Individuals with a mutation in the gene encoding a zinc transporter, SLC30A8 have an elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Insulin granules that are released from pancreatic β cells contain high levels of zinc; however, it is not clear why individuals with mutations in the SLC30A8 zinc transporter gene are predisposed to type 2 diabetes. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Yoshio Fujitani and colleagues at Juntendo University investigated the role of zinc transport by SLC30A8 in β cells. They found that this zinc transporter is required ...

Moths in northern Finland are less susceptible to rising temperatures than expected, suggesting high latitude moth populations around the world may be partly buffered from the effects of rapid climate warming, according to a new Dartmouth-Finnish study based on the most extensive analyses yet conducted of seasonal patterns in forest animals. The results are important because moths are a key food source for birds, bats and many other predators, and (in their caterpillar stage) are one of the planet's most abundant plant-eating animals and most voracious agricultural pests. ...

Charlottesville, VA (September 24, 2013). Recent scientific findings have raised the fear that young athletes may fare worse after sustaining a sports-related concussion than older athletes. Researchers from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine compared symptoms associated with concussion in middle/high school–age athletes with those in college-age athletes to determine whether age-related differences exist. These researchers found no significant differences between the two age groups in the number or severity of sports-related concussion symptoms or in the amount of ...

Cuckoo finches that lay more than one egg in their victims' nests have a better chance of bamboozling host parents into fostering their parasitic young, a study has found. Dr Martin Stevens from the University of Exeter and Dr Claire Spottiswoode from the University of Cambridge, with Dr Jolyon Troscianko at the University of Exeter, demonstrated that when African cuckoo finch females lay more than one egg in the same nest of their African tawny-flanked prinia hosts, the foster parents find it harder to tell their own eggs from the imposter's. The host is therefore ...

This news release is available in German. Jülich, 24 September 2013 – Magnetic molecules are regarded as promising functional units for the future of information processing. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Jülich and Aachen were the first to produce particularly robust magnetic molecules that enable a direct electrical readout of magnetic information. This was made possible by selecting the rare earth metal neodymium as the central building block of the molecule. The team's research findings were published online today in the renowned journal Nature ...

Atlanta, September 24, 2013—Early-stage breast cancer patients who receive external beam therapy (XRT) are not at higher risk for serious long-term side effects in the chest area, including increase in deaths from cardiac disease and secondary malignancies, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting. The study utilized patient information from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. It evaluated women identified as having primary Stage T1aN0 breast ...

A drug that appears to target specific intestinal bacteria in the guts of mice may create a chain reaction that could eventually lead to new treatments for obesity and diabetes in humans, according to a team of researchers. Mice fed a high-fat diet and provided tempol, an anti-oxidant drug that may help protect people from the effects of radiation, were significantly less obese than those that did not receive the drug, according to Andrew Patterson, assistant professor of molecular toxicology, Penn State, who worked with Frank J. Gonzalez, laboratory metabolism chief, ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Sulfasalazine, a drug commonly prescribed to reduce diarrhea in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, does not reduce diarrhea in patients receiving radiation therapy for cancers in the pelvic area a Mayo Clinic-led study has found. The study also found that the medication may be associated with a higher risk of diarrhea than a placebo when used during radiation therapy to the pelvis. The results were presented today at the American Society of Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting in Atlanta. "Patients receiving radiation therapy ...

WASHINGTON D.C. Sept. 24, 2013 -- The dream of igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth, is getting closer to becoming reality, according the authors of a new review article in the journal Physics of Plasmas. Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) engaged in a collaborative project led by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report that while there is at least one significant obstacle to overcome before achieving the highly stable, precisely directed ...

September 24, 2013 - A survey conducted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows that a majority of those underage students in Ontario, Canada who smoke or drink are getting cigarettes and alcohol from a friend or family member. Among students in Grades 7-12 who smoked cigarettes, 58 per cent say they received their last cigarette from a friend or family member, while 19 per cent report getting them from a corner store, grocery store, gas station, or bar. Twenty-six per cent of males surveyed said they were more likely to obtain cigarettes from sources ...

LOS ANGELES (Sept. 24, 2013) – A new study of patients who died of sudden cardiac arrest, a usually fatal condition that causes the heart to stop beating, shows the majority who qualified to receive potentially lifesaving treatment did not receive it. Researchers led by Sumeet Chugh, MD, associate director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, examined medical records of 2,093 patients who died of sudden cardiac arrest and found that only 488 patients, or about 20 percent, were medically evaluated to see if they met the criteria to receive an implantable cardiac defibrillator, ...

Young adults in Greece suffer more from stress and mental health problems and are less optimistic about the future than Swedes of the same age. The grave financial problems in Greece have brought on a social crisis that has probably affected people's health, according to a study from Linköping University. In the study, recently published in the scientific journal PLOS One, groups of students at Athens University and Linköping University replied to questions about their health and perceived stress. The results show that in every respect, the Greek students reported poorer ...

