New research from Queen Mary University of London has discovered 11 new DNA sequence variants in genes influencing high blood pressure and heart disease. Identifying the new genes contributes to our growing understanding of the biology of blood pressure and, researchers believe, will eventually influence the development of new treatments. More immediately the study highlights opportunities to investigate the use of existing drugs for cardiovascular diseases. The large international study, published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics, examined the DNA ...

In the battle against infection, immune cells are the body's offense and defense—some cells go on the attack while others block invading pathogens. It has long been known that a population of blood stem cells that resides in the bone marrow generates all of these immune cells. But most scientists have believed that blood stem cells participate in battles against infection in a delayed way, replenishing immune cells on the front line only after they become depleted. Now, using a novel microfluidic technique, researchers at Caltech have shown that these stem cells might ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Congenital heart disease is the most common form of birth defect, affecting one out of every 125 babies, according to the National Institutes of Health. Researchers from the University of Missouri recently found success using a drug to treat laboratory mice with one form of congenital heart disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — a weakening of the heart caused by abnormally thick muscle. By suppressing a faulty protein, the researchers reduced the thickness of the mice's heart muscles and improved their cardiac functioning. Maike Krenz, M.D., has been ...

A study co-published in Nature Medicine this week by University of Toronto researcher Penney Gilbert has determined a stem cell based method for restoring strength to damaged skeletal muscles of the elderly. Skeletal muscles are some of the most important muscles in the body, supporting functions such as sitting, standing, blinking and swallowing. In aging individuals, the function of these muscles significantly decreases. "You lose fifteen percent of muscle mass every single year after the age of 75, a trend that is irreversible," cites Gilbert, Assistant Professor ...

In a paper published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, MIT researchers propose an experiment that may close the last major loophole of Bell's inequality — a 50-year-old theorem that, if violated by experiments, would mean that our universe is based not on the textbook laws of classical physics, but on the less-tangible probabilities of quantum mechanics. Such a quantum view would allow for seemingly counterintuitive phenomena such as entanglement, in which the measurement of one particle instantly affects another, even if those entangled particles are ...

A new study by a Wits University scientist has overturned a long-standing hypothesis about plant speciation (the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution), suggesting that agricultural crops could be more vulnerable to climate change than was previously thought. Unlike humans and most other animals, plants can tolerate multiple copies of their genes – in fact some plants, called polyploids, can have more than 50 duplicates of their genomes in every cell. Scientists used to think that these extra genomes helped polyploids survive in new and extreme ...

To remain healthy, the body's cells must properly manage their waste recycling centers. Problems with these compartments, known as lysosomes, lead to a number of debilitating and sometimes lethal conditions. Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified an unusual cause of the lysosomal storage disorder called mucolipidosis III, at least in a subset of patients. This rare disorder causes skeletal and heart abnormalities and can result in a shortened lifespan. ...

Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is finally unearthing some of the ancient mysteries behind leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, which has plagued mankind throughout history. The new research findings appear in the current edition of journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. According to this new hypothesis, the disease might be the oldest human-specific infection, with roots that likely stem back millions of years. There are hundreds of thousands of new cases of leprosy worldwide each year, but the disease is rare in the United States, ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Engineers at Oregon State University have developed a new approach toward "sustainable manufacturing" that begins on the factory floor and tries to encompass the totality of manufacturing issues – including economic, environmental, and social impacts. This approach, they say, builds on previous approaches that considered various facets of sustainability in a more individual manner. Past methods often worked backward from a finished product and rarely incorporated the complexity of human social concerns. The findings have been published in the Journal ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new high-accuracy calibration of the LUX (Large Underground Xenon) dark matter detector demonstrates the experiment's sensitivity to ultra-low energy events. The new analysis strongly confirms the result that low-mass dark matter particles were a no-show during the detector's initial run, which concluded last summer. The first dark matter search results from LUX detector were announced last October. The detector proved to be exquisitely sensitive, but found no evidence of the dark matter particles during its first 90-day run, ruling ...

URBANA, Ill. – While researching methods to increase the already well-recognized anti-cancer properties of broccoli, researchers at the University of Illinois also found a way to prolong the vegetable's shelf life. And, according to the recently published study, the method is a natural and inexpensive way to produce broccoli that has even more health benefits and won't spoil so quickly on your refrigerator shelf. Jack Juvik, a U of I crop sciences researcher, explained that the combined application of two compounds, both are natural products extracted from plants, increased ...

