For most children with HIV and low immune cell count, cells rebound after treatment Study led by UCLA doctor finds t-cell level returns to normal with time Most children with HIV who have low levels of a key immune cell eventually recover levels of this cell after they begin treatment, according to a new study conducted by researchers at UCLA and other institutions in the U.S. and Brazil. The researchers were funded by the National Institutes of Health. "We were pleased to find that the vast majority of children experience immune system recovery with effective ...

(SALT LAKE CITY) -- In a novel study, University of Utah (U of U) researchers have shown that hypobaric hypoxia (the reduced oxygen experienced at high altitude) can lead to depression. In the March 2015 edition of High Altitude Medicine and Biology online, the U of U researchers and a colleague from Tufts University show that female rats exposed to high-altitude conditions, both simulated and real, exhibit increased depression-like behavior. Male rats, interestingly, showed no signs of depression in the same conditions. "The significance of this animal study is that ...

Despite declines in the number of youths who smoke cigarettes, hookah or water pipe use continues to rise among Canadian youth, a new study from the University of Waterloo reports. Published Monday in Cancer Causes and Control, the study found that almost one in four high school seniors try smoking hookah. The study estimates that more than 78,200 youth are current water pipe users. "While we can celebrate a continued slow decline in cigarette use across the country, water pipes are bucking the trend," said Leia Minaker, a scientist at the Propel Centre for Population ...

Straw-powered cars could be a thing of the future thanks to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). A new study pinpoints five strains of yeast capable of turning agricultural by-products, such as straw, sawdust and corncobs, into bioethanol - a well-known alcohol-based biofuel. It is estimated that more than 400 billion litres of bioethanol could be produced each year from crop wastage. The research team say that their findings could help to create biofuel which is more environmentally friendly and ethically sound than other sources because it would ...

When a man is diagnosed with localised prostate cancer, he usually faces a range of treatment options, from active surveillance to radiation therapy or surgical removal of the prostate. The patient's personal values and preferences should be key in this choice: Is curing the cancer the only thing that matters or should he also consider a variety of quality of life issues, such as avoiding incontinence or erectile dysfunction? The frequent difficulty in determining the prognosis of localised prostate cancer complicates matters. Many men have low risk prostate cancer ...

Undisturbed ecosystems can be resistant to changing climatic conditions, but this resistance is reduced when ecosystems are subject to natural or anthropogenic disturbances. Plants are particularly sensitive to climatic changes in early life stages and even small climatic changes can cause vegetation shifts when ecosystems are disturbed by fires, insect outbreaks or other disturbances. This is the conclusion from one of the world's longest running climate change experiments conducted by the European network INCREASE, involving scientist from several European countries ...

This news release is available in Spanish. IMikel Bravo-Acha's PhD thesis has focussed on the applications of optical fibre as a sensor. In the course of his research, conducted at the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre, in the laboratory he monitored a sensor fitted to optical fibre 253 kilometres away. "What is interesting is that the measurement was remote, all the information arrived through the fibre and we didn't need to fit any sockets to power the sensor. This would be very useful, for example, to monitor an oil pipeline crossing the desert where fitting ...

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (March 26, 2015) - The field of autism research has tried to find a central theory underlying brain changes associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Now, a new study shows that individuals with the disorder exhibit different patterns of brain connectivity, when compared to typically developing (TD) individuals and that these patterns adjust as the individual ages. "Our findings suggest that developmental stage must be taken into account to accurately build models that show how the brains of individuals with autism differ from neurotypical individuals," ...

CINCINNATI - Shakespeare said "to be or not to be" is the question, and now scientists are asking how life forms grow to be the correct size with proportional body parts. Probing deeply into genetics and biology at the earliest moments of embryonic development, researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report March 26 in Nature Communications they have found new clues to explain one of nature's biggest mysteries. Their data from fruit flies show the size and patterning accuracy of an embryo depend on the amount of reproductive resources mothers invest ...

A University of Rochester team found a way to make chemotherapy more effective, by stopping a cellular quality-control mechanism, according to a study published today in Nature Communications. The mechanism is known as NMD (nonsense-mediated mRNA decay), and scientists found that exposing breast cancer cells to a molecule that inhibits NMD prior to treatment with doxorubicin, a drug used to treat leukemia, breast, bone, lung and other cancers, hastens cell death. The research team, led by Lynne E. Maquat, Ph.D., director of the Center for RNA Biology at the University ...

LAS VEGAS - Orthopedic surgeons from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have developed two new prediction tools aimed at identifying total hip and knee replacement patients who are at-risk of developing serious complications after surgery. The first tool identifies patients who have risk factors that should disqualify them from undergoing same-day (outpatient) or short-stay (overnight) total hip and knee replacement procedures, opting instead for traditional recovery pathways in the hospital. The second tool identifies which patients should ...

LAS VEGAS - A team of orthopedic surgeons from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found that modern technology for healing distal femur fractures is as safe and effective as its more established alternative, without a potential shortfall of the older approach. The team found that when done correctly, there are no significant differences between the two approaches - "locked plating" and "non-locked plating" - in terms of healing rates, need for corrective surgery, or hardware failure. The findings are being presented on Thursday, March ...

