NEW YORK (Monday, July 28 – 5 p.m. ET): Surgical patients who are placed in contact isolation after their operations are at a particularly high risk for developing life-threatening blood clots, but ensuring they move around has helped curb the occurrence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in one hospital. This case study on how one surgical team prevented VTEs in their patients placed in isolation was presented today by researchers from the department of surgery at Carilion Clinic Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Roanoke, VA at the American College of Surgeons National Surgical ...

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole in 1911, but new research shows that industrial air pollution arrived long before any human. Using data from 16 ice cores collected from widely spaced locations around the Antarctic continent, including the South Pole, a group led by Joe McConnell of the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nevada, created the most accurate and precise reconstruction to date of lead pollution over Earth's southernmost continent. The new record, described in an article published today in the online edition of the Nature Publishing ...

An international team of researchers led by the University of Arizona has sequenced the complete genome of African rice. The genetic information will enhance scientists' and agriculturalists' understanding of the growing patterns of African rice, as well as enable the development of new rice varieties that are better able to cope with increasing environmental stressors to help solve global hunger challenges. The paper, "The genome sequence of African rice (Oryza glaberrima) and evidence for independent domestication," was published online in Nature Genetics on Sunday. The ...

Dr. Nicole R. Fowler and her fellow reserachers have found that patients with dementia were more likely to receive a pacemaker then patients without cognitive impairment. Older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia can have co-existing cardiac illnesses and that makes them eligible for therapy with devices to correct rhythm abnormalities. But the risks and benefits need to be weighed carefully with patients, families and clinicians. The authors examined data from the National Alzheimer Coordinating Center Uniform Data Set gathered from 33 Alzheimer ...

Bottom Line: An electronic screening tool that starts with a single question to assess the frequency of substance misuse appears to be an easy way to screen teenagers who visited a physician for routine medical care. Author: Sharon Levy, M.D., M.P.H., of Boston Children's Hospital, and colleagues. Background: Substance use can cause illness and death in adolescents. Screening adolescents and intervening if there is substance use can reduce the burden of addiction. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other professional organizations recommend that primary care physicians ...

PITTSBURGH, July 28, 2014 -- People with dementia are more likely to get implanted pacemakers for heart rhythm irregularities, such as atrial fibrillation, than people who don't have cognitive difficulties, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In a research letter published online today in JAMA Internal Medicine, the researchers noted the finding runs counter to expectations that less aggressive interventions are the norm for patients with the incurable and disabling illness. To look at the relationships between cognitive status ...

A revised version of a surgical procedure to treat severe chronic migraine headaches led to significant symptom relief more than 90 percent of the time in patients treated at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Physicians from the MGH Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery report that more than half of 35 patients treated with the non-endoscopic procedure – all of whom had headaches associated with compression of craniofacial nerves – reported complete symptom relief a year later. The team's paper has received advance online publication in the journal Plastic ...

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, investigated the extent to which improvements in living conditions and educational opportunities over a person's life affect cognitive abilities and their implications for men and women. "Our results show that there is no reason to expect all cognitive gender differences will diminish," says Daniela Weber, IIASA researcher and lead author of the study. "However, the findings from this study suggest that if women and men had equal levels of education, then we should expect a female advantage in ...

Running for only a few minutes a day or at slow speeds may significantly reduce a person's risk of death from cardiovascular disease compared to someone who does not run, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Exercise is well-established as way to prevent heart disease and it is component of an overall healthy life, but it is unclear whether there are health benefits below the level of 75 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity activity, such as running, recommended by the U.S. government and World Health Organization. Researchers ...

Heat stroke is 10 times more likely than cardiac events to be life-threatening for runners during endurance races in warm climates, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The authors noted the findings may play a role in the ongoing debate over pre-participation ECG screenings for preventing sudden death in athletes by offering a new perspective on the greatest health risk for runners. Two of the most recognized causes of sudden death during an endurance race are arrhythmic death, sudden death usually caused by undetected ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Babies can learn what to fear in the first days of life just by smelling the odor of their distressed mothers, new research suggests. And not just "natural" fears: If a mother experienced something before pregnancy that made her fear something specific, her baby will quickly learn to fear it too -- through the odor she gives off when she feels fear. In the first direct observation of this kind of fear transmission, a team of University of Michigan Medical School and New York University studied mother rats who had learned to fear the smell of peppermint ...

MIAMI – A new study from scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and colleagues confirms rising levels of water vapor in the upper troposphere – a key amplifier of global warming – will intensify climate change impacts over the next decades. The new study is the first to show that increased water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere are a direct result of human activities. "The study is the first to confirm that human activities have increased water vapor in the upper troposphere," said Brian Soden, professor of atmospheric ...

A new discovery of two additional coral communities showing signs of damage from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill expands the impact footprint of the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The discovery was made by a team led by Charles Fisher, professor of biology at Penn State University. A paper describing this work and additional impacts of human activity on corals in the Gulf of Mexico will be published during the last week of July 2014 in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "The footprint of the impact of the spill ...