URBANA, Ill. – Just as with people, feline obesity is most often linked to excessive food intake or not enough physical activity. Attempts to cut back on calories alone often result in failed weight loss or weight regain in both people and their pets. So how do you encourage your cat to get more exercise? Researchers from the University of Illinois interested in finding a method to maintain healthy body weight in cats, looked at a previously suggested claim that increased meal frequency could help to increase overall physical activity. The idea is to feed cats the ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (February 20, 2014) - Abnormal color vision increases significantly with aging—affecting one-half or more of people in the oldest age groups, reports a study in 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. While few people younger than 70 have problems with color vision, the rate increases rapidly through later decades of life, according to the new research by Marilyn E. Schneck, PhD, and colleagues of The Smith-Kettlewell ...

Plant growth is orchestrated by a spectrum of signals from hormones within a plant. A major group of plant hormones called cytokinins originate in the roots of plants, and their journey to growth areas on the stem and in leaves stimulates plant development. Though these phytohormones have been identified in the past, the molecular mechanism responsible for their transportation within plants was previously poorly understood. Now, a new study from a research team led by biochemist Chang-Jun Liu at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory identifies ...

The next time you want to turn down the emotional intensity before making an important decision, you may want to dim the lights first. A new study from the University of Toronto Scarborough shows that human emotion, whether positive or negative, is felt more intensely under bright light. Alison Jing Xu, assistant professor of management at UTSC and the Rotman School of Management, along with Aparna Labroo of Northwestern University, conducted a series of studies to examine the unusual paradox of lighting and human emotion. "Other evidence shows that on sunny days people ...

People with late-stage cancer at the back of the mouth or throat that recurs after chemotherapy and radiation treatment are twice as likely to be alive two years later if their cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), new research led by a Johns Hopkins scientist suggests. Previous studies have found that people with so-called HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancers are more likely to survive than those whose cancers are related to smoking or whose origins are unknown. The new study, scheduled to be presented Feb. 20 at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Patients who received daily humidification of the mouth and throat region beginning from day one of radiation therapy treatment spent nearly 50 percent fewer days in the hospital to manage their side effects, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. The study was conducted by the Trans Tasman Radiation Oncology Group and evaluated 210 head and neck cancer patients in New Zealand and Australia from June 2007 through June 2011. Patients in this Phase III trial were randomized ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—A retrospective analysis of oropharyngeal patients with recurrence of disease after primary therapy in the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) studies 0129 or 0522 found that HPV-positive patients had a higher overall survival (OS) rate than HPV-negative patients (at two years post-treatment, 54.6 percent vs. 27.6 percent, respectively), according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. The analysis included 181 patients with stage III-IV oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Patients with HPV-positive squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx (SCCOP) had a longer time to development of distant metastasis (DM) after initial treatment, and had more metastatic sites in more atypical locations compared to HPV-negative patients, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. Culled from records of an IRB-approved registry, the study reviewed 285 patients with stage III-IV SCCOP (originally thought to be a smoking-related head and neck cancer) treated with ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Avoiding the contralateral submandibular gland during radiation therapy is feasible and safe with advanced stage, node positive head and neck cancers and base of tongue lesions, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. Researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of 71 patients from two facilities—the University of Colorado Cancer Center and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The median patient age was 55, and about 50 percent of the patients were current or former ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Oropharyngeal cancer patients treated with combined chemotherapy and radiation therapy reported a decrease in their voice and speech quality (VSQ) for up to one year after the completion of treatment, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. The study further shows that limiting the dose of radiation to the glottic larynx (GL) to less than 20 Gy resulted in a decrease in post-treatment VSQ problems, and that patient-reported VSQ indicated more adverse effects from treatment compared ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—For head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy, a reduction in the amount of radiation treatment volume to the submandibular (level IB) lymph nodes resulted in better patient-reported salivary function, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. The study results also found significant reductions in radiation dose to the salivary organs, and good local regional control. Researchers evaluated 125 patients with node-positive oropharyngeal cancer who received chemoradiation ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Limiting radiation therapy to lymph nodes on one side of the neck for advanced tonsil cancer resulted in good local regional control and no cancer recurrence on the untreated side, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. Additionally, the study results indicate that primary tumor location, rather than the amount of lymph node involvement on the tumor side of the neck, dictates the risk for disease in the opposite side of the neck. The study focused on 46 out of 153 total patients ...

Scottsdale, Ariz., February 20, 2014—Evaluating next-generation sequencing (NGS) data and associated clinical records of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients from several institutions, made available through The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), showed that combining Mutant-Allele Tumor Heterogeneity (MATH) as a biomarker with the patient's HPV status provides an effective indicator of improved patient outcome, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. The TCGA data available for HNSCC patients included ...

The increased demand for primary care services expected to result from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may be felt strongly in rural areas. While studies have found that the quality of care delivered to rural patients is as good or better than that available in urban areas, the belief persists that top-quality primary care is only available in big cities. But a new study appearing in the National Rural Health Association's Journal of Rural Health finds few meaningful differences between rural and urban primary care physicians on key measures of professionalism, including ...