Washington, D.C., March 4, 2014 – A new study published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine addresses the common call to action from public health experts to improve access to and consumption of fruits and vegetables. Findings from the Michigan State University (MSU) study show that canned foods deliver on nutrition, affordability and safety helping people increase their fruit and vegetable intake, regardless of geography or income level. The study, "Nutrition and Cost Comparisons of Select Canned, Frozen and Fresh Fruits and Vegetables" analyzed more than 40 ...

Tropical Cyclone Kofi was becoming an extra-tropical storm on March 3 and NASA's Terra satellite captured its last hours as a tropical system. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS for short captured an image of Tropical Cyclone Kofi in the South Pacific Ocean on March 3 at 21:50 UTC before it made the total transition into an extra-tropical storm. MODIS is one of the instruments that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite. The MODIS image showed that despite transitioning, Kofi still had good circulation. The highest and strongest thunderstorms appeared ...

Brandeis University researchers have unlocked a controversial structure in heart cells responsible for regulating heart contractions. For years, scientists have debated how many KCNE1 proteins are required to build a potassium ion channel, theorizing anywhere between one and 14. Now, Brandeis University researchers found that these channels are built with two E1s. Understanding the construction of this channel is key to understanding life-threatening heart conditions, such as arrhythmias, and developing drugs to threat those conditions. This report challenges a previous ...

Middle-aged adults who suddenly need reading glasses, patients with traumatic brain injuries, and people with visual disorders such as "lazy eye" may have one thing in common --"visual crowding," an inability to recognize individual items surrounded by multiple objects. Visual crowding makes it impossible to read, as single letters within words are rendered illegible. And basic cognitive functions such as facial recognition can also be significantly hampered. Scientists and clinicians currently attribute crowding to a disorder in peripheral vision. Now Prof. Uri Polat, ...

Two recent genetic studies expand the list of genes involved with body fat and body mass index, and their connection to major Western health problems: heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. One study showed that higher body mass index (BMI) caused harmful effects on the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and inflammation, while another study found gene signals linked to higher levels of body fat metrics, without showing causality. "These findings are highly relevant to the obesity pandemic in the United States and many other countries," said geneticist ...

PHOENIX, Ariz. — March 4, 2014 — Researchers at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) have discovered a protein, Mcl-1, that helps enable one of the most common and deadly types of cancer to survive radiation and drug treatments. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) makes up about 85 percent of the nearly 160,000 Americans expected to die this year from lung cancer, which by far kills more patients than any other type of cancer; accounting for more than 1 in 4 cancer deaths in the U.S. annually. The 5-year survival rate for advanced NSCLC is less than 10 ...

The bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a common source of infections that occur after surgeries involving prosthetic joints and artificial heart valves. The grape-shaped microorganism adheres to medical equipment, and if it gets inside the body, it can cause a serious and even life-threatening illness called a Staph infection. The recent discovery of drug-resistant strains of S. aureus makes matters even worse. A Staph infection can't start unless Staphylococcus cells first cling to a surface, however, which is why scientists are hard at work exploring bacteria-resistant ...

Fathers who returned after military service report having difficulty connecting with young children who sometimes don't remember them, according to a study released this week. While the fathers in the study had eagerly anticipated reuniting with their families, they reported significant stress, especially around issues of reconnecting with children, adapting expectations from military to family life, and co-parenting. "A service member who deploys when his child is an infant and returns home when the child is a toddler may find an entirely different child," says lead ...

The ice-free season across the Arctic is getting longer by five days per decade, according to new research from a team including Prof Julienne Stroeve (UCL Earth Sciences). New analysis of satellite data shows the Arctic Ocean absorbing ever more of the sun's energy in summer, leading to an ever later appearance of sea ice in the autumn. In some regions, autumn freeze-up is occurring up to 11 days per decade later than it used to. The research, published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, has implications for tracking climate change, as ...

BOSTON, March 4, 2014 – An early phase clinical trial of a vaginal ring containing the antiretroviral (ARV) drugs dapivirine and maraviroc found the ring was safe in women who wore it for 28 days and evidence of dapivirine in cervical tissue and blood. In addition, laboratory tests of tissue samples showed that dapivirine was able to block HIV infection, though levels of maraviroc were not sufficient to have a similar effect, reported researchers from the National Institutes of Health-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) today at the 21st Conference on Retroviruses and ...

BOSTON, March 4, 2014 – A new analysis by researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) confirms what they and many others had already assumed: The behavioral measures used for assessing adherence in the VOICE study – an HIV prevention trial that involved more than 5,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa – did not provide accurate information about women's use and nonuse of the products being tested. Their results, which were reported at the 21st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston today, found ...

New Rochelle, NY, March 4, 2014—Nearly a billion people use Facebook, the largest social networking site, but interacting with someone on social media is not the same as meeting them in person. The results of a study to determine whether Facebook exposure increases or reduces arousal during initial face-to-face encounters, especially among socially anxious individuals, are presented in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social ...

Boston (March 4, 2014) — Two early clinical studies of novel HIV prevention products for women — the first combination antiretroviral (ARV) vaginal ring and a vaginal film — show the products to be safe and open the door to product improvements that could expand options for women-initiated prevention tools. The results of both studies were presented today at the 21st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). The combination ring study, known as MTN-013/IPM 026, was conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Microbicide Trials Network ...

