Do you have heel pain? Is it weighing heavy on your normal routine? If not treated, foot issues can kick your butt (not literally). However, leaving it untreated can cause further damage or pain. At Regina Podiatry and Orthotic Clinic, Dr. R. Bagha utilizes two different modes of treatment to help patients kick heel pain to the curb. These two treatments are deep tissue laser therapy and orthotic insoles. "Deep tissue laser therapy and orthotic insoles have proven to be most effective when paired together. Once heel pain is treated, we stress the importance of ...

Have you ever witnessed a parent playing tug-of-war with his/her child before going into a doctor's office? Could you relate to that anxiety? A little anxiety is normal, but you don't want it to deter you from going to the dentist office for annual checkups or treatment, especially when your oral health is at stake. To help ensure a patient is relaxed, Gregory Robins Family Dentistry office in West Covina offers nitrous oxide for patients needing a little extra help relaxing in the dental chair. "Many patients are nervous about going to the dentist, and the ...

Known for his focus on body and breast cosmetic surgery procedures, Denver plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Campanile recently launched a new website devoted exclusively to tummy tuck surgery (http://www.denvertummy.com). The website provides procedure information, actual patient before and after photos, and stories from just a few of Dr. Campanile's many happy patients who had tummy tuck surgery. "I have tailored my practice to focus only on procedures that enhance the appearance of the body and breasts," says Dr. Frank Campanile, who is board certified by the American ...

SAN ANTONIO – Neuroblastoma is one of the most common and lethal types of childhood cancers. In a paper published online today in OncoTarget, a researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio unveils the important role of microRNAs in regulating neuroblastoma development, pointing to new therapeutic possibilities. Neuroblastomas, which account for 15 percent of childhood cancer deaths, happen when some cells do not differentiate and grow as they should. A promising type of therapy called differentiation therapy targets these malignant cells ...

An essential weapon in the body's fight against infection has come into sharper view. Researchers at Princeton University have discovered the 3D structure of an enzyme that cuts to ribbons the genetic material of viruses and helps defend against bacteria. The discovery of the structure of this enzyme, a first-responder in the body's "innate immune system," could enable new strategies for fighting infectious agents and possibly prostate cancer and obesity. The work was published Feb. 27 in the journal Science. Until now, the research community has lacked a structural ...

Children who suffer from frequent nightmares or bouts of night terrors may be at an increased risk of psychotic experiences in adolescence, according to new research from the University of Warwick. The study, published today in the journal SLEEP, shows that children reporting frequent nightmares before the age of 12 were three and a half times more likely to suffer from psychotic experiences in early adolescence. Similarly, experiencing night terrors doubled the risk of such problems, including hallucinations, interrupted thoughts or delusions. Younger children, between ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study of Gulf War veterans found an association between poor sleep quality and reduced gray matter volume in the brain's frontal lobe, which helps control important processes such as working memory and executive function. "Previous imaging studies have suggested that sleep disturbances may be associated with structural brain changes in certain regions of the frontal lobe," said lead author Linda Chao, associate adjunct professor in the Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. "The ...

Johns Hopkins researchers report that people with chronic insomnia show more plasticity and activity than good sleepers in the part of the brain that controls movement. "Insomnia is not a nighttime disorder," says study leader Rachel E. Salas, M.D., an assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "It's a 24-hour brain condition, like a light switch that is always on. Our research adds information about differences in the brain associated with it." Salas and her team, reporting in the March issue of the journal Sleep, found that ...

An observational study from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that prostate cancer patients who undergo robotic-assisted prostate surgery have fewer instances of cancer cells at the edge of their surgical specimen and less need for additional cancer treatments like hormone or radiation therapy than patients who have traditional "open" surgery. The study, published online Feb. 19 in the journal European Urology, was led by Dr. Jim Hu, UCLA's Henry E. Singleton Professor of Urology and director of robotic and minimally invasive surgery in the urology ...

Researchers from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed an innovative cancer-fighting technique in which custom-designed nanoparticles carry chemotherapy drugs directly to tumor cells and release their cargo when triggered by a two-photon laser in the infrared red wavelength. The research findings by UCLA's Jeffrey Zink, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Fuyu Tamanoi, a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics, and their colleagues were published online Feb. 20 in the journal Small and will appear in a later print ...

Robert Avery, DO, MSCE, of Children's National Health System and colleagues are establishing innovative approaches with technology and medication to improve the vision of young children who have visual pathway glioma, a type of brain tumor. Most optic pathway gliomas cause vision loss in children between one and eight years of age. As many as 20 percent of children with neurofibromatosis type 1 -- a genetic disorder that occurs in 1 in every 4,000 births – may develop these tumors. It is estimated that nearly half of those children may experience vision problems from ...

In space, things don't always behave the way we expect them to. In the case of cancer, researchers have found that this is a good thing: some tumors seem to be much less aggressive in the microgravity environment of space compared to their behavior on Earth. This observation, reported in research published in February by the FASEB Journal, could help scientists understand the mechanism involved and develop drugs targeting tumors that don't respond to current treatments. This work is the latest in a large body of evidence on how space exploration benefits those of us on ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – It looks like a worm and moves like a worm – sort of. But it is a previously unidentified microscopic species of mite that was discovered by a graduate student on The Ohio State University campus. Affectionately dubbed the "Buckeye Dragon Mite" by Ohio State's Acarology Laboratory, the mite is officially named Osperalycus tenerphagus, Latin for "mouth purse" and "tender feeding," in a nod to its complex and highly unusual oral structure. This mite doesn't resemble a mythological winged dragon, but the snake-like Chinese dancing dragons that appear in ...

