University of Cincinnati researchers are at work tracking drought patterns across the United States. Qiusheng Wu, a doctoral student and research assistant for the UC Department of Geography, and Hongxing Liu, a UC professor and head of the Department of Geography, will present details this week at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Tampa, Fla. To trace the dynamics around agricultural drought, the UC researchers implemented an Event-based Spatial-Temporal Data Model (ESTDM) to detect, track and monitor conditions. The framework organizes ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- The number of older adults with dementia in the United States is forecast to more than double over the next 40 years. Caring for these individuals will have a significant impact on caregivers as well as the health care system and its workforce. In a paper published in the April issue of the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs, Regenstrief Institute investigator Christopher M. Callahan, M.D., founding director of the Indiana University Center for Aging Research, reviews two new dementia care models that seek to decrease stress for caregivers, reduce health ...

CHICAGO (April 8, 2014) – After handling raw poultry, hands of food preparers and cutting boards remain a source of transmission for multi-drug resistant bacteria, such as E. coli that produce extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs). The study of household and hospital kitchens was published in the May issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. "The spread of multi-drug resistant bacteria has been associated with the hospital setting, but these findings suggest that transmission of drug-resistant ...

CHICAGO (April 8, 2014) – New expert guidance highlights strategies for implementing and prioritizing efforts to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) in hospitals. The practice recommendations, published in the May issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, are the first in a series to be published over several months sharing evidence-based strategies to help healthcare professionals effectively control and prevent the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). A Compendium of Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections ...

Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have achieved a major breakthrough in the development of methods of information processing in nanomagnets. Using a new trick, they have been able to induce synchronous motion of the domain walls in a ferromagnetic nanowire. This involved applying a pulsed magnetic field that was perpendicular to the plane of the domain walls. "This is a radically new solution," explained Professor Mathias Kläui of the Institute of Physics of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. "It enables us to move domain walls synchronously over ...

A team of researchers at the IRCM, led by André Veillette, MD, explains how our immune system kills abnormal blood cells. Their discovery, recently published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, could eventually lead to new treatment avenues for leukemia, lymphoma and certain types of infectious viral diseases. "Our team is studying how natural killer cells can eliminate abnormal hematopoietic (blood) cells," explains Dr. Veillette, Director of the Molecular Oncology research unit at the IRCM. "NK (natural killer) cells are crucial to the immune system and play a ...

The next time you feel a sneeze coming on, raise your elbow to cover up that multiphase turbulent buoyant cloud you're about to expel. That's right: A novel study by MIT researchers shows that coughs and sneezes have associated gas clouds that keep their potentially infectious droplets aloft over much greater distances than previously realized. "When you cough or sneeze, you see the droplets, or feel them if someone sneezes on you," says John Bush, a professor of applied mathematics at MIT, and co-author of a new paper on the subject. "But you don't see the cloud, ...

The seven scientists behind the article, due to be published 10 April, conclude that the reports by the UN climate panel serve an important function in setting the agenda for climate research. Yet the most important role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to inform the global political discussion on how the harm caused by climate change should be handled. Thomas Sterner, expert on policy instruments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is a Coordinating Lead Author of one key chapter on policy instruments in the Working Group III of the Fifth Assessment ...

New Rochelle, NY, April 8, 2014—Use of social media such as Facebook can influence attitudes and behaviors among people of all countries and cultures. Among women in Iran, the duration and amount of daily Facebook activity is associated with their desire to wear a traditional head-covering and their willingness to display pictures of themselves without a veil, according to an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social ...

New Rochelle, NY, April 8, 2014—A new nonsurgical approach to treating chronic pain and stiffness associated with knee osteoarthritis has demonstrated significant, lasting improvement in knee pain, function, and stiffness. This safe, two-solution treatment delivered in a series of injections into and around the knee joint is called prolotherapy, and is described in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine website. David ...

Subpopulations of breast cancer cells sometimes cooperate to aid tumor growth, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers, who believe that understanding the relationship between cancer subpopulations could lead to new targets for cancer treatment. Cancers contain genetically different subpopulations of cells, called subclones. Researchers have long known that these mutant subclones aggressively compete with one another to become the dominant tumor cell population. However, in some cases it seems that no single subclone can achieve dominance on its own. ...

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia, overturns a long-held theory in plant science [see:http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=11631]. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory who are co-authors on this paper conducted critical radiotracer studies that support the new theory that plant sugars play a dominant role in regulating branching at plant stems. While branching has relevance in agriculture, it is also very important in bioenergy ...

(Lebanon, NH, 4/8/14) Researchers from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth will present a scientific poster on Tuesday, April 8, 2014 at the American Association of Cancer Researchers conference in San Diego, CA. The research identifies a potential characteristic for predicting outcome in a deadly form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma multiforme. Existing therapies based on genetic information have failed to effectively treat glioblastomas. Therefore, researchers are aggressively looking to find new molecular targets for this aggressive brain tumor. Dartmouth ...

