OAK BROOK, Ill. (May 23, 2013) – Aortic arch pulse wave velocity, a measure of arterial stiffness, is a strong independent predictor of disease of the vessels that supply blood to the brain, according to a new study published in the June issue the journal Radiology. "Pulse wave velocity from the aortic arch provides functional information about vessel compliance that may help determine a patient's risk for cerebrovascular disease down the road," said Kevin S. King, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Recent studies have ...

By discovering the new mechanism by which estrogen suppresses lipid synthesis in the liver, UC Irvine endocrinologists have revealed a potential new approach toward treating certain liver diseases. With this finding, Dr. Ellis Levin and colleagues believe they are changing long-held views in the field. Study results appear in the May 21 issue of the journal Science Signaling. "The dogma in the steroid receptor field for 50 years has been that only receptors located in the nucleus respond to steroid hormones by regulating genes that produce the developmental, functional ...

DETROIT — Commitment to the job by correctional staff members cannot be bought but must be earned by an organization, a Wayne State University researcher believes. A study by Eric Lambert, Ph.D., professor and chair of criminal justice in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, describes three types of commitment and the effects of three organizational concepts on them, based on a survey of 450 staff members at a maximum-security correctional institution in Michigan. "Loyalty, Love, and Investments: The Impact of Job Outcomes on the Organizational Commitment of Correctional ...

A team of researchers has captured images of green alga consuming bacteria, offering a glimpse at how early organisms dating back more than 1 billion years may have acquired free-living photosynthetic cells. This acquisition is thought to have been a critical first step in the evolution of photosynthetic algae and land plants, which, in turn, contributed to the increase in oxygen levels in Earth's atmosphere and ocean and provided one of the conditions necessary for animal evolution. In a paper that appears in the June 17 issue of Current Biology and is available online ...

UCLA researchers examining outcomes for advanced heart-failure patients over the past two decades have found that, coinciding with the increased availability and use of new therapies, overall mortality has decreased and sudden cardiac death, caused by the rapid onset of severe abnormal heart rhythms, has declined. However, the team found that even today, with these significant improvements, one-third of patients don't survive more than three years after being diagnosed with advanced disease. Heart failure is increasingly common, affecting close to 6 million individuals ...

From Virginia to Florida, there is a prehistoric shoreline that, in some parts, rests more than 280 feet above modern sea level. The shoreline was carved by waves more than 3 million years ago—possible evidence of a once higher sea level, triggered by ice-sheet melting. But new findings by a team of researchers, including Robert Moucha, assistant professor of Earth Sciences in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences, reveal that the shoreline has been uplifted by more than 210 feet, meaning less ice melted than expected. Equally compelling is the fact that ...

Toronto – May 23, 2013 – Embargoed until 2:00 PM – An international team of scientists has proved that the H7N9 influenza virus is efficiently transmitted when animals are in close contact -- defined in the study as touching, coughing and the exchange of bodily fluids. "This study was designed to give us clues about the transmission of H7N9 which has affected some humans in China," said David Kelvin, PhD, a senior scientist at the Toronto General Research Institute and Professor at the University of Toronto. "The animals used in the study had very mild clinical symptoms ...

Cells in the human body do not function in isolation. Living cells rely on communication with their environment—neighboring cells and the surrounding matrix—to activate a wide range of cellular functions, including reproduction of new cells, differentiation of stem cells into distinct cell types, cell adhesion, and migration of white blood cells to fight bodily infections. This cellular communication occurs on the molecular level and it is reciprocal: a cell receives cues from and also transmits function-activating cues to its neighbors. The mechanics of this type of ...

Cinnamon: Can the red-brown spice with the unmistakable fragrance and variety of uses offer an important benefit? The common baking spice might hold the key to delaying the onset of –– or warding off –– the effects of Alzheimer's disease. That is, according to Roshni George and Donald Graves, scientists at UC Santa Barbara. The results of their study, "Interaction of Cinnamaldehyde and Epicatechin with Tau: Implications of Beneficial Effects in Modulating Alzheimer's Disease Pathogenesis," appears in the online early edition of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, and ...

Chinese and U.S. scientists have used virus isolated from a person who died from H7N9 avian influenza infection to determine whether the virus could infect and be transmitted between ferrets. Ferrets are often used as a mammalian model in influenza research, and efficient transmission of influenza virus between ferrets can provide clues as to how well the same process might occur in people. The research was supported, in part, by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The researchers dropped H7N9 virus into ...

More than 13,000 ships per year, carrying more than 284 million tons of cargo, transit the Panama Canal each year, generating roughly $1.8 billion dollars in toll fees for the Panama Canal Authority. Each time a ship passes through, more than 55 million gallons of water are used from Gatun Lake, which is also a source of water for the 2 million people living in the isthmus. However, the advent of very large "super" cargo ships, now more than 20 percent of the ships at sea, has demanded change. The Panama Canal is being expanded to create channels and locks three times ...

A newly synthesized material might provide a dramatically improved method for separating the highest-octane components of gasoline. Measurements at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have clarified* why. The research team, which included scientists from NIST and several other universities, has published its findings in the journal Science.* Created in the laboratory of Jeffrey Long, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, the material is a metal-organic framework, or MOF, which can be imagined as a sponge with microscopic ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers and physicians in the field could soon run on-the-spot tests for environmental toxins, medical diagnostics, food safety and more with their smartphones. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers have developed a cradle and app for the iPhone that uses the phone's built-in camera and processing power as a biosensor to detect toxins, proteins, bacteria, viruses and other molecules. Having such sensitive biosensing capabilities in the field could enable on-the-spot tracking of groundwater contamination, combine the phone's GPS ...

