HUNTSVILLE, TX (3/4/14) -- Two studies at Sam Houston State University examined issues of sexual orientation and intimate partner violence, including its impact on substance abuse and physical and mental health as well as the effects of child abuse on its victims. "We wanted to see how characteristics of the victims might differ based on if they were heterosexual or non-heterosexual," said Maria Koeppel, a Ph.D. student at the College of Criminal Justice, who coauthored the studies with Dr. Leana Bouffard. "These studies show the need to have specialized programs designed ...

LA JOLLA, CA – March 4, 2014 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have invented small-molecule folding probes that enable them to quantify functional, normally folded and disease-associated misfolded conformations (shapes) of a protein-of-interest in cells under different conditions. Scientists have long needed better tools for making such measurements in cells, because protein misfolding is a major cause of damage to tissues. Disorders that feature excessive protein misfolding afflict millions of people worldwide and include Alzheimer's and Parkinson's ...

Lentiviruses, which belong to the family of retroviruses, are used as vectors to exchange genetic material in cells and can be used to replace a defective gene as defined by gene therapy. Increasing the efficiency of such a treatment poses a major medical challenge: the virus should specifically track the target cells, but the number of virus used should be as low as possible. A research team led by Dr. Ines Höfig and Dr. Natasa Anastasov from the Institute of Radiation Biology (ISB) at Helmholtz Zentrum München in cooperation with Sirion Biotech GmbH in Munich and the ...

Screening for breast cancer appeared to have a very limited effect on the occurrence of serious and aggressive cancer cases. On the other hand, it appeared to detect many more early cancer cases, cases which would otherwise never have developed - but which are treated due to screening. This is the conclusion of a study from Aarhus University, Denmark, that has just been published in the European Journal of Public Health based on data from all women over the age of 20 in Norway (approx. 1.8 million in 2010). Looks at the various stages of cancer The new element is that ...

In collaboration with colleagues from Berlin and Madrid, researchers at the Department of Physics at the University of Basel have pulled up isolated molecular chains from a gold surface, using the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM). The observed signal provides insight into the detachment force and binding energy of molecules. The results have been published in the renowned scientific journal PNAS. Atomic force microscopy is a method normally used for imaging matter with very high resolution. The sharp tip of the microscope is used to scan the surface line by line. ...

HOUSTON — For women with breast cancer undergoing radiation therapy, yoga offers unique benefits beyond fighting fatigue, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The preliminary findings were first reported in 2011 by Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., professor and director of the Integrative Medicine Program at MD Anderson, and are now published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. This research is part of an ongoing effort to scientifically validate mind-body interventions in cancer patients and was conducted in collaboration with India's ...

New York, NY— Bacteria in the gut are essential for the development of intestinal tumors in mice, according to research led by investigators from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Removing the bacteria may play a critical role in reducing cancer risk, the researchers write, in the March issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Sergio A. Lira, MD, PhD, Director of the Immunology Institute, and Professor of Immunology and Medicine, and his laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, used a transgenic mouse model to test the hypothesis that ...

Sixteen years ago two teams of supernova hunters, one led by Saul Perlmutter of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the other by Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University, declared that the expansion of the universe is accelerating – a Nobel Prize-winning discovery tantamount to the discovery of dark energy. Both teams measured how fast the universe was expanding at different times in its history by comparing the brightnesses and redshifts of Type Ia supernovae, the best cosmological "standard candles." These ...

Scientists have created an ingenious computer model that simulates a honey bee colony over the course of several years. The BEEHAVE model, published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology, was created to investigate the losses of honeybee colonies that have been reported in recent years and to identify the best course of action for improving honeybee health. A team of scientists, led by Professor Juliet Osborne from the Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter (and previously at Rothamsted Research), developed BEEHAVE, which simulates the life of ...

MADISON, Wis. — By any measure, the ancient city of Sardis — home of the fabled King Croesus, a name synonymous with gold and vast wealth, and the city where coinage was invented — is an archaeological wonder. The ruins of Sardis, in what is now Turkey, have been a rich source of knowledge about classical antiquity from the 7th century B.C., when the city was the capital of Lydia, through later Greek and Roman occupations. Now, however, Sardis has given up another treasure in the form of two enigmatic ritual deposits, which are proving more difficult to fathom than ...

World-class orchestras can be accurately identified by silent video footage of performances, but not through sound recordings, a UCL study has found. Both professional musicians and musical novices are better at identifying top-ranked orchestras from non-ranked orchestras when shown silent video footage, suggesting that such judgements are driven at least in part by visual cues about group dynamics and leadership. When shown two 6-second clips, one from a world-class orchestra ranked among the top ten internationally - which included the London Symphony Orchestra, the ...

A chemical found in plants could reduce the symptoms of a rare muscle disease that leaves children with little or no control of their movements. Scientists have found that a plant pigment called quercetin – found in some fruits, vegetables, herbs and grains – could help to prevent the damage to nerves associated with the childhood form of motor neuron disease. Their findings could pave the way for new treatments for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) – also known as floppy baby syndrome – which is a leading genetic cause of death in children. The team has found that the ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (March 3, 2014) – Using a yeast model of Alzheimer's disease (AD), Whitehead Institute researchers have identified a drug that reduces levels of the toxic protein fragment amyloid-β (Aβ) and prevents at least some of the cellular damage caused when Aβ accumulates in the brains of AD patients. "We can use this yeast model to find small molecules that will address the underlying cellular pathologies of Alzheimer's, an age-related disease whose burden will become even more significant as our population grows older," says Kent Matlack, a former ...

