For many, music is a universal language that unites people when words cannot. But for those who use cochlear implants -- technology that allows deaf and hard of hearing people to comprehend speech -- hearing music remains extremely challenging. University of Washington scientists hope to change this. They have developed a new way of processing the signals in cochlear implants to help users hear music better. The technique lets users perceive differences between musical instruments, a significant improvement from what standard cochlear implants can offer, said lead researcher ...

(Boston) - Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and several other institutions including the National Center for PSTD, VA Boston Healthcare System, Suffolk University, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, have determined that psychophysiologic reactivity to trauma-related, script-driven imagery procedures is a promising biological predictor of a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis. These findings appear online in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Approximately seven to 12 percent of the general adult population ...

Clinical trial outcomes are more complete in unpublished reports than in publicly available information Publicly available sources of information reporting findings from clinical trials provide much less information on patient-relevant outcomes than unpublished reports, according to a study by German researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The results of the study by Beate Wieseler and colleagues from the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care in Cologne, Germany, found that the publicly available information contained less information about both ...

The current influenza (flu) vaccination policy in England and Wales should be expanded to target 5 to 16-year-olds in order to further reduce the number of deaths from flu, according to a study by UK researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The results of the study by Marc Baguelin and colleagues from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK, Public Health England, and Athens University of Economics and Business, show that the current flu vaccination policy that targets people aged 65 years and over and also those in high risk groups has ...

In this week's PLOS Medicine two independently written articles call for a shift away from the leader-centric approach that polio eradication campaigns are currently pursuing in the three countries (Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan) where the disease remains endemic. In a Policy Forum article, authors from Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan led by Seye Abimbola from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Nigeria, argue that the global health community and governments involved in polio eradication efforts need to build trust and prioritise polio eradication ...

Using a common test of brain functioning, UC Davis researchers have found differences in the brains of adolescents with the inattentive and combined subtypes of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and teens who do not have the condition, suggesting that the test may offer a potential biomarker for differentiating the types of the disorder. The differences were observed in brain waves exhibited during electroencephalograms (EEGs) of teens with the inattentive and combined subtypes of the condition and typical adolescents, illustrating that these groups display ...

KNOXVILLE—Although a turtle's home may be on its back, some North American turtles face an uncertain future as a warming climate threatens to reduce their suitable habitat. A new study that reconstructs the effects of past climatic changes on 59 species of North American turtles finds that the centers of the turtles' ranges shifted an average of 45 miles for each degree of warming or cooling. While some species were able to find widespread suitable climate, other species, many of which today are endangered, were left with only minimal habitat. Species in temperate ...

WASHINGTON, DC— Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, have taken the first steps to determine if a protein, called Programmed Death Ligand 1 (PD-L1), can help to predict which thyroid cancer patients will most likely have a recurrence of the disease. Study findings were presented today at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. More than 80 percent of patients diagnosed with thyroid cancer have a type called papillary thyroid cancer, which usually grows on only one side of the thyroid gland, according to the American ...

With the abundance of sequencing data, scientists can use ever more powerful evolutionary biology tools to pinpoint the transmission and death rates for epidemics such as HIV, which has remained elusive to a cure. Reconstructed evolutionary trees, called phylogenies, can trace a family of viral mutations over time. When combined with epidemiology, tree construction can allow for great insight into the dynamics of disease transmission and how a pathogen eludes its host to spread infection. Professor Gabriel Leventhal, et. al., from the ETH Zurich in Switzerland report ...

WASHINGTON — A team of researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) has found that loss of an anti-aging gene induces retinal degeneration in mice and might contribute to age-related macular degeneration, the major cause of blindness in the elderly. In the Oct. 9 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, the scientists demonstrated a key role for the aging-suppressor gene Klotho in maintaining the health of the mouse and human retina. They say that in their animal studies, loss of Klotho expression leads to characteristics observed in both kinds of macular degeneration ...

The greater the empathy skills of children, the easier it is for them to recognize sarcasm, according to a new study in the open-access journal Frontiers in Psychology. For children, sarcastic language can be difficult to understand. They generally begin to recognize sarcasm between ages 6 and 8, especially familiar sarcastic praise such as "Thanks a lot!" and "Nice going!" But some children take much longer to begin to understand sarcasm, with detection improving even through adolescence. In a new study, Penny Pexman, Juanita Whalen, and Andrew Nicholson investigated ...

Are scientists any good at judging the importance of the scientific work of others? According to a study published 8 October in the open access journal PLOS Biology (with an accompanying editorial), scientists are unreliable judges of the importance of fellow researchers' published papers. The article's lead author, Professor Adam Eyre-Walker of the University of Sussex, says: "Scientists are probably the best judges of science, but they are pretty bad at it." Prof. Eyre-Walker and Dr Nina Stoletzki studied three methods of assessing published scientific papers, using ...

Among patients with pancreatic cancer who had surgery for removal of the cancer, treatment with the drug gemcitabine for 6 months resulted in increased overall survival as well as disease-free survival, compared with observation alone, according to a study in the October 9 issue of JAMA. "Pancreatic cancer is a disease with a poor prognosis, mainly because of the inability to detect the tumor at an early stage, its high potential for early dissemination, and its relatively poor sensitivity to chemotherapy or radiation therapy," according to background information in ...

