Researchers know that feeding some patients intravenously can save their lives – but also can cause liver damage. Now scientists at the University of Colorado and Children's Hospital Colorado have figured out the likely culprit, one of the ingredients in intravenous food, behind the liver problems. The discovery, published Oct. 9 in Science Translational Medicine, could point the way to better treatments for patients who are medically vulnerable and, often, very young. "We still have more to learn about the optimal mix of lipids for intravenous nutrition," said Ron ...

Terahertz (THz) radiation — radiation in the wavelength range of 30 to 300 microns — is gaining attention due to its applications in security screening, medical and industrial imaging, agricultural inspection, astronomical research, and other areas. Traditional methods of generating terahertz radiation, however, usually involve large and expensive instruments, some of which also require cryogenic cooling. A compact terahertz source — similar to the laser diode found in a DVD player —operating at room temperature with high power has been a dream device in the terahertz community ...

HOUSTON – (Oct. 9, 2013) – Carbyne will be the strongest of a new class of microscopic materials if and when anyone can make it in bulk. If they do, they'll find carbyne nanorods or nanoropes have a host of remarkable and useful properties, as described in a new paper by Rice University theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and his group. The paper appears this week in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano. Carbyne is a chain of carbon atoms held together by either double or alternating single and triple atomic bonds. That makes it a true one-dimensional material, ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 9, 2013—A national survey has found that uterine fibroids have a disproportionate impact on African American women, causing more severe symptoms, interfering with their daily life, and causing them to miss work. These new findings are reported in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh. African American women have a 3-fold higher incidence of uterine fibroids and tend to have them at an ...

A new meta-analysis published today in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (2013;19(10):1-12)1 found the Transcendental Meditation® technique (TM) has a large effect on reducing trait anxiety for people with high anxiety. Trait anxiety is a measure of how anxious a person usually is, as opposed to state anxiety, which refers to how anxious we are at the moment. A meta-analysis is an objective means to draw conclusions from all the research in a field. This meta-analysis covered 16 randomized-controlled trials, the gold standard in medical research, and ...

More than 90 percent of the public supports organ donation, yet less than half the population registers as donors, surveys show. What if registration was better promoted to those who had previously turned it down? And at the place almost everyone makes that decision, the DMV? Research at 40 Department of Motor Vehicles facilities in Illinois shows such efforts can make a difference. An article about the work was published in the September/October issue of the journal Clinical Transplantation. University of Illinois professor Brian Quick and his research colleagues implemented ...

Nyon, Switzerland (October 10, 2013) – According to a new report published today by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF), women may expect to live longer but their quality of life will be seriously jeopardized if action to protect their bone health is not taken. Postmenopausal women are the most vulnerable to osteoporosis and fractures. Worldwide, an estimated 200 million women are affected by osteoporosis and around one in three women aged over 50 will suffer from a fracture due to the disease. With an increasingly ageing population huge demands will be put ...

Vast areas on the Northern Hemisphere are covered by tundra. Here, dwarf shrubs, sedges, mosses etc. thrive on top of permafrost in areas where only the uppermost soil layer thaws during the short Arctic summer. New studies show that the tundra may become a source of CO2 in the future. Researcher Magnus Lund from Aarhus University explains: "The soil below the tundra contains very large quantities of carbon – more than twice as much as is present in the planet's entire atmosphere. Therefore, we would like to know if the carbon will stay put – or if it will be released ...

To most people, restoration of Florida's Everglades means recovering and protecting the wetlands of south Florida, including Everglades National Park. But what many don't realize is how intimately the fortunes of the southern Everglades are tied to central Florida's Lake Okeechobee and lands even further north. "The Everglades at the southern tip of Florida—the remains of what was once a vast ecosystem—is interconnected with a large hydrologic system that really begins in Orlando with the northern Everglades," says Patrick Bohlen, a professor of biology at University ...

(CHICAGO) –Although problems with memory become increasingly common as people age, in some persons, memories last long time, even a life time. On the other hand, some people experience milder to substantial memory problems even at an earlier age. Although there are several risk factors of dementia, abnormal fat metabolism has been known to pose a risk for memory and learning. People with high amounts of abdominal fat in their middle age are 3.6 times as likely to develop memory loss and dementia later in their life. Neurological scientists at the Rush University Medical ...

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer. Most of those with the disease will die within the first year of diagnosis, and just 6 percent will survive five years. The disease is typically diagnosed through an invasive and complicated biopsy. But a discovery by researchers at the UCLA School of Dentistry may be one major step toward creating a noninvasive tool that would enable clinicians and oncologists to detect pancreatic cancer through a simple risk assessment test using saliva. In a study on a tumor-ridden mouse model, the UCLA researchers were ...

WASHINGTON, DC—Researchers at the University of Michigan Department of Surgery have begun testing an alternative to embryonic stem cells that could one day regenerate muscle tissue for babies with congenital heart defects. A research-in-progress report on this new approach, which uses amniotic stem cells, was presented today at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. Although this research is still in an early phase, this new approach has the potential to one day help thousands of babies born each year with congenital heart defects. Typically, ...

(OCTOBER 9, 2013)— The deadly cholera epidemic that rocked earthquake-shattered Haiti in 2010, claiming 8,000 lives and counting, has rallied the public health community to seek water and sewer improvements that, combined with vaccination, could prevent some 89,000 future cholera infections. These findings are among the many insights published this month in a special section of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene - AJTMH and PAHO: Commemorating the 3rd Anniversary of the Cholera Outbreak in Haiti: Invited Papers documenting the public health response ...

