Patients with rheumatic conditions are in need of symptom relief and some are turning to herbal cannabis as a treatment option. However, the effectiveness and safety of medical marijuana to treat symptoms of rheumatic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, or fibromyalgia is not supported by medical evidence. A new article published in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), explores the risks associated with using herbal cannabis for medicinal purposes and advises healthcare providers to discourage rheumatology patients ...

VIDEO: Food allergies in children can be frightening. And this might be one of the reasons why several parents choose to not introduce allergenic foods, such as peanuts and dairy, to... Click here for more information. ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (March 3, 2014) – Children's food allergies are gradually increasing, but they may be as much as doubling among black children. According to a study published today in the March issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific ...

SAN ANTONIO (March 3, 2014) – The bark of the Amur cork tree (Phellodendron amurense) has traveled a centuries-long road with the healing arts. Now it is being put through its paces by science in the fight against pancreatic cancer, with the potential to make inroads against several more. UT Health Science Center researcher A. Pratap Kumar was already exploring the cork tree extract's promise in treating prostate cancer when his team found that deadly pancreatic cancers share some similar development pathways with prostate tumors. In a paper published today in the journal ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An Indiana University study found that elite college athletes -- typically the picture of health and vitality -- often struggle to stay active in later years, facing limitations to their day-to-day activities in middle age that could be a result of injuries during their athletic career. Lead investigator Janet Simon, a doctoral candidate in the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington's Department of Kinesiology, said researchers have long known that compared to non-athletes, college athletes experience more severe injuries -- and long-term effects ...

Black bears in Yosemite National Park and elsewhere are notorious for seeking out human food, even breaking into cars and cabins for it. A new study reveals just how much human food has contributed to the diets of Yosemite bears over the past century. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, were able to estimate the proportion of human-derived food in bears' diets by analyzing chemical isotopes in hair and bone samples. The results, published in the March issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, show how bears' diets have changed over the years ...

Resistance to pesticides has now been recorded in nearly a thousand pest species, including more than 500 insects, 218 weeds, and 190 fungi that attack plants. The recorded cases of resistance in insects, mites and other arthropods, which include resistance to multiple pesticides per species, more than doubled from 5,141 in 1990 to 11,254 in 2013. A first step in tackling this growing global problem is establishing a common vocabulary, because the current jumble of terms fosters confusion among scientists in academia, industry and government. To address this issue, five ...

A new way of measuring how much light a plant can tolerate could be useful in growing crops resilient to a changing climate, according to scientists from Queen Mary University of London. "This is the first time we have been able to quantify a plant's ability to protect itself against high light intensity," said Professor Alexander Ruban, co-author of the study and Head of the Cell and Molecular Biology Division at Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Science. Professor Ruban added: "A changing climate will lead to fluctuations in temperature, humidity, drought ...

New research from a major 'randomised' arrest experiment 23 years ago finds that domestic violence victims whose partners were arrested on misdemeanor charges – mostly without causing injury – were 64% more likely to have died early, compared to victims whose partners were warned but not removed by police. Among African-American victims, arrest increased early mortality by a staggering 98% – as opposed to white victims, whose mortality was increased from arrest by just 9%. The research also found that employed victims suffered the worst effects of their partners' arrests. ...

Some children who outgrow one type of food allergy may then develop another type of allergy, more severe and more persistent, to the same food. A new study by pediatric allergy experts suggests that health care providers and caregivers carefully monitor children with food allergies to recognize early signs of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a severe and often painful type of allergy that has been increasing in recent years. "These two types of allergy have some elements in common, but patients with EoE usually don't go on to develop tolerance to the foods that trigger ...

Using technologies and computational modeling that trace the destiny of single cells, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine describe for the first time the earliest stages of fate determination among white blood cells called T lymphocytes, providing new insights that may help drug developers create more effective, longer-lasting vaccines against microbial pathogens or cancer. The findings are published in the March 2, 2014 online issue of Nature Immunology. Naïve T lymphocytes patrol the front lines of the human body’s defense against ...

Losses from extreme floods in Europe could more than double by 2050, because of climate change and socioeconomic development. Understanding the risk posed by large-scale floods is of growing importance and will be key for managing climate adaptation. Current flood losses in Europe are likely to double by 2050, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the Institute for Environmental Studies in Amsterdam, and other European research centers. Socioeconomic ...

As science and technology go nano, scientists search for new tools to manipulate, observe and modify the "building blocks" of matter at the nanometer scale. With this in mind, the recent publication in Nature Nanotechnology in which ICFO researchers demonstrate for the first time the ability to use near-field optical tweezers to trap a nano-size object and manipulate it in the 3 dimensions of space, is an exciting achievement. Romain Quidant, ICREA Professor and leader at ICFO of the Plasmon Nano-Optics research group comments that "this technique could revolutionize the ...

A new methodology for rapidly measuring the level of antibiotic drug molecules in human blood serum has been developed, paving the way to applications within drug development and personalised medicine. The study, published today in Nature Nanotechnology, describes the exploitation of a sensor for measuring the concentration of effective antibiotics in blood, giving an indication of their efficiency against disease causing pathogens, for instance multidrug resistant hospital "superbugs". This development could potentially give a far greater understanding of the effectiveness ...

