New York, NY – A blue-ribbon team of national experts on brain cancer says that professional pessimism and out-of-date "myths," rather than current science, are guiding -- and compromising -- the care of patients with cancers that spread to the brain. In a special article published in the July issue of Neurosurgery, the team, led by an NYU Langone Medical Center neurosurgeon, argues that many past, key clinical trials were designed with out-of-date assumptions and the tendency of some physicians to "lump together" brain metastases of diverse kinds of cancer, often results ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A gene known to control brain growth and development is heavily involved in promoting clear cell renal cell carcinoma, the most common form of kidney cancer, researchers from Mayo Clinic in Florida are reporting. Their study, published in Cancer Research, reveals that the gene NPTX2, plays an essential role in this cancer type, which is resistant to common chemotherapy and has a five-year overall survival rate of less than 10 percent in patients with metastatic disease. MULTIMEDIA ALERT: Video and audio are available for download on the Mayo Clinic ...

A virus not known to cause disease kills triple-negative breast cancer cells and killed tumors grown from these cells in mice, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. Understanding how the virus kills cancer may lead to new treatments for breast cancer. Adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2) infects humans but is not known to cause sickness. In prior studies, the researchers tested the virus on a variety of breast cancers that represent degrees of aggressiveness and on human papillomavirus-positive cervical cancer cells. The virus initiated apoptosis -- ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- There is a story about how the modern golf ball, with its dimpled surface, came to be: In the mid-1800s, it is said, new golf balls were smooth, but became dimpled over time as impacts left permanent dents. Smooth new balls were typically used for tournament play, but in one match, a player ran short, had to use an old, dented one, and realized that he could drive this dimpled ball much further than a smooth one. Whether that story is true or not, testing over the years has proved that a golf ball's irregular surface really does dramatically increase ...

Massive sequencing of cancer genomes brings to light new genes every day that could be involved in the process of tumour formation. A good example of this is cohesin, a ring-shaped protein complex that embraces DNA to control cell division. Just a few months ago, and after several studies in the same direction, the sequencing of thousands of tumour samples identified the STAG2 gene—whose product forms part of cohesin—as one of the most frequently mutated genes in several types of cancer such as bladder cancer and melanoma. The challenge now is to understand the link between ...

CHICAGO, IL—Researchers have developed a device that uses any smartphone to measure the cortisol concentration in saliva. The device was presented Tuesday, June 24, at ICE/ENDO 2014, the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society in Chicago. "We have developed a method for measuring cortisol in saliva using a smartphone and a disposable test strip. This innovation enables anyone with a smartphone to measure their salivary cortisol level quickly, accurately, and affordably," said lead study author Joel R. L. Ehrenkranz, MD, director ...

This news release is available in German. Erythritol has many great advantages: it does not make you fat, it does not cause tooth decay, it has no effect on the blood sugar and, unlike other sweeteners, it does not have a laxative effect. In Asia it is already widely used and it is becoming more and more common in other parts of the world too. Up until now, erythritol could only be produced with the help of special kinds of yeast in highly concentrated molasses. At the TU Vienna, a method has now been developed to produce the sweetener from ordinary straw with the help ...

June 24, 2014 – New approaches and tools are needed to improve visual accessibility for people with low vision in the "real world," according to a special article in the July issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Vision science, in collaboration with other professions, has a key role in developing technologies and design approaches to promote visual accessibility for the millions of people living with low vision, according ...

June 24, 2014 – "Key historical misconceptions" are hindering progress in research and treatment for patients with cancer metastases to the brain, suggests a special article in the July 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. Dr. Douglas Kondziolka of NYU Langone Medical Center and coauthors identify some issues that may be standing in the way of optimal clinical management for patients with cancer that has spread to the brain from other ...

CHICAGO, IL—Muscle wasting that occurs as a result of cancer negatively impacts the well-being and recovery prospects of millions of patients, particularly the rapidly-growing elderly populations in Western societies. Drugs called selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) offer hope for these patients, and a new SARM for transdermal administration is promising excellent efficacy without harming liver function and HDL levels. Results and conclusions were presented Tuesday at the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society: ICE/ENDO ...

Queen's University assistant professor Pendar Farahani (Department of Medicine and Department of Public Health Sciences) is advocating the use of gender-based treatment for mitigating the cardiovascular risk factors related to diabetes. Research has shown women with Type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol are less likely than their male peers to reach treatment goals to lower their bad cholesterol, or low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. "The findings suggest the need for gender-based evaluation and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors in these patients," says ...

OAKLAND, Calif., June 24, 2014 — A 15-year study found that HIV-positive individuals had a 40 percent increased risk of ischemic stroke, however stroke rates were nearly the same for HIV-positive individuals with high CD4 cell counts as for HIV-negative subjects. The study, published recently in AIDS, the official journal of the International AIDS Society, covered the years 1996 through 2011 and included nearly 25,000 HIV-positive individuals. Ischemic stroke is caused by plaque build-up in blood vessels, which can lead to constriction or actual obstruction of blood ...

Around 165 million years ago, a spectacular parasite was at home in the freshwater lakes of present-day Inner Mongolia (China): A fly larva with a thorax formed entirely like a sucking plate. With it, the animal could adhere to salamanders and suck their blood with its mouthparts formed like a sting. To date no insect is known that is equipped with a similar specialised design. The international scientific team is now presenting its findings in the journal "eLIFE". The parasite, an elongate fly larva around two centimeters long, had undergone extreme changes over the ...