Johns Hopkins researchers, working with elderly mice, have determined that combining gene therapy with an extra boost of the same stem cells the body already uses to repair itself leads to faster healing of burns and greater blood flow to the site of the wound. Their findings offer insight into why older people with burns fail to heal as well as younger patients, and how to potentially harness the power of the body's own bone marrow stem cells to reverse this age-related discrepancy. "As we get older, it is harder for our wounds to heal," says John W. Harmon, M.D., ...

Located about 1200 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Carina (The Ship's Keel), the Toby Jug Nebula, more formally known as IC 2220, is an example of a reflection nebula. It is a cloud of gas and dust illuminated from within by a star called HD 65750. This star, a type known as a red giant, has five times the mass of our Sun but it is in a much more advanced stage of its life, despite its comparatively young age of around 50 million years [1]. The nebula was created by the star, which is losing part of its mass out into the surrounding space, forming ...

Zudin A. Puthucheary, M.R.C.P., of University College London, England, and colleagues conducted a study to characterize and evaluate the time course and pathophysiology of acute muscle loss in critical illness. "Survivors of critical illness experience significant skeletal muscle weakness and physical disability, which can persist for at least 5 years. Muscle wasting contributes substantially to weakness acquired in the intensive care unit, but its time course and underlying pathophysiological mechanisms remain poorly characterized and not well understood," according ...

Laurent Papazian, M.D., Ph.D., of Hôpital Nord, Marseille, France, and colleagues conducted a study to determine whether statin therapy decreased day-28 mortality among intensive care unit patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia. Observational studies have reported that statins improve outcomes of various infections. Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is the most common infection in the intensive care unit (ICU) and is diagnosed in approximately 8 to 28 percent of ICU patients receiving mechanical ventilation. Ventilator-associated pneumonia is associated with ...

Djillali Annane, M.D., Ph.D., of Raymond Poincare Hospital, Garches, France, and colleagues conducted a study to compare the effects of 2 types of intravenous fluids on survival for critically ill patients in an intensive care unit. Thousands of patients in intensive care units (ICUs) throughout the world are treated every day with intravenous fluids, mainly to restore effective blood volume and perfusion of organs. Fluid therapy includes a broad variety of products that are categorized as crystalloids and colloids: crystalloids are salts; colloids are salts and gelatin, ...

Andrea Morelli, M.D., of the University of Rome, Italy, and colleagues conducted a study to investigate the effect of the short-acting beta-blocker esmolol on the heart rate of patients with severe septic shock and high risk of death. Septic shock is associated with adverse effects on cardiac function. Beta-blocker therapy controls heart rate and may improve cardiovascular performance, but concerns remain that this therapy may lead to cardiovascular decompensation (inability of the heart to maintain adequate circulation), according to background information in the article. ...

Researchers working at the University of Saskatchewan have discovered new potential in prairie fruits, in particular, buffaloberry, chokecherry and sea buckthorn, according to a new study published today in the Canadian Journal of Plant Science. Findings showed that these fruits were nutrient-rich and that the potential food value is high. This is good news for fruit growers in Saskatchewan as these results add further credence to support the development of these fruits for commercial food markets. "There is increasing interest in the commercial development of these ...

The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) analysed additional data on drugs from the group of gliptins. The drug manufacturers had subsequently submitted these data to the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) in the commenting procedure. The Institute came to a different conclusion on the fixed combination of sitagliptin/metformin: As for the single agent sitagliptin before, there are now hints of an added benefit for this fixed combination. However, IQWiG still does not see any advantages of vildagliptin and the fixed combination of vildagliptin ...

New York University chemists have discovered crystal growth complexities, which at first glance appeared to confound 50 years of theory and deepened the mystery of how organic crystals form. But, appearances can be deceiving. Their findings, which appear in the latest edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have a range of implications -- from the production of pharmaceuticals and new electronic materials to unraveling the pathways for kidney stone formation. The researchers focused on L-cystine crystals, the chief component of a particularly nefarious ...

This news release is available in German. Jorg Massen (University of Vienna) and Sonja Koski (University of Zurich) together measured chimpanzee personality in two zoos with behavioural experiments and years of observations of chimpanzee behaviour. They also carefully logged which chimpanzee sat in body contact with whom most. "This is a clear sign of friendship among chimpanzees", explains Jorg Massen. Subsequently, the researchers tested, if those chimpanzees who sit together frequently have similar or different personality types. "We found that, especially ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Kindergarten-age children have poorer health if their home life is marked by disorder, noise and a lack of routine and they have a mother who has a chaotic work life, new research suggests. The results show the importance of order and routine in helping preschoolers stay healthy and develop to the best of their potential, said Claire Kamp Dush, lead author of the study and assistant professor of human sciences at The Ohio State University. "Children need to have order in their lives," Kamp Dush said. "When their life is chaotic and not predictable, ...

In 2012 researchers from the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) presented a study in the BMJ analysing information sources used in 16 health technology assessment (HTA) reports of drugs ("benefit assessments"). This study clearly demonstrated that publicly available sources, such as scientific journals and entries posted in trial registries ("registry reports"), contained far less information on methods and outcomes of clinical trials than non-public CSRs prepared by pharmaceutical companies. In a second article published today in PLOS ...