This news release is available in German. Leipzig/Dübendorf, Switzerland -- Researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Envi-ronmental Research (UFZ), together with colleagues from the Swiss Eawag aquatic research institute, have discovered a protein which transports chemicals out of the embryo of the zebrafish and in this way protects the embryo against toxic substances. However, certain environmental chemicals render this protective mechanism ineffective, so that the fish embryos become more sensitive to toxic substances. The study, published in the scientific journal ...

Scientists have for the first time provided proof of principle for a drug-based treatment of acute pancreatitis – a disease which is often alcohol-related and for which currently there is no treatment. Each year around 20,000 people in the UK are admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis. One in five of these cases are severe, resulting in around 1000 deaths annually. Published in the US-based PNAS journal*, findings reveal that tests undertaken by scientists at Cardiff University, using an existing calcium channel-blocking compound developed by GlaxoSmithKline, ...

Washington, DC -- September 3, 2013 -- The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) released its first international poll today, the 2013 International Bedroom Poll, comparing sleep times, attitudes, habits and bedtime routines of those in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan between the ages of 25 and 55 years old. Japan and the United States report the least amount of sleep. Japanese and Americans report sleeping about 30 to 40 minutes less on workdays than those in the other countries surveyed, averaging 6 hours and 22 minutes and 6 hours ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Ground-breaking new research from a team of evolutionary biologists at Indiana University shows for the first time how asexual lineages of a species are doomed not necessarily from a long, slow accumulation of new mutations, but rather from fast-paced gene conversion processes that simply unmask pre-existing deleterious recessive mutations. Geneticists have long bet on the success