CHICAGO (February 12, 2014) – Improper handling of intravenous saline at a West Virginia outpatient oncology clinic was linked with the first reported outbreak of Tsukamurella spp., gram-positive bacteria that rarely cause disease in humans, in a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report was published in the March issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. "This outbreak illustrates the need for outpatient clinics to follow proper infection control guidelines ...

Journalists and psychologists are quick to describe someone as being a porn "addict," yet there's no strong scientific research that shows such addictions actually exists. Slapping such labels onto the habit of frequently viewing images of a sexual nature only describes it as a form of pathology. These labels ignore the positive benefits it holds. So says David Ley, PhD, a clinical psychologist in practice in Albuquerque, NM, and Executive Director of New Mexico Solutions, a large behavioral health program. Dr. Ley is the author of a review article about the so-called "pornography ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Scientists, including Brown University geologists and students, have completed the first global geological map of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon and the largest in the solar system. With its varied terrain and possible underground ocean, Ganymede is considered a prime target in the search for habitable environments in the solar system, and the researchers hope this new map will aid in future exploration. The work, led by Geoffrey Collins, a Ph.D. graduate of Brown now a professor at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, took years to ...

For centuries, geologists have recognized that the rocks that line riverbeds tend to be smaller and rounder further downstream. But these experts have not agreed on the reason these patterns exist. Abrasion causes rocks to grind down and become rounder as they are transported down the river. Does this grinding reduce the size of rocks significantly, or is it that smaller rocks are simply more easily transported downstream? A new study by the University of Pennsylvania's Douglas Jerolmack, working with mathematicians at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, ...

Being critical, angry and defensive isn't always a bad thing for couples having a big disagreement — provided they are in a satisfying relationship. In that case, they likely will have a "big resolution" regardless of how negative they were during the discussion, according to a study by a Baylor University psychologist. Until now, there have been two opposing ideas on negative communication in conflict: one is to refrain from using it, while the other suggests doing so is a natural part of productive interaction to resolve conflict. But findings from the latest research ...

Communal irrigation systems known as acequias that have sustained farming villages in the arid southwestern United States for centuries are struggling because of dwindling snowmelt runoff and social and economic factors that favor modernism over tradition, a Dartmouth College study finds. The results reflect similar changes around the world, where once isolated communities are becoming integrated into larger economies, which provide benefits of modern living but also the uncertainties of larger-scale market fluctuations. The study appears in the journal Global Environmental ...

NEW YORK, NY (February 12, 2014) — A team of Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) investigators led by Wellington V. Cardoso, MD, PhD, has found the first direct evidence of a link between prenatal vitamin A deficiency and postnatal airway hyperresponsiveness, a hallmark of asthma. The study, conducted in mice, shows that short-term deficit of this essential vitamin while the lung is forming can cause profound changes in the smooth muscle that surrounds the airways, causing the adult lungs to respond to environmental or pharmacological stimuli with excessive narrowing ...

VIDEO: This animation of NOAA's GOES satellite data shows the progression of the major winter storm in the US south from Feb. 10 at 1815 UTC/1:15 p.m. EST to Feb. 12... Click here for more information. A new NASA video of NOAA's GOES satellite imagery shows three days of movement of the massive winter storm that stretches from the southern U.S. to the northeast. Visible and infrared imagery from NOAA's GOES-East or GOES-13 satellite from Feb. 10 at 1815 UTC/1:15 p.m. EST to ...

Researchers in the U.K. report that non-restorative sleep is the strongest, independent predictor of widespread pain onset among adults over the age of 50. According to the study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology (formerly Arthritis & Rheumatism), a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), anxiety, memory impairment, and poor physical health among older adults may also increase the risk of developing widespread pain. Muscle, bone and nerve (musculoskeletal) pain is more prevalent as people age, with up to 80% of people 65 years of age and older experiencing ...

New research suggests that sedating patients before a nerve block needed to diagnose or treat chronic pain increases costs, risks and unnecessary surgeries, and sedation does nothing to increase patient satisfaction or long-term pain control. "Sedation doesn't help, but it does add expense and risk," says study leader Steven P. Cohen, M.D., a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "In some places, every patient is being sedated. Our research shows it should be used very sparingly." Nerve blocks, performed ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 13, 2014 – University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) scientists have shown that old drugs might be able to do new tricks. By screening a library of FDA-approved anticancer drugs that previously wouldn't have been considered as a treatment for a rare type of cancer, UPCI scientists were surprised when they found several potential possibilities to try if the cancer becomes resistant to standard drug treatment. The discovery, which will be published in the February 15th issue of Cancer Research, demonstrates that high-throughput screening of already ...

The elusive progenitor cells that give rise to innate lymphoid cells—a recently discovered group of infection-fighting white blood cells—have been identified in fetal liver and adult bone marrow of mice, researchers from the University of Chicago report early online in the journal Nature. Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are among the first components of the immune system to confront certain pathogens. They have a critical function at mucosal barriers—locations such as the bowel or the lung—where the body comes in direct contact with the environment. Yet they went undetected ...