The medical treatment of horses requires not only specialized knowledge but also specialized equipment. Horses' lungs are large and when they breathe horses take in a correspondingly large volume of air. It is not easy to supply this in an emergency. Suitable respirators are available in hospitals but are not always there when they are needed, for example in the barn, in the pasture, in the woods, during transport or at other places where emergencies can and do occur. A bellows to inflate lungs Yves Moens is Head of the Vetmeduni's Clinical Unit of Anaesthesiology ...

It was previously thought that the two test methods signalled the same type of asthma. But a new study, led by researchers at Uppsala University, Sweden, shows that the methods actually signal two different inflammatory processes. With the tests used in combination, the chances are probably greater for the patient to receive just the right treatment. The study is being published in the October issue of Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Measurement of the concentration of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) is today a routine clinical method for determining the degree ...

The radar on NASA and JAXA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite saw Typhoon Usagi maintaining some of its inner-core structure an hour before landfall on Sept. 22, 2013. The data was used to create an image that showed the 3-D regions of heavy precipitation hiding under the circular cloud cover near Usagi's center of rotation. While the light precipitation regions had lost the appearance of organization, the heavy precipitation regions showed what appeared to be a ~50 km/31.0 mile-radius eye wall, with multiple rain bands further away from the center. ...

New research could improve the welfare standards of millions of fish used by scientists around the world. The study, published in PLOS ONE, is one of the first to formally assess the welfare implications of anaesthetics on fish. Researchers use fish to study the developmental origins of health and disease. The work, carried out in collaboration between the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences and AstraZeneca Brixham Environmental Laboratory, investigated whether scientists are using the right anaesthetics and if current best practice for fish could ...

This news release is available in German. Leipzig. Noise from traffic and artificial night lighting cause birds in the city centre to become active up to five hours earlier in the morning than birds in more natural areas. These were the findings from an investigation conducted on 400 blackbirds in Leipzig by the interdisciplinary research group "Loss of the Night". Scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) reported in the open-access journal PLOS ONE that these findings showed how ambient noise and light pollution caused by humans have ...

Hardly a spectroscopic method boasts so many different applications as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, better known as "NMR". The approach of NMR spectroscopy is based on monitoring the so-called nuclear spin, namely the angular momentum of atoms, or, more precisely: the magnetic moment associated with them. The atom thus becomes a bar magnet, whose axis is aligned within a magnetic field but is otherwise arbitrarily oriented within its environment. The alignment can be altered by applying electromagnetic radiation in the radio wavelength, typically at several ...

A simple measurement of the sweat gland activity of a depressed person can determine if he or she is suicidal – with 97 per cent accuracy. Now another large clinical study confirms the correlation. Blood pressure, blood circulation and activity in the sweat glands of the fingers can reveal if a person is suicidal. "The results are so strong that I'm astonished", says Lars-Håkan Thorell, associate professor in experimental psychiatry at Linköping University, one of the researchers behind the study. "We can determine very accurately whether a person risks committing suicide, ...

BOSTON (Sept. 24, 2013) – Retinal (or fundus) photography is an essential part of any ophthalmology practice. Commercial fundus cameras can cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, making the technology out of reach for smaller ophthalmic practices and to physicians in third-world countries. In a recent study now on line, Massachusetts Eye and Ear researchers describe the relatively simple technique of fundus photography in human and rabbit eyes using a smartphone, an inexpensive app for the smartphone, and instruments that are readily available in an ophthalmic practice. Smartphones ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres (JGR-D), Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth (JGR-B) and Paleoceanography. In this release: 1. Statistically linking extreme precipitation to global warming 2. The mixed mechanisms of large-earthquake nucleation 3. Evaluating solutions to the faint young Sun problem 4. Updated ice core record captures Industrial Era carbon variability 5. Mechanism could explain rapid, dramatic, cyclic Arctic warming 6. Reconstructing ancient ...

VIDEO: Lead author Dr. Farzan Siddiqui, a Radiation Oncologist at Henry Ford Hospital, says the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s led to an increased transmission and infection HPV, which... Click here for more information. DETROIT – The human papillomavirus (HPV) may be to blame for the alarming increase of young adults with oropharyngeal cancer, according to researchers from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The study reveals an overall 60 percent increase from 1973 ...

DETROIT – A highly targeted cancer radiation therapy may offer a safe and effective treatment option for elderly pancreatic cancer patients unable to undergo surgery or combined chemotherapy and radiation therapy, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Called stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), the study finds patients lived, on average, six to seven months longer following treatment with minimal side-effects even when they had other severe comorbidities such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease and diabetes. Two of ...

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have identified and validated two rare gene mutations that appear to cause the common form of Alzheimer's disease (AD) that strikes after the age of 60. The two mutations occur in a gene called ADAM10 – coding for an enzyme involved in processing the amyloid precursor protein – which now becomes the second pathologically-confirmed gene for late-onset AD and the fifth AD gene overall. In their report, which will appear in the October 16 issue of Neuron and has been released online, the investigators from the MassGeneral ...

VIDEO: The Western University research led by Robarts Research Institute scientist Robert Gros, Ph.D., found the heart is regulated not only by nervous systems but also by heart cells sending messages... Click here for more information. New research from Western University (London, Canada) is leading to a better understanding of what happens during heart failure; knowledge that could lead to better therapeutics or a more accurate predictor of risk. The research led by Robarts ...