Research led by physician-scientists at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has produced a breakthrough discovery in diagnosing retinitis pigmentosa, a blinding disease that affects about 1 in 4,000 people in the United States. Rong Wen, M.D., Ph.D., and Byron Lam, M.D., professors of ophthalmology at Bascom Palmer, in collaboration with biochemist Ziqiang Guan, Ph.D., a research associate professor at Duke University Medical School, discovered a key marker in blood and urine that can identify people who carry genetic mutations ...

DALLAS – Oct. 14, 2013 – A specific protein once thought to exist only in the brain may play a crucial role in a deadly form of thyroid cancer, as well as other cancers, and provide a fresh target for researchers seeking ways to stop its progression, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report today in Cancer Cell. The scientists found that over-activation of a certain protein in hormone-secreting cells helps fuel medullary thyroid cancer cells in mice as well as in human cells, making the protein a potentially good target for therapies to inhibit the growth of ...

Studies have long shown a difference in cognitive ability between high- and low-income children, but for the first time, scientists have found a difference between low-income children growing up in rural areas and those growing up in urban environments. Researchers at Dartmouth College have found that children growing up in rural poverty score significantly lower on visual working memory tests than their urban counterparts. However, children in urban poverty score slightly lower on tests of verbal working memory. Working memory is the ability to keep information in ...

Seattle, WA—Scientists at the University of Washington have used genetic engineering to identify a population of neurons that tell the brain to shut off appetite. Their study, "Genetic identification of a neural circuit that suppresses appetite," was published Oct. 13 in Nature. To identify these neurons, or cells that process and transmit information in the brain, researchers first considered what makes an animal lose its appetite. There are a number of natural reasons, including infection, nausea, pain or simply having eaten too much already. Nerves within the gut ...

Giving daily iron supplements to anemic primary-school–aged children can have cognitive and physical benefits, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Globally, approximately 25% of school-aged children are anemic, with iron deficiency the cause of about half of all cases. Iron deficiency, which has been associated with impaired cognitive and physical development, is caused by a lack of dietary iron and, in developing countries, by parasites such as hookworm and schistosomiasis. In developed countries, newcomers, native people and ...

The use of crystal methamphetamine by street-involved youth is linked to an increased risk of injecting drugs, with crystal methamphetamine being the drug most commonly used at the time of first injection, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Amphetamine-type drugs, including crystal methamphetamine, are second only to cannabis in popularity. Injection rates of crystal methamphetamine have increased substantially among adult drug users in some Canadian centres such as Vancouver, BC. Overall use of crystal methamphetamine by street-involved ...

Sound preconditioning prevents ototoxic drug-induced hearing loss in mice The death of sensory hair cells in the ear results in irreversible hearing loss. Several classes of drugs, including aminoglycoside antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs are known to kill hair cells; however, in many cases the benefit of using the drug outweighs the potential for hearing loss. Previous research has shown that a class of proteins induced in response to cell stress, the heat shock proteins (HSPs), can protect against sensory hair cell death in response to ototoxic drugs. Despite understanding ...

The death of sensory hair cells in the ear results in irreversible hearing loss. Several classes of drugs, including aminoglycoside antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs are known to kill hair cells; however, in many cases the benefit of using the drug outweighs the potential for hearing loss. Previous research has shown that a class of proteins induced in response to cell stress, the heat shock proteins (HSPs), can protect against sensory hair cell death in response to ototoxic drugs. Despite understanding how HSPs protect the hair cells of the inner ear, there are no current ...

Bone is constantly being broken down and remodeled. Osteoporosis results when bone resorption outpaces bone regeneration. Production of reactive oxygen species, a form of oxidative stress, has been predicted to promote bone loss, but a source of reactive oxygen is unknown. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Katrin Schröder and colleagues at Goethe-University identify a relationship between NADPH oxidase 4 (NOX4), an enzyme that promotes reactive oxygen species formation, and bone resorption. In a mouse model of osteoporosis, genetic disruption or ...

VIDEO: This video shows Vorticella movements with nutrients and without nutrients. Click here for more information. Nearly every body of water, from a puddle or a pond to a vast ocean, contains microscopic organisms that live attached to rocks, plants, and animals. These so-called sessile suspension feeders are critical to aquatic ecosystems and play an important role in cleaning up environmental contaminants by consuming bacteria. A study published by Cell Press on October ...

Charlottesville, VA (October 15, 2013). An incentive program to reduce the number of unnecessary diagnostic laboratory tests performed in neurosurgical patients at UC San Francisco (UCSF) was highly successful. Resident trainees in neurosurgery identified five frequently scheduled laboratory tests that rarely yield information that would change patient care. A new set of guidelines was developed to determine when these tests should be performed. The result was a 47% reduction in the number of targeted tests, which was attended by cost savings of $1.7 million in one year. ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (October 15, 2013) -- Blood pressure is effectively lowered by mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) for patients with borderline high blood pressure or "prehypertension." This finding is reported in the October issue of Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "Our results provide evidence that MBSR, when added to lifestyle modification advice, may be an appropriate complementary ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have found a surprising occupational hazard for teachers: progressive speech and language disorders. The research, recently published in the American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease & Other Dementias, found that people with speech and language disorders are about 3.5 times more likely to be teachers than patients with Alzheimer's dementia. Speech and language disorders are typically characterized by people losing their ability to communicate -- they can't find words to use in sentences, or they'll speak around a word. They may ...

