Using germ-killing soap and ointment on all intensive-care unit (ICU) patients can reduce bloodstream infections by up to 44 percent and significantly reduce the presence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in ICUs. A new Department of Health and Human Services-funded study released today tested three MRSA prevention strategies and found that using germ-killing soap and ointment on all ICU patients was more effective than other strategies. "Patients in the ICU are already very sick, and the last thing they need to deal with is a preventable infection," ...

A fresh look at the environmental impacts of dams on an ecologically diverse and partially protected river in China found that small dams can pose a greater threat to ecosystems and natural landscape than large dams. Although large dams are generally considered more harmful than their smaller counterparts, the research team's surveys of habitat loss and damage at several dam sites on the Nu River and its tributaries in Yunnan Province revealed that, watt-for-watt, the environmental harm from small dams was often greater—sometimes by several orders of magnitude—than from ...

Leading world climate change experts have thrown cold water on the idea that planting trees can offset carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. Professor Brendan Mackey of Griffith University Climate Change Response Program is the lead author of an international study involving researchers from Australia and the U.K. Their findings are reported in "Untangling the confusion around land carbon science and climate change mitigation policy", published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change. "While protecting and restoring natural forests is part of the solution, ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found that a naturally occurring protein secreted only in discrete areas of the mammalian brain may act as a Valium-like brake on certain types of epileptic seizures. The protein is known as diazepam binding inhibitor, or DBI. It calms the rhythms of a key brain circuit and so could prove valuable in developing novel, less side-effect-prone therapies not only for epilepsy but possibly for anxiety and sleep disorders, too. The researchers' discoveries will be published May 30 in Neuron. "This ...

Through careful study of an ancient ancestor of modern turtles, researchers now have a clearer picture of how the turtles' most unusual shell came to be. The findings, reported on May 30 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, help to fill a 30- to 55-million-year gap in the turtle fossil record through study of an extinct South African reptile known as Eunotosaurus. "The turtle shell is a complex structure whose initial transformations started over 260 million years ago in the Permian period," says Tyler Lyson of Yale University and the Smithsonian. "Like other ...

People in most cultures view women with small feet as attractive. Like smooth skin or an hourglass figure, petite feet signal a potential mate's youth and fertility. Because they signal reproductive potential, a preference for mates with these qualities may have evolved in the brains of our Pleistocene ancestors and are viewed by evolutionary psychologists as evidence that the preference is hard-wired into our genetic makeup. But in new research published May 30 in the journal Human Nature, Geoff Kushnick, a University of Washington anthropologist, reports that the ...

While occupational homicides continue to decline in the U.S., law enforcement remains one of the deadliest jobs in America. A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health The report found documents that 93 percent of homicides of law enforcement officers between 1996 and 2010 were committed with firearms. Among those homicides, 10 percent were committed using the officer's own service weapon. The findings, published May 30 by the journal BMJ Injury Prevention, could help develop new procedures to reduce risk to officers. "Law enforcement ...

Unique among Earth's creatures, turtles are the only animals to form a shell on the outside of their bodies through a fusion of modified ribs, vertebrae and shoulder girdle bones. The turtle shell is a unique modification, and how and when it originated has fascinated and confounded biologists for more than two centuries. A Smithsonian scientist and colleagues recently discovered that the beginnings of the turtle shell started 40 million years earlier than previously thought. The team's research is published in the May 30 issue of Current Biology. The oldest known fossil ...

Bethesda, MD—Would you be more likely to try a diet and exercise regimen if you knew in advance if it would actually help you lose weight? Thanks to a new report published in the June 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal, this could become a reality. In the report, scientists identify five epigenetic biomarkers in adolescents that were associated with a better weight loss at the beginning of a weight loss program. Not only could this could ultimately help predict an individual's response to weight loss intervention, but it may offer therapeutic targets for enhancing a weight ...

Scientists have long been unable to fully explain how infections attack the body, but now a team of researchers, including one from the University of Central Florida, has taken a step closer to understanding how the process works in HIV-1. The results mean that one day that knowledge may prevent infection. The result of the team's work appears in the May 30 online edition of Nature. Peijun Zhang, an associate professor in the department of Structural Biology at the University of Pittsburgh led the team. Others are: Gongpu Zhao, Xin Meng, Jiying Nig, Jinwoo Ahn and ...

Cameras fitted with a new revolutionary sensor will soon be able to take clear and sharp photos in dim conditions, thanks to a new image sensor invented at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). The new sensor made from graphene, is believed to be the first to be able to detect broad spectrum light, from the visible to mid-infrared, with high photoresponse or sensitivity. This means it is suitable for use in all types of cameras, including infrared cameras, traffic speed cameras, satellite imaging and more. Not only is the graphene sensor 1,000 times more sensitive ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Officials who close neighborhood schools in poor, urban areas often ignore parents' input, which only reinforces the "institutionalized racism that plagues U.S. schools," a Michigan State University scholar argues. From Michigan to Texas, superintendents and school boards are closing dozens of urban schools based strictly on data such as low test scores and graduation rates and poor student attendance, Muhammad Khalifa, assistant professor of educational administration, found in his latest research. What the officials fail to take into account ...

Researchers at the University of Southampton have taken a significant step in a project to unravel the secrets of the structure of our Universe. Professor Kostas Skenderis, Chair in Mathematical Physics at the University, comments: "One of the main recent advances in theoretical physics is the holographic principle. According to this idea, our Universe may be thought of as a hologram and we would like to understand how to formulate the laws of physics for such a holographic Universe." A new paper released by Professor Skenderis and Dr Marco Caldarelli from the University ...