An international research team has discovered a potentially clean, low-cost way to convert carbon dioxide into methanol, a key ingredient in the production of plastics, adhesives and solvents, and a promising fuel for transportation. Scientists from Stanford University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Technical University of Denmark combined theory and experimentation to identify a new nickel-gallium catalyst that converts hydrogen and carbon dioxide into methanol with fewer side-products than the conventional catalyst. The results are published in the ...

Researchers at Columbia University have made a significant step toward visualizing small biomolecules inside living biological systems with minimum disturbance, a longstanding goal in the scientific community. In a study published March 2nd in Nature Methods, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Wei Min's research team has developed a general method to image a broad spectrum of small biomolecules, such as small molecular drugs and nucleic acids, amino acids, lipids for determining where they are localized and how they function inside cells. When studying biological functions ...

In the mid-1970s, the first available satellite images of Antarctica during the polar winter revealed a huge ice-free region within the ice pack of the Weddell Sea. This ice-free region, or polynya, stayed open for three full winters before it closed. Subsequent research showed that the opening was maintained as relatively warm waters churned upward from kilometres below the ocean's surface and released heat from the ocean's deepest reaches. But the polynya -- which was the size of New Zealand -- has not reappeared in the nearly 40 years since it closed, and scientists ...

An international team led by researchers at the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has identified mutations in a gene that can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even in people who have risk factors such as obesity and old age. The results focus the search for developing novel therapeutic strategies for type 2 diabetes; if a drug can be developed that mimics the protective effect of these mutations, it could open up new ways of preventing this devastating disease. Type 2 diabetes affects over 300 million people worldwide and is rising ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – Odors have a way of connecting us with moments buried deep in our past. Maybe it is a whiff of your grandmother's perfume that transports you back decades. With that single breath, you are suddenly in her living room, listening as the adults banter about politics. The experiences that we accumulate throughout life build expectations that are associated with different scents. These expectations are known to influence how the brain uses and stores sensory information. But researchers have long wondered how the process works in reverse: how do our ...

In an advance for HIV vaccine research, a scientific team has discovered how the immune system makes a powerful antibody that blocks HIV infection of cells by targeting a site on the virus called V1V2. Many researchers believe that if a vaccine could elicit potent antibodies to a specific conserved site in the V1V2 region, one of a handful of sites that remains constant on the fast-mutating virus, then the vaccine could protect people from HIV infection. Analyses of the results of a clinical trial of the only experimental HIV vaccine to date to have modest success in people ...

Itsabelly, founded by Melissa Moog, has partnered with Green Child Magazine to curate a baby safety guide. The baby safety guide is comprised of baby products made by eco-savvy companies with the safest materials possible. The products chosen were based on certain categories as well as criteria. The categories include the use of non-toxic materials, safety, innovation, quality, functionality and style. Some of the brands and products in this eco friendly guide to baby safety include : Ergo Baby, DrGreene.com, Earth Mama Angel Baby and Orbit Baby. Moog, who is also the ...

Get a head start on your spring reading with books in your favorite genres. In the month of March, Pump Up Your Book! is featuring historical fiction titles, romance novels, thrillers, books for children and tweens, autobiographies and more! Follow our tours and find chances to win fabulous prizes like gift cards and Kindles. Kevin Bohacz shares his techno-thrillers "Immortality" and "Ghost of the Gods," while Michael Goffinet tours with his action thriller, "They Call Me Superman," and Pamela Samuels Young talks about her mystery thriller, ...

Scientific advancement is increasingly driven by the available compute power while the world's largest supercomputers are limited by their power consumption. The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and London-based Maxeler Technologies are collaborating in a project funded by the UK Department of Business Innovation and Skills to install the next generation of supercomputing technology in a new facility at the Daresbury Laboratory focusing on energy efficient supercomputing and offering orders of magnitude improvement in performance and efficiency to enable ...

On the next episode of "Why Shamanism Now? A Practical Path to Authenticity", teacher, author and founder of the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt talks about the necessity to cultivate a relationship with the dreams and visions of our invisible world in order to have an authentic shamanic experience. Streaming live on the Co-Creator Radio Network on Tuesday, March 4, at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern on "Why Shamanism Now? A Practical Path to Authenticity," shaman and founder of the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt ...

Royal Dynamite, a collaborative and unique t-shirt company that combines popular culture and community, is now accepting social entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 to 24 into the RD Internship Program. The program currently consists of nine youth that collaborate in a thriving work atmosphere to educate others on social good while gaining hands on experience working for an online retailer. The RD Internship Program offers a unique opportunity to explore the world of an ecommerce business in a three to six month, unpaid, college credit assignment with meaningful and ...

Vivant Fine Cheese tasting room is open at a new location at 821 Pine Street, Suite B in Paso Robles, California with the an updated cheese tasting room featuring premium local and imported handcrafted artisan cheeses paired with the finest Central Coast wine and beer. Vivant Fine Cheese shop has long been the premier cheese shop and wholesale cheese expert to over 150 wineries, restaurants and finer stores, they now over over 250 different chesses to choose from at the new location. They offer in house wine and cheese pairings with fantastic varietals from De'Angelis, ...