London, UK, Saturday 12 April 2014: Results from RESTORE , a phase III, multicentre, single-arm, open-label study presented today at the International Liver CongressTM 2014 showed that simeprevir 150 mg once-daily for 12 weeks in combination with peginterferon and ribavirin (followed by 12 or 36 weeks of peginterferon and ribavirin) was effective and well tolerated in hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 4-infected patients, consistent with previous observations in HCV genotype 1-infected patients. Overall, 65.4% of patients achieved SVR12 (82.9% of treatment-naïve, 86.4% ...

The Lancet Oncology today [Friday 11 April] publishes a major new Commission examining the challenges to effective cancer control in China, India, and Russia – which together experience 46% of all new cancers worldwide, and account for more than half (52%) of all cancer deaths globally. The Commission was led by Professor Paul Goss, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, USA, in collaboration with over 40 leading cancer experts from the regions studied, and across the world. At the same time, the journal also publishes a three part ...

UAlberta researchers are taking a closer look at how two metabolic pathways interact to increase the lifespan of cells with mitochondrial defects. Magnus Friis is the lead author of the study, which was published online on April 10 and will be published in the April 24 issue of Cell Reports. Mitochondria produce energy for cells through oxidative metabolism, but the process produces toxic byproducts that can accumulate and cause defects in the cell's mitochondria. These defects, in turn, affect the cell's ability to generate energy and can potentially lead to cell death ...

TORONTO, April 11, 2014 – Women with diabetes are 14 per cent less likely to be screened for breast cancer compared to women without diabetes, according to a study by researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Women's College Hospital. The study, published today in the journal Diabetic Medicine, is the first to examine the influence of socioeconomic status on the gap in mammogram screening among women with diabetes. "Managing the demands of a chronic condition such as diabetes is challenging for many women, leaving other preventative actions, ...

10th of April, 2014 (London). A new paper from the Swansea University, College of Engineering team working on the BLOODHOUND SSC (Supersonic car) project has been published on the aerodynamic characteristics of travelling at 1,000mph. Simulations have looked at how the car will cope with the supersonic rolling ground, rotating wheels and resulting shock waves in close proximity to the test surface at the record attempt site in Hakskeen Pan, South Africa. Where, in 2015, it will make high speed test runs of up to 800mph, with the full 1,000mph attempt scheduled for 2016. ...

An analysis of temperature data since 1500 all but rules out the possibility that global warming in the industrial era is just a natural fluctuation in the earth's climate, according to a new study by McGill University physics professor Shaun Lovejoy. The study, published online April 6 in the journal Climate Dynamics, represents a new approach to the question of whether global warming in the industrial era has been caused largely by man-made emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Rather than using complex computer models to estimate the effects of greenhouse-gas ...

HOUGHTON, Mich., April 11, 2014 – In the last 100 years, Michigan has become warmer, with more rain coming through heavy downpours. Climate models suggest that the state will continue to warm and variability in precipitation patterns will increase, which will have consequences for the state's forests. A new U.S. Forest Service report describes the potential risks and opportunities of climate change for forests in the eastern Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula. More than 30 scientists and forest managers contributed to "Michigan Forest Ecosystem Vulnerability ...

Jeff Benca is an admitted über-geek when it comes to prehistoric plants, so it was no surprise that, when he submitted a paper describing a new species of long-extinct lycopod for publication, he ditched the standard line drawing and insisted on a detailed and beautifully rendered color reconstruction of the plant. This piece earned the cover of March's centennial issue of the American Journal of Botany. "Typically, when you see pictures of early land plants, they're not that sexy: there is a green forking stick and that's about it. We don't have many thorough reconstructions," ...

Merely changing the face of a model in an ad increases the number of potential purchasers by as much as 15% (8% on average), according to a study being published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). "Just the Faces: Exploring the Effects of Facial Features in Print Advertising," appears in the Articles in Advance section of the INFORMS journal Marketing Science and will appear in print later this year. The research was conducted by Li Xiao, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Fudan University (China), and Min Ding, Smeal Professor ...

According to a prospective study (the SPEED Study) presented by Yvonne Greve of Nuremberg Hospital et al. in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2014; 111(12): 197), up to 3% of consultations at an emergency department concern a sudden loss of consciousness or near loss of consciousness. In order to assess the frequency and prognostic significance of near syncope and syncope (the specialist terms for short-term near or complete loss of consciousness), the authors gathered data on 395 patients who presented to an emergency department with the typical ...

WASHINGTON -- Most Americans say they support the idea of organ donation, yet fewer than half of eligible donors ever register, national polls show. That may be because supporting a good cause doesn't mean people will take action. However, people are more likely to sign up if they have positive attitudes specifically about registering as a donor, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. In a 2005 Gallup poll, 95 percent of Americans said they "support or strongly support" organ donation, yet only 40 percent of eligible donors have registered, ...

The oligodendrocyte transcription family (Olig family) is widely expressed in the central nervous system of various mammals, and plays a critical role in central nervous system development by controlling differentiation and maturation of oligodendrocytes, motor neurons and astrocytes. Moreover, accumulating evidence demonstrates Olig family participation in many central nervous system diseases. Therefore, based on current literature, Dr. Lehua Yu and co-workers from Second Affliated Hospital, Chongqing Medical University in China examine the role of the Olig family in central ...

