The majority of drugs used to treat asthma today are the same ones that were used 50 years ago. New drugs are urgently needed to treat this chronic respiratory disease, which causes nearly 25 million people in the United States alone to wheeze, cough, and find it difficult at best to take a deep breath. But finding new treatments is tough: asthma is a patient-specific disease, so what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another, and the animal models traditionally used to test new drug candidates often fail to mimic human responses – costing tremendous ...

Fruit and vegetable consumption could be as good for your mental as your physical health, new research suggests. The research, conducted by the University of Warwick's Medical School using data from the Health Survey for England, and published by BMJ Open focused on mental wellbeing and found that high and low mental wellbeing were consistently associated with an individual's fruit and vegetable consumption. 33.5% of respondents with high mental wellbeing ate five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day, compared with only 6.8% who ate less than one portion. ...

A team of researchers from the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) has developed a new way to fabricate a potential challenger to graphene. Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms in a honeycomb lattice, is increasingly being used in new electronic and mechanical applications, such as transistors, switches and light sources, thanks to the unprecedented properties it offers: very low electrical resistance, high thermal conductivity and mechanically stretchable yet harder than diamond. Now, ORC researchers have developed molybdenum di-sulphide ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists have scoured cow rumens and termite guts for microbes that can efficiently break down plant cell walls for the production of next-generation biofuels, but some of the best microbial candidates actually may reside in the human lower intestine, researchers report. Their study, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to use biochemical approaches to confirm the hypothesis that microbes in the human gut can digest fiber, breaking it down into simple sugars in order to ferment them into nutrients that nourish ...

A special issue of the European Journal of Cancer presents detailed reports on the wide range of research presented during the 1st EORTC Cancer Survivorship Summit held this past January in Brussels, Belgium. Early diagnosis, targeted therapeutics, and more personalized multimodal treatments has boosted survival rates of patients with cancer and led to a large and rapidly increasing number of cancer survivors. Despite this good news, cancer survivors are often confronted with a broad spectrum of late adverse treatment effects and some must also deal with societal discrimination ...

Carbon nanotubes serve as bridges that allow electrical signals to pass unhindered through new pediatric heart-defect patches invented at Rice University and Texas Children's Hospital. A team led by bioengineer Jeffrey Jacot and chemical engineer and chemist Matteo Pasquali created the patches infused with conductive single-walled carbon nanotubes. The patches are made of a sponge-like bioscaffold that contains microscopic pores and mimics the body's extracellular matrix. The nanotubes overcome a limitation of current patches in which pore walls hinder the transfer ...

Inflammation has been shown to be a driving force behind many chronic diseases, especially liver cancer, which often develops due to chronic inflammation caused by conditions such as viral hepatitis or alcoholism and has relatively few effective treatment options. Now, scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center have demonstrated for the first time in preclinical studies that blocking the expression of a gene known as astrocyte elevated gene-1 (AEG-1) halts the development and progression of liver cancer by regulating inflammation. This research ...

Athens, Ga. – Bed sharing, a practice where mother and infant sleep on the same surface, remains popular all over the world despite potential health risks for the infant. According to a new University of Georgia study, bed sharing can likely be decreased if public health officials tailor messaging to their unique population. Trina Salm Ward, assistant professor in the UGA School of Social Work and assistant professor of health promotion and behavior in the College of Public Health, reviewed literature on bed sharing in "Reasons for Mother-Infant Bed-Sharing: A Systematic ...

WASHINGTON (Sept. 23, 2014) — A patient survives life-threatening trauma, is intubated in the intensive care unit (ICU) to support his or her affected vital functions, starts to recover, and then develops pneumonia. It's a scenario well-known to physicians, who understand that the development of ventilator-associated pneumonia in critically ill patients often results in significant morbidity, mortality, and additional health care costs. An interdisciplinary team of George Washington University (GW) researchers are investigating more accurate and rapid methods of identification ...

The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" — was signed into law in 2010 and promised the largest overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the 1960s. Designed to provide medical care to uninsured Americans, it has been widely decried as an unwarranted intrusion into the affairs of private businesses and individuals. However, an independent comparative study of healthcare systems in six Western countries, published last month in Social Science and Medicine, supports a move away from privatized medicine toward state-sponsored healthcare systems. In her research, Dina Maskileyson ...

Alexandria, Va. — "Virtual water" was coined in 1993 to help explain why long-predicted water wars driven by water and food security had not occurred among the arid nations of the Middle East and North Africa. The virtual water notion refers basically to the total amount of freshwater, either from rainfall or irrigation, used in the production of food commodities, including crops and fodder-fed livestock, or other goods and services — agricultural, industrial or otherwise. Taking root in the late 1990s across a range of disciplines, the concept has since expanded and evolved. Today, ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Racially and economically mixed cities are more likely to stay integrated if the density of households stays low, finds a new analysis of a now-famous model of segregation. By simulating the movement of families between neighborhoods in a virtual "city," Duke University mathematician Rick Durrett and graduate student Yuan Zhang find that cities are more likely to become segregated along racial, ethnic or other lines when the proportion of occupied sites rises above a certain critical threshold -- as low as 25 percent, regardless of the identity of the ...