Three dimensional imaging of two different mouse models of Apert Syndrome shows that cranial deformation begins before birth and continues, worsening with time, according to a team of researchers who studied mice to better understand and treat the disorder in humans. Apert Syndrome is caused by mutations in FGFR2 -- fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 -- a gene, which usually produces a protein that functions in cell division, regulation of cell growth and maturation, formation of blood vessels, wound healing, and embryonic development. With certain mutations, this gene ...

A swirling Eastern Pacific Ocean storm system headed for California was spotted by NOAA's GOES-West satellite on February 28. According to the National Weather Service, this storm system has the potential to bring heavy rainfall to the drought-stricken state. The storm was captured using visible data from NOAA's GOES-West or GOES-15 satellite on Feb. 28 at 1430 UTC/6:30 a.m. PST was made into an image by NASA/NOAA's GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The storm's center appeared as a tight swirl, with bands of clouds and showers already ...

At night, as cold settles in, lake ice creaks and groans. It's been excessively cold, and I camped exposed on the snow-swept surface. Other than the lack of vegetation and the sounds at night, you'd never know you were on a lake. It feels like an empty plain. In some places, you see pressure ridges where ice has pushed into itself, sticking up like clear blue stegosaurus plates. -- Craig Childs Author Craig Childs is not describing an Arctic lake. He's describing the bitterly cold and frozen scene on Lake Superior, during his February 2014 trek on the ice near the coast ...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory are revealing the mysteries of new materials using ultra-fast laser spectroscopy, similar to high-speed photography where many quick images reveal subtle movements and changes inside the materials. Seeing these dynamics is one emerging strategy to better understanding how new materials work, so that we can use them to enable new energy technologies. Physicist Jigang Wang and his colleagues recently used ultra-fast laser spectroscopy to examine and explain the mysterious electronic properties of iron-based superconductors. ...

Although liquid water covers a majority of Earth's surface, scientists are still searching for planets outside of our solar system that contain water. Researchers at Caltech and several other institutions have used a new technique to analyze the gaseous atmospheres of such extrasolar planets and have made the first detection of water in the atmosphere of the Jupiter-mass planet orbiting the nearby star tau Boötis. With further development and more sensitive instruments, this technique could help researchers learn about how many planets with water—like Earth—exist within ...

Although seemingly destructive, wildfires help to maintain biodiversity and are an important element of many ecosystems throughout the world. Not only do fires discourage non-native and invasive species from becoming established, but the quick release of nutrients, heat, and compounds found in ash and smoke play an important role in the life cycle of the native flora. For plants that are adapted to ecosystems where fire is a regular occurrence—such as savannas, grasslands, and coniferous forests—exposure to fire may initiate seed germination or enhance plant growth. Recent ...

A stroll through the produce aisle in your local grocery store exhibits a plethora of vivid colors. From opposing hues, like red apples next to green celery, to subtler variations, such as light to dark purple grapes, every color seems to hold its own unique attraction. Is there a way to precisely measure these hundreds of colors? This is a crucial question for scientists studying the biological importance of color in nature, but measuring color is much more challenging than measuring other characteristics, like size or weight. In recent work, University of Colorado researcher ...

Tropical Cyclone 16P formed near Fiji after lingering in the region for several days as a tropical low pressure area. NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an infrared image of the storm on February 28. NOAA's GOES-West satellite image showed the center of Tropical Cyclone 16P to the northeast of Fiji and over Vanua Levu. Broken bands of thunderstorms wrapping from the north to the east and southeast reached Wallis and Fortuna, Samoa, Niue and Tonga. At 0900 UTC/4 a.m. EST, Tropical Cyclone 16P was centered about 170 nautical miles/`95.6 miles/314.8 km northeast of Suva, ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- The ability to duplicate an experiment and its results is a central tenet of the scientific method, but recent research has shown an alarming number of peer-reviewed papers are irreproducible. A team of math and statistics professors has proposed a way to address one root of that problem by teaching reproducibility to aspiring scientists, using software that makes the concept feel logical rather than cumbersome. Researchers from Smith College, Duke University and Amherst College looked at how introductory statistics students responded to a curriculum ...

STANFORD, Calif. — An asthma drug accelerates the process of desensitizing patients with food allergies to several foods at the same time, a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford shows. The findings come on the heels of a recent study by the same team showing that people with multiple food allergies can be desensitized to several foods at once. The two studies, both phase-1 safety trials, provide the first scientific evidence that a promising new method for treating people for multiple food ...

URBANA, Ill. – Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is the most expensive and invasive disease for pig producers on a global scale. Though it is not occurring on every farm, it is the biggest disease problem in the pig industry, said a University of Illinois animal sciences researcher. E. coli has also been a problem historically and continues to be on an industry-wide basis, said James Pettigrew. "Either disease can sweep through a farm so their alleviation would substantially reduce production costs. Even though many management practices have been used ...

University of Waterloo physicists have succeeded in measuring how the surfaces of glassy materials flow like a liquid, even when they should be solid. A series of simple and elegant experiments were the solution to a problem that has been plaguing condensed matter physicists for the past 20 years. Understanding the mobility of glassy surfaces has implications for the design and manufacture of thin-film coatings and also sets practical limits on how small we can make nanoscale devices and circuitry. The work is the culmination of a project carried out by a research ...