The American Thoracic Society has developed clinical practice guidelines to help clinicians identify and manage patients with sickle cell disease who are at increased risk for mortality from pulmonary hypertension. "With the development of new treatments, many patients with sickle cell disease are now surviving long enough to develop pulmonary hypertension, with an estimated prevalence of 6 to 11 percent," said Elizabeth S. Klings, MD, associate professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine and chair of the committee that produced the guidelines. ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- While previous studies have suggested a connection between contagious yawning and empathy, new research from the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation finds that contagious yawning may decrease with age and is not strongly related to variables like empathy, tiredness and energy levels. The study, published March 14 in the journal PLOS ONE, is the most comprehensive look at factors influencing contagious yawning to date. The researchers said a better understanding of the biology involved in contagious yawning could ultimately shed light on illnesses ...

Providing free drinking water in schools could be key to helping people in developing countries lift themselves out of poverty according to research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). Research published today shows that schools providing clean water report fewer children off sick. It is the first study to investigate whether providing drinking water in schools can reduce absenteeism. Researchers looked at absentee rates in eight schools in Cambodia – half of which received treated drinking water, and half of which did not. The 26-week study period spanned two ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study of patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) found that treatment outcomes were better when patients received care from sleep specialists and accredited sleep centers. Results show that sleep apnea patients who received care from board certified sleep medicine physicians and accredited sleep centers were two times more likely to be adherent to positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy than those who received care from non-accredited centers and non-certified physicians. Patient satisfaction also was associated with physician certification, and ...

VIDEO: On March 14, 2014, at 1 a.m. EDT this simulated 3-D flyby of the TRMM satellite showed rain falling at the rate of over 116 mm/4.5 inches per hour (red),... Click here for more information. Heavy rainfall rates and powerful towering thunderstorms were spotted in what appeared to be the rebirth process of Tropical Cyclone Gillian in the Gulf of Carpentaria between Australia's Northern Territory and Queensland. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite called TRMM ...

LOS ANGELES – Based on a survey of parents of children with congenital heart disease, physicians delivering the diagnosis need to do a better job of showing compassion, ensuring parents understand all their options and providing easily understandable information, according to a new study published in the February edition of the journal, Pediatric Cardiology. Researchers at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed) worked with the California Heart Connection, a nonprofit organization of parents of children with congenital heart disease, to conduct an online ...

In order to move the body, skeletal muscles are pulling on the skeleton. For efficient muscle and skeletal movements it is essential that the muscle contracts only along a defined axis, for instance for the leg movement along the thigh. Such a directed contraction is achieved by the myofibrils that span through the entire length of the muscle. At both ends, the myofibrils are anchored to the tendon cells, which themselves are linked to the skeleton. "Thereby, the entire force is transduced from the muscle to the skeleton," Frank Schnorrer describes. How can the regular ...

NASA's Aqua satellite caught an infrared picture of Tropical Cyclone Lusi after it transitioned into an extra-tropical storm, north of New Zealand. Gale Warnings are in effect in Northern New Zealand. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Lusi on March 13 at 13:41 UTC/9:41 a.m. EDT and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument captured infrared data on the storm that revealed it had become a cold-core system. When a storm becomes extra-tropical and its core changes from warm to cold, the strongest winds spread out and the storm expands. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center ...

Pep-rallies, the marching band, cheers and chants, and savory, indulgent foods sold at the concession stand are all beloved features of the American high school sports tradition. In contrast to the nutrition requirements on breakfast and lunches sold in school cafeterias, foods sold at concession stands do not follow the standard nutrition guidelines because they are typically sold for fundraising purposes. Is there something that can be done to improve the healthful features of concession stand food, and preserve the profits they generate? According to this new study ...

SAN FRANCISCO, March 14, 2014 – Children and adolescents older than age 8 at the onset of type 1 diabetes had weaker brain connectivity when tested later in life relative to those who had earlier ages of diagnosis, University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences researchers discovered. The findings, presented today at the American Psychosomatic Society's annual meeting, were made by analyzing the brain scans of 44 middle-age adults diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as children. "Adolescence is a time when the brain matures and makes connections in networks responsible ...

While many overweight patients have the best intentions to lose weight after joint replacement, a study at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) finds that although some are able to achieve this goal, equal numbers of patients actually gain weight after hip or knee replacement. Researchers also determined that patients who lose weight do better in terms of function and activity level two years down the road. "Our findings represent the first report to present evidence that weight loss is associated with improved clinical outcomes, while weight gain is associated with inferior ...

According to the Southern Area Coordination Center, which monitors and coordinates response to incidents throughout the Southeast, there are currently seven large fires burning in this area of the country. Six of them are located in the state of Oklahoma and the seventh is in the Gulf area of Louisiana. These fires currently have burned over 7,600 acres. The majority of the fires on this image, though, are not wildfires, but are prescribed fires. The Chicasaw Journal of Mississippi wrote this regarding prescribed fires: "Prescribed fire, also known as controlled burning, ...

WASHINGTON (March 14, 2014) —George Washington University (GW) researchers report dramatic increases in prescriptions of opioid analgesics, such as Percocet, Vicodin, oxycodone and Dilaudid, during U.S. emergency department visits from 2001 to 2010. These findings were not explained by higher visit rates for painful conditions, which only increased modestly during the time period. This report was published today in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine. "This trend is especially concerning given dramatic increases in opioid-related overdoses and fatalities in recent ...