Ulsan, South Korea, May 30, 2013 — A hybrid transparent and stretchable electrode could open the new way for flexible displays, solar cells, and even electronic devices fitted on a curvature substrate such as soft eye contact lenses, by the UNIST(Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) research team. Transparent electrodes are in and of themselves nothing all that new – they have been widely used in things like touch screens, flat-screen TVs, solar cells and light-emitting devices. Currently transparent electrodes are commonly made from a material known as ...

Researchers at The Open University (OU) and The University of Manchester have found conclusive proof that Ancient Egyptians used meteorites to make symbolic accessories. The evidence comes from strings of iron beads which were excavated in 1911 at the Gerzeh cemetery, a burial site approximately 70km south of Cairo. Dating from 3350 to 3600BC, thousands of years before Egypt's Iron Age, the bead analysed was originally assumed to be from a meteorite owing to its composition of nickel-rich iron. But this hypothesis was challenged in the 1980s when academics proposed that ...

Worldwide, over 15,000 species are threatened by extinction, and the loggerhead sea turtle is no exception. Once the mysteries surrounding some of the species behavior are resolved, more effective conservation programs can be developed to facilitate their protection. The case of the loggerhead sea turtle is particularly interesting: Why do they migrate for several thousands of kilometers to eventually come back to their place of birth for reproduction after roughly 25 years? To address this question, a group of evolutionary biologists from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for ...

Billions of people across the globe are suffering from major untreated dental problems, according to a new report led by Professor Wagner Marcenes of Queen Mary, University of London, published in the Journal of Dental Research. Professor Marcenes of the Institute of Dentistry at Queen Mary led an international research team investigating oral health as part of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2010 study. The report shows that oral conditions affect as many as 3.9bn people worldwide – over half the total population. Untreated tooth decay or cavities in permanent teeth ...

Bethesda, MD—Patients with advanced kidney disease who are undergoing hemodialysis are known to be highly susceptible to heart attacks and other cardiovascular complications, and now scientists likely know why. New research findings published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology show that uremic toxins, which are not removed by hemodialysis, increase heart attack risk. The same scientists also have found what can reduce this risk: an oral adsorbent called "AST-120." "Treatment with AST-120, an oral adsorbent, will not only delay the progression of kidney disease, ...

Bethesda, MD—A newly discovered hormone produced by the eggs of human females may improve the effectiveness of current fertility treatments for women and possibly lead to entirely new treatments altogether. According to new research published in the June 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal, researchers from Stanford and Akira University in Japan identified a new hormone called "R-spondin2" that promotes follicle development and stimulates ovary growth. "The finding of a new ovarian hormone produced by the oocytes capable of stimulating ovarian follicle growth could lead ...

Research at Lund University in Sweden gives hope that one of the most serious types of brain tumour, glioblastoma multiforme, could be fought by the patients' own immune system. The tumours are difficult to remove with surgery because the tumour cells grow into the surrounding healthy brain tissue. A patient with the disease therefore does not usually survive much longer than a year after the discovery of the tumour. The team has tested different ways of stimulating the immune system, suppressed by the tumour, with a 'vaccine'. The vaccine is based on tumour cells that ...

Bethesda, MD—Despite numerous advances in treating infections and disease, effective treatments for sepsis remain elusive. A new discovery published in the June 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal not only could help health care providers predict who is more and less likely to develop sepsis, but it also opens the doors to new therapies that actually address the root cause of the problem, rather than just managing the symptoms. This also has the potential to benefit patients suffering from influenza and other viral infections, as well as chronic inflammatory diseases such ...

Bethesda, MD—Stent angioplasty saves lives, but there often are side effects and complications related to the procedure, such as arterial restenosis and thrombosis. In the June 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal, however, scientists report that they have discovered a new nanoparticle gene delivery method that may overcome current limitations of gene therapy vectors and prevent complications associated with the stenting procedure. Specifically, this strategy uses stents as a platform for magnetically targeted gene delivery, where genes are moved to cells at arterial injury ...

Bethesda, MD—Procedures like angioplasty, stenting and bypass surgery may save lives, but they also cause excessive inflammation and scarring, which ultimately can lead to permanent disability and even death. A new research report appearing in The FASEB Journal, shows that naturally derived compounds from polyunsaturated fatty acids (omega-3s) may reduce the inflammation associated with these procedures to help arteries more fully and completely heal. "Our study suggests that biologically active, naturally occurring compounds derived from omega-3 PUFAs reduce inflammation ...

Washington, DC, May 30, 2013 – Twitter is a popular source for receiving and sharing new information about vaccines, and also a basically reliable one, according to a study published in the June issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin analyzed 9,510 vaccination-related tweets from one week in January, 2012 to determine the most popular and influential messages. A final sample of 2,580 tweets that had ...

Researchers from the Pasteur Institute, Lille, France have shown in a mouse model that interleukin-22 protects against bacterial superinfections that can arise following influenza. Their research is published in the June 2013 issue of the Journal of Virology. Influenza A viral infection can lead to primary pneumonia and, later on, to serious complications including secondary bacterial pneumonia and sepsis. Post-influenza bacterial superinfections that occur during seasonal epidemics and pandemics are of great concern to human health and impose a considerable socio-economic ...