Public health researchers from the University of Adelaide have evaluated international breast cancer guidelines, finding that there is potential to improve surveillance of breast cancer survivors from both a patient and health system perspective. International guidelines recommend annual follow-up mammograms for every woman after treatment for early breast cancer, regardless of the risk of her cancer returning. There is also no strong evidence to support annual mammography compared with other possible mammography schedules. In a paper published in the journal Value ...

VIDEO: Powered lower limb prosthetics hold promise for improving the mobility of amputees, but errors in the technology may also cause some users to stumble or fall. New research from the... Click here for more information. Powered lower limb prosthetics hold promise for improving the mobility of amputees, but errors in the technology may also cause some users to stumble or fall. New research examines exactly what happens when these technologies fail, with the goal of developing ...

Bethesda, MD (Nov. 21, 2014) -- Cirrhosis and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are two serious liver conditions with limited pharmacological treatments. The December issues of AGA's journals -- Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Gastroenterology -- highlight important updates into treatments for these two debilitating diseases. For access to any of these studies, or to speak with the study authors, please contact media@gastro.org or call 301-272-1603. Promising Probiotic for Liver Disease A study published in Gastroenterology1 found that, over a ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Don't get along with your boss? Your job performance may actually improve if the two of you can come to grips with the poor relationship. A new study led by Michigan State University business scholars finds that workers are more motivated if they and their supervisors see eye-to-eye about a bad relationship than if they have different views about their relationship. The findings are published in the Academy of Management Journal. "Seeing eye-to-eye about the employee-supervisor relationship is equally, if not more important than the actual quality ...

SCOTTSVILLE, SOUTH AFRICA-- Worldwide, drought conditions, extreme temperatures, and high soil saline content all have negative effects on tomato crops. These natural processes reduce soil nutrient content and lifespan, result in reduced plant growth and yield, and ultimately translate to lower profits for tomato producers. As an alternative to unsustainable practices such as the use of synthetic fertilizers, producers are looking to environment-friendly soil ameliorants such as verimcompost leachate, an organic liquid produced from earthworm-digested material and casts ...

TUSCON, AZ - Soil solarization, a process that uses solar radiation to rid the soil of pests, is most common in regions with high solar radiation and high temperatures during the summer season. An alternative to soil fumigation, the process is used either alone or in combination with fumigants. To accomplish solarization, solar radiation is used to passively heat moist soil covered with clear plastic sheeting, with the goal of increasing soil temperatures to the point where they are lethal to soilborne organisms. The effectiveness of solarization is based on the actual ...

Quebec City, November 21, 2014--Scientists from Université Laval, the University of British Columbia and the University of Oxford have discovered a natural resistance gene against spruce budworm in the white spruce. The breakthrough, reported in The Plant Journal, paves the way to identifying and selecting naturally resistant trees to replant forests devastated by the destructive pest. A research team composed of professors Éric Bauce, Joerg Bohlmann and John Mackay as well as their students and postdocs discovered the gene in spruces that had remained relatively ...

Employees who work at small, locally owned businesses have the highest level of loyalty to their employers -- and for rural workers, size and ownership of their company figure even more into their commitment than job satisfaction does, according to Baylor University researchers. Higher levels of commitment are associated with less absenteeism, lower turnover and less seeking of jobs outside the company. The study -- "Small, local and loyal: How firm attributes affect workers' organizational commitment" -- is published in the journal Local Economy. "It's an interesting ...

LA JOLLA, CA - November 20, 2014 - Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered how one gene is essential to hearing, uncovering a cause of deafness and suggesting new avenues for therapies. The new study, published November 20 in the journal Neuron, shows how mutations in a gene called Tmie can cause deafness from birth. Underlining the critical nature of their findings, researchers were able to reintroduce the gene in mice and restore the process underpinning hearing. "This raises hopes that we could, in principle, use gene-therapy approaches ...

There are plenty of body parts that don't grow back when you lose them. Nails are an exception, and a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveals some of the reasons why. A team of USC Stem Cell researchers led by principal investigator Krzysztof Kobielak and co-first authors Yvonne Leung and Eve Kandyba has identified a new population of nail stem cells, which have the ability to either self-renew or undergo specialization or differentiation into multiple tissues. To find these elusive stem cells, the team used a sophisticated ...

Stress activates the immune system The team focused mainly on a certain type of phagocytes, namely microglia. Under normal circumstances, they repair synapses between nerves cells in the brain and stimulate their growth. Once activated, however, microglia may damage nerve cells and trigger inflammation processes. The studies carried out in Bochum have shown that the more frequently microglia get triggered due to stress, the more they are inclined to remain in the destructive mode - a risk factor for mental diseases such as schizophrenia. Susceptibility for stress effects ...

A protein kinase or enzyme known as PKM2 has proven to control cell division, potentially providing a molecular basis for tumor diagnosis and treatment. A study, led by Zhimin Lu, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neuro-oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, showcased the non-metabolic abilities of PKM2 (pyruvate kinase M2) in promoting tumor cell proliferation when cells produce more of the enzyme. The study results were published in today's issue of Nature Communications. Dr. Lu's group previously demonstrated that PKM2 controls gene expression ...