AUSTIN, Texas — African American men who endured greater childhood adversity are likely to experience disadvantages in health and relationships over time, according to new sociology research from The University of Texas at Austin. The study, published in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, helps to explain why African American men are less healthy than white men. "Exposure to childhood adversity may cause stress and lead to a sequence of stressors over time that take a cumulative toll on relationships," says Debra Umberson, professor of sociology ...

Bottom Line: Having a bedroom television is associated with weight gain in children and adolescents, and is unrelated to the time they spend watching. Author: Diane Gilbert-Diamond, Sc.D., of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, N.H., and colleagues. Background: More than one-third of children and adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese. An estimated 71 percent of children and adolescents (ages 8 to 18 years) have bedroom televisions. How the Study Was Conducted: The authors conducted a telephone survey in 2003 of 6,522 boys and girls ...

The discovery of how a KwaZulu-Natal woman's body responded to her HIV infection by making potent antibodies (called broadly neutralising antibodies, because they are able to kill multiple strains of HIV from across the world), was reported today by the CAPRISA consortium of AIDS researchers jointly with scientists from the United States. The study, published in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, describes how the research team found and identified these antibodies in her blood and then duplicated them by cloning the antibodies in the laboratory. The cloned antibodies ...

Scientists have shown for the first time that deep-sea fishes that use bioluminescence for communication are diversifying into different species faster than other glowing fishes that use light for camouflage. The new research indicates that bioluminescence—a phenomenon in which animals generate visible light through a chemical reaction—could promote communication and mating in the open ocean, an environment with few barriers to reproduction. The study was recently published in the journal Marine Biology. "Bioluminescence is quite common in the deep sea, and many fishes ...

Beaumont research findings published in the February online issue of Spine shows that patients who have a low back surgery called minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion, end up better off in many ways than patients who have more invasive surgery to alleviate debilitating pain. "About 90 percent of adults experience low back pain in their lifetime, which can be caused by spinal instability, stenosis, spondylolisthesis, and symptomatic degenerative disc disease," says Mick Perez-Cruet, M.D., neuro-spine surgeon at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak and professor, ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Excessive weight gain during pregnancy increases the risk of suffering illnesses such as hypertension and gestational diabetes, or of having a premature birth or a birth by Caesarean; furthermore, it also has negative effects on the newly-born and increases the risk of infants being overweight by 30%. Aware of the importance of preventing gestational weight gain, both in mother and child, researchers from the University of Granada, Madrid Polytechnic University and the European University carried out a study on the benefits ...

Bottom Line: Most people who use opioid painkillers without a physician's prescription initially get them from friends or relatives for free, but as the number of days of use increase sources for the medications expand to include prescriptions from physicians and purchases from friends, relatives, drug dealers or strangers. Author: Christopher M. Jones, Pharm.D., M.P.H., who was with the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, at the time of research but is now with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ...

Bottom Line: A blood test accurately screened for infection with the agent responsible for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a fatal neurological disease. Author: Graham S. Jackson, Ph.D., of the University College of London (UCL) Institute of Neurology, and colleagues. Background: vCJD is a fatal degenerative brain disorder thought to be caused by a misfolded protein (prion) in the brain and contracted most commonly through eating infected beef. Up to 3 million cattle in the United Kingdom may have been infected with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), ...

NASA's Terra satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Kofi in the Southwestern Pacific Ocean and captured an infrared image of the storm revealing powerful thunderstorms around center of circulation. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured an infrared image on March 3 at 09:55 UTC/4:55 a.m. EST. Cloud top temperatures were near -80C/-112F indicating very strong thunderstorms around the center. At 0900 UTC/4 a.m. EST Tropical Storm Kofi had maximum sustained winds near 45 knots51.7 mph/83.3 ...

New York, NY, March 3, 2014 – Men who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer need to assimilate information rapidly in order to weigh the treatment options and make informed decisions. Although patients consult a variety of information sources, outcome information that is specific to the treating physician leads to greater patient satisfaction following treatment, according to a new study published in The Journal of Urology®. The benefits of patient information are broad. For many people confronted with a cancer diagnosis, information translates to greater involvement ...

The reintroduction of mountain lions across the mid-western United States has made species management an urgent area of research for conservationists. A report in the Wildlife Society Bulletin explores the fatal cost of human interaction with cougars and asks what state agencies can do to protect both species. Cougars (Puma concolor) are slowly recolonizing their historic habitats, including the Black Hills of South Dakota, but since they've been away, the land has become crossed with roads and home to many human communities. "The cougar population in the Black Hills ...

The open air plays of the Ancient Greeks may offer us a valuable insight into the Mediterranean climate of the time, reports new research in Weather. Using historical observations from artwork and plays, scientists identified 'halcyon days', of theatre friendly weather in mid-winter. "We explored the weather conditions which enabled the Athenians of the classical era to watch theatre performances in open theatres during the midwinter weather conditions," said Christina Chronopoulou, from the National and Kapodestrian University of Athens. "We aimed to do so by gathering ...