Scientists from the University of Sheffield have discovered ground breaking clues as to how the pioneering heart drug ticagrelor might reduce the risk of dying following a heart attack, in comparison to previous standard treatments. The new findings, published in Platelets, show that ticagrelor may reduce the risk of dying as a result of a lung infection after suffering a heart attack compared to patients treated with the drug clopidogrel. The analysis, which was led by researchers from the University of Sheffield and Uppsala University Sweden, is the latest to come ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. Oct. 15, 2013 -- Scientists studying the behavior of platinum particles immersed in hydrogen peroxide may have discovered a new way to propel microscopic machines. The new mechanism is described in The Journal of Chemical Physics, which is produced by AIP Publishing. Micro-sized machines operate under very different conditions than their macro-sized counterparts. The high surface-area-to-mass ratio of tiny motors means they require a constant driving force to keep them going. In the past, researchers have relied on asymmetric chemical reactions on the ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researchers report that river otters in Central Illinois are being exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides that were banned in the U.S. in the 1970s and '80s. Their analysis appears in the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources collected 23 river otters between 2009 and 2011, after the animals were incidentally killed (hit by cars or accidentally caught in traps, for example). The agency passed the carcasses along to researchers at the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS) for ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Scientists increasingly are uncovering answers for human behavior through genetic research. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that prosocial behavior, such as volunteering and helping others, is related to the same gene that predisposes individuals to anxiety disorders. Helping such individuals cope with their anxiety may increase their prosocial behavior, the researcher said. "Prosocial behavior is linked closely to strong social skills and is considered a marker of individuals' health and well-being," said Gustavo Carlo, Millsap Professor ...

A particular type of consumer enjoys stories with plots, characters, and imagery that allow them to get lost in the narrative, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Stories have the power to change people's behavior," write authors Tom van Laer (ESCP Europe Business School), Ko de Ruyter (Maastricht University), Luca M. Visconti (ESCP Europe Business School), and Martin Wetzels (Maastricht University). "Contemporary examples include the persuasive power of Latin American telenovelas, which influence family planning choices and enrollment in adult ...

Anyone who has suffered through sleepless nights due to uncontrollable itching knows that not all itching is the same. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis explains why. Working in mice, the scientists have shown that chronic itching, which can occur in many medical conditions, from eczema and psoriasis to kidney failure and liver disease, is different from the fleeting urge to scratch a mosquito bite. That's because chronic itching appears to incorporate more than just the nerve cells, or neurons, that normally transmit itch signals. ...

Being married or having the support of neighbors to rely on does little to alleviate the symptoms of depression associated with economic hardship often experienced by poor mothers. With these findings, published in Springer's American Journal of Community Psychology, Sharon Kingston of Dickinson College in the US challenges the growing perception that marriage and other forms of interpersonal support can buffer the negative effects of poverty. In studying 1,957 mothers from 80 neighborhoods in Chicago, Kingston examined the combined effect of economic adversity and having ...

On the road to our modern human lineage, scientists speculate there were many twist and turns, evolutionary dead ends, and population bottlenecks along the way. But how large were population sizes of common ancestors of the great apes and humans, and does the genetic analysis support the prevailing views of a great bottleneck in primate evolution? Using inferred evolutionary rates of more than 1400 genes and ancestral generation times, Professor Carlos Schrago and colleagues trace population histories backwards across evolutionary time to estimate population sizes for ...

Lightning strikes causing rocks to explode have for the first time been shown to play a huge role in shaping mountain landscapes in southern Africa, debunking previous assumptions that angular rock formations were necessarily caused by cold temperatures, and proving that mountains are a lot less stable than we think. In a world where mountains are crucial to food security and water supply, this has vast implications, especially in the context of climate change. Professors Jasper Knight and Stefan Grab from the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies ...

Philadelphia, PA, October 15, 2013 – Some people grow out of their childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and some don't. In fact, around 50% of individuals diagnosed as children continue to suffer from ADHD as adults. Researchers are trying to understand the reasons why, and relatedly, whether there are any differences that distinguish the two groups. Gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and symptom severity have already been ruled out as potentials. So, perhaps there is a distinguishing variable in the brain? Dr. Philip Shaw at the National Human ...

Have you ever wondered why young children can eat bags of Halloween candy and feel fine the next day – compared to adults who experience all sorts of agony following the same junk food binge? Evolution and a gene called Foxo may be to blame. Working in fruit flies, scientists at the Buck Institute have identified a mechanism that helps the flies adapt to changes in diet when they're young; they've discovered that same mechanism gets misregulated as the flies age, disrupting metabolic homeostasis, or balance. In a study appearing in Cell Reports, researchers focus on ...

DALLAS – Oct. 15, 2013 – A new type of antibiotic called a PPMO, which works by blocking genes essential for bacterial reproduction, successfully killed a multidrug-resistant germ common to health care settings, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report. The technology and new approach offer potential promise against the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, the researchers said. The pathogen (germ) – called Acinetobacter – can cause infections from pneumonia to serious blood or wound infections, posing greater risk to people with weakened immune systems, ...