European scientists have made ground-breaking discoveries for improving the efficiency of the production of pharmaceuticals through plant biotechnology. Biotechnological production offers a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to the chemical synthesis of rare and complex pharmaceutical compounds currently isolated from plants. The results have been achieved in the European SmartCell project coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Several expensive anticancer alkaloid blockbusters used in chemotherapy, such as terpenoid indole alkaloids ...

In an innovative clinical trial led by UC San Francisco, the experimental drug neratinib along with standard chemotherapy was found to be a beneficial treatment for some women with newly diagnosed, high-risk breast cancer. Additionally, researchers learned that an algorithm used in the adaptive, randomized trial known as I-SPY 2 was highly effective at predicting the success of the treatment regimen in the patients who have HER2-positive/HR-negative disease. The finding marks the second drug "graduation" within the I-SPY 2 trial model, which is designed to accelerate ...

University of Cincinnati research is offering hospitals and trauma centers a unique, accurate and scientific approach to making decisions about transporting critical-care patients by air or by ambulance. A presentation this week at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Tampa, Fla., highlights the research of Michael Widener, a UC assistant professor of geography, along with Zac Ginsberg, MD, Maryland Shock Trauma Center; Samuel Galvagno Jr., assistant professor, Divisions of Trauma Anesthesiology and Adult Critical Care Medicine, Maryland ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (April 8, 2014)—Taking care of grandkids one day a week helps keep grandmothers mentally sharp, finds a study from the Women's Healthy Aging Project study in Australia, published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). That's good news for women after menopause, when women need to lower their risks of developing Alzheimer's disease and other cognitive disorders. On the other hand, taking care of grandchildren five days a week or more had some negative effects on tests of mental sharpness. "We know that older ...

BEIJING, 8 April 2014 – Large, graphic health warnings on tobacco packets in China would increase awareness about the harms of smoking, help to cut smoking rates, and in doing so save lives according to global studies. These are the key findings from a new report, Tobacco health warnings in China – Evidence of effectiveness and implications for action, from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC Project), released today. "This new report presents a very compelling case for the introduction of large, pictorial ...

Hidden in one of Australia's most developed and fastest growing areas lives one of the world's smallest freshwater crayfish species. Robert B McCormack the Team Leader for the Australian Crayfish Project described the new species belonging to the genus Gramastacus, after 8 years of research in the swamps and creeks of coastal New South Wales, Australia. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Being a small crayfish species it has remained undescribed and undiscovered in one of the fastest developing regions of Australia. Only one other species of Gramastacus ...

Researchers at the University of Adelaide have discovered that a common treatment for people with type 2 diabetes could cause longer-than-normal periods of the low blood sugar reaction hypoglycemia, which may result in increased health risks to people with diabetes. The treatment is the use of the peptide GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1) in combination with insulin, which is now used throughout the world as a standard therapy for patients with type 2 diabetes. A team of researchers at the University of Adelaide's School of Medicine has investigated the impact of this ...

OAKLAND, Calif., April 8, 2014 — Adult patients with diabetes who trust their medical provider and feel included in treatment decisions are significantly more likely to take and maintain a newly prescribed antidepressant medication, according to a new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The study, conducted by researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and the University of Washington, School of Medicine, included 1,500 patients with long-standing diabetes, who were prescribed antidepressants. "In patients with diabetes, depression has ...

There is a steady stream of news stories and announcements about how many more new strains of Android malware appear in every passing year. Data showing infection rates in the real world has been hard to come by. There is a lot of data about the number of different malware samples discovered but not so much about the extent they are actually found in the wild. If smartphones are infected to the same extent as personal computers used to be, the resulting damage would be much more severe. The few estimates that were out there vary greatly: ranging from more than 4 per ...

"We have, on the one hand, scientists who are convinced that they should be left alone in their ivory tower and that neither politicians nor the general public should interfere with their research activities. In their eyes, the key to conducting responsible science is to protect it from external interest because that will introduce harmful biases. Science should therefore be completely independent and self-regulated in order to be responsible," says communication researcher Maja Horst from the University of Copenhagen. She continues: "But, on the other hand, there are ...

The world's biodiversity is in an ongoing dramatic decline that despite conservation efforts remains unprecedented in its speed and predicted effects on global ecosystem functioning and services. The lack of available integrated biodiversity information for decisions in sectors other than nature conservation has been recognized as a main obstacle and the need to provide readily accessible data to support political decisions has been integrated into the CBD's "Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020" and the Aichi targets. A review paper recently published in the open ...

BETHESDA, MD – April 8, 2014 – Technical objections to the idea that Neandertals interbred with the ancestors of Eurasians have been overcome, thanks to a genome analysis method described in the April 2014 issue of the journal GENETICS. The technique can more confidently detect the genetic signatures of interbreeding than previous approaches and will be useful for evolutionary studies of other ancient or rare DNA samples. "Our approach can distinguish between two subtly different scenarios that could explain the genetic similarities shared by Neandertals and modern humans ...