An evolutionarily ancient and tiny part of the brain tracks expectations about nasty events, finds new UCL research. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates for the first time that the human habenula, half the size of a pea, tracks predictions about negative events, like painful electric shocks, suggesting a role in learning from bad experiences. Brain scans from 23 healthy volunteers showed that the habenula activates in response to pictures associated with painful electric shocks, with the opposite occurring for pictures ...

Most cells do not divide unless there is enough oxygen present to support their offspring, but certain cancer cells and other cell types circumvent this rule. Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University have now identified a mechanism that overrides the cells' warning signals, enabling cancers to continue to divide even without a robust blood supply. In the process, the researchers found that lysosomes — the cell's protein "recycling centers" — help govern cell division decisions. They also uncovered new evidence that certain drugs can halt the growth of tumors that have ...

A new study by researchers in the Department of Psychology at the University of York shows that it is possible to accurately predict first impressions using measurements of physical features in everyday images of faces, such as those found on social media. When we look at a picture of a face we rapidly form judgements about a person's character, for example whether they are friendly, trustworthy or competent. Even though it is not clear how accurate they are, these first impressions can influence our subsequent behaviour (for example, judgements of competence based on ...

JUPITER, FL - July 28, 2014 – Research conducted at the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has discovered links between a set of genes known to promote tumor growth and mucoepidermoid carcinoma, an oral cancer that affects the salivary glands. The discovery could help physicians develop new treatments that target the cancer's underlying genetic causes. The research, recently published online ahead of print by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that a pair of proteins joined together by a genetic mutation—known as CRTC1/MAML2 ...

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have pinpointed a mechanism in part of the brain that is key to sensing glucose levels in the blood, linking it to both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The findings are published in the July 28 issue of Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. "We've discovered that the prolyl endopeptidase enzyme — located in a part of the hypothalamus known as the ventromedial nucleus — sets a series of steps in motion that control glucose levels in the blood," said lead author Sabrina Diano, professor in the Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology ...

Physicists have identified the "quantum glue" that underlies a promising type of superconductivity -- a crucial step towards the creation of energy superhighways that conduct electricity without current loss. The research, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a collaboration between theoretical physicists led by Dirk Morr, professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and experimentalists led by Seamus J.C. Davis of Cornell University and Brookhaven National Laboratory. The earliest superconducting materials required ...

A team of researchers from Warwick Business School and Boston University have developed a method to automatically identify topics that people search for on Google before subsequent stock market falls. Applied to data between 2004 and 2012, the method shows that increases in searches for business and politics preceded falls in the stock market. The study, 'Quantifying the semantics of search behavior before stock market moves,' was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers suggest that this method could be applied to help identify ...

VIDEO: Salk scientists have discovered the link between astrocytes and memory. Click here for more information. LA JOLLA—When you're expecting something—like the meal you've ordered at a restaurant—or when something captures your interest, unique electrical rhythms sweep through your brain. These waves are called gamma oscillations and they reflect a symphony of cells—both excitatory and inhibitory—playing together in an orchestrated way. Though their role has been debated, ...

Millions of people in the United States have a circulatory problem of the legs called peripheral vascular disease. It can be painful and may even require surgery in serious cases. This disease can lead to severe skeletal muscle wasting and, in turn, limb amputation. At The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, scientists tested a non-surgical preventative treatment in a mouse model of the disease and it was associated with increased blood circulation. Their proof-of-concept study appears in the journal Cell Reports. Unlike ...

TEMPE, Ariz. - Reactions among minerals and organic compounds in hydrothermal environments are critical components of the Earth's deep carbon cycle, they provide energy for the deep biosphere, and may have implications for the origins of life. However, very little is known about how minerals influence organic reactions. A team of researchers from Arizona State University have demonstrated how a common mineral acts as a catalysts for specific hydrothermal organic reactions – negating the need for toxic solvents or expensive reagents. At the heart of organic chemistry, ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Fifteen years ago, MIT professor John Essigmann and colleagues from the University of Washington had a novel idea for an HIV drug. They thought if they could induce the virus to mutate uncontrollably, they could force it to weaken and eventually die out — a strategy that our immune system uses against many viruses. The researchers developed such a drug, which caused HIV to mutate at an enhanced rate, as expected. But it did not eliminate the virus from patients in a small clinical trial reported in 2011. In a new study, however, Essigmann and colleagues ...

NEW YORK (July 28, 2:45 pm [ET]): Ten hospitals in the Tennessee Surgical Quality Collaborative (TSQC) have reduced surgical complications by 19.7 percent since 2009, resulting in at least 533 lives saved and $75.2 million in reduced costs, according to new results presented today at the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) National Conference in New York City. The hospital collaborative was formed in 2008 as a partnership of the Tennessee Chapter of the American College of Surgeons and the Tennessee Hospital Association's ...