Low vitamin D blood levels are linked to greater risk of heart disease in whites and Chinese, but not in blacks and Hispanics, according to a study appearing this week in JAMA, a journal published by the American Medical Association. Growing evidence has suggested that low blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin are associated with higher risk of developing coronary heart disease among whites. Few of these studies included substantial numbers of people from other races. Vitamin D levels tend to be lower among people from other racial and ethnic minority groups, and some of ...

Using a new analytical methodology--a coupled micro-computed X-ray tomography (MicroCT) and microfluidic-based electrochemical analysis--researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are gaining new insights into electrode structure-performance relationships for energy conversion and storage devices. "Electrodes play a vital role in all devices based on heterogeneous electrochemical reactions for energy conversion, energy storage, and chemical synthesis," explained Molly Jhong, a graduate student at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering ...

Rockville, Md. — Vision researchers have developed new software that will analyze visual fields in an open-source platform to improve and encourage collaborative research among independent labs. An analysis of the free tool is presented in a Journal of Vision (JOV) paper, The visualFields package: A tool for analysis and visualization of visual fields. In the paper, authors introduce and demonstrate the visualFields package, which can work separately or in conjunction with the Open Perimetry Interface — an open-source software developed by Andrew Turpin, PhD, and described ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, ILL. -- The allergist's office might not be a child's favorite place to visit, but it is a place where they should be able to say how their asthma makes them feel. While children might rely on parents to tell their doctor about how they are feeling, according to a study released today, children should do most of the talking. The study, published in the July issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), found that children with asthma report having a better quality ...

This news release is available in German. The economic crisis has put measurable pressure on birthrates in Europe over the last decade. On average, the more the unemployment rose, the greater the decrease in fertility compared to the number of children per women expected without the crisis. This is the result of a new study performed by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany. MPIDR demographers Michaela Kreyenfeld, Joshua Goldstein and Aiva Jasilioniene have just published their analysis together with Deniz Karaman Örsal of the ...

LA JOLLA, CA - Scientists studying cancer development have known about micronuclei for some time. These erratic, small extra nuclei, which contain fragments or whole chromosomes that were not incorporated into daughter cells after cell division, are associated with specific forms of cancer and are predictive of poorer prognosis. In a new study, published on July 3 in Cell, a team of scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies finds that disrupted micronuclei, which can trigger massive DNA damage on chromosomes, might play an even more active role in carcinogenesis ...

Relationship problems can keep us awake at night. But new research from UC Berkeley suggests that sleepless nights also can worsen lovers' fights. UC Berkeley psychologists Amie Gordon and Serena Chen have found that people are much more likely to lash out at their romantic partners over relationship tensions after a bad night's sleep. "Couples who fight more are less happy and less healthy," said Gordon, a doctoral student in psychology and lead author of the study published online in the journal, Social Psychological and Personality Science. "Our research helps ...

Global atmospheric change, stagnation of yield increases, uncertain societal acceptance, and government policies are some of the greatest barriers to meeting the growing demand for food, feed and fuel from our major crops, said guest lecturer Stephen Long at the 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and World Food Prize Foundation (WFPF) Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture on June 25 in Washington, D.C. Biotechnology and new sustainable bioenergy crops will be imperative to overcome these challenges, said Long, a Gutgesell Endowed Professor ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- The U.S. News & World Report graduate school rankings inspire discussion and marketing, but do they actually reflect quality differences between schools when it comes to medical education in primary care? Researchers at the UC Davis School of Medicine are believed to be the first to take on that question by analyzing the primary care rankings from 2009 through 2012, reconstructing scores and proposing alternative measurements. Their findings are published online now, ahead of the August 13 print issue of the journal Academic Medicine. Printed ...

University of Adelaide researchers have developed a new nanomaterial that could help reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power stations. The new nanomaterial, described in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, efficiently separates the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from nitrogen, the other significant component of the waste gas released by coal-fired power stations. This would allow the carbon dioxide to be separated before being stored, rather than released to the atmosphere. "A considerable amount of Australia's – and the world's – carbon dioxide ...

UC Davis MIND Institute researchers have identified the specific antibodies that target fetal brain proteins in the blood of a subset of women whose children are diagnosed with autism. The finding is the first to pinpoint a specific risk factor for a significant subset of autism cases, as well as a biomarker for drug development and early diagnosis. The researchers have named autism related to these antibodies "Maternal Autoantibody-Related," or MAR autism. The study found that the mothers of children with autism were more than 21 times as likely to have the specific ...

Researchers with the UC Davis MIND Institute have found that prenatal exposure to specific combinations of antibodies found only in mothers of children with autism leads to changes in the brain that adversely affect behavior and development. The researchers said that the highly specific immunoglobulin-G (IgG) autoantibodies cross the placenta during pregnancy to impact fetal brain development, resulting in a form of autism that the researchers now are calling maternal antibody-related (MAR) autism. The researchers said that MAR autism cases could represent as much as ...

Each year in the United States, cats deposit about 1.2 million metric tons of feces into the environment, and that poop is carrying with it what may be a vast and underappreciated public health problem, say scientists July 9 in the journal Trends in Parasitology, a Cell Press publication. Some of that poop is laden with an infectious parasite known as Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan that has recently caused toxoplasmosis epidemics in otherwise healthy people, not just in pregnant women or people with immune deficiencies. Additional concerns have been raised by studies ...