Danish newspapers mirror to a high degree the viewpoints of the political elite when Danish military participation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has been on the public agenda during the past 10 years. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have tested the so-called 'elite-driven media' theory on editorial viewpoints on the military engagements and the results may help explain why support for the war efforts have been remarkably consistent in the small and hitherto less belligerent nation. While political discussions concerning the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya ...

Scientists of the German Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), have deciphered a supposed climate paradox from the Miocene era by means of complex model simulations. When the Antarctic ice sheet grew to its present-day size around 14 million years ago, it did not get colder everywhere on the Earth, but there were regions that became warmer. A physical contradiction? No, as AWI experts now found out, the expansion of the ice sheet on the Antarctic continent triggered changes in winds, ocean currents and sea ice in the Southern Ocean ...

This news release is available in German. Scratches in the car finish or cracks in polymer material: Self-healing materials can repair themselves by restoring their initial molecular structure after the damage. Scientists of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Evonik Industries have developed a chemical crosslinking reaction that ensures good short-term healing properties of the material under mild heating. The research results have now been published in the Advanced Materials journal. DOI:10.1002/adma.201306258 The KIT group headed by Christopher Barner-Kowollik ...

10th of April, 2014 (London). A new paper from the Swansea University, College of Engineering team working on the BLOODHOUND SSC (Supersonic car) project has been published on the aerodynamic characteristics of travelling at 1,000mph. Simulations have looked at how the car will cope with the supersonic rolling ground, rotating wheels and resulting shock waves in close proximity to the test surface at the record attempt site in Hakskeen Pan, South Africa. Where, in 2015, it will make high speed test runs of up to 800mph, with the full 1,000mph attempt scheduled for 2016. ...

Schizophrenia is a severe disease for which there is still no effective medical treatment. In an attempt to understand exactly what happens in the brain of a schizophrenic person, researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have analyzed proteins in the brains of rats that have been given hallucinogenic drugs. This may pave the way for new and better medicines. Seven per cent of the adult population suffers from schizophrenia, and although scientists have tried for centuries to understand the disease, they still do not know what causes the disease or which physiological ...

Researchers at the University of Memphis and University of Pennsylvania report the development of robust new liver and fat cell models that report circadian clock function. These models are amenable to high throughput drug screening and could be used to find promising small molecules to resynchronize or help body clocks function normally. The consequences of modern life, eating and staying up later, shift work, cell phone addiction, and travel across time zones, all disturb internal clocks. These clocks are found in the brain where they regulate sleep, and also throughout ...

New research from the University of Southampton has identified a coral-eating flatworm as a potential threat for coral reefs. It is barely possible to see the parasitic worm Amakusaplana acroporae when it sits on its favourite hosts, the staghorn coral Acropora, thanks to its excellent camouflage. However, the researchers found that the small flatworm could cause significant damage to coral reefs. The scientists from the University of Southampton, who are based at the Coral Reef Laboratory in the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, published the results of ...

Fresh insights into the processes that control brain cell production could pave the way for treatments for brain cancer and other brain-related disorders. Scientists have gained new understanding of the role played by a key molecule that controls how and when nerve and brain cells are formed – a process that allows the brain to develop and keeps it healthy. Their findings could help explain what happens when cell production goes out of control, which is a fundamental characteristic of many diseases including cancer. Researchers have focused on a RNA molecule, known ...

Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have shown how nerve cells flexibly adapt to acoustic signals: Depending on the input signal, neurons generate action potentials either near or far away from the cell body. This flexibility improves our ability to localize sound sources. In order to process acoustic information with high temporal fidelity, nerve cells may flexibly adapt their mode of operation according to the situation. At low input frequencies, they generate most outgoing action potentials close to the cell body. Following inhibitory or ...

A decades-long debate over how nitrogen is removed from the ocean may now be settled by new findings from researchers at Princeton University and their collaborators at the University of Washington. The debate centers on how nitrogen — one of the most important food sources for ocean life and a controller of atmospheric carbon dioxide — becomes converted to a form that can exit the ocean and return to the atmosphere where it is reused in the global nitrogen cycle. Researchers have argued over which of two nitrogen-removal mechanisms, denitrification and anammox, is ...

Published in the Journal of Nutrition, researchers undertook a systematic review and analysis of the effect of iron supplementation to the exercise performance of women aged from . Lead researcher, Dr Sant-Rayn Pasricha from the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health found that iron supplementation improved women's exercise performance, in terms of both the highest level they could achieve at 100% exertion (maximal capacity) and their exercise efficiency at a submaximal exertion. Women who were given iron were able to perform a given exercise using a lower ...

Researchers are programming robots to communicate with people using human-like body language and cues, an important step toward bringing robots into homes. Researchers at the University of British Columbia enlisted the help of a human-friendly robot named Charlie to study the simple task of handing an object to a person. Past research has shown that people have difficulty figuring out when to reach out and take an object from a robot because robots fail to provide appropriate nonverbal cues. "We hand things to other people multiple times a day and we do it seamlessly," ...

The rise and fall of acid rain is a global experiment whose results are preserved in the geologic record. By analyzing samples from the Greenland ice sheet, University of Washington atmospheric scientists found clear evidence of the U.S. Clean Air Act. They also discovered a link between air acidity and how nitrogen is preserved in layers of snow, according to a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Forty-five years ago, acid rain was killing fish and dissolving stone monuments on the East Coast. Air pollution rose beginning ...