Immunity is a thankless job. Though the army of cells known as the immune system continuously keeps us safe from a barrage of viruses, bacteria and even precancerous cells, we mainly notice it when something goes wrong: "Why did I get the flu this year even though I got vaccinated?" "Why does innocent pollen turn me into a red-eyed, sniffling mess?" A new study from Johns Hopkins takes a big step toward answering this and other questions about immunity, shedding light on how the body recognizes enemies on the molecular level -- and how that process can go wrong. The results ...

A genome of a rare species of tapeworm found living inside a patient's brain has been sequenced for the first time, in research published in the open access journal Genome Biology. The study provides insights into potential drug targets within the genome for future treatments. Tapeworms are parasites that are most commonly found living in the gut, causing symptoms such as weakness, weight loss and abdominal pain. However, the larvae of some species of tapeworm are able to travel further afield to areas such as the eyes, the brain and spinal cord. A 50-year-old man ...

For the first time, the genome of a rarely seen tapeworm has been sequenced. The genetic information of this invasive parasite, which lived for four years in a UK resident's brain, offers new opportunities to diagnose and treat this invasive parasite. The tapeworm, Spirometra erinaceieuropaei, has been reported only 300 times worldwide since 1953 and has never been seen before in the UK. The worm causes sparganosis: inflammation of the body's tissues in response to the parasite. When this occurs in the brain, it can cause seizures, memory loss and headaches. The worm's ...

Current efforts to prevent violence against women and girls are inadequate, according to a new Series published in The Lancet. Estimates suggest that globally, 1 in 3 women has experienced either physical or sexual violence from their partner, and that 7% of women will experience sexual assault by a non-partner at some point in their lives. Yet, despite increased global attention to violence perpetrated against women and girls, and recent advances in knowledge about how to tackle these abuses (Paper 1, Paper 3), levels of violence against women - including intimate ...

WASHINGTON--Levels of violence against women and girls--such as female genital mutilation, trafficking, forced marriage and intimate partner violence--remain high across the world despite the global attention the issue has received. The focus needs to shift to preventing violence, rather than just dealing with the consequences, according to a new series on violence against women and girls published Friday in The Lancet. Mary Ellsberg, director of the George Washington University's Global Women's Institute (GWI), co-authored one of the five papers published in the special ...

Barcelona, Spain: In a second presentation looking at new ways of treating non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has both the EGFR and T790M mutations, researchers will tell the 26th EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Barcelona, Spain, that an oral drug called ASP8273 has caused tumour shrinkage in patients in a phase I clinical trial in Japan. Mutations of the epidermal growth factor (EGFR) occur in about 30-35% of Asian patients with NSCLC (and in 10-15% of Caucasian patients). EGFR inhibitors called tyrosine kinase inhibitors ...

Highlights Living organ donors who later need kidney transplants have much shorter waiting times, and they receive higher quality kidneys compared with similar people on the waiting list who were not organ donors. In 2010, a total of 16,900 kidney transplants took place in the U.S. Of those, only 6,278 were from living donors. Washington, DC (November 20, 2014) -- Prior organ donors who later need a kidney transplant experience brief waiting times and receive excellent quality kidneys, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American ...

Highlights A 12-week course of aerobic exercise improved physical function and quality of life in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease. The exercise program also decreased patients' pain. More than 20 million people in the United States have chronic kidney disease. Washington, DC (November 20, 2014) -- Simple yet structured exercise can significantly improve kidney disease patients' quality of life as well as decrease their pain, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). The ...

Pain, discomfort and magnet displacement were documented in a small medical records review study of patients with cochlear implants (CIs) who underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), according to a report published online by JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. A CI can help patients with severe to profound hearing loss and about 300,000 people worldwide have the device. However, undergoing MRI can pose concerns for patients with CI because of exposure of the internal magnet to a strong electromagnetic field. There have been previous reports of adverse events, ...

Philadelphia, PA--The control of certain childhood diseases is difficult, despite high vaccination coverage in many countries. One of the possible reasons for this is "imperfect vaccines," that is, vaccines that fail either due to "leakiness," lack of effectiveness on certain individuals in a population, or shorter duration of potency. In a paper publishing today in the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, authors Felicia Magpantay, Maria Riolo, Matthieu Domenech de Celles, Aaron King, and Pejman Rohani use a mathematical model to determine the consequences of vaccine ...

A new nationally representative survey of employers--the largest purchasers of health care in the country-- shows that most are unfamiliar with objective metrics of health plan quality information. The survey, conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, also found that employers are looking to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as they make significant decisions on the benefits they offer, with the costs of health plans as a key consideration. Funding for the survey was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "There appears to be a serious ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- In preparation for his upcoming fieldwork, Brown University research analyst Jay Dickson took 10,000 pictures of the inside of his freezer. He wasn't investigating disappearing food or making sure the light went off when he closed the door. Dickson was making sure his new camera and timer would function properly for long periods in sub-freezing temperatures. "Everything worked great in the freezer for five weeks," Dickson said, "so hopefully it will all work in the field." That camera's next stop: a remote Antarctic outpost, where ...

Chester, CA-- A study just published by Point Blue Conservation Science shows the benefits of an aggressive approach to restoring Sierra Nevada aspen stands (Populus tremuloides). Most of the aspen stands that dotted the Sierra Nevada less than a century ago are gone or in poor health. Aspen stands can increase groundwater, enrich soils and support a higher diversity of plants and wildlife, relative to adjacent forest types. Keeping aspen stands as part of our forests is critical to maintaining a healthy Sierra Nevada forest ecosystem for people and wildlife. The ...