MADISON, Wis. – Capitalizing on the ability of an organism to evolve in response to punishment from a hostile environment, scientists have coaxed the model bacterium Escherichia coli to dramatically resist ionizing radiation and, in the process, reveal the genetic mechanisms that make the feat possible. The study, published in the online journal eLife, provides evidence that just a handful of genetic mutations give E. coli the capacity to withstand doses of radiation that would otherwise doom the microbe. The findings are important because they have implications for better ...

CHICAGO—Raspberries are among the most popular berries in the world and are high in antioxidants that offer significant health benefits to consumers. The red raspberry is most commonly used in processed products like juices, jams, jellies and preserves because of its short shelf life. A new study in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), found that the production of a mixed raspberry jelly with black and yellow raspberries could be a good alternative to just one-colored jelly. Black raspberries, which produce clusters of ...

CHICAGO—The market for gluten-free foods with functional properties is growing immensely across virtually all food categories on a global level. The need to replace wheat proteins, fibers, and minerals is very important in order to provide a better selection and more nutritious food for consumers that belong to this segment of the population. At the same time, the use of by-products of the food processing industry as a source of functional ingredients such as antioxidants, phenols, fibers and proteins is on the rise, which supports global sustainability. A team of food ...

Bethesda, Md. (March 14, 2014)—Keeping strong and physically fit is crucial to maintaining independence among the elderly. Exercise has repeatedly been shown to reduce or slow age-related declines in physical function and is a widely recommended for seniors, but the way that older people respond to exercise varies widely. A new study by Thomas W. Buford et al. examines the ACE I/D gene and whether its variations—the ID, DD, and II genotypes—impact some seniors' ability to fully reap the benefits of exercise. Researchers followed 424 sedentary, mobility-limited seniors ...

Cambridge, Mass. – March 14, 2014 – Among the taxidermal specimens in Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, past centuries-old fur coats, arises a flicker of brilliant blue. This is the spangled cotinga. Surprisingly, the cotinga is about as old as everything in the room, but its color is still as dazzling as the day it was brought to the museum. The cotinga—or rather its feathers—achieve this effect through structural color. Unlike color that we usually think of, which arises from paints and dyes absorbing certain wavelengths of light and reflecting the remainder, ...

NEW ORLEANS--More than 53,000 Americans have total shoulder joint replacement (SJR) surgery each year, and yet the effects of this surgery on a patient's ability to safely drive a vehicle, and the appropriate recovery time before patients should return to driving, have yet to be determined. In a new study, "Driving Performance after Total Shoulder Arthroplasty," presented today at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), the driving skills of 28 shoulder replacement patients, with a mean age of 65 ±10 years, were tested at four distinct ...

This news release is available in German. How does the hip joint of a crawling weevil move? A technique to record 3D X-ray films showing the internal movement dynamics in a spatially precise manner and, at the same time, in the temporal dimension has now been developed by researchers at ANKA, KIT's Synchrotron Radiation Source. The scientists applied this technique to a living weevil. From up to 100,000 two-dimensional radiographs per second, they generated complete 3D film sequences in real time or slow motion. The results are now published in the Proceedings of the ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 14, 2014) – Patient requests for specific medications—including requests for brand-name drugs spurred by direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising—have a substantial impact on doctors' prescribing decisions, suggests a study in the April issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "A patient request for a specific medication dramatically increases the rate at which physician s prescribe that medication," according to the new research led by John B. McKinlay, PhD, of New England ...

Armored spiders are medium to small species that derive their name from the complex pattern of the plates covering their abdomen strongly resembling body armor. Lurking in the darkness of caves In Southeast China, scientists discover and describe five new species of these exciting group of spiders. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. The common name armored spiders is given to the engaging family Tetrablemmidae. Distinguished by their peculiar armor-like abdominal pattern, these tropical and subtropical spiders are mainly collected from litter ...

March 14, 2014 Lebanon, NH - Dartmouth researchers have developed a novel and unique approach to treating Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), a form of blood cancer that often requires repeated chemotherapy treatments to which it grows resistant. The researchers, led by Alexey V. Danilov, MD, PhD, assistant professor at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Hematologist-Oncologist at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, modeled the lymph node microenvironment where CLL cells are found in the laboratory. They were able to disrupt the activity of a pathway (NF-kappaB) ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 14, 2014) - A technique called distraction osteogenesis can create increased length of the upper jaw in patients with cleft lip and palate deformities, reports a study in the March issue of The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, edited by Mutaz B. Habal, MD, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Distraction Technique Used to Lengthen the Palate Dr. Emeka Nkenke of Erlangen University Hospital, Germany, and colleagues, report on the use of distraction osteogenesis to lengthen the maxilla (upper jaw) bone in ...

HOUSTON – (March 13, 2014) –Open, feed, cut. Such is the humdrum life of a motor molecule, the subject of new research at Rice University, that eats and excretes damaged proteins and turns them into harmless peptides for disposal. The why is obvious: Without these trash bins, the Escherichia coli bacteria they serve would die. And thanks to Rice, the how is becoming clearer. Biophysicists at Rice used the miniscule machine – a protease called an FtsH-AAA hexameric peptidase – as a model to test calculations that combine genetic and structural data. Their goal is to ...