DENVER –Two studies are providing new insight into germline epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M mutation in familial non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The findings suggest the need for tailored approaches for early detection and treatment, as well as for genetic testing to identify carriers. "These studies now solidify the fact that routine clinical management of lung cancer now has to include the awareness of this inherited cancer syndrome," wrote David P. Carbone, MD, PhD, President-Elect of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering are developing ground-improvement methods to help increase the resilience of homes and low-rise structures built on top of soils prone to liquefaction during strong earthquakes. Findings will help improve the safety of structures in Christchurch and the Canterbury region in New Zealand, which were devastated in 2010 and 2011 by a series of powerful earthquakes. Parts of Christchurch were severely affected by liquefaction, in which water-saturated soil temporarily ...

NAIROBI, Kenya (21 March 2014) ----The value of forests and tree-based ecosystems extends far beyond carbon sequestration; they are the foundation of sustainable societies. A new report, launched in Jakarta, Indonesia on 21 March - the International Day of Forests – promotes REDD+ and the Green Economy as together providing a new pathway to sustainable development that can benefit all nations. It claims this approach can conserve and even boost the economic and social benefits forests provide to human society. Building Natural Capital – How REDD+ Can Support a Green ...

Listeria is a rod-shaped bacterium highly prevalent in the environment and generally not a threat to human health. One species however, Listeria monocytogenes, can cause listeriosis, a very dangerous disease. This pathogen can be present in raw milk and soft cheeses, smoked fish, raw meat and ready-to-eat products. In Austria, health care providers are required to report all cases of listeriosis, which can be fatal particularly for patients with weakened immune systems. In 2009 and 2010, a dairy in Hartberg (Styria, Austria) produced Quargel cheese contaminated with Listeria ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 21, 2014) – A standard experimental model of concussion in rats causes substantial brain damage—but no behavioral changes comparable to those seen in patients with concussion, reports a study in the April issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The results highlight the "disconnect" between preclinical and clinical studies of concussion, according to the report by Dr. Charles L. Rosen of West Virginia University, ...

An international team of academics, including Professor Marco Oggioni from the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics, has studied how localised infections can turn into the dangerous systematic disease sepsis – and has identified for the first time through genetic evidence that a single bacteria could be the cause. The study, which has been published in the academic journal PLOS Pathogens, examined the events that lead to sepsis by Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus), a major human pathogen, in mice. They found that in most cases the bacteria causing sepsis ...

This news release is available in German. KIT researchers have developed microstructured lightweight construction materials of highest stability. Although their density is below that of water, their stability relative to their weight exceeds that of massive materials, such as high-performance steel or aluminum. The lightweight construction materials are inspired by the framework structure of bones and the shell structure of the bees' honeycombs. The results are now presented in the journal PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1315147111. "The novel lightweight construction materials ...

The poor prognosis for pancreatic cancer, where only 5 percent of the patients survive five years after the diagnosis, is due to the fact that the tumors often develop unnoticed, and rarely cause symptoms until they have spread to other organs. Recent studies, however, have shown that fluid-filled compartments in the pancreas, called cysts, may be precursors of the cancer. Cysts in the pancreas, which are found in every 10th person above the age of 70, and are also common in younger people, can be discovered with computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging ...

Misplaced your keys? Can't remember someone's name? Didn't notice the stop sign? Those who frequently experience such cognitive lapses now have an explanation. Psychologists from the University of Bonn have found a connection between such everyday lapses and the DRD2 gene. Those who have a certain variant of this gene are more easily distracted and experience a significantly higher incidence of lapses due to a lack of attention. The scientific team will probably report their results in the May issue of "Neuroscience Letters," which is already available online in advance. Most ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today during the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Craig Miller, University of Kentucky, Lexington, will present research titled "Salivary Biomarkers of Gingivitis: Information Important for Personalized Decision-Making." Salivary biomarkers have been studied to help determine the presence, risk, and progression of periodontal disease. However, clinical translation of salivary biomarkers from bench to ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today during the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Daniel Huy Nguyen, The Forsyth Institute, Cambridge, Mass., will present research titled "Novel Pro-Resolving-Medicines in Periodontal Regeneration." Uncontrolled host defense mechanisms can significantly impede tissue engineering, regeneration and reconstruction of oral and craniofacial tissues. The anti-inflammatory and pro-resolving actions of lipoxins ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today during the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, a symposium titled "Water Fluoridation: Safety Efficacy and Value in Oral Health Care" will take place. This symposium will be chaired by Stephen H. Abrams, Cliffcrest Dental Office, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Community water fluoridation (CWF) and other fluoride modalities historically have been and remains the cornerstone for the prevention and control ...

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai researchers have linked high levels of exposure to inhaled particulate matter by first responders at Ground Zero to the risk of obstructed sleep apnea and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), both conditions that may impact cardiovascular health. The two separate studies were both presented on March 20 at the American Heart Association's EPI/NPAM 2014 Scientific Sessions in San Francisco, California by cardiologist Mary Ann McLaughlin, MD, MPH, principal investigator for the WTC-CHEST Program at Mount Sinai, a subset of the World ...

