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A pilot study by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators may lead to greater availability and acceptability of an unusual treatment for a serious medical problem – use of fecal material from healthy donors to treat recurrent diarrhea caused by the Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) bacteria. In their paper being published online in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, the researchers report that use of prescreened frozen fecal material from donors unrelated to patients was as successful in curing recurrent C. difficile infection as was the use of fresh ...

Using frozen stool from healthy, unrelated donors was safe and effective in treating patients with serious, relapsing diarrhea caused by Clostridium difficile, according to a new pilot study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online. Known as fecal microbiota transplantation, the treatment was equally effective whether given via a colonoscope or a nasogastric tube. The findings suggest approaches that may make this promising treatment more readily available to patients. A growing concern, C. difficile causes 250,000 infections requiring hospitalization ...

TORONTO, April 24, 2014 – Pregnant immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Caribbean islands may require increased monitoring during pregnancy, according to new research from St. Michael's Hospital. The study, published today in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, assessed the differences in preeclampsia and eclampsia rates among immigrants and native-born women in six high-immigration countries – Australia (Victoria), Canada (Ontario), Denmark, Sweden, Spain (Catalonia and Valencia) and the United States (California, New Jersey and New York ...

Moffitt Cancer Center researchers say clinical trials for a new experimental drug to treat acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are very promising. Patients treated with CPX-351, a combination of the chemotherapeutic drugs cytarabine and daunorubicin, are showing better responses than patients treated with the standard drug formulation. "Acute myeloid leukemia is an aggressive blood cancer with very low rates of treatment success, especially in older patients," explained Jeffrey Lancet, M.D., senior member of the Department of Malignant Hematology and chief of the Leukemia ...

Multi-sensory technology that creates soap bubbles, which can have images projected onto them or when the bubbles are burst release a scent, will be unveiled at an international conference later this month. The research paper, to be presented at one of the world's most important conferences on human-computer interfaces - ACM CHI 2014 [26 April-1 May], could be used in areas such as gaming or education and encourage a new way of thinking about multi-sensory technologies. SensaBubble, led by Professor Sriram Subramanian from the University of Bristol's Department of ...

In the aftermath of war, communities who continue to experience repeated violence could have a major escalation in rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severe distress, suggests new research published in The Lancet Global Health journal. In 2004, Dr Derrick Silove from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and colleagues conducted a survey to estimate the prevalence of common mental disorders among 1022 adults (600 from a rural village and 422 from an urban district) in Timor Leste four years after the end of a long-running and violent ...

A new meta-analysis, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, concludes that there is no evidence to suggest that vitamin D supplements prevent falls, and that ongoing trials to test this theory are unlikely to change this result. The study, by Dr Mark Bolland of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and colleagues, analysed findings from 20 randomised controlled trials which tested the potential of vitamin D supplements to reduce falls, in a total of 29535 people. The findings show that supplements do not reduce falls by 15% or more, meaning that the ...

Shark data collected by citizen scientists may be as reliable as data collected using automated tools, according to results published April 23, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Gabriel Vianna from The University of Western Australia and colleagues. Shark populations are declining globally, and scientists lack data to estimate the conservation status of populations for many shark species. Citizen science may be a useful and cost-effective means to increase knowledge of shark populations on coral reefs, but scientists do not yet know enough about how data collected ...

Scientists have developed a cost-effective, off-the-shelf system to obtain natural-color 3D models of insects, according to results published April 23, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Chuong Nguyen from CSIRO in Australia, and colleagues. Scientists studying insects rely on collected specimens that are often shared between scientists through written descriptions, diagrams, and images. These 2D tools are important in understanding and sharing specimens, but they often lack the precise detail of the actual 3D specimen. The authors of this study, interested in ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that attempts to isolate an elusive adult stem cell from blood to understand and potentially improve cardiovascular health – a task considered possible but very difficult – might not be necessary. Instead, scientists have found that multiple types of cells with primitive characteristics circulating in the blood appear to provide the same benefits expected from a stem cell, including the endothelial progenitor cell that is the subject of hot pursuit. "There are people who still dream that the prototypical progenitors for several ...

Cambridge, Mass. – April 23, 2014 – While setting out to fabricate new springs to support a cephalopod-inspired imaging project, a group of Harvard researchers stumbled upon a surprising discovery: the hemihelix, a shape rarely seen in nature. This made the researchers wonder: Were the three-dimensional structures they observed randomly occurring, or are there specific factors that control their formation? The scientists answered that question by performing experiments in which they stretched, joined, and then released rubber strips. Complemented by numerical simulations ...