The number of total hip replacements (THRs) nearly doubled among middle-aged patients between 2002-2011, primarily due to the expansion of the middle-aged population in the U.S., according to a new study presented today at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). Continued growth in utilization of hip replacement surgery in patients age 45 to 64, an increase in revision surgeries for this population as they age, and a nearly 30 percent decline in the number of surgeons who perform THR, could have significant implications for future ...

A new study presented today at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) found that black and Hispanic patients were 62 and 50 percent, respectively, more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days after total joint replacement (TJR) surgery compared to white patients. In addition, Medicaid patients were 40 percent more likely to be readmitted to the hospital than patients with private insurance. Disparities in the provision of health care services have long been documented, including that black patients utilize hip and ...

While women may have their first total joint replacement (TJR) at an older age, they are less likely to have complications related to their surgery or require revision surgery, according to a new study presented today at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). The findings contradict the theory that TJR is underutilized in female patients because they have worse outcomes then men. Total hip (THR) and total knee replacement (TKR) are common surgical treatments for end-stage arthritis, which causes ongoing pain, limited function and ...

An injection of a patient's bone marrow stem cells during rotator cuff surgery significantly improved healing and tendon durability, according to a study presented today at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). Each year in the U.S., more than 2 million people have rotator cuff surgery to re-attach their shoulder tendon to the head of the humerus (upper arm bone). Rotator cuff tears can occur during a fall or when lifting an extremely heavy object; however, most tears are the result of aging and overuse. The French study, of ...

Nasal drops of harmless bacteria can inhibit a related bug that sometimes causes meningococcal disease, according to new findings published online in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The study--conducted among college students, a group at higher risk for this often serious illness--suggests a new approach that could help suppress outbreaks of the disease, if supported by future research. Meningococcal disease is caused by Neisseria meningitidis, which can infect the lining of the brain and the spinal cord, causing meningitis. Strains of the bacteria can also cause serious ...

A decade on from the Northern Nigeria polio vaccination boycott and its global costs to the polio eradication initiative, a new report examines global issues affecting vaccine confidence and hesitation since the new millennium. The State of Vaccine Confidence Report from researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (published 26 March) analyses some of the vaccine confidence issues that have occurred over the past decade with a range of vaccines, reports on strategies that have had positive impacts on engaging populations and building trust and confidence, ...

New research from The University of Manchester out today (26 March) concludes that there is limited evidence to show that xylitol is effective in preventing dental cavities in children and adults. Xylitol is a natural sweetener that is widely promoted globally, and can be found in wide range of everyday products including sugar-free chewing gum, toothpaste, gels, lozenges and sweets. Xylitol is a popular sugar substitute in sweets and it is already known to cause less damage to teeth than sugar. It has also been suggested that the addition of xylitol to products may ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- As employees and employers face higher health care costs, work site wellness are becoming increasingly more important to help control the costs of health care and encourage healthy lifestyle behaviors among the workforce, a Mayo Clinic study says. Research published this month in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine shows that members of Mayo Clinic's employee wellness center, the Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center (DAHLC), who regularly participated in wellness activities, experienced significant weight loss and health care costs ...

Before a male damselfly hot-headedly enters into a duel of aerial sparring, it first works out its strategy. It gives its opponent's wings a once-over to assess its strength, knowing that more transparent wings and larger red spots generally show a stronger rival. Those who then decide to engage in long fights either try to wear their opponent down, or dazzle them with brilliant aerial moves that are too hard to follow. These damselfly war game strategies are set out in a study published in Springer's journal The Science of Nature - Naturwissenschaften. Two research groups ...

By combining observations from the Japan-led Suzaku X-ray satellite and the European Space Agency's infrared Herschel Space Observatory, scientists have connected a fierce "wind" produced near a galaxy's monster black hole to an outward torrent of cold gas a thousand light-years across. The finding validates a long-suspected feedback mechanism enabling a supermassive black hole to influence the evolution of its host galaxy. "This is the first study directly connecting a galaxy's actively 'feeding' black hole to features found at much larger physical scales," said lead ...

The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) has released new guidelines on the management of asymptomatic neoplastic pancreatic cysts found incidentally during computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The author of a commentary being published in Annals of Internal Medicine explains how the AGA's bold new recommendations will affect the way physicians consider diagnostic testing. The new guidelines back away from previous recommendations that were more aggressive. Rather than promote invasive work-up, surveillance, or surgery for typical patients, ...

After six years of painstaking research, a UCLA-led team has validated the first standardized protocol for measuring one of the earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease -- the atrophy of the part of the brain known as the hippocampus. The finding marks the final step in an international consortium's successful effort to develop a unified and reliable approach to assessing signs of Alzheimer's-related neurodegeneration through structural imaging tests, a staple in the diagnosis and monitoring of the disease. The study is published in the journal Alzheimer's and Dementia. Using ...

MELBOURNE, FLA. -- Reef-building corals, already thought to be living near their upper thermal limits, are experiencing unprecedented declines as the world's oceans continue to warm. New evidence from scientists at Florida Institute of Technology shows there may be some climate refuges where corals will survive in the future. The study appears in the March issue of Global Change Biology. Ph.D. student Chris Cacciapaglia and his advisor, Robert van Woesik, hypothesized that not all regions of the oceans are warming at the same rate. "The idea was to identify regions ...