn screening for severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) can be successfully implemented across public health newborn screening programs. Data from 11 newborn screening programs published in the Aug. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed the rate of SCID in newborns is higher than previously thought and believed ...

SILICON VALLEY, Calif., August 19, 2014 -- Bay Area Lyme Foundation, which aims to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure, applauds new research published in an upcoming issue of the Elsevier peer review journal Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases. The findings show that ticks that carry Lyme disease in Northwest California are active throughout the year, making the threat of Lyme disease year-round. The research was conducted by researchers at California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Vector-borne Disease Section and University of California, Berkeley (UC-B). "These ...

VIDEO: NOAA's GOES-14 satellite was brought out of storage and put in Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R mode and data of Tropical Storm Lowell from Aug. 19 was animated.... Click here for more information. The south side of Tropical Storm Lowell appears to be its toughest side. That is, the side with the strongest thunderstorms, according to satellite imagery from NOAA's GOES-14 and NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellites. NOAA took its GOES-14 satellite out of storage to simulate ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — A new gene therapy developed by researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine has been shown to protect mice from a life-threatening heart condition caused by muscular dystrophy. "This is a new therapeutic avenue," said Yi Lai, Ph.D., the leading author of the study and assistant research professor in the MU School of Medicine's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. "This is just a first step, but we hope this could lead to a treatment for people with this devastating heart condition, which is a leading cause of death for ...

Providing futile treatment in the intensive care unit sets off a chain reaction that causes other ill patients needing medical attention to wait for critical care beds, according to a study by researchers from UCLA and RAND Health. The study is the first to show that when unbeneficial medical care is provided, others who might be able to benefit from treatment are harmed, said study lead author Dr. Thanh Huynh, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The findings also ...

Singapore—Scientists have made it easier to predict both breast cancer relapses and responses to chemotherapy, through the identification of a unique gene. The newly found marker could help doctors classify each breast cancer patient and customise a treatment regimen that is more effective. The discovery was a collaborative effort by scientists from A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), and the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Despite advancements in cancer treatment, breast cancer ...

"The new elevation maps are snapshots of the current state of the ice sheets. The elevations are very accurate, to just a few metres in height, and cover close to 16 million km2 of the area of the ice sheets. This is 500,000 square kilometres more than any previous elevation model from altimetry", says lead-author Dr. Veit Helm, glaciologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven. For the new digital maps, the AWI scientists had evaluated all data by the CryoSat-2 altimeter SIRAL. Satellite altimeter measure the height of an ice sheet by sending radar or laser ...

A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego, the University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins University have discovered several security vulnerabilities in full-body backscatter X-ray scanners deployed to U.S. airports between 2009 and 2013. In laboratory tests, the team was able to successfully conceal firearms and plastic explosive simulants from the Rapiscan Secure 1000 scanner. The team was also able to modify the scanner operating software so it presents an "all-clear" image to the operator even when contraband was detected. "Frankly, we were ...

Oxford, August 20, 2014 – Researchers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls and TerraPower based in Bellevue, Washington, have demonstrated the power of high-energy beams of charged particles (ions). The ions can rapidly and consistently damage samples of ferritic-martensitic steel, the material used in certain nuclear reactor components. The significance of the result is that the breakdown closely replicates that seen when high-energy neutrons from a nuclear reactor interact with the material - ...

Chemically extracted acellular allogeneic nerve, from which Schwann cells, myelin sheath and disintegrating fragments have been removed, reduced postoperative immune rejection. Simultaneously, chemically extracted acellular allogeneic nerve retains neural substrates and base materials, such as the bottom layer of Schwann cells, which can provide a good scaffold in the process of nerve regeneration. Chemically extracted acellular allogeneic nerve, similar to autologous nerve transplantation, can guide nerve regeneration and provide a favorable local environment for neural ...

VIDEO: This is a model DNA chain inside a nanochannel that is 100nm wide. The spontaneous dynamical evolution of the DNA is accompanied by frequent knotting and entanglement at the chain ends.... Click here for more information. With the widespread use of methods for DNA analysis and manipulation, it's certainly useful to find a way to unravel and relax the strands of this molecule that tends to form tangles spontaneously. One way is to use channels, or rather nano-channels, ...

A newborn screening test for severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) reliably identifies infants with this life-threatening inherited condition, leading to prompt treatment and high survival rates, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers led by Jennifer Puck, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, also found that SCID affects approximately 1 in 58,000 newborns, indicating that the disorder is less rare than previously thought. The study was funded in part by NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ...

Facebook groups for mothers are overtaking the traditional mums-and-bubs and playgroup environments as a source of trusted advice, and offers a largely untapped marketing tool for businesses wanting to sell their products, an Australian study has found. QUT educationalist Dr Rebecca English and marketing expert Dr Raechel Johns from the University of Canberra said word-of-mouth in mothers' groups and communities had fast become a major influence in mothers' buying habits. The study, Mothers' influencing mothers: the use of virtual discussion boards and their influence ...