Philadelphia, PA, March 21, 2014 – Chronically ill adults who reported food insecurity in their household (not having consistent access to food due to lack of financial stability) were significantly more likely to report cost-related medication underuse, according to a new study in The American Journal of Medicine,. The term cost-related medication underuse refers to taking less medication than prescribed, or not taking it at all due to financial concerns. Despite renewed optimism about the economy, many people in the United States continue to feel financial hardships. ...

Denver, CO (March 21, 2014) – Research presented by P&G Beauty scientists at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) offers insights into new ingredient formulations and effective skin care routines. P&G Beauty will showcase several studies that address a range of topics including cellular bioenergetics, anti-aging technologies, microdermabrasion systems and sensitive skin body wash efficacy. "P&G Beauty is proud to share our research at this year's AAD meeting, and is looking forward to collaborating with experts in the field of dermatology," ...

Researchers have found that preterm children are at an increased risk of having general cognitive and mathematic problems. The new study by the University of Warwick and Ruhr-University Bochum, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, sought to understand the relationship between preterm birth and dyscalculia. Dyscalculia, a learning disorder which involves frequent problems with everyday arithmetic tasks, is diagnosed when children do worse in maths than would be expected based on their general intelligence. Study co-author Professor Dieter Wolke from the University ...

The experimental and numerical study of the behaviour of polymers in concentrated solutions is a line of research that is still highly active. In the past, it enabled us to understand why materials like rubber have certain elastic properties. A distinctive feature of these systems is that the long "chained" molecules composing them tend to penetrate each other and interweave at their ends forming very durable bonds that make them always return to their initial conformation whenever they are "stretched". The behaviour of dense solutions of "ring" polymers, i.e., polymers ...

Pohang, Republic of Korea, March 21, 2014 – Earlier today, Korean researchers successfully showcased the installation and operation of a box-shaped, high-pressure tank for the storage of liquefied natural gas in Pohang, Republic of Korea. The development was the first of its kind in the world. Pressure vessels have many applications and are widely used within the petrochemical, energy, and other industrial sectors where the transport and storage of many types of pressurized gases and fluids are essential. Pressure vessels must be designed, manufactured, installed, ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today, at the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR), held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Mary Anne Sampaio de Melo, from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, will present a research study titled "Antibacterial Orthodontic Cement Containing a Quaternary Ammonium Monomer Dimethylaminododecyl Methacrylate." Demineralized lesions in enamel around orthodontic brackets are caused by acids from biofilm accumulation. The objectives of this study ...

Researchers at LSTM have discovered how unprecedented multiple and extreme-level resistance is generated in mosquitoes found in the rice fields of Tiassalé in southern Côte d'Ivoire. The paper, "CYP6 P450 enzymes and ACE-1 duplication produce extreme and multiple insecticide resistance in the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae" published in PLoS Genetics today, highlights the combination of stringently-replicated whole genome transcription profiling, in vivo transgenic gene expression and in vitro metabolism assays to identify and validate genes from the P450 detoxification ...

Critical illness polyneuropathy and critical illness myopathy are frequent complications of severe illness that involve sensorimotor axons and skeletal muscles, respectively. Differentiating critical illness polyneuropathy from Guillain-Barré syndrome, especially the axonal variants, may be difficult on purely clinical grounds, as Guillain-Barré syndrome is known for its variable atypical manifestations. Prof. Hongliang Zhang and team from the First Bethune Hospital, Jilin University in China provide the latest knowledge concerning the pathophysiology of critical illness ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Although markets for trading carbon emission credits to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have stalled in United States federal policy-making, carbon markets are emerging at the state level within the U.S. and around the world, teaching us more about what does and doesn't work. In a Policy Forum article in the March 21 edition of Science magazine, Duke University's Richard Newell, William Pizer and Daniel Raimi discuss the key lessons from a decade of experience with carbon markets. They also discuss what it might take for these markets to develop and possibly ...

To date, it remains poorly understood whether astrocytes can be easily reprogrammed into neurons. Mash1 and Brn2 have been previously shown to cooperate to reprogram fibroblasts into neurons. Dr. Yongjun Wang and team from Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China found that and found that Brn2 was expressed in astrocytes from 2-month-old Sprague-Dawley rats, but Mash1 was not detectable. Thus, the researchers hypothesized that Mash1 alone could be used to reprogram astrocytes into neurons. Murine stem cell virus (MSCV)-Mash1 recombinant plasmid was constructed ...

Researchers from Lund University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History have made a unique discovery in a well-preserved fern that lived 180 million years ago. Both undestroyed cell nuclei and individual chromosomes have been found in the plant fossil, thanks to its sudden burial in a volcanic eruption. The well-preserved fossil of a fern from the southern Swedish county of Skåne is now attracting attention in the research community. The plant lived around 180 million years ago, during the Jurassic period, when Skåne was a tropical region where the fauna was dominated ...

Cell migration is highly coordinated and occurs in processes such as embryonic development, wound healing, the formation of new blood vessels, and tumour cell invasion. For the successful control of cell movement, this process has to be determined and maintained with great precision. In this study, the scientists used tracheal cells of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to unravel the signalling mechanism involved in the regulation of cell movements. The research describes a new molecular component that controls the expression of a molecule named Fibroblast Growth ...