FAIRFAX, Va.—Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) often brings with it the risk of post-thrombotic syndrome (PTS), an under-recognized but serious complication that often causes long-term disability for patients. During March's DVT Awareness Month, the Society of Interventional Radiology wants to help patients and family members to better understand the long-term risks of DVT. DVT, the formation of a blood clot in a deep leg vein, is a grave condition for which doctors have historically focused on its short-term risks. "For years, if someone developed deep vein thrombosis, his ...

A more accurate and successful, yet complex approach used in designing an airplane is now taking off in the health care industry. The end result is helping patients with pulmonary disorders breathe easier, as well as their surgeons in considering novel treatment approaches. Goutham Mylavarapu, a senior research associate in the University of Cincinnati Department of Aerospace Engineering, and Ephraim Gutmark, Ohio Eminent Scholar and UC distinguished professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics, will present their research involving Computational Fluid Dynamics ...

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to become obese and sedentary teenagers, according to new research. Previous studies have suggested a link between ADHD and obesity, but whether one leads to the other is unclear. One way to better understand the link is to follow children through to adolescence. The new study, which followed almost 7000 children in Finland, found that those who had ADHD symptoms at age eight had significantly higher odds of being obese at age 16. Children who had ADHD symptoms were also less physically active ...

In physics, there's small, and then there's nullity – as in zero-dimensional. University of Cincinnati researchers have reached this threshold with a special structure that may someday lead to better ways of harnessing solar energy, stronger lasers or more sensitive medical diagnostic devices. These structures are semiconductor nanowires. UC doctoral student Teng Shi says she and a team of researchers have observed unique optical signatures indicating that electronic excitations within these nanowires can be confined to a zero-dimensional state called a "quantum dot." ...

A new twist on a very old physics technique could have a profound impact on one of the most buzzed-about aspects of nanoscience. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found that their unique method of light-matter interaction analysis appears to be a good way of helping make better semiconductor nanowires. "Semiconductor nanowires are one of the hottest topics in the nanoscience research field in the recent decade," says Yuda Wang, a UC doctoral student. "Due to the unique geometry compared to conventional bulk semiconductors, nanowires have already shown ...

In Sweden alone, an estimated 2 000 young women of fertile age cannot become pregnant either because they were born without a womb or lost it later due to disease. Professor Mats Brännström, researcher at the University of Gothenburg and chief physician, is leading a unique research project aiming to make it possible for these women to have a uterus transplant and then get pregnant. A decade of research After more than a decade of research that has been evaluated in almost 40 scientific articles, in May 2012 the research team received permission from the Regional Ethical ...

Toronto – An extensive study of initial public offerings shows dramatic changes in the IPO landscape around the world over the past two decades, including a large decrease in the importance of IPOs in the United States while IPOs became more important in other countries. This drop in U.S. IPOs cannot be explained by stricter regulations enacted after the corporate and accounting scandals in the early part of the 2000s. "One of the main things people point fingers at is the Sarbanes Oxley Act. We show that U.S. IPO activity became abnormally low before the Sarbanes Oxley ...

New Rochelle, NY, March 4, 2014—Only about 37% of babies around the world are exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of life, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The benefits of breastfeeding for both infants and mothers are well-established. The effectiveness of different types of interventions for promoting exclusive breastfeeding in high-income countries is the focus of a Review article published in Breastfeeding Medicine, the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Crops genetically modified with the bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) produce proteins that kill pest insects. Steady exposure has prompted concern that pests will develop resistance to these proteins, making Bt plants ineffective. Cornell research shows that the combination of natural enemies, such as ladybeetles, with Bt crops delays a pest's ability to evolve resistance to these insecticidal proteins. "This is the first demonstrated example of a predator being able to delay the evolution of resistance in an insect pest to a Bt crop," said Anthony ...

Taiwanese teenagers – and especially females – who become sexually active at a very young age are more likely to be rule-breakers and be more aggressive than their peers. These are the findings of a national study of Taiwanese youth led by Wei J. Chen of the National Taiwan University, with Chia-Hua Chan as first author. It is published in Springer's journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. Nearly 19,000 sixteen- to nineteen-year-old Taiwanese adolescents took part in a national survey which was conducted through a self-administered web-based questionnaire. Sociodemographic ...

(Boston)--A recent analysis conducted by investigators from the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University has found that frequent experiences of racism were associated with a higher risk of obesity among African American women. The findings, which currently appear online in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found the relationship between racism and obesity was strongest among women who reported consistently high experiences of racism over a 12-year period. The research was based on data from the Black Women's Health Study, a longitudinal study that enrolled 59,000 ...

Nyon, Switzerland – March 4, 2014 A new study by an International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) and International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) scientific working group summarizes the clinical performance of serum procollagen type I N propeptide (s-PINP) and serum C-terminal cross-linking telopeptide of type I collagen (s-CTX) in fracture risk prediction in untreated individuals in prospective cohort studies. The current study follows a position paper published in 2011 by the IOF-IFCC Bone Marker Standards Working Group recommending ...