ANN ARBOR –While record numbers of hospitals and doctors participate in electronic health information exchange efforts, which enable medical histories to follow patients as they move between healthcare providers, the long-term success of these programs is in question. That's according to a new national survey of health information exchange organizations led by a University of Michigan researcher. Health information exchange efforts come into play primarily when patients switch doctors or are admitted to a hospital. Because they give doctors access to patients' medical ...

London -- Women who give birth to multiple babies following IVF treatment are at a higher risk of breast cancer than those giving birth to singletons or who remain childless. Dutch investigators from the Omega study group said the explanation may not be the multiple pregnancy per se but a maternal trait related to a higher implantation potential and to breast cancer itself. Although the results were derived from a large nationwide cohort study, the investigators emphasise that the findings should next be replicated in further studies and that presently there is no reason ...

London, 9 July 2013: An analysis of almost 10,000 first cycles of egg donation treatment at one of Europe's largest IVF centres shows that female obesity reduces the receptivity of the uterus to embryo implantation and thereby compromises reproductive outcome. The investigators report that excess female weight "impairs human reproduction" and that "the reduction of uterine receptivity is one of the mechanisms involved". As a result they advise weight reduction before pregnancy in any type of conception, including ovum donation. The study is presented today at the ...

London, 9 July 2013: Children born as a result of assisted reproduction (ART) are at no greater risk of cancer than children born spontaneously in the general population, according to results of one of the largest ever cohort studies of ART children. "This is reassuring news for couples considering assisted conception, their subsequent children, fertility specialists and for the wider public health," said the investigators. Results of the study were presented today at the annual meeting of ESHRE by Dr Carrie Williams from the Institute of Child Health, University ...

London, 9 July 2013: Shift work, which encourages sleep deprivation and patterns of activity outside the circadian rhythm, has been associated with a greater risk of ill health and loss of well-being in some (but not all) studies.(1) However, little is known about the effects of shift work on reproductive health and fertility. Now, a study reported today at the annual meeting of ESHRE, by Dr Linden Stocker from the University of Southampton, UK, indicates that working shift patterns is associated with an increased risk of menstrual disruption and subfertility. The ...

London, 9 July 2013: Egg freezing as insurance against age-related infertility is a growing trend in many countries. Women who bank oocytes for use at some time in the future hope to buy a little time in their search for a suitable partner. However, a study from one of Europe's largest centres in reproductive medicine suggests that many of those banking eggs believe they will never use them - even though they still recognise the experience as "positive". The majority of those who did (and did not) freeze their eggs wished they had done so at an earlier age. The study ...

By studying rapidly evolving bacteria as they diversify and compete under varying environmental conditions, researchers have shown that temporal niches are important to maintaining biodiversity in natural systems. The research is believed to be the first experimental demonstration of temporal niche dynamics promoting biodiversity over evolutionary time scales. The temporal niches – changes in environmental conditions that occur during specific periods of time – promoted frequency-dependent selection within the bacterial communities and positive growth of new mutants. ...

Genetic mutations aren't the only thing that can keep a protein called PTEN from doing its tumor-suppressing job. Johns Hopkins researchers have now discovered that four small chemical tags attached (reversibly) to the protein's tail can have the same effect, and they say their finding may offer a novel path for drug design to keep PTEN working. In a report published on July 9 in the journal eLife, the Johns Hopkins scientists describe how a cluster of four phosphate groups, first found 13 years ago to bind to PTEN's tail, controls its activity. "Now that we know ...

The most common thing that couples want from each other during a conflict is not an apology, but a willingness to relinquish power, according to a new Baylor University study. Giving up power comes in many forms, among them giving a partner more independence, admitting faults, showing respect and being willing to compromise. The study is published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. "It's common for partners to be sensitive to how to share power and control when making decisions in their relationship," said researcher Keith Sanford, Ph.D., an associate professor ...

AUSTIN, Texas — In a development that will help predict potential sea level rise from the Antarctic ice sheet, scientists from The University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics have used an innovation in radar analysis to accurately image the vast subglacial water system under West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier. They have detected a swamp-like canal system beneath the ice that is several times as large as Florida's Everglades. The findings, as described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, use new observational techniques to address ...

University of British Columbia researchers have developed a vaccine that may halt the spread of West Nile Virus (WNV) among common and endangered bird species. WNV, a mosquito borne pathogen, arrived in North America in 1999 and is now endemic across the continent. In 2012 alone, WNV killed 286 people in the United States, and 42 people have died from the virus in Canada since 2002. There is currently no effective vaccine against WNV infection in humans or birds. Common birds such as crows, ravens and jays, and endangered species such as the Greater Sage-Grouse and ...

In the constant cross talk between our brain and our gut, two gut hormones are already known to tell the brain when we have had enough to eat. New research suggests that boosting levels of these hormones simultaneously may be an effective new weapon in the fight against obesity. Dr Shu Lin, Dr Yan-Chuan Shi and Professor Herbert Herzog, from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, have shown that when mice are injected with PYY3-36 and PP, they eat less, gain less fat, and tend not to develop insulin-resistance, a precursor to diabetes. At the same time, the researchers ...