PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The difference between merely throwing around buzzwords like "personalized medicine" and "big data" and delivering on their medical promise is in the details of developing methods for analyzing and interpreting genomic data. In a pair of new papers, Brown University epidemiologist Yen-Tsung Huang and colleagues show how integrating different kinds of genomic data could improve studies of the association between genes and disease. The kinds of data Huang integrates are single-nucleotide differences in DNA, called SNPs, data on gene ...

A unique population of microbes in the female breast may lay the groundwork for understanding how this bacterial community contributes to health and disease, according to a new study out of Western University (London, Canada). The study titled "Microbiota of human breast tissue," is now published online, in advance of the May issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The human body is home to a large and diverse population of bacteria with properties that are both harmful and beneficial to our health. Studies are revealing the presence of bacteria in unexpected ...

Materials scientists have long known that introducing defects into three-dimensional materials can improve their mechanical and electronic properties. Now a new Northwestern study finds how defects affect two-dimensional crystalline structures, and the results hold information for designing new materials. In packed, two-dimensional crystalline systems, such as in photonic two-dimensional crystals, the particles are organized in hexagonal lattices. One particle is in the center of the hexagon with six neighboring particles around it. A defective lattice is when the center ...

This news release is available in German. They discovered that the so-called HOPE method allows tissue samples to be treated such that they do not only meet the requirements of clinical histology, but can still be characterised later on by modern methods of proteomics, a technique analysing all proteins at once. This is successful, since the structure of the tissue is "fixed" in a way that the protein molecules remain accessible for systematic analysis. This technique therefore meets current requirements in terms of a more personalised medicine and thus opens up ...

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—April 8, 2014—Two-thirds of Americans (66%) say it's important for candidates running for office to assign a high priority to funding medical research, according to America Speaks, Volume 14, a compilation of key questions from public opinion polls commissioned by Research!America. Polling shows that Americans place a high value on U.S. leadership in medical innovation, yet only 12% say they are very well informed about the positions of their senators and representative when it comes to their support of medical and scientific research. http://www.researchamerica.org/poll_summary. ...

Facing the prospect of racial minority groups becoming the overall majority in the United States leads White Americans to lean more toward the conservative end of the political spectrum, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings suggest that increased diversity in the United States could actually lead to a wider partisan divide, with more White Americans expressing support for conservative policies. Psychological scientists Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richeson of Northwestern University ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Many studies have shown that a company's logo is one of the most important aspects of marketing and advertising a brand, or features that distinctly identifies a company's product or service from its competitors. Now, a researcher at the University of Missouri has found that the specific colors used in a company's logo have a significant impact on how that logo, and the brand as a whole, is viewed by consumers. Jessica Ridgway, a doctoral student in the MU Department of Textile and Apparel Management, surveyed 184 adults using generic logos of different ...

Synthetic genetic circuitry created by researchers at Rice University is helping them see, for the first time, how to regulate cell mechanisms that degrade the misfolded proteins implicated in Parkinson's, Huntington's and other diseases. The Rice lab of chemical and biomolecular engineer Laura Segatori has designed a sophisticated circuit that signals increases in the degradation of proteins by the cell's ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS). The research appears online today in Nature Communications. The UPS is essential to a variety of fundamental cellular processes, ...

Research from the University of Southampton has shown a drug, used in combination with chemotherapy to treat advanced colorectal cancer, is not effective in some settings, and indeed may result in more rapid cancer progression. The New EPOC study, published in The Lancet Oncology and funded by Cancer Research UK, evaluated whether the drug cetuximab and chemotherapy together worked better than chemotherapy alone as a treatment in addition to surgery for people with bowel cancer that had spread to the liver but could be surgically removed. In the trial patients either ...

Nanoengineering researchers at Rice University and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have unveiled a potentially scalable method for making one-atom-thick layers of molybdenum diselenide -- a highly sought semiconductor that is similar to graphene but has better properties for making certain electronic devices like switchable transistors and light-emitting diodes. The method for making two-dimensional molybdenum diselenide uses a technique known as chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and is described online in a new paper in the American Chemical Society journal ...

A fraction of the carbon that finds its way into Earth's oceans -- the black soot and charcoal residue of fires -- stays there for thousands for years, and a new first-of-its-kind analysis shows how some black carbon breaks away and hitches a ride to the ocean floor on passing particles. The study by scientists from Rice University, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of South Carolina offers the first detailed analysis of how black carbon gets into deep ocean sediments, as well as an accounting of the types and amounts of black carbon found in those ...

One of graphene's most sought-after properties is its high conductivity. Argentinian and Brazilian physicists have now successfully calculated the conditions of the transport, or conductance mechanisms, in graphene nanoribbons. The results, recently published in a paper in EPJ B, yield a clearer theoretical understanding of conductivity in graphene samples of finite size, which have applications in externally controlled electronic devices. When the conductivity is high, the electrons, carriers of electrical current, are minimally hampered during transport through graphene. ...

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2014 — A team of researchers at UCLA has transformed Google Glass into powerful, wearable medical testing laboratory. Aydogan Ozcan and his team developed an application that reads dozens of different types of diagnostic tests for malaria, prostate cancer and HIV, to name a few. Glass uploads the results to secure servers and provides anonymous data to epidemiologists. In the American Chemical Society's (ACS') newest Breakthrough Science video, Ozcan demonstrates how the app works, and explains the broad impact it could have on medicine. The video is ...

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 ...