The sweet and salty aroma of sunscreen and seawater signals a relaxing trip to the shore. But scientists are now reporting that the idyllic beach vacation comes with an environmental hitch. When certain sunblock ingredients wash off skin and into the sea, they can become toxic to some of the ocean's tiniest inhabitants, which are the main course for many other marine animals. Their study appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. Antonio Tovar-Sanchez and David Sánchez-Quiles point out that other than staying indoors, slathering on sunscreen is currently ...

A new online tool will help doctors predict which patients are most likely to develop diabetes. The calculator will help doctors identify high risk patients so that they can be tested for the disease and offered lifestyle advice. The test is targeted at people who have been admitted to hospital for emergency care. Experts say it could offer a cost-effective way to identify people with diabetes in Scotland as it avoids the need for significant investment in screening. The test calculates a person's risk of developing diabetes over the next three years based on their ...

For the first time, chemists have succeeded in measuring vibrational motion of a single molecule with a femtosecond time resolution. The study reveals how vibration of a single molecule differs from the behaviour of larger molecular groups. The study was performed at the University of California, Irvine, where post-doctoral researcher Eero Hulkko from the University of Jyväskylä works as a visiting fellow under professor Vartkess A. Apkarian, whose team participated in the study. The second team was lead by Professor Eric O. Potma. The results of the study made the cover ...

Biting into a chili pepper causes a burning spiciness that is irresistible to some, but intolerable to others. Scientists exploring the chili pepper's effect are using their findings to develop a new drug candidate for many kinds of pain, which can be caused by inflammation or other problems. They reported their progress on the compound, which is being tested in clinical trials, in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Laykea Tafesse and colleagues explain that decades ago, scientists had pegged a compound called capsaicin as the active ingredient in chili peppers that ...

LOS ANGELES — Research by Keck Medicine of USC ophthalmology scientists demonstrates that African Americans bear heavier burden of diabetic macular edema (DME), one of the leading causes of blindness in diabetic patients in the United States. The research published online today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Ophthalmology, indicates a higher burden of diabetes-related vision loss among certain ethnic populations because of problems with access to care, said corresponding author Rohit Varma, M.D., M.P.H., director of the USC Eye Institute and ...

Religion is a key factor in demography, important for projections of future population growth as well as for other social indicators. A new journal, Yearbook of International Religious Demography, is the first to bring a quantitative demographic focus to the study of religion. The journal is co-edited by IIASA researcher Vegard Skirbekk, an expert in the field of religious demography. The first edition of the journal includes three studies by IIASA researchers: Vienna: Growing diversity in religion and ethnicity The city of Vienna is growing increasingly diverse in both ...

Endothelial cells residing in the coronary arteries can function as cardiac stem cells to produce new heart muscle tissue, Vanderbilt University investigators have discovered. The findings, published recently in Cell Reports, offer insights into how the heart maintains itself and could lead to new strategies for repairing the heart when it fails after a heart attack. The heart has long been considered to be an organ without regenerative potential, said Antonis Hatzopoulos, Ph.D., associate professor of Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology. "People thought ...

Where the river meets the sea, there is the potential to harness a significant amount of renewable energy, according to a team of mechanical engineers at MIT. The researchers evaluated an emerging method of power generation called pressure retarded osmosis (PRO), in which two streams of different salinity are mixed to produce energy. In principle, a PRO system would take in river water and seawater on either side of a semi-permeable membrane. Through osmosis, water from the less-salty stream would cross the membrane to a pre-pressurized saltier side, creating a flow ...

Almost one-third of acute heart failure syndrome patients seen in hospital emergency departments (EDs) in Florida and California during 2010 had ED visits during the following year, findings that suggest a lack of appropriate outpatient care. A study by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators also finds that patients with frequent ED visits for the syndrome accounted for more than half of all such ED visits and hospitalizations, contributing to significant health care costs. "The high proportion of patients with frequent ED visits reflects the failure of ...

DENVER (August 20, 2014) – Women who are poor experience higher cortisol levels in pregnancy and give birth to infants with elevated levels of the stress hormone, putting them at greater risk for serious disease later in life, according to a new research from the University of Colorado Denver. The study, published online recently in the American Journal of Human Biology, is the first to measure cortisol in infants and relate it directly to the socioeconomic status of their mothers during pregnancy. "There have been several studies relating cortisol levels in teenagers ...

Computer security researchers from North Carolina State University and Technische Universität Darmstadt/CASED in Germany have developed a modification to the core Android operating system that allows developers and users to plug in new security enhancements. The new Android Security Modules (ASM) framework aims to eliminate the bottleneck that prevents developers and users from taking advantage of new security tools. "In the ongoing arms race between white hats and black hats, researchers and developers are constantly coming up with new security extensions," says Dr. ...

When a colony of honeybees grows to about 4,000 members, it triggers an important first stage in its reproductive cycle: the building of a special type of comb used for rearing male reproductive, called drones. A team of experts from the Department of Neurobiology and Behaviour at Cornell University, led by Michael Smith, studied what starts the reproductive cycle of honeybee colonies. The results are published in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature. Reproduction isn't always a honeybee colony's top priority. Early in a colony's development, ...