London, June 10, 2014 – Papers published in the latest themed issue of Reproductive Health Matters demonstrate the extent of evidence and progressive thinking around population dynamics and sustainability that is informing development policies and programs. The theme of this issue is timely given that meetings and negotiations are currently taking place around the world to decide what will be included in the post-2015 development goals. The discussions about the post-2015 agenda have focused on calling out to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) advocates ...

Chastity belts were not first thought out in mediaeval times – members of many animal groups have evolved similar mechanical safeguards to ensure their paternity. Male dwarf spiders, for instance, use mating plugs to block off the genital tract of the female they have just mated with. The larger and older the plug, the better the chances are that other males will not make deposits in a female's sperm storage organ, too. So says Katrin Kunz and co-authors of the Zoological Institute and Museum in Greifswald, Germany, in an article published in Springer's journal Behavioral ...

After initially visiting a school psychologist, adolescents in the United States with a mental disorder often go to seek care from their pediatricians or family doctors. Fewer of them continue their treatment directly with a psychotherapist or doctor specialized in mental disorders. This shows an analysis conducted by scientists at the University of Basel that has just been published in the academic journal PLOS ONE. The results are based on a nationally representative cohort of 6,500 U.S. teenagers. A considerable number of children and adolescents suffer from a mental ...

VIDEO: R.Califano explains why ESMO Young Oncologists launched a survey on common clinical practice for incompletely resected lung cancer and analyses interesting results claiming for more adherence to guidelines and more... Click here for more information. Lugano, Switzerland, 10 June 2014 -- A landmark survey of more than 700 specialists provides crucial real-world insight into the treatments most oncologists choose for lung cancer patients whose tumour has been incompletely ...

Australian researchers are zeroing in on a promising new approach to killing off cancer cells in patients with leukemia. In a study led by the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and the University of Adelaide's Centre for Personalised Cancer Medicine, researchers have found that cancer cells decide whether to live or die after a short period of intense exposure to targeted therapy, opposing the current requirement for continuous treatment. The researchers say this study presents a new treatment strategy which will translate to a significant ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Women are the subject of news in sports papers in only 5.11% of the cases, sometimes alone (2.18%) and others accompanied by men (2.93%). On the other hand, men are the focus of this kind of information in 92.2% of the cases, according to a study presented recently by UC3M professor Clara Sainz de Baranda at the II International Conference on Gender and Communication. "The remaining 5% is neutral information, which is why, in these kinds of topics, like soccer balls, fields, field houses and goals, men appear more often ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University researchers who developed a new approach to more effectively teach large numbers of engineering students are recommending that the approach be considered for adoption by universities globally. The system, called the Purdue Mechanics Freeform Classroom, allows students to interact with each other and faculty online while accessing hundreds of instructional videos and animations. It was pioneered by Charles Krousgrill, a professor of mechanical engineering, and has been used for more than two years in two mechanical engineering core ...

Hot town, summer in the city — it's nothing new, but ways to handle the heat, humidity, and stormwater haven't changed much since the invention of the sewer system. One solution offered by architectural researchers is known as a "green roof" — a roof covered in living, growing plants to soften the effects of heat, flooding, noise, and stormwater runoff. Elizabeth J. Grant, an assistant professor of architecture and design at Virginia Tech, will present ways for architects to determine the most effective depths of green roofing for stormwater control on Thursday at the ...

Vancouver, BC - Today the International Cooperation to Sequence the Atlantic Salmon Genome (ICSASG) announced completion of a fully mapped and openly accessible salmon genome. This reference genome will provide crucial information to fish managers to improve the production and sustainability of aquaculture operations, and address challenges around conservation of wild stocks, preservation of at-risk fish populations and environmental sustainability. This breakthrough was announced at the International Conference on Integrative Salmonid Biology (ICISB) being held in Vancouver ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Babies born 32 to 36 weeks into gestation may have smaller brains and other brain abnormalities that could lead to long-term developmental problems, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology. Much of the existing knowledge on preterm birth and brain development has been drawn from studies of individuals born very preterm, or less than 32 weeks into gestation at birth. For the new study, researchers in Australia focused on moderate and late preterm (MLPT) babies —those born between 32 weeks, zero days, and 36 weeks, six days, ...

WASHINGTON, DC – June 10, 2014 - Scientists believe they have an explanation for the axiom that stress, emotional shock, or overexertion may trigger heart attacks in vulnerable people. Hormones released during these events appear to cause bacterial biofilms on arterial walls to disperse, allowing plaque deposits to rupture into the bloodstream, according to research published in published today in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. "Our hypothesis fitted with the observation that heart attack and stroke often occur following ...

PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 9, 2014)—There's much to learn from the recent release of unprecedented amounts of data from the nation's second largest health insurer, Medicare, but only if interpreted cautiously, write two doctors at Fox Chase Cancer Center in the June 9 online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine. In April, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the most detailed data in its history, related to $77 billion worth of physician billings to Medicare. In its analysis of the data, The New York Times showed that only a small percentage ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Children with heart disease are exposed to low levels of radiation during X-rays, which do not significantly raise their lifetime cancer risk. However, children who undergo repeated complex imaging tests that deliver higher doses of radiation may have a slightly increased lifetime risk of cancer, according to researchers at Duke Medicine. The findings, published June 9, 2014, in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, represent the largest study of cumulative radiation doses in children with heart disease and associated predictions of lifetime ...