WASHINGTON, DC -- Gender-based violence affects the physical and mental health of girls and boys, men and women worldwide. A recent study by researchers from the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University addresses the challenge of developing effective strategies to change inequitable and harmful social norms that result in gender-based violence. Inequitable gender norms are not only related to domestic violence, but also to other behaviors such as multiple sexual partners, smoking and alcohol abuse which lead to poor health outcomes. The findings ...

This news release is available in Spanish. The Journal of Optics has devoted the front page of its special edition on Mid-infrared and THz Photonics to the work produced by the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre researchers Víctor Pacheco-Peña, Víctor Torres, Miguel Beruete and Miguel Navarro-Cía (former student currently working at Imperial College London), together with Nader Engheta (University of Pennsylvania), one of the world's leading experts in metamaterials. In their research they have proposed various devices capable of redirecting electromagnetic waves ...

Nearly one out of four dogs will develop cancer in their lifetime and 20 per cent of those will be lymphoma cases. A team of researchers from the University of Leicester has helped Avacta Animal Health Ltd to develop a new user-friendly electronic system for diagnosing lymphoma in dogs in the early stages, and for remission monitoring. Marketed as cLBT (canine lymphoma blood test), this is the first test of its kind to track the remission monitoring status of a dog after undergoing chemotherapy. Led by Professor Alexander Gorban from the University's Department ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Contrary to what is often assumed about single parents, particularly single parents of young children, a new study from The Kinsey Institute has found that single parents of children younger than 5 date and are sexually active as often as singles without children -- and more so than single parents of older children. The study, "Dating and Sexual Behavior Among Single Parents of Young Children in the United States," was published online in the Journal of Sex Research prior to appearing in print. Co-authors are lead author Peter B. Gray, University ...

Arguments about whose turn it is to do the washing up, negotiating rights to the TV remote control and disputes over noise — as many students returning to university for the new academic year are about to learn the hard way, sharing a house can be a tricky business. And now research from academics at The University of Nottingham has revealed that new technology to allow people to monitor their energy usage in the home could be about to ratchet up the tension. The study by a team of technology experts and psychologists found that meters which allowed residents to look ...

EORTC investigators will present the results of their cancer research at ESMO 2014 Congress, 26-30 September 2014 in Madrid. Joint Symposium: ESMO-ASCO: The Evolution of the clinical trial landscape Monday, September 29, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM, Room: Granada Abstract 121IN: Denis Lacombe. Can Collaborative Molecular Screening Platforms support new forms of cancer clinical research? The example of the EORTC SPECTA program. Proffered Paper session: Melanoma and other skin tumors Saturday, September 27, 2:00 PM - 3:45 PM, Room: Barcelona Eggermont AM, Chiarion-Sileni ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 23, 2014—New technology and better screening strategies can lower the rate of false-positive results, which impose a substantial financial and psychological burden on women. The many misperceptions about breast cancer screening options and risks, the benefits and costs of screening, and the need for new approaches and better education are discussed in a series of articles in a supplement to Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The supplement is available free on the Journal of Women's ...

Arctic sea ice coverage continued its below-average trend this year as the ice declined to its annual minimum on Sept. 17, according to the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Over the 2014 summer, Arctic sea ice melted back from its maximum extent reached in March to a coverage area of 1.94 million square miles (5.02 million square kilometers), according to analysis from NASA and NSIDC scientists. This year's minimum extent is similar to last year's and below the 1981-2010 average of 2.40 million square miles ...

MADISON, Wis. — The number of extremely hot days in Eastern and Midwestern U.S. cities is projected to triple by mid-century, according to a new study led by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Milwaukee and New York City could experience three times as many 90-degree days by 2046; Dallas could see twice as many days topping 100 degrees. The new analysis offers climate data through the lens of public health, in a study that represents a synthesis of the latest science at the intersection of ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories' Z machine have produced a significant output of fusion neutrons, using a method fully functioning for only little more than a year. The experimental work is described in a paper to be published in the Sept. 24 Physical Review Letters online. A theoretical PRL paper to be published on the same date helps explain why the experimental method worked. The combined work demonstrates the viability of the novel approach. "We are committed to shaking this [fusion] tree until either we get some good apples or a ...

Researchers at the University of Chicago have shown that after a long stay in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) only a handful of pathogenic microbe species remain behind in patients' intestines. The team tested these remaining pathogens and discovered that some can become deadly when provoked by conditions that mimic the body's stress response to illness. The findings, published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, may lead to better monitoring and treatment of ICU patients who can develop a life-threatening systemic infection ...

Where people look when watching video evidence varies wildly and has profound consequences for bias in legal punishment decisions, a team of researchers at New York University and Yale Law School has found. This study raises questions about why people fail to be objective when confronted with video evidence. In a series of three experiments, participants who viewed videotaped altercations formed biased punishment decisions about a defendant the more they looked at him. Participants punished a defendant more severely if they did not identify with his social group and punished ...

Washington, DC, September 23, 2014 —The Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) is calling upon healthcare providers and pregnant women to avoid induction of labor at any time during pregnancy unless it is medically necessary. Approximately one-in-four U.S. births are induced, a number that has more than doubled since 1990. While there are limited data to distinguish how many of these inductions are for medical and non-medical reasons, there is no data to suggest that the significant increase in the induction rate is attributable to a similar ...