Justin E. Bekelman, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, and colleagues conducted a study to examine whether single-fraction radiation treatment, shown to be as effective as multiple-fraction treatment with less potential for harm, has been incorporated into routine clinical practice for Medicare beneficiaries with prostate cancer and at what cost savings. Single-fraction radiotherapy is where a large dose of radiation is given in one session; with multiple-fraction radiotherapy, radiation is delivered in smaller doses over ...

PHILADELPHIA -- For cancer patients dealing with the pain of tumors that have spread to their bones, doctors typically recommend radiation as a palliative therapy. But as in many areas of medicine, more of this treatment isn't actually better. Medical evidence over the past decade has demonstrated that patients with terminal cancer who receive a single session of radiotherapy get just as much pain relief as those who receive multiple treatments. But despite its obvious advantages for patient comfort and convenience – and the associated cost savings – this so-called single-fraction ...

Previous studies of exposure to aircraft noise have examined the risk of hypertension, but few have examined the risk of cardiovascular disease and results are inconsistent. So researchers based in London set out to investigate the risks of stroke and heart disease in relation to aircraft noise among 3.6 million residents living near London Heathrow, one of the busiest airports in the world. They compared hospital admissions and mortality rates for stroke, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease from 2001-05 in 12 London Boroughs and nine districts west of ...

Professor Geir Hoff and colleagues in Norway, argue that we need more evidence about the malignant potential of benign lesions to be sure that the risks of removing them do not outweigh the benefits of screening. Bowel cancer screening has increased the detection of benign polyps (fleshy growths on the lining of the colon or rectum). The most common polyps found during screening are adenomas and guidelines recommend that they are removed. However, data show that less than 5% of adenomas develop into colorectal cancer, suggesting that 95% of procedures may be exposing ...

Risks of hospital admissions and deaths from stroke, heart and circulatory disease are higher in areas with high levels of aircraft noise, a study has found. Researchers at Imperial College London and King's College London compared data on day- and night-time aircraft noise with hospital admissions and mortality rates among a population of 3.6 million people living near Heathrow airport. The risks were around 10 to 20 per cent higher in areas with highest levels of aircraft noise compared with the areas with least noise. The findings are published in the British Medical ...

VIDEO: Growth of a bacterial colony (green) over about 60 hours is shown. The blue "on " signal spreads outward from the center; red represents the "off " signal triggered over time. Click here for more information. DURHAM, N.C. -- Working with a synthetic gene circuit designed to coax bacteria to grow in a predictable ring pattern, Duke University scientists have revealed an underappreciated contributor to natural pattern formation: time. In a ...

Boston, MA — Older people exposed to aircraft noise, especially at high levels, may face increased risk of being hospitalized for cardiovascular disease, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). Researchers found that, on average, zip codes with 10-decibel higher aircraft noise had a 3.5% higher cardiovascular hospital admission rate. It is the first major study to estimate the association between residential exposure to aircraft noise and cardiovascular hospitalizations, using data on ...

Augusta, Ga. - A simple video camera paired with complex algorithms appears to provide an accurate means to remotely monitor heart and respiration rates day or night, researchers report. The inexpensive method for monitoring the vital signs without touching a patient could have major implications for telemedicine, including enabling rapid detection of a heart attack or stroke occurring at home and helping avoid sudden infant death syndrome, according to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE. It also may enable untethered, more realistic monitoring of laboratory ...

A study led by Dr. Anthony Traboulsee of the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health to see whether narrowing of the veins from the brain to the heart could be a cause of multiple sclerosis has found that the condition is just as prevalent in people without the disease. The results, published in the U.K. medical journal The Lancet, call into question a controversial theory that MS is associated with a disorder proponents call chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI). The study used both ultrasound and catheter venography (an x-ray of the ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Researchers from Brown University and King's College London have gained surprising new insights into how brain anatomy influences language acquisition in young children. Their study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that the explosion of language acquisition that typically occurs in children between 2 and 4 years old is not reflected in substantial changes in brain asymmetry. Structures that support language ability tend to be localized on the left side of the brain. For that reason, the researchers expected to see ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – School cafeterias that accept only electronic payments may be inadvertently promoting junkier food and adding empty calories to students' diets, say Cornell behavioral economists in the current issue of the journal Obesity. Paper and videos: http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/op/debitcard To expedite long lunch lines and enable cleaner accounting, about 80 percent of schools use debit cards or accounts that parents can add money to for cafeteria lunch transactions, write David Just and Brian Wansink, co-directors of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics ...

NORTH GRAFTON, Mass. (October 8, 2013) – A recently published study suggests that exposure to social stress not only impairs a mother's ability to care for her children but can also negatively impact her daughter's ability to provide maternal care to future offspring. Researchers at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University conducted a transgenerational study with female rats, examining the behavioral and physiological changes in mothers exposed to chronic social stress early in life as a model for postpartum depression and anxiety. A different ...