COLUMBIA, Mo. – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 6 percent of children younger than five have been diagnosed with asthma, the fastest-growing and most common chronic illness affecting children in the United States. Studies have shown that asthma is associated with attention and behavioral issues in children, yet little existing research examines how socioeconomic status may influence the ultimate effects of these difficulties. Now, an MU researcher has found that the overall outcomes for children with asthma are influenced ...

The current Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, which has claimed more than 2000 lives, has highlighted the need for a deeper understanding of the molecular biology of the virus that could be critical in the development of vaccines or antiviral drugs to treat or prevent Ebola hemorrhagic fever. Now, a team at the University of Virginia (UVA), USA – under the leadership of Dr Dan Engel, a virologist, and Dr Zygmunt Derewenda, a structural biologist – has obtained the crystal structure of a key protein involved in Ebola virus replication, the C-terminal domain of the Zaire ...

Researchers at the University of Warwick have discovered a new target for drugs that could prevent the deaths of thousands of women in the developing world due to heavy blood loss after childbirth. Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) occurs when the uterus fails to contract vigorously after childbirth and the mother loses 500mls or more of blood in the 24 hours after delivery. PPH is responsible for maternal death in 1 in 1,000 deliveries in the developing world. According to recent figures, PPH also complicates around 10% of all births in England and Wales. The research ...

Staying clear of diseases requires that the proteins in our cells cooperate with one another. But, it has been a well-guarded secret how tens of thousands of different proteins find the correct dancing partners as they degrade and build up the human body, brain and nervous system. A recent breakthrough at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry has busted down the door and provided a look at the once obscure behaviour on the protein dance floor. Professor emeritus Jens Jørgen Led of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry and his colleagues ...

Accidental awareness is one of the most feared complications of general anaesthesia for both patients and anaesthetists. Patients report this failure of general anaesthesia in approximately 1 in every 19,000 cases, according to a report published in Anaesthesia. Known as accidental awareness during general anaesthesia (AAGA), it occurs when general anaesthesia is intended but the patient remains conscious. This incidence of patient reports of awareness is much lower than previous estimates of awareness, which were as high as 1 in 600. The findings come from the largest ...

Singapore, 15 September 2014—A small freshwater fish found in many tropical aquariums may hold the key to unlocking one of the leading causes of respiratory diseases in humans. Scientists from A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) have identified hundreds of novel genes in the zebrafish that could be functionally identical to the human genes required for forming motile cilia, hair-like structures on the surface of airway cells. These are required for removing dust and pathogens from the human airway. The study showed that the loss of these genes is ...

Obesity caused by a high-fat diet may increase the risk of developing Parkinson's disease, new research in mice suggests. Upon aging, a high-fat diet significantly accelerated the onset of neurological symptoms in mice that were genetically predisposed to develop Parkinson's disease. The Journal of Neurochemistry findings suggest that in addition to having negative effects on glucose and insulin regulation in the body, an unhealthy diet may also cause damage in the brain. More research is needed to uncover the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved. INFORMATION: ...

VIDEO: Neil Carter and Vanessa Hull talk about what they've learned from the animals -- and people -- they study. Click here for more information. The first big revelation in conservation sciences was that studying the people on the scene as well as nature conservation was crucial. Now, as this science matures, researchers are showing that it's useful to compare apples and oranges. Or, more accurately, tigers and pandas. In this week's journal Ecology & Society, Michigan ...

Researchers in Sydney and Newcastle, Australia have found that elements of dust, particularly those coarse particles that contain iron traces, stimulate the production of inflammatory molecules in cells from the airways of mice and healthy human volunteers. Surprisingly, traffic fume pollutants did not cause these changes. The findings are featured in a new Respirology study. "These effects are likely to contribute to the development of asthma in childhood, as well as to worsening of asthma when pollution levels are high." said Dr. Rakesh Kumar, lead author of the study. ...

Researchers have found that levels of a regulatory protein called ATF4, and the corresponding levels of the molecules whose expression it controls, are elevated in the livers of mice exposed to multiple interventions known increase longevity. Elevation of ATF4, at least in the liver, seems to be a shared feature of diets, drugs, genes, and developmental alterations that extend maximum lifespan. "Pathways that appear to change in the same way in many different kinds of slow-aging mice may provide helpful hints towards the design of drugs that keep people healthy longer ...

New research indicates that people with psychopathic traits have a preference for nonromantic sexual fantasies with anonymous and uncommitted partners. The study's investigators noted that psychopathic sexual behavior is likely due to a preference for sexual activity outside a loving, committed relationship rather than only an inability to form such relationships. Individuals with deviant sexual preferences and normal levels of empathy, kindness, and self-control have many strategies for satisfying their needs, including negotiation, compromise, and restraint; however, ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Speed and agility are hallmarks of the cheetah: The big predator is the fastest land animal on Earth, able to accelerate to 60 mph in just a few seconds. As it ramps up to top speed, a cheetah pumps its legs in tandem, bounding until it reaches a full gallop. Now MIT researchers have developed an algorithm for bounding that they've successfully implemented in a robotic cheetah — a sleek, four-legged assemblage of gears, batteries, and electric motors that weighs about as much as its feline counterpart. The team recently took the robot for a test run on ...

