For decades, doctors have developed methods to diagnose how different types of cells and systems in the body are functioning. Now scientists have adapted an emerging biomedical technique to study the vast body of the ocean. In a paper published this week in the journal Science, scientists demonstrate that they can identify and measure proteins in the ocean, revealing how single-celled marine organisms and ocean ecosystems operate. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funded the research. "Proteins are the molecules that catalyze ...

Feeling socially disconnected may lead us to lower our threshold for determining that another being is animate or alive, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "This increased sensitivity to animacy suggests that people are casting a wide net when looking for people they can possibly relate to — which may ultimately help them maximize opportunities to renew social connections," explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Katherine Powers of Dartmouth College. These findings enhance ...

(9/8/14, Lebanon, NH) —An ortho-oncology team at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center successfully adapted a shoulder surgical aid (the Spider Limb Positioner) to conduct a left hip disarticulation on a melanoma patient as described in a case report published online in Medical Devices. The Spider Limb Positioner is a pneumatic arm with three fully articulating joints that can be infinitely adjusted in relation to the operating table where it is mounted. The positioner mobilizes patients' limbs so surgeons don't have to, thereby freeing up both their hands ...

Hospitals across the country have seen sharp declines in rates of central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSIs) and ventilator-associated pneumonias (VAPs) among critically ill neonates and children, according to a new study in the journal Pediatrics. The study, "Health care-associated infections among critically ill children in the U.S.," analyzed incidences rates of CLABSIs, VAPs and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) for 173 neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and 64 pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) from 2007-2012. "Central ...

People struggling with mental illness often turn to pastors for help, but seminaries do very little to train ministers how to recognize serious psychological distress and when to refer someone to a doctor or psychologist, according to a Baylor University study. As a result, "many people in congregations continue to suffer under well-meaning pastors who primarily tell them to pray harder or confess sin in relation to mental health problems," said lead researcher Matthew S. Stanford, Ph.D., professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences. The ...

CHICAGO --- Only one in four students with asthma and half of children with food allergies have emergency health management plans in place at school, leaving schools inadequately prepared to manage daily needs and handle medical emergencies related to often life-threatening medical conditions, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study in partnership with Chicago Public Schools (CPS). "Given the amount of time kids spend in school, it's critical for school staff, clinicians and parents to make sure there's a health management plan in place for students with health conditions," ...

Tropical Depression 14W was a short-lived storm that only lasted through four bulletins from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on the storm's cloud top temperatures as it passed over China's Hainan Island and headed toward a final landfall in mainland China. Born in the South China Sea it made landfall in southeastern China on September 8. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument called AIRS that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on the storm on September 7 at 1:59 a.m. EDT. The AIRS data showed an ...

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Norbert on September 7 before it weakened to a post- tropical storm. The AIRS instrument aboard captured infrared data that showed a "sliver" of strong thunderstorms remained around the center of the waning storm. When the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument gathered infrared data on Tropical Storm Norbert on Sept. 7 at 4:53 p.m. EDT, it showed only a small area of strong thunderstorms around the center where cloud top temperatures were near the -63F/-52C threshold for strong storms. At that time, Norbert ...

A well-known biologist once theorized that many roads led to Rome when it comes to two distantly related organisms evolving a similar trait. A new paper, published in Nature Communications, suggests that when it comes to evolving some traits – especially simple ones – there may be a shared gene, one road, that's the source. Jason Gallant, MSU zoologist and the paper's first author, focused on butterflies to illustrate his metaphorical roadmap on evolutionary traits. Butterfly wings are important biological models. While some butterflies are poisonous and notify their ...

Researchers have synthesized a molecule that can silence the gene responsible for severe antibiotic resistance in some bacteria. The research, presented at the 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), an infectious disease meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) could be a viable new strategy for treating resistant infections. The focus of this new molecule is NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1) a gene carried by some bacteria that allows them to produce an enzyme called carbapenemase. "NDM-1 confers bacterial ...

Social networking programmes designed to help people lose weight could play a role in the global fight against obesity, according to research. Analysis by researchers from Imperial College London combining the results of 12 previous studies shows that such programmes have achieved modest but significant results in helping participants lose weight. The paper is one of 10 reports on global healthcare policy written for the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), an initiative of Qatar Foundation, and published today in the journal Health Affairs. Obesity is an increasing ...

Belly dancers have fewer hang-ups about their bodies. Most women who participate in this torso-driven dance do so because it is fun and they get to perform interesting moves – not because they necessarily feel sexier while doing so. This is the conclusion of Marika Tiggemann of Flinders University in Australia, leader of a study in Springer's journal Sex Roles about the body image of people who belly dance in their free time. Body image is the way in which someone perceives, feels and thinks about his or her body, especially factors regarding shape and weight. Previous ...

A BREAKTHROUGH by a talented University of Huddersfield student has shown for the first time that people with psychopathic tendencies who have high IQs can mask their symptoms by manipulating tests designed to reveal their personalities. It raises the possibility that large numbers of ruthless risk-takers are able to conceal their level of psychopathy as they rise to key managerial posts. Carolyn Bate, aged 22, was still an undergraduate when she carried out her groundbreaking research into the links between psychopathy and intelligence, using a range of special tests ...