Scientists at Emory Vaccine Center have shown that an immune regulatory molecule called IL-21 is needed for long-lasting antibody responses in mice against viral infections. The results are published in the Journal of Virology. "Our findings highlight how IL-21 could be important in the development of antiviral vaccines," says research associate Ata Ur Rasheed Mohammed, PhD, the first author of the paper. The senior author is Rafi Ahmed, PhD, director of the Emory Vaccine Center and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. The findings could lead scientists designing ...

This news release is available in French. University of Montreal researchers have discovered a novel molecular mechanism that can potentially slow the progression of some cancers and other diseases of abnormal growth. In the May 23 edition of the prestigious journal Cell, scientists from the University of Montreal explain how they found that the anti-cancer and anti-proliferative drug rapamycin slows down or prevents cells from dividing. "Cells normally monitor the availability of nutrients and will slow down or accelerate their growth and division accordingly. A ...

HOUSTON - Even while being dragged to its destruction inside a cell, a cancer-promoting growth factor receptor fires away, sending signals that thwart the development of tumor-suppressing microRNAs (miRNAs) before it's dissolved, researchers reported in an early online publication at Nature. Under conditions of oxygen starvation often encountered by tumors, the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gums up the cell's miRNA-processing machinery, an international team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered. "So when hypoxia ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — An anti-cancer drug about to be tested in a clinical trial by a biomedical company in Ohio as a possible treatment for Alzheimer's disease has failed to work with the same type of brain plaques that plague Alzheimer's patients, according to results of a study by University of Florida researchers. David Borchelt, Ph.D., a professor of neuroscience affiliated with the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida, emphasized the importance of verifying promising research results before investing in clinical studies or ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have used next generation genomic analysis to determine that some of the more aggressive prostate cancer tumors have similar genetic origins, which may help in predicting cancer progression. The findings appear online today in the journal Cancer Research. "This is the first study to examine DNA alterations using next generation sequencing in adjacent Gleason patterns in the same tumor allowing us to correlate genomics with changes in pathology," says John Cheville, M.D., Mayo Clinic pathologist and one of the authors on the ...

VIDEO: New research from Western University explains why some cancer cells don't respond to chemotherapy, and identifies a mechanism to rectify that. Dr. Shawn Li, Ph.D., explains how a protein called... Click here for more information. Breast cancer characterized as "triple negative" carries a poor prognosis, with limited treatment options. In some cases, chemotherapy doesn't kill the cancer cells the way it's supposed to. New research from Western University explains why ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (May 23, 2013)—Don't doubt it when a woman harried by hot flashes says she's having a hard time remembering things. A new study published online in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), helps confirm with objective tests that what these women say about their memory is true. In the past, some studies showed that hot flashes were related to memory problems, and some didn't. Other studies showed that, even though there was a relationship between hot flashes and what women said about memory problems, objective tests didn't ...

The Ring Nebula's distinctive shape makes it a popular illustration for astronomy books. But new observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of the glowing gas shroud around an old, dying, sun-like star reveal a new twist. "The nebula is not like a bagel, but rather, it's like a jelly doughnut, because it's filled with material in the middle," said C. Robert O'Dell of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He leads a research team that used Hubble and several ground-based telescopes to obtain the best view yet of the iconic nebula. The images show a more complex ...

Approximately a year ago, the leading journal Science published an article about bexarotene as a potential Alzheimer's drug. A significant breakthrough and an important starting point for further Alzheimer's research. The research group of Bart De Strooper – Alzheimer's researcher at VIB and KU Leuven – in collaboration with the group of Rudi D'Hooge – KU Leuven – and scientists at Janssen Pharmaceutica, Beerse, also tested this candidate drug in various Alzheimer's animal test models. Their results were different, as were those of two American study groups. Therefore, ...

New Rochelle, NY, May 23, 2013—Detection of HIV antibodies is used to diagnose HIV infection and monitor trials of experimental HIV/AIDS vaccines. New, more sensitive detection systems being developed use microspheres to capture HIV antibodies and can measure even small amounts of multiple antibodies at one time. This novel multiplex immunoassay approach is described in an article in BioResearch Open Access, a peer-reviewed open access journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). The article is available on the BioResearch Open Access website ...

PHILADELPHIA, May 24, 2013 -- High blood glucose is associated with poor outcomes in hospitalized patients, and use of intensive insulin therapy (IIT) to control hyperglycemia is a common practice in hospitals. But the recent evidence does not show a consistent benefit and even shows harms associated with the use of IIT, according to the American College of Physicians' (ACP) Clinical Guidelines Committee in a new evidence-based paper published today online in the American Journal of Medical Quality. "Clinicians caring for hospitalized patients must keep the harms of hypoglycemia ...

Do not be afraid to file for bankruptcy Article provided by The Law Offices of Elkins & Freedman Visit us at http://www.elkinsfreedman.com Most people have expenses that they need to account for each month. They make a budget, so that they can meet these obligations without falling into a difficult financial situation. If they experience any changes to the amount of income coming in, they may need to consider other ways to address their debt concerns. Often, they fail to consider all of the options that may be available to them at this difficult time. Some ...