As soon as lava flows from a volcano, exposure to air and wind causes it to start to cool and harden. Rather than hardening evenly, the energy exchange tends to take place primarily at the surface. The cooling causes a crust to form on the outer edges of the lava flow, insulating the molten lava within. This hardened lava shell allows a lava flow to travel much further than it would otherwise, while cracks in the lava's crust can cause it to draw up short. When there is a break in the terrain—a sharp change in slope, a valley, or a rock wall, for example—the smooth lava ...

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 15, 2014 – A genetic discovery out of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is leading to a highly accurate test for aggressive prostate cancer and identifies new avenues for treatment. The analysis, published today in the American Journal of Pathology, found that prostate cancer patients who carry certain genetic mutations have a 91 percent chance of their cancer recurring. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), American Cancer Society and University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI). "Being able to say, ...

Heat shock proteins protect the molecules in all human and animal cells with factors that regulate their production and work as thermostats. In new research published Sept. 16 in the journal eLife, scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere report for the first time that a protein called translation elongation factor eEF1A1 orchestrates the entire process of the heart shock response. By doing so, eEF1A1 supports overall protein homeostasis inside the cell, ensuring that it functions properly under various internal and external stress conditions. The researchers ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A new study by Florida State University researchers demonstrates a different way of projecting a hurricane's strength and intensity that could give the public a better idea of a storm's potential for destruction. Vasu Misra, associate professor of meteorology and co-director of the Florida Climate Institute, and fourth-year doctoral student Michael Kozar introduce in the Monthly Weather Review of the American Meteorological Society a new statistical model that complements hurricane forecasting by showing the size of storms, not just the wind speed. The ...

September 15, 2014 - Magnetic stimulation of a brain area involved in "executive function" affects cravings for and consumption of calorie-dense snack foods, reports a study in the September issue of Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. After stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), young women experience increased cravings for high-calorie snacks—and eat more of those foods when ...

The timing of a toddler's first steps is an important developmental milestone, but a slight delay in walking is typically not a cause of concern by itself. Now a duo of Johns Hopkins researchers has found that when walking and cognitive delays occur in concert, the combination could comprise the earliest of signals heralding a rare but devastating disorder known as Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The study, published ahead of print in The Journal of Pediatrics and conducted by a medical student and a pediatric neurologist, reveals that delays in the onset of walking ...

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Nursing, who studied the emotional distress of caring for a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, found anxiety is high for the primary caregiver at the initial diagnosis or early in the course of the illness and decreases over time. "This finding is significant," said Jaclene A. Zauszniewski, PhD, RN-BC, FAAN, the Kate Hanna Harvey Professor of Community Health at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and study's corresponding author. She attributes the differences to possibly two factors: the family ...

Working more than a 40-hour week has been linked to stress, dissatisfaction, and compromised health, and now new research on 8,350 Korean adults finds that it may also increase one's risk of developing coronary heart disease, or narrowing of the blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart. "The longer hours employees worked, the higher their chances of developing coronary heart disease within 10 years, with those working 61 to 70 hours having a 42% increased likelihood of developing the disease, those working 71 to 80 hours having a 63% increased likelihood, ...

Despite the significant reduction in the overall incidence and death rates from strokes in the United States over the past twenty years, more attention needs to be paid to specific age groups, a recent study found. The new research, conducted by Dr. Silvia Koton of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, Prof. Josef Coresh of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a team of experts at Hopkins, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and the University of Arizona, found a 24 percent ...

Research suggests that genes that affect hearing and cognitive function may play roles in one's musical aptitude, or the ability to understand and perceive rhythm, pitch, timbre, tone durations, and formal structure in music. The authors of a BioEssays article explain that extremes in musical aptitude (extreme capacity/no capacity) are rare within a population, with the majority of individuals having moderate aptitude. "This is a typical feature of a complex trait attributable to several underlying genes, and it is influenced to varying degrees by environmental factors, ...

Researchers who transplanted combinations of wild, domesticated, and domesticated-wild hybridized populations of a fish species to new environments found that within 5 to 11 generations, selection could remove introduced foreign genes from wild populations that hybridized with domesticated populations. The Evolutionary Applications study provides evidence that natural selection, over time, removes the adaptive advantages that hybridized populations experience as a result of increased genetic diversity. "The results may be useful for policy makers who classify the protection ...

As the number of U.S. casualties rose in Afghanistan, reporters filed more stories about the conflict and those articles grew increasingly negative about both the war effort and the military, according to a Penn State researcher. "When the war in Afghanistan started, the tone of the stories that reporters filed was generally neutral," said Michel Haigh, associate professor of communications. "However, over time, and as casualties increased, the coverage became more negative." In 2003, as the media began to focus more on the conflict in Iraq, reporters wrote less than 20 ...

There is no published account where hippopotamuses are demonstrably shown swimming or floating at the surface of any body of water. But if they can't swim, how did they reach and colonize islands? Experts say that widely accepted models for the methods, patterns, and timing of the colonization and dispersal to several islands (e.g. Cyprus, Crete, and Madagascar) may need to be reconsidered. "Although land bridge connections between these islands and the mainland are not currently supported by positive geological evidence, neither is there any contradictory evidence ...