Exploiting individual genomes for personalized medicine may be more complicated than medical scientists have suspected, researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute of Virginia Tech have discovered. In a paper published in June in the journal Aging, scientists from the institute's Medical Informatics and Systems Division found that spontaneous mutations occur in our bodies constantly, but the rate of change differed dramatically among various people. The study has implications for personalized medicine, which will make use of genomic information to predict future ...

A leading expert on reproductive health says young women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) have a startlingly higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even if young and not overweight. The research led by Professor Helena Teede and Dr Anju Joham, from the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University analysed a large-scale epidemiological study, called the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health, which revealed the findings. Over 6000 women aged between 25-28 years were monitored for nine years, including 500 with diagnosed PCOS. ...

Singapore, 24 June 2014—Scientists at A*STAR's Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) have discovered a new class of lipids in the leukaemia cells that are detected by a unique group of immune cells. By recognising the lipids, the immune cells stimulate an immune response to destroy the leukaemia cells and suppress their growth. The newly identified mode of cancer cell recognition by the immune system opens up new possibilities for leukaemia immunotherapy . Leukaemia is characterized by the accumulation of cancer cells originating from blood cells, in the blood or bone marrow. ...

Want to improve your mental finesse? Playing a puzzle game like Cut the Rope could just be the thing you need. A recent study by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) scientists showed that adults who played the physics-based puzzle video game Cut the Rope regularly, for as little as an hour a day, had improved executive functions. The executive functions in your brain are important for making decisions in everyday life when you have to deal with sudden changes in your environment – better known as thinking on your feet. An example would be when the traffic light ...

Every year around 450,000 people in Germany are diagnosed with cancer. Each one of them dreams of a victory in the battle against it. But can cancer ever be completely defeated? Researchers at Kiel University (CAU) have now reached a sobering conclusion: "cancer is as old as multi-cellular life on earth and will probably never be completely eradicated", says Professor Thomas Bosch in his latest research results. The study by an international team led by Bosch was published today (Monday, June 24) in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Communications. The so-called ...

Solving complex problems is rarely a straightforward process, there are often many variables and countless plausible solutions each one of which has its pros and cons. Mechanical engineers at the Babol University of Technology in Mazandaran, Iran, have turned to nature to devise an algorithm based on the survival trials faced by salmon swimming upstream to the spawning grounds to help them fish out the optimal solution to a given problem. They provide details in the International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology. Bio-inspiration has been widely used in problem ...

Threatened animal species could cope better with the effects of climate change if competition from other animals for the same habitats is restricted, according to new research by Durham University. The Durham team studied the impacts of climate on the Alpine Chamois, a species of mountain goat, and the effects that domestic sheep had on the goats' movements. Observing the goats in the Italian Alps during the summer, the researchers found that Chamois tended to move to higher altitudes where it is cooler on hotter days and in the middle of the day, but moved much higher ...

London (24 June 2014). A project has failed. So why continue to invest in it? This is a pertinent question for large organisations, like the UK National Health Service, which has a history of investing vast amounts of taxpayer's money into unrealistic and ultimately unsuccessful projects. According to business experts, organisations develop blind spots due to a perfect storm of unworkable policies and defensive behaviour. In fact, organisations and individuals have a few things in common, psychologically speaking, when it comes to throwing good money after bad, the experts ...

St. Louis, June 23, 2014 – With opportunities to take increased responsibility for oral health care and to deliver care in a more comprehensive way, it's an exciting time in the profession of dental hygiene. To help prepare to meet these challenges, the editors of The Journal of Evidence-Based Dental Practice (JEBDP) present the Annual Report on Dental Hygiene, a collection of cutting-edge research and practice updates in the field of dental hygiene. The JEBDP is the foremost publication of information about evidence-based dental practice and is published by Elsevier, ...

Research led by the University of Warwick's Systems Biology Centre and Medical School in collaboration with groups in Nice and Rotterdam has been able to demonstrate how the cycle of cell division in mammalian cells synchronises with the body's own daily rhythm, its circadian clock. The study not only helps to explain why people with sustained disrupted circadian rhythms can be more susceptible to cancer, it may also help establish the optimal time of day to administer chemotherapy. In a paper entitled Phase locking and multiple oscillating attractors for the coupled ...

Trillions of bacteria live in and on the human body; a few species can make us sick, but many others keep us healthy by boosting digestion and preventing inflammation. Although there's plenty of evidence that these microbes play a collective role in human health, we still know very little about most of the individual bacterial species that make up these communities. Employing the use of a specially designed glass chip with tiny compartments, Caltech researchers now provide a way to target and grow specific microbes from the human gut—a key step in understanding which bacteria ...

BOZEMAN, Mont. A Montana State University assistant professor in neuroscience is part of a team that has made progress understanding how the brain processes visual information. In addition to adding to the basic understanding of brain function, the research may also have implications for understanding schizophrenia and attention deficit disorders. MSU's Behrad Noudoost was a co-author with Marc Zirnsak and other neuroscientists from the Tirin Moore Lab at Stanford University in publishing a recent paper on the research in Nature, an international weekly journal for natural ...