Parabolic troughs and dry-cooled towers deliver similar value for concentrating solar power (CSP) plants, despite different solar profiles, a new report by the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has found. The report, "Estimating the Performance and Economic Value of Multiple Concentrating Solar Power Technologies in a Production Cost Model," found that the value of delivered energy of dry-cooled tower and parabolic trough CSP plants, integrated with thermal energy storage, are quite similar. CSP with thermal energy storage is a unique source of ...

TORONTO, ON, February 11, 2014 — Women with BRCA-related breast cancer who have a double mastectomy are nearly 50 per cent less likely to die of breast cancer within 20 years of diagnosis compared to women who have a single mastectomy, according to a new study led by Women's College Hospital's Kelly Metcalfe. The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, suggest a double mastectomy may be an effective first-line treatment for women with early-stage breast cancer who carry a BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic mutation. The BRCA1/2 genes belong to a class of genes that ...

Severe skin reactions during radiation therapy could be prevented by applying a thin transparent silicone dressing to the skin from the first day of treatment, clinical research from New Zealand shows. Although many skincare products have been tested in clinical trials over the years, until now none have been able to completely prevent severe skin reactions, says senior lecturer Dr Patries Herst of University of Otago Wellington's Department of Radiation Therapy. Dr Herst and her team of radiation therapists, oncology nurses and medical physicists have completed five ...

Social insects, which usually have specialized behavioral groups (also called castes), are important models for social evolution and behavior researches. How division of labor in insect societies is regulated is an outstanding question and not fully understood yet. However, in many social insect species, experimental control over important factors that regulate division of labor, such as genotype and age, is limited. In a study published online on February 6th in Current Biology, researchers from Rockefeller University and BGI-Shenzhen have sequenced the genome of the queenless ...

Common infections are associated with a significantly higher chance of stroke in children, but routine vaccinations may help decrease risk, according to preliminary research (abstract 39) presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2014. "The protective association of routine vaccination against childhood stroke provides a widely available means of prevention, and this information can easily be dispersed by pediatric healthcare providers," said Nancy Hills, Ph.D., M.B.A., lead researcher and assistant professor of neurology at the University ...

Parents and healthcare professionals must be aware that children can have strokes and be prepared to respond to symptoms, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2014. As in adults, warning signs of stroke in children are: sudden weakness or numbness of the face, arm or leg; sudden difficulty in speaking; sudden problems in seeing; sudden difficulty walking; dizziness; or sudden onset of headache. Researchers interviewed 28 parents whose child had a stroke about factors that contributed to delayed arrival to ...

Cocaine greatly increases ischemic stroke risk in young adults within 24 hours of use, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2014. Ischemic strokes occur when a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain becomes blocked, preventing a continuous supply of blood to the brain. "We set out to understand what factors contribute to stroke risk in young adults," said Yu-Ching Cheng, Ph.D., research scientist at Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland ...

Stroke hospitalization and death rates may rise and fall with changes in environmental temperature and dew point, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2014. "Weather is not something people would typically associate with stroke risk; however, we've found weather conditions are among the multiple factors that are associated with stroke hospitalizations," said Judith H. Lichtman, Ph.D., M.P.H., study author and an associate professor in Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn. Researchers ...

In 1832 Charles Darwin disembarked from HMS Beagle in Bahia Blanca, Argentina where he travelled by land to Buenos Aires. In Bahia Blanca, Darwin collected several fossils of large mammals along with many other living organisms, including several insects. More than 180 years later on Darwin's birthday, February 12, scientists name after him a long lost but new to science beetle genus and species from this collection. The beetle was discovered and described by Dr. Stylianos Chatzimanolis, an entomologist at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA as a new genus ...

A new study disputes the effectiveness of mortality as a measure of the quality of care provided by hospitals to stroke patients. The paper – which was simultaneously presented today at the International Stroke Conference in San Diego and published in the journal Stroke – found that use of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders differ widely between hospitals and that this variation can significantly skew a hospital's quality "ranking" based on mortality. "With mortality increasingly being used as a marker for the quality of care provided to stroke patients, it is essential ...

Birds that hoard food for a rainy day better be sure that there are no great tits around to spy on where they hide their reserve of seeds and nuts. So says Anders Brodin and Utku Urhan of the University of Lund in Sweden, who found that great tits can remember the position of such hideaways up to 24 hours after seeing it cached. Interestingly, even though great tits share this mental ability with well-known hoarders such as crows and jays, they do not store up food themselves. The findings appear in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Observations ...

London (February 12, 2014)—New data from the field in Central Africa shows that between 2002 and 2013, 65 percent of forest elephants were killed. They are being poached, for their ivory, at a shocking 9 percent per year. This new data marks an update to an earlier paper in the online journal PLOS ONE on the status of forest elephants across Central Africa, published by the same scientists. Many organisations collaborated in the study which covered 80 sites, in five countries, over the twelve years of data collection. The earlier paper, published in 2013, already had ...

How strongly do two dissolved analytes react with each other? Such information is of paramount importance not only in chemistry and molecular biology, but also in medicine or pharmacy, where it is used, i.a., to determine optimal drug doses. A method developed in the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw will allow for determining diffusion coefficients of analytes in fluids and equilibrium constants of reactions – quickly, at low cost, and most importantly: universally. In many medical therapies, a prerequisite for efficient treatment ...