Researchers are a step closer to establishing the link between a protein with a split personality and type 1 diabetes. New research, published today in the journal PNAS, shows how a protein, called GAD65, changes its shape when it turns itself on and off. Curiously, this characteristic may also link it to type 1 diabetes. In the human brain, GAD65 performs an essential role: it makes 'neurotransmitters' - chemicals that pass messages between brain cells. GAD65 is also found in the pancreas. Previous studies linked it to type 1 diabetes because the body makes antibodies ...

(New York – June 9, 2014) -- A protein may be the key to maintaining the health of aging blood stem cells, according to work by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai recently published online in Stem Cell Reports. Human adults keep stem cell pools on hand in key tissues, including the blood. These stem cells can become replacement cells for those lost to wear and tear. But as the blood stem cells age, their ability to regenerate blood declines, potentially contributing to anemia and the risk of cancers like acute myeloid leukemia and immune deficiency. ...

VIDEO: This shows 3-D ortho-rotation of leaf mesophyll cells. Micrographs were collected by milling fixed tissue accompanied by SEM imaging using FIB-SEM. The complete videos published with the article are available... Click here for more information. Plant cells are beginning to look a lot different to Dr. A. Bruce Cahoon and his colleagues at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). They've adopted a new approach that combines the precision of an ion beam with the imaging ...

Needle biopsy, the standard of care radiological procedure for diagnosing breast cancer, is underused with too many patients undergoing the more invasive, excisional biopsy to detect their disease, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, also finds that patients are often influenced by surgeons to undergo the unnecessary surgery -- a decision that's costly and can negatively impact their diagnosis and treatment. A needle biopsy is a non-surgical procedure typically performed ...

LEBANON, NH – When women are choosing a contraceptive, health care providers should be aware that the things they want to discuss may differ from what women want to hear, according to a survey published in the recent issue of the journal Contraception. Most of the information women receive about contraceptives focuses heavily on the effectiveness in preventing pregnancy, but this information was ranked fifth in importance by women, according to the study conducted by researchers at Dartmouth College. The researchers conducted an online survey of 417 women, aged 15-45, ...

Clinical trial evaluates ex vivo cultured cord blood Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is a rich source of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) that can be used for bone marrow transplantation; however, UCB transplantation is hampered by low numbers of HSPCs per donation, which delays engraftment and immune reconstitution. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Mitchell Horwitz and colleagues at Duke University Medical Center conducted a phase I clinical trial to test the long term engraftment capability of UCB HSPCs that were expanded ex vivo for ...

BOSTON – As elite soldiers of the body's immune response, B cells serve as a vast standing army ready to recognize and destroy invading antigens, including infections and cancer cells. To do so, each new B cell comes equipped with its own highly specialized weapon, a unique antibody protein that selectively binds to specific parts of the antigen. The key to this specialization is the antigen-binding region that tailors each B cell to a particular antigen, determining whether B cells survive boot camp and are selected for maturation and survival, or wash out and die. Now, ...

Your first response to an infectious agent or antigen ordinarily takes about a week, and is relatively weak. However, if your immune system encounters that antigen a second time, the so-called memory response is rapid, powerful, and very effective. Now, a team of researchers at The Wistar Institute offers evidence that a protein, called Foxp1, is a key component of these antibody responses. Manipulating this protein's activity, they say, could provide a useful pathway to boosting antibody responses to treat infectious diseases, for example, or suppressing them to treat ...

The Academy of Radiology Research reported in the current issue of Nature Biotechnology (Volume 32, Issue 6) that patent output from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is vital to understanding which various areas of science are contributing most to America's innovation economy. The report, "Patents as Proxies: NIH Hubs of Innovation," confirms an increased economic value of NIH patents as compared to private sector patents, as well as meaningful differences in the rate and quality of invention across different research and development (R&D) investments. "The Academy ...

Four of the most common mosquito pesticides used along the east and Gulf coasts show little risk to juvenile hard clams and oysters, according to a NOAA study. However, the study, published in the on-line journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, also determined that lower oxygen levels in the water, known as hypoxia, and increased acidification actually increased how toxic some of the pesticides were. Such climate variables should be considered when using these pesticides in the coastal zone, the study concluded. "What we found is that larval oysters ...

DETROIT – Researchers have found that antiviral therapy may be successful in preventing hepatitis B virus from developing into the most common form of liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). That was the finding of a study published in the May issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Investigators from Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa., and Kaiser Permanente in Honolulu, Hawaii and Portland, Ore. participated in the study, along with investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Helping farmers around the globe apply more-precise amounts of nitrogen-based fertilizer can help combat climate change. In a new study published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Michigan State University researchers provide an improved prediction of nitrogen fertilizer's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural fields. The study uses data from around the world to show that emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas produced in the soil following nitrogen addition, rise faster than previously expected ...