Dr. John Carr, a scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, is part of an international team that has discovered what they believe is evidence of a planet forming around a star about 335 light years from Earth. This research is published in the August 20th issue of The Astrophysical Journal. Carr and the other research team members set out to study the protoplanetary disk around a star known as HD 100546, and as sometimes happens in scientific inquiry, it was by "chance" that they stumbled upon the formation of the planet orbiting this star. A protoplanetary disk, ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Sept. 8, 2014 – Results of a Phase I clinical trial showed that a new drug targeting mitochondrial function in human cancer cells was safe and showed some efficacy. The findings, reported by doctors at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, are published in the current online edition of the journal Clinical Cancer Research. "This drug is selectively taken up by cancer cells and then shuts down the production of energy in the mitochondria," said Timothy Pardee, M.D., Ph.D., director of leukemia translational research at Wake Forest Baptist and principal ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 8, 2014—Highly valuable for modeling human diseases and discovering novel drugs and cell-based therapies, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are created by reprogramming an adult cell from a patient to obtain patient-specific stem cells. Due to genetic variation, however, iPSCs may differ from a patient's diseased cells, and researchers are now applying new and emerging genomic editing tools to human disease modeling, as described in a comprehensive Review article published in Stem Cells and Development, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary ...

Alexandria, Va. — Earth's largest active volcano, Mauna Loa on Hawaii's Big Island, is taking a nap. And after 30 years, no one is sure when the sleeping giant will awaken. Scientists say it's likely to erupt again within the next couple of decades and, when it does, it will be spectacular — and potentially dangerous. Although Mauna Loa often takes a back seat to the more famous Kilauea, which has been erupting nearly continuously since 1983, history warns us that Mauna Loa's current silence is anomalous. Meanwhile, more people and more buildings pack into potentially ...

Both whales and dolphins have pelvic (hip) bones, evolutionary remnants from when their ancestors walked on land more than 40 million years ago. Common wisdom has long held that those bones are simply vestigial, slowly withering away like tailbones on humans. New research from USC and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) flies directly in the face of that assumption, finding that not only do those pelvic bones serve a purpose – but their size and possibly shape are influenced by the forces of sexual selection. "Everyone's always assumed that if you ...

Restoring oysters—and their ability to filter large volumes of water—is widely seen as a key way to improve the health of Chesapeake Bay. New research makes this calculus even more appealing, showing that the mussels that typically colonize the nooks and crannies of a restored oyster reef can more than double its overall filtration capacity. The study—by researchers at the University of Maryland, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science—appears as the cover story in the most recent issue of Restoration Ecology. "Many ...

Two new potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, a deadly disease marked by high blood pressure in the lungs, have been identified by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Their findings are reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Early symptoms of pulmonary arterial hypertension include shortness of breath and exercise intolerance. As the disease progresses, patients may require oxygen supplementation and lung transplantation. Heart failure can develop and is a major cause of ...

Scientists at the University of Illinois, Chicago, have identified a compound that effectively inhibits an enzyme crucial to the viruses that cause Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The compound appears to have a different method of inhibition in each virus due to slight differences in each virus' enzyme which means finding other compounds that inhibit both may be difficult according to research presented at the 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) an infectious disease meeting ...

Using tracer viruses, researchers found that contamination of just a single doorknob or table top results in the spread of viruses throughout office buildings, hotels, and health care facilities. Within 2 to 4 hours, the virus could be detected on 40 to 60 percent of workers and visitors in the facilities and commonly touched objects, according to research presented at the 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), an infectious disease meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. There is a simple solution, though, says Charles ...

Unlike electronic circuits, optical, or "photonic", circuits work with light rather than electricity, which makes them 10 to 100 times faster. They are also more energy-efficient because they show lower heat loss, better signal-to-noise ratios and are less susceptible to interference. Used especially for communications (e.g. fiber optics), optical circuits may use tiny optical cavities as 'switches' that can block or allow the flow of light, similarly to transistors in electronics. EPFL scientists have now fabricated and experimentally tested a silicon-based 'photonic crystal ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It sounds like the setup for a joke: Two identical patients go to two different hospital emergency entrances, complaining of the same symptoms. But what happens next is no laughing matter, according to a new University of Michigan study published in the September issue of Health Affairs. While one patient may get treated and released from the emergency department, the other gets sent upstairs to a hospital bed – at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, doctors at one hospital may be as much as six times as likely to admit an emergency ...

The best defense is a good offense, especially when it comes to the immune system. The troops that respond to an infection are split into two squadrons, and, until recently, it seemed that the two were independent, without much interaction. Now, in a paper published this week in Nature Immunology, a team of scientists from the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and the University of Alabama at Birmingham say that the immunology boot camp is more communication-intensive than initially thought — a discovery that could help efforts to produce more effective vaccines. "We ...