MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Inflammation. The word typically has a negative connotation. Arthritis … infection … numerous maladies come to mind. But a Kansas State University researcher found that inflammation that occurs naturally in dairy cows the first few days after giving birth may play a surprisingly beneficial role in the complex process of going from late pregnancy to lactation. "We know that during the first several days after giving birth and going into the lactating phase, dairy cows naturally experience some degree of inflammation," said Barry Bradford, associate ...

LEMONT, Ill. – Doctors have a new way of thinking about how to treat heart and skeletal muscle diseases. Body builders have a new way of thinking about how they maximize their power. Both owe their new insight to high-energy X-rays, a moth and cloud computing. The understanding of how muscles get their power has been greatly expanded with new results published online July 10 in the Royal Society journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The Royal Society is the U.K.'s national academy of sciences. The basics of how a muscle generates power remain the same: Filaments ...

Scientists have created a virtual model of the brain that daydreams like humans do. Researchers created the computer model based on the dynamics of brain cells and the many connections those cells make with their neighbors and with cells in other brain regions. They hope the model will help them understand why certain portions of the brain work together when a person daydreams or is mentally idle. This, in turn, may one day help doctors better diagnose and treat brain injuries. "We can give our model lesions like those we see in stroke or brain cancer, disabling groups ...

TEMPE, Ariz. -- A new way to look at cancer -- by tracing its deep evolutionary roots to the dawn of multicellularity more than a billion years ago -- has been proposed by Paul Davies of Arizona State University's Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science in collaboration with Charles Lineweaver of the Australian National University. If their theory is correct, it promises to transform the approach to cancer therapy, and to link the origin of cancer to the origin of life and the developmental processes of embryos. Davies and Lineweaver are both theoretical physicists ...

Electroencephalography is a test to measure the electrical activity of the brain generated by scalp surface after being picked up by metal electrodes and conductive media. Proper classification of electroencephalography data is the main task in electroencephalography based brain computer interface. Brain-computer interface is a communication system that connects the brain with computer (or other devices) but is not dependent on the normal output of the brain (i.e., peripheral nerve and muscle). Such interface transforms neural activities into signals to establish a new ...

CHICAGO, IL – Programs to improve movement patterns may help prevent stress fractures in athletes and military personnel, say researchers presenting their work today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. "Several potentially modifiable muscular and biomechanical factors may be playing a part in the increased rates of stress fractures in athletes and military personnel," said Kenneth L. Cameron, PhD, MPH, ATC, lead author and Director of Orthopaedic Research at Keller Army Hospital, West Point, NY. "It's possible that ...

Arthroscopic bankart repair surgery is a cost-effective approach for patients suffering their first shoulder dislocation, according to research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. "We based our conclusions on a Markov model, which takes into account how surgery affects the patient's recovery in relation to the actual costs of medical treatment," commented Ryan P. Donegan, MD, MS, from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH. "For surgery to be cost-effective in this model, expenses ...

CHICAGO, IL – Corticosteroid injections may speed-up the return time for National Football League (NFL) players suffering high ankle sprains, according to research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. Players treated with these injections typically returned 40% faster or approximately 10 days earlier than those not receiving the same treatment. "After examining players with stable high ankle sprains over an eight-year period, we discovered those treated with corticosteroid injections returned to play ...

CHICAGO, IL – Certain elements of a pitcher's throwing mechanics can increase the risk for elbow injuries, according to information presented by researchers at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting today in Chicago, IL. The researchers examined 296 MLB pitchers throughout eight seasons from 2005-2012. Pitchers with a deficit of more than five degrees in total range of motion (TRM) in their dominant shoulder had a 2.3 times higher risk of injury, while pitchers with a deficit of five or more degrees in shoulder flexion of the dominant shoulder ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- At the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s men who were married were significantly less likely to die of HIV/AIDS than their divorced or otherwise single counterparts, according to a University of California, Riverside analysis of new mortality data for that era. For women, marital status had little impact on who was more likely to die of the disease. But race proved to be a significant risk factor, with African-American women nine times more likely to die of HIV/AIDS and Latinas seven times more likely to die of the disease than white women. ...

It's a parent's nightmare: opening a Lego set and being faced with 500 pieces, but no instructions on how to assemble them into the majestic castle shown on the box. Thanks to a new approach by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, researchers studying large sets of molecules with vital roles inside our cells can now overcome a similar problem. In a study published online today in Science, the scientists used super-resolution microscopy to solve a decade-long debate about the structure of the nuclear pore complex, which controls ...

Groundbreaking new electron microscopy technology developed at the York JEOL Nanocentre at the University of York is allowing researchers to observe and analyse single atoms, small clusters and nanoparticles in dynamic in-situ experiments for the first time. The influential work being carried out at York is opening up striking new opportunities for observing and understanding the role of atoms in reactions in many areas of the physical sciences. It also has important implications for new medicines and new energy sources. So far, observing reacting atoms has been difficult. ...

