New Rochelle, NY, August 26, 2013—New classes of therapeutic antisense oligonucleotides can have toxic effects on the liver. A novel machine learning-based approach used to predict the hepatotoxic potential of an antisense drug based on its chemical sequence is presented in Nucleic Acid Therapeutics, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers. The article is available on the Nucleic Acid Therapeutics website. Peter Hagedorn and coauthors from Santaris Pharma, Hørsholm, Denmark, and University of Copenhagen, Denmark, describe the use of machine learning ...

Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) is a cancer of the white blood cells that is most commonly found in adults and in the elderly. Its incidence has been estimated to be 1 to 2 in 100,000 people. CML was the first cancer to be associated with a genetic abnormality, known as the Philadelphia Chromosome, which 95% of all CML patients carry in their cells. The Philadelphia Chromosome is formed by exchanges of material belonging to two distinct chromosomes, number 9 and number 22. To form the Philadelphia Chromosome, these two chromosomes break at very specific places, disrupting ...

KNOXVILLE—Two Tennessee high school students have now done what many scientists strive for: publishing their research in a top science journal. Dalton Chaffee and Hayes Griffin worked with mentor R. Tucker Gilman, a former postdoctoral research fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to study mate choice. Their work was published this week in the journal Evolution. The students began their research between their junior and senior years at Bearden High School in Knoxville. They wanted ...

Like volunteers handing out cups of energy drinks to marathon runners, specially engineered "helper cells" transplanted along with stem cells can dole out growth factors to increase the stem cells' endurance, at least briefly, Johns Hopkins researchers report. Their study, published in the September issue of Experimental Neurology, is believed to be the first to test the helper-cell tactic, which they hope will someday help to overcome a major barrier to successful stem cell transplants. "One of the bottlenecks with stem cell therapy is the survival of cells once they're ...

A strategy that combines two effective colorectal cancer screening methods, fecal immunological test and colonoscopy, may improve prevention and detection of colorectal cancer and reduce costs, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (CGH), the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. The study used a simulation model to test a hybrid screening strategy consisting of annual or biennial fecal immunological test at younger ages (50 to 65 years of age), combined with a single colonoscopy when the patient ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- All living things must obey the laws of physics — including the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the universe's disorder, or entropy, can only grow. Highly ordered cells and organisms appear to contradict this principle, but they actually do conform because they generate heat that increases the universe's overall entropy. Still, questions remain: What is the theoretical threshold for how much heat a living cell must generate to fulfill its thermodynamic constraints? And how closely do cells approach that limit? In a recent paper in the ...

PITTSBURGH, Aug, 27, 2013 – Even with access to health care, African-American women are less likely to receive the vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), which reduces the risk for cervical cancer, according to a study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The findings, published today in the Journal of Adolescent Health, suggest a need for health care providers to both bolster HPV vaccination recommendations and address negative attitudes toward the vaccine among this vulnerable patient population. HPV is a sexually transmitted infection ...

From Inciweb.org: Fire crews had their hands full with very active fire behavior today. Near Duckwall Ridge, the fire spotted across the line with crews working to control the spot. The fire also crossed the 3N01 road in Reynolds Creek, prompting an expansion of the evacuation advisory in the Highway 108 corridor. Fire crews also were working to contain a spot fire in the southeast portion of the fire as it crossed to the south of Highway 120 at Ackerson Flat. Firefighters were successful in completing dozer line below Pilot Ridge, effectively slowing the fires spread in ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Supervolcanoes, such as the one sitting dormant under Yellowstone National Park, are capable of producing eruptions thousands of times more powerful than normal volcanic eruptions. While they only happen every several thousand years, these eruptions have the potential to kill millions of people and animals due to the massive amount of heat and ash they release into the atmosphere. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have shown that the ash produced by supervolcanoes can be so hot that it has the ability to turn back into lava once it hits the ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – August 27, 2013 – Women undergoing treatment for breast cancer are widely prescribed calcium and vitamin D supplements to prevent and manage osteoporosis, an unwanted side effect of breast cancer therapies. However, new research from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center finds that the recommended daily doses of these supplements may not prevent loss of bone mineral density (BMD) in these women. Study author Gary G. Schwartz, Ph.D., a cancer epidemiologist at Wake Forest Baptist, said the purpose of the study was to examine whether a seemingly common ...

Widespread wildfires are lighting up Indonesia, but these fires were not started accidentally. These fires were set deliberately to clear land for palm oil companies. This type of "slash-and-burn" agricultural has been used for centuries to clear land for new planting, however, the setting of such fires is now illegal in Indonesia. That doesn't seem to be stopping plantation owners from continuing this practice. The Huffington Post reports that Laurel Sutherlin of the Rainforest Action Network, a San Francisco-based environmental organization sent the paper an email ...

BOWLING GREEN, O. -- Interval training is a well-known way to get the maximum benefits of exercise in the shortest amount of time. New research shows that when it comes to running, women may get more out of high intensity interval training (HIIT) than their male counterparts. "Sex-specific Responses to Interval Training" was conducted by Drs. Matt Laurent and Matt Kutz, Human Movement, Sport and Leisure Studies at Bowling Green State University; Lauren Vervaecke, Division of Applied Physiology, University of South Carolina; and Dr. Matt Green, Department of Health, Physical ...

