A visual projection of human heartbeats can be used to generate an "out-of-body experience," according to new research to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings could inform new kinds of treatment for people with self-perception disorders, including anorexia. The study, conducted by Jane Aspell of Anglia Ruskin University in the UK and Lukas Heydrich of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, is novel in that it shows that information about the internal state of the body — in this case, ...

CHICAGO (August 14, 2013) — The new American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) Surgical Risk Calculator is a revolutionary new tool that quickly and easily estimates patient-specific postoperative complication risks for almost all operations, according to research findings appearing online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The study will be published in a print edition of the Journal later this year. Surgeons and patients have long been seeking an accurate decision-support tool to estimate patients' risks ...

A study of a cross-section of youth mental health services across Canada has found that two in five young people receiving services are experiencing significant concurrent mental health and substance use problems. The project, led by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), also shows that increased collaboration between youth service providers can enhance services for youth. Building on similar pilot projects conducted by CAMH in Ontario, the National Youth Screening Project involved 10 service networks in five provinces and two territories across Canada, and ...

Moffitt Cancer Center researchers suggest secondary cancers seen in melanoma patients who are being treated for a BRAF gene mutation may require new strategies, such as enhanced surveillance and combining BRAF-inhibitor therapy with other inhibitors, especially as they become more widely used. They discussed this topic in a review article that appears in the July issue of Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology. The BRAF gene is mutated in about half of all cases of melanoma, as well as other cancers, and the mutant protein can be successfully deactivated by BRAF inhibitor drugs. ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A study led by a Michigan State University scholar questions whether higher education ranking systems are creating competition simply for the sake of competition at a time when universities are struggling financially. Global rankings that emphasize science and technology research – such as the Academic Rankings of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University – have become increasingly popular and influential during the past decade, said Brendan Cantwell, lead author and assistant professor of educational administration. As a result, researchers ...

The first study of interactions between a common clinical inhibitor and the HIV-1 protease enzyme has been carried out by an international team with members from the US, Britain and France using neutrons at the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France. It provides medical science with the first true picture of how an antiviral drug used to block virus replication actually works, and critically how its performance could be improved. The findings, reported in the Journal for Medicinal Chemistry, and the neutron techniques demonstrated at the ILL, will provide the basis ...

Scientists are reporting "a significant step forward" in proving the feasibility of launching fleets of autonomous robots that search Earth's deep oceans for exotic new life forms. Their description of successful deployment of the trailblazer for such a project — an autonomous seafloor lander equipped with a mini-laboratory the size of a kitchen trash can that is able to detect minute traces of DNA in the deep oceans — appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology. William Ussler III and colleagues note that exotic forms of life may still remain undiscovered ...

With stamp collecting a popular hobby and lucrative investment, scientists are describing a comprehensive new way of verifying the authenticity and rooting out fakes of what may be the smallest and most valuable pieces of paper on Earth. Their report appears in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry. Ludovico Valli and colleagues explain that museums, archives and private stamp collectors have long been searching for better ways to confirm the authenticity of rare stamps, and details like cancellation marks that increase value. But until now, those approaches have been ...

Bethesda, MD -- Despite previous data showing beneficial effects, the probiotic Saccharomuces boulardii (S. boulardii) does not prevent clinical relapse in patients with Crohn's disease, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. As more people seek natural or non-drug ways to maintain their health, products containing probiotics have flooded the marketplace. While safe and tolerable, this study discovered that the probiotic S. boulardii does not appear ...

Watermelon juice's reputation among athletes is getting scientific support in a new study, which found that juice from the summer favorite fruit can relieve post-exercise muscle soreness. The report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry attributes watermelon's effects to the amino acid L-citrulline. Encarna Aguayo and colleagues cite past research on watermelon juice's antioxidant properties and its potential to increase muscle protein and enhance athletic performance. But scientists had yet to explore the effectiveness of watermelon juice drinks enriched ...

A type of MRSA found in humans originated in cattle at least 40 years ago, new research has found. The study provides clear evidence that livestock were the original source of an MRSA strain which is now widespread in people. Researchers studied the genetic make-up of more than 40 strains of a bacterium -- called Staphylococcus aureus -- that can build up antibiotic resistance to develop into MRSA. At least two genetic subtypes of the bacterium, which have become endemic in people, have been traced back to cattle by the scientists, who are based at The Roslin Institute ...

"Energy cane" may sound like a trendy sports drink, but it actually is among a new generation of energy crops that could yield up to 5 times more ethanol per acre than corn. They are the topic of the cover story in this week's Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. C&EN Senior Editor Melody M. Bomgardner explains that energy cane is a new, high-fiber variety of sugarcane now being grown in California's Imperial Valley. Scientists bred it specifically as an "energy crop," a ...

This news release is available in German. Regulatory T cells (or "Tregs" for short) play a central role in the human immune system: They guide all of the other immune cells and make sure they are tolerant of the body's own cells and harmless foreign substances. How Tregs become Tregs in the first place has been only incompletely understood -- until now. Scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany, along with their colleagues at the Hannover Medical School (MHH) have recently gleaned important new insights into the workings ...

