A new UCLA-led study shows that a blood test commonly used to determine whether heart transplant recipients are rejecting their new organ can also predict potential rejection-related problems in the future. Reporting in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Transplantation, researchers demonstrate how the AlloMap test, which uses a blood sample to measure changes in the expression of roughly a dozen genes, can be used over a period of time to assess the risk of dysfunction or rejection of a transplanted heart — months before such an event may occur. "For ...

This news release is available in German. An almost infinite number of complex and interlinked reactions take place in a biological cell. In order to be able to better investigate these networks, scientists led by Professor Friedrich Simmel, Chair of Systems Biophysics and Nano Biophysics at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) try to replicate them with the necessary components in a kind of artificial cell. This is also motivated by the thought of one day using such single-cell systems for example as "nanofactories" for the production of complex organic substances ...

By 2020, nearly 80 million people are expected to have glaucoma, a disorder of the eye that, if left untreated, can damage the optic nerve and eventually lead to blindness. The disease often causes pressure in the eye due to a buildup of fluid and a breakdown of the tissue that is responsible for regulating fluid drainage. Doctors commonly treat glaucoma using eye drops that can help the eye drain or decrease fluid production. Unfortunately, patients frequently have a hard time sticking to the dosing schedules prescribed by their doctors, and the medication — when ...

As winter turns to spring and many Northern Californians plan outdoor adventures, a mysterious, potentially debilitating threat looms. A newly recognized human pathogen with unknown health consequences has been found to occur over a large part of the San Francisco Bay Area. A study to be published in the March issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Disease details how researchers including Dan Salkeld, a research associate at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, found the bacterium, Borrelia miyamotoi, as well as Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that ...

VIDEO: This video shows a female wasp marked with pink paint that was a recently accepted non-nestmate who became a subordinate worker. A resident female flies in and forces the newly... Click here for more information. Coral Gables, Fla. (Feb. 17, 2014) -- Ants, wasps and humans live in highly complex societies. Our organizations share some basic features of group life, like individuals trying to find the balance between cooperation and conflict. Understanding what factors are ...

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 18, 2014 — UC Irvine researchers have found a specific genetic flaw that is connected to sudden death due to heart arrhythmia – a leading cause of mortality for adults around the world. While a number of genes have been linked with arrhythmias, UC Irvine's Geoffrey Abbott and his colleagues discovered that the functional impairment of a gene called KCNE2 underlies a multisystem syndrome that affects both heart rhythm and blood flow and can activate chemical triggers that can cause sudden cardiac death. "With these findings, we can now explore improved ...

Online shoppers are accustomed to viewing consumer products in 360 degrees. Now RealeyeZ3D is taking the power of RealHD to the next level. Their new product, RealHD MooV, offers moving features that are not available elsewhere in video or 3D marketing and merchandising. "RealHD Moov uses the MPEG-4 movie format," says company founder and CEO, Ofer Rubin. "It is compatible with Apple and all other platforms and responsive to all screen sizes. Together with its new scalability. It will look like retailers spent tens of thousands of dollars on high-end TV ...

Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have tested a new approach to fabricating spin valves. Using ion beams, the researchers have succeeded in structuring an iron aluminium alloy in such a way as to subdivide the material into individually magnetizable regions at the nanometer scale. The prepared alloy is thus able to function as a spin valve, which is of great interest as a candidate component for use in spintronics. Not only does this technology use electron charge for purposes of information storage and processing, it also draws on its inherent ...

BLOOMINGTON -- A new Indiana University study that examines the brain activity of alcohol-dependent women compared to women who were not addicted found stark and surprising differences, leading to intriguing questions about brain network functions of addicted women as they make risky decisions about when and what to drink. The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to study differences between patterns of brain network activation in the two groups of women. The findings indicate that the anterior insular region of the brain may be implicated in the ...

Without administering a simple blood test in the first few days after surgery, 85 percent of the heart attacks or injuries patients suffer could be missed, according to a study in the March issue of Anesthesiology. Globally, more than 8 million adults have heart attacks or injuries after surgery every year, and 10 percent of those patients die within 30 days. The study suggests a new diagnosis, Myocardial Injury after Noncardiac Surgery (MINS), would be useful to physicians because of its broader definition from what is traditionally used to diagnose heart attacks now. ...

Two types of regional anesthesia do not make patients more prone to falls in the first days after having knee replacement surgery as some have previously suggested, according to a study based on nearly 200,000 patient records in the March issue of Anesthesiology. Regional forms of anesthesia – spinal or epidural (neuraxial) anesthesia and peripheral nerve blocks (PNB) – which only numb the area of the body that requires surgery, provide better pain control and faster rehabilitation and fewer complications than general anesthesia, research shows. But some surgeons avoid ...

Overweight and obese people who feel their physicians are judgmental of their size are more likely to try to shed pounds but are less likely to succeed, according to results of a study by Johns Hopkins researchers. The findings, reported online last week in the journal Preventive Medicine, suggest that primary care doctors should lose the negative attitudes their patients can sense if the goal is to get patients with obesity to lose 10 percent or more of their body weight — an amount typically large enough to reduce blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes risk. "Negative ...