This news release is available in Spanish. More than three-quarters of Hispanics patients in North Carolina aren't performing skin self-exams (SSE) to detect possible skin cancers, and physicians need to do a better job of educating their patients about this potentially life-saving practice, say researchers in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Study results were reported earlier this year in the Research Letters section of the Archives of Dermatology. "We know that the rates of melanoma, one of the deadliest skin cancers, ...

Young footballers on the verge of becoming professionals are now much more likely to be supportive of gay teammates than a decade ago, according to new research from sociologists at the universities of Kent and Winchester. Conducted via interviews with 22 Premier League academy footballers aged 16-18, the research found that all the participants would openly accept one of their colleagues coming out. The research, led by Dr Steven Roberts, of the University of Kent's School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, and Professor Eric Anderson, of the University ...

Washington, DC—Researchers from Children's National Medical Center have found that an alternate, "escape" replication process triggered by apoptosis—the process of cell death or "cell suicide"—appears to be common in human herpesviruses (HHV). The findings have implications for better understanding of viruses and of disease conditions and treatments, like chemotherapy, that stimulate apoptosis. The study was published online, ahead of print, in the Journal of Virology. HHV are linked to a range of childhood and adult diseases, including chickenpox, mononucleosis, roseola, ...

Tampa, FL (August 27, 2013) -- University of South Florida Distinguished Professor Benjamin Djulbegovic, MD, PhD, has studied the ethics of randomized clinical trials and their effectiveness in evaluating the outcomes of new treatments for decades. Now, in a paper published Aug. 22 in the top journal Nature, Dr. Djulbegovic and colleagues report that on average new treatments work better than existing ones just over half the time. On scientific and ethical grounds, they say, the randomized controlled trial (RCT) system's little more than 50-50 success rate over the past ...

Hamilton, ON (August 27, 2013) – Although up to 500,000 people world-wide die of severe influenza each year, there has been no clear evidence about who is susceptible for influenza complications and it may not be who people think, says a study from McMaster University. This is important because issues during past influenza seasons and pandemics have included vaccine shortage; the time needed to develop vaccines for specific influenza strains and which groups are first in line for vaccination. New mothers and obese people, two groups not typically regarded as risk groups, ...

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found a specific protein in nearly 100 percent of high-grade meningiomas -- the most common form of brain tumor -- suggesting a new target for therapies for a cancer that does not respond to current chemotherapy. Importantly, the investigators say, the protein -- NY-ESO-1 -- is already at the center of a clinical trial underway at the National Cancer Institute. That trial is designed to activate the immune systems of patients with other types of tumors that express the protein, training the body to attack the cancer and eradicate ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- In the Midwest, people have a fear of encountering snapping turtles while swimming in local ponds, lakes and rivers. Now in a new study, a University of Missouri researcher has found that snapping turtles are surviving in urban areas as their natural habitats are being polluted or developed for construction projects. One solution is for people to stop using so many chemicals that are eventually dumped into the waterways, the scientist said. "Snapping turtles are animals that can live in almost any aquatic habitat as long as their basic needs for survival ...

University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher. Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco's finger to move on a keyboard. While researchers at Duke University have demonstrated brain-to-brain communication between two rats, and Harvard researchers have ...

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) analyzed more than 50,000 home sales near 67 wind facilities in 27 counties across nine U.S. states, yet was unable to uncover any impacts to nearby home property values. "This is the second of two major studies we have conducted on this topic [the first was published in 2009, see below], and in both studies [using two different datasets] we find no statistical evidence that operating wind turbines have had any measurable impact on home sales prices," says Ben Hoen, the lead author of the new report. Hoen is a researcher ...

NASA satellite imagery on Aug. 27 showed that wind shear was having an effect on the thunderstorms in Tropical Storm Kong-Rey's northern quadrant. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Kong-Rey on Aug. 27 at 0515 UTC/1:15 a.m. EDT and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer took a visible image of the storm. The imagery showed that the northern quadrant of the storm had the weakest area of thunderstorm development as a result of northeasterly wind shear, while the southern and western quadrants had strong thunderstorms. Wind shear is expected to relax ...

Tropical moisture continued to stream over eastern Mexico on Aug. 27, from the remnants of former Tropical Storm Fernand. NASA's TRMM satellite captured the moisture-laden Tropical Storm Fernand after it made landfall and was dropping rainfall at a rate of 2 inches/50 mm per hour. On Aug. 27 at 10:32 EDT, radar data from Mexico showed rainfall streaming in from near the city of Tampico on the Gulf of Mexico, to the west and northwest. Areas including Ebano and Panuco were experiencing heavy rainfall at the time. The center of Fernand's remnants were near 20.6 north latitude ...

The fact that taller people also tend to be slightly smarter is due in roughly equal parts to two phenomena—the same genes affect both traits and taller people are more likely than average to mate with smarter people and vice versa—according to a study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. The study did not find that environmental factors contributed to the connection between being taller and being smarter, both traits that people tend to find attractive. The modest correlation between height and IQ has been documented in multiple studies stretching back to the ...

A new type of defibrillator implanted under the skin can detect dangerously abnormal heart rhythms and deliver shocks to restore a normal heartbeat without wires touching the heart, according to research in the American Heart Association journal, Circulation. The subcutaneous implantable cardiac defibrillator (S-ICD®) includes a lead placed under the skin along the left side of the breast bone. Traditional implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) include electrical conducting wires inserted into blood vessels that touch the heart. ICDs can greatly reduce the risk of ...