Big brains do not explain why only humans use sophisticated language, according to researchers who have discovered that even a species of pond life communicates by similar methods. Dr Thom Scott-Phillips of Durham University led research into Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a type of bacteria common in water and soil, which showed that they communicated in a way that was previously thought to be unique to humans and perhaps some other primates. The bacteria used combinatorial communication, in which two signals are used together to achieve an effect that is different to the ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic research studying the relationship between death and the two types of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) suggests that people who have these conditions die at a higher rate than people without MCI. The research was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014. For the study, 862 people with thinking problems and 1,292 with no thinking problems between the ages of 70 and 89 were followed for nearly six years. Over the course of the study, 331 of the ...

MINNEAPOLIS – People with more years of education may be better able to recover from a traumatic brain injury, according to a study published in the April 23, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study examined people with moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries, most of which were from motor vehicle accidents or falls. All were taken to the emergency department and spent time in the hospital after the injury and also for inpatient rehabilitation. "After these types of injuries, some people are disabled ...

PHILADELPHIA – One of the first studies to look at a relationship between death and the two types of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or problems with memory and thinking abilities, suggests that people who have thinking problems but their memory is still intact might have a higher death rate in a period of six years compared to those who have no thinking or memory problems. The research was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014. The same was suggested in the study for those ...

Marijuana use may result in cardiovascular-related complications — even death — among young and middle-aged adults, according to a French study reported in the Journal of the American Heart Association. "In prior research, we identified several remarkable cases of cardiovascular complications as the reasons for hospital admission of young marijuana users," said Émilie Jouanjus, Pharm.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study and a medical faculty member at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse in Toulouse, France. "This unexpected finding deserved to be further analyzed, ...

Better-educated people appear to be significantly more likely to recover from a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), suggesting that a brain's "cognitive reserve" may play a role in helping people get back to their previous lives, new Johns Hopkins research shows. The researchers, reporting in the journal Neurology, found that those with the equivalent of at least a college education are seven times more likely than those who didn't finish high school to be disability-free one year after a TBI serious enough to warrant inpatient time in a hospital and rehabilitation ...

The greater prevalence of asthma, allergies and other chronic inflammatory disorders among people of lower socioeconomic status might be due in part to their reduced exposure to the microbes that thrive in rural environments, according to a new scientific paper. The article, published in the journal Clinical & Experimental Immunology, argues that people living in urban centers who have less access to green spaces may be more apt to have chronic inflammation, a condition caused by immune system dysfunction. When our immune systems are working properly, they trigger inflammation ...

When the economy hits the skids, government stimulus checks to the poor sometimes follow. Stimulus programs — such as those in 2001, 2008 and 2009 — are designed to boost the economy quickly by getting cash into the hands of people likely to turn around and spend it. But sending cash to just the very poor may not be the right approach, according to researchers from Princeton University and New York University who analyzed information on the finances of U.S. households from 1989 to 2010. "What we found is that households that have the lowest liquid wealth — where ...

A new analysis of NASA satellite data shows Africa's Congo rainforest, the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world, has undergone a large-scale decline in greenness over the past decade. The study, led by Liming Zhou of University at Albany, State University of New York, shows between 2000 and 2012 the decline affected an increasing amount of forest area and intensified. The research, published Wednesday in Nature, is one of the most comprehensive observational studies to explore the effects of long-term drought on the Congo rainforest using several independent ...

SPOKANE, Wash.—Researchers at Washington State University Spokane have developed a new way to detect when drivers are about to nod off behind the wheel. Their recently patented technology is based on steering wheel movements—which are more variable in drowsy drivers—and offers an affordable and more reliable alternative to currently available video-based driver drowsiness detection systems. Van Dongen"Video-based systems that use cameras to detect when a car is drifting out of its lane are cumbersome and expensive," said Hans Van Dongen, research professor at the WSU ...

A new study from the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington has bolstered the link between red meat consumption and heart disease by finding a strong association between heme iron, found only in meat, and potentially deadly coronary heart disease. The study found that heme iron consumption increased the risk for coronary heart disease by 57 percent, while no association was found between nonheme iron, which is in plant and other non-meat sources, and coronary heart disease. The study was published online ahead of print in the Journal of Nutrition. Along ...

Using nanodot technology, Berkeley Lab researchers have demonstrated the first size-based form of chromatography that can be used to study the membranes of living cells. This unique physical approach to probing cellular membrane structures can reveal information critical to whether a cell lives or dies, remains normal or turns cancerous, that can't be obtained through conventional microscopy. "We've developed membrane-embedded nanodot array platforms that provide a physical means to both probe and manipulate membrane assemblies, including signaling clusters, while they ...

VIDEO: This shows regenerated auditory nerves, after gene therapy. Click here for more information. Researchers at UNSW Australia have for the first time used electrical pulses delivered from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, thereby successfully regrowing auditory nerves. The research also heralds a possible new way of treating a range of neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, and psychiatric conditions such as depression through this novel way of delivering ...