PRINCETON, N.J.—Tubal ligation – commonly referred to as having one's "tubes tied" – is widely used to prevent unintended pregnancies. However, current Medicaid policies create roadblocks for low-income women trying to obtain the procedure, according to a review written by researchers at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School and other U.S. institutions. Under a Medicaid rule enacted in 1978, women must currently wait 30 days after signing a written consent form to obtain a tubal ligation. This requirement is prohibitive for many women who want to receive the ...

New Rochelle, NY, February 18, 2014—New evidence that chronic intake of THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, can protect critical immune tissue in the gut from the damaging effects of HIV infection is reported in AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses website at http://www.liebertpub.com/aid. Patricia Molina and coauthors from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, report that chronic THC administration ...

Although low temperature fuel cells powered by methanol or hydrogen have been well studied, existing low temperature fuel cell technologies cannot directly use biomass as a fuel because of the lack of an effective catalyst system for polymeric materials. Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new type of low-temperature fuel cell that directly converts biomass to electricity with assistance from a catalyst activated by solar or thermal energy. The hybrid fuel cell can use a wide variety of biomass sources, including starch, cellulose, ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass. —A Navy-sponsored project to design a biologically inspired, swimming jellyfish robot has led scientists to the surprising discovery of common bending rules for the tips of wings, fins, flukes, mollusk feet, and other propulsors across a broad range of animal species. The study, led by John H. Costello of Providence College and the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, where he is a visiting scientist, is published this week in Nature Communications. By studying videos of 59 different animals—from fruit flies to humpback whales—propelling ...

Researchers have developed the technology for a catheter-based device that would provide forward-looking, real-time, three-dimensional imaging from inside the heart, coronary arteries and peripheral blood vessels. With its volumetric imaging, the new device could better guide surgeons working in the heart, and potentially allow more of patients' clogged arteries to be cleared without major surgery. The device integrates ultrasound transducers with processing electronics on a single 1.4 millimeter silicon chip. On-chip processing of signals allows data from more than a ...

Recent deaths in both Canada and the UK linked to PMA/PMMA in ecstasy pills has brought public scrutiny to this little known drug. With Canadian producing most of the ecstasy in the North American market, this timely paper (Ecstasy, legal highs and designer drug use: A Canadian perspective) published this week in Drug Science Policy and Law looks at trends in ecstasy adulteration, the facts around PMA/PMMA-linked deaths and explores alternatives to the endless banning of new drugs. It finds: In 2007, according to the Health Canada Drug Analysis Service, only 3% of seized ...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18, 2014—For futuristic applications like wearable body sensors and robotic skin, researchers need to ferry information along flexible routes. Electronics that bend and stretch have become possible in recent years, but similar work in the field of optics – communicating with light instead of electrons – has lagged behind. Particularly difficult to engineer have been optics that stretch, lengthening when someone wearing body sensors bends to tie their shoe, or when a robotic arm twists through a full range of motion. Now a team of Belgian researchers reports ...

In the age of mashups, fan fiction and content sharing, online media creation has spurred new complexities in copyright, effectively turning the legal concept of "fair use" on its ear, according to a new study from Georgia Tech. Research into fan fiction and other types of remix communities reveals many legal misconceptions persistent among different groups when applying copyrighted work to their own creations. The research also highlights online social norms – independent of actual law – that guide the use of copyrighted works in fan communities. For the study, Georgia ...

CLEMSON, S.C. — Clemson University researchers have developed nanoparticles that can deliver drugs targeting damaged arteries, a non-invasive method to fight heart disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One of the standard ways to treat clogged and damaged arteries currently is to implant vascular stents, which hold the vessels open and release such drugs as paclitaxel. The researchers, led by Clemson bioengineering professor Naren Vyavahare, hope their advanced nanoparticles could ...

VIDEO: Discrimination against transgender people -- as many as one million Americans identify themselves as transgender -- should immediately be addressed by the medical establishment, backed by policy change at the... Click here for more information. DETROIT – Discrimination against transgender people –as many as one million Americans identify themselves as transgender – should immediately be addressed by the medical establishment, backed by policy change at the national ...

Researchers at Warwick Medical School have shown that frequently moving schools during childhood can increase the risk of psychotic symptoms in later years. The study, published in the Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, found that school mobility during childhood heightens the risk of developing psychotic-like symptoms in early adolescence by up to 60%. Suffering from psychotic-like symptoms at young age is strongly associated with mental health problems in adulthood, including psychotic disorders and suicide. Professor Swaran Singh, ...

"How do I know that the new installed app behaves as described?" asks Andreas Zeller, professor of software engineering at Saarland University. So far experts have identified so-called malicious apps by checking their behavior against patterns of known attacks. "But what if the attack is brand-new?" asks Zeller. His group seems to have found a new method to answer all these questions. Zeller summarizes the basic idea as follows: "Apps whose functionality is described in the app store should behave accordingly. If that is not the case, they are suspect." His research ...

Several of Hartup's paddler and free diving friends told her about seeing mantas congregating purposefully in an area where surgeonfish were spawning. Since they were able to give her an exact date, Julie was able to calculate the moon phase, which is important as many fish synchronize their spawning with the moon. Using this information she predicted when the spawning event would occur that upcoming year and was there to witness a shoal of spawning surgeonfish accompanied by a fever of mantas. Hartup's research findings not only highlight important information about ...