The National Food Institute has gathered the findings of the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration's studies of pesticide residues in Danish food in the period 2004-2011. The calculations of the intake show that pesticide residues in foods on the Danish market do not constitute a health risk. Pesticide residues are found primarily in fruit and vegetables. In general, pesticide residues are more often found in fruit than in vegetables, and foreign fruit contains more pesticide residues than Danish fruit. The share of Danish fruit with a content of pesticides under ...

The discovery cracks the "RNA control code," which dictates how RNA — a family of molecules that mediates DNA expression — moves genetic information from DNA to create proteins. "For the first time, we understand the language of a code that is essential to gene processing," said Quaid Morris, a Professor in U of T's Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research. "Many human diseases are due to defects in this code, so figuring out what it means is crucial to creating new treatments for many conditions." The ...

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Even the healthiest relationships include arguments, but the topic of the argument could predict risk of divorce, according to a Kansas State University researcher. "Arguments about money is by far the top predictor of divorce," said Sonya Britt, assistant professor of family studies and human services and program director of personal financial planning. "It's not children, sex, in-laws or anything else. It's money -- for both men and women." Britt conducted a study using longitudinal data from more than 4,500 couples as part of the National Survey ...

While research tends to become very specialized and entire communities of scientists can work on specific topics with only a little overlap between them, physicist Dr Nicolas Brunner and mathematician Professor Noah Linden worked together to uncover a deep and unexpected connection between their two fields of expertise: game theory and quantum physics. Dr Brunner said: "Once in a while, connections are established between topics which seem, on the face of it, to have nothing in common. Such new links have potential to trigger significant progress and open entirely new ...

The bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is commonly found in nature and frequently colonizes the skin and the upper respiratory tract of humans. A healthy immune system can fight the microorganism but once the immune system is weakened the pathogen can spread and lead to life-threatening diseases of the lungs, the heart and other organs. Moreover, S. aureus produces toxins in foods and can cause serious food poisoning. Its effects are not confined to humans: in cattle, S. aureus frequently causes inflammation of the udders, so the bacterium is also of great interest ...

During pregnancy, women are normally advised to take high amounts of multivitamin supplements. In particular, folate is recommended to reduce the risk of neural tube defects in newborns. The problem is that, although vitamins are critical in fetal development, high vitamin doses during pregnancy may cause undesired effects on the offspring later in life (in rats, an obesogenic phenotype is typically observed). A study in the July issue of the journal Epigenetics suggests that feeding the pups a similar high-folate diet can prevent the obesogenic phenotype of mature offspring ...

Published today in the journal Science, Professor Frank Caruso from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The University of Melbourne and his team have developed a new strategy to coat microscopic materials, leading to a new-generation particle system with engineered properties. This is expected to underpin advances in the delivery of therapeutics in the areas of cancer, vaccines, cardiovascular disease and neural health. The capsules can be engineered to degrade under different conditions, providing opportunities for the timed release of substances ...

TORONTO, ON – Males and females face different challenges in accessing treatment for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Uganda Ministry of Health and Imperial College London. The study, published by PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases on July 11, explores the role of gender in access to treatment in the Uganda National Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program. NTDs are a group of parasitic, viral and bacterial diseases that affect at least a billion people worldwide. ...

Far more people are willing to donate their eyes to research than actually are registered to donate, according to a study led by a Michigan State University student. While demand for tissue remains high, the number of human eyes donated for research declined 28 percent between 1997 and 2004, said Andrew Williams, a third-year MSU College of Human Medicine student who led the study in the journal Current Eye Research. "A lot of people aren't aware they can donate their eyes to research," Williams said. "They don't really know how to get the process started. It comes ...

A study by researchers at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) is the first to demonstrate that patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) lose the emotional content/colour of their memories. These findings explain why FTD patients may not vividly remember an emotionally charged event like a wedding or funeral. The research team discovered that a region of the brain, called the orbitofrontal cortex, plays a key role in linking emotion and memories. "This step forward in the mapping of the brain will improve how we diagnose different types of dementia," says the ...

CHICAGO --- In the first step toward animal-to-human transplants of insulin-producing cells for people with type 1 diabetes, Northwestern Medicine® scientists have successfully transplanted islets, the cells that produce insulin, from one species to another. And the islets survived without immunosuppressive drugs. Northwestern scientists developed a new method that prevented rejection of the islets, a huge problem in transplants between species, called xenotransplantation. "This is the first time that an interspecies transplant of islet cells has been achieved for an ...

Have you ever noticed the way water flows around boulders in a fast-moving river, creating areas of stillness and intense motion? What if those forces of fluid flow could be controlled at the smallest levels? In May 2013, researchers from UCLA, Iowa State and Princeton reported results in Nature Communications about a new way of sculpting tailor-made fluid flows by placing tiny pillars in microfluidic channels. By altering the speed of the fluid, and stacking many pillars, with different widths, placements and orientations, in the fluid's path, they showed that it is ...

Children who suffer from arthritis could one day receive more targeted treatment thanks to potential markers for the severity of the disorder discovered by researchers at the University of Adelaide and Women's and Children's Hospital. The early results of a world-first study looking at 115 children with juvenile arthritis have shown that changes in the levels of particular molecules known as prostanoids - which are formed from essential fatty acids - in the blood of these patients may predict the course of arthritis more accurately, and help provide more individualized ...