Five beer brands – Budweiser, Steel Reserve, Colt 45, Bud Ice and Bud Light – were consumed in the highest quantities by emergency room patients, according to a new pilot study from researchers at The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Three of these are "malt liquors" with higher alcohol content than regular beer. The pilot study, published by Substance Use and Misuse, is the first study of its kind to assess alcohol consumption by brand and type from patients reporting to the emergency department with ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 14, 2013) — What if we could pinpoint a hereditary cause for Alzheimer's, and intervene to reduce the risk of the disease? We may be closer to that goal, thanks to a team at the University of Kentucky. Researchers affiliated with the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging have completed new work in Alzheimer's genetics; the research is detailed in a paper published today in the Journal of Neuroscience. Emerging evidence indicates that, much like in the case of high cholesterol, some Alzheimer's disease risk is inherited while the remainder is environmental. ...

When it comes to what's for dinner – or breakfast and lunch for that matter-- many people suffer from chemophobia, an irrational fear of natural and synthetic chemicals that pose no risk to our health, a Dartmouth study finds. Chemistry Professor Gordon Gribble, whose paper appears in the journal Food Security, argues that low doses of chemicals in modern food are inherent, typically harmless and often highly beneficial. He says most people don't know they are routinely exposed to a host of compounds in non-toxic concentrations in what they eat and drink each day. Even ...

STANFORD, Calif. — When it comes to getting motivated to exercise and do things that are good for our health, sometimes all it takes is a little help from our friends. This was certainly the case for a group of older, Latino adults in Northern California: They benefited from the advice and encouragement of a virtual friend — a physical-activity adviser named Carmen, a new study reports. Individuals who participated in an exercise program guided by the virtual adviser had an eight-fold increase in walking compared with those who did not, according to the study, published ...

HOUSTON -- (Aug. 14, 2013) -- A new study by Rice University biophysicists offers the most comprehensive picture yet of the molecular-level action of melittin, the principal toxin in bee venom. The research could aid in the development of new drugs that use a similar mechanism as melittin's to attack cancer and bacteria. The study appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Melittin does its damage by penetrating the outer walls of cells and opening pores that allow the contents of the cell to escape. At low concentrations, melittin forms ...

Twelve national dementia clinical practice guidelines included only half of 31 ethical issues the authors had identified as important in patient care, finds a study by Daniel Strech, of Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, and colleagues, published in this week's issue of PLOS Medicine. The authors identified current national clinical practice guidelines for dementia care published in English or German. They had previously systematically reviewed ethical issues in dementia care and they used thematic text analysis to assess whether and how the ethical issues were ...

An assessment of expert members of panels making decisions about definitions or diagnostic criteria for common conditions in the US, which were published in guidelines used by physicians and other healthcare professionals caring for patients, found that most members had ties to industry. The assessment was made in a study from Ray Moynihan of Bond University, Queensland, Australia, and colleagues published in this week's issue of PLOS Medicine. Of the 16 expert panel publications appearing between 2000 and April 2013 that met the authors' criteria of changing disease ...

While there have been substantial improvements in mortality rates and an increase in access to reproductive health interventions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the global health community is neglecting prevention, screening, and treatment for cervical cancer in LMICs. These are the conclusions of a new article in PLOS Medicine this week by Ruby Singhrao and colleagues from the University of California San Francisco, San Francisco. Using a framework including equity and socio-economic, gender, public health, and health services dimensions, the authors propose ...

STANFORD, Calif. —The steady accumulation of a protein in healthy, aging brains may explain seniors' vulnerability to neurodegenerative disorders, a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine reports. The study's unexpected findings could fundamentally change the way scientists think about neurodegenerative disease. The pharmaceutical industry has spent billions of dollars on futile clinical trials directed at treating Alzheimer's disease by ridding brains of a substance called amyloid plaque. But the new findings have identified another ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Patients with severe mitral valve regurgitation who are otherwise healthy should have mitral valve repair surgery sooner rather than later, even if they feel no symptoms, a Mayo Clinic-led study by U.S. and European researchers found. The results challenge the long-held belief that it is safer to "watch and wait" until a patient has symptoms, such as shortness of breath. This is the largest study to show that patients who undergo surgery early after diagnosis have improved long-term survival and lower risk of heart failure. The findings will be published ...

In a large population of Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure who underwent implantation of a cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator, patients who had the cardiac characteristics of left bundle-branch block and longer QRS duration had the lowest risks of death and all-cause, cardiovascular, and heart failure readmission, according to a study in the August 14 issue of JAMA. "Clinical trials have shown that cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) improves symptoms and reduces mortality and readmission among selected patients with heart failure and left ventricular ...

In a study that included patients with mitral valve regurgitation due to a condition known as flail mitral valve leaflets, performance of early surgical correction compared with initial medical management was associated with greater long-term survival and lower risk of heart failure, according to a study in the August 14 issue of JAMA. "Degenerative mitral regurgitation [backflow of blood from the left ventricle to the left atrium due to mitral valve insufficiency] is common and can be surgically repaired in the vast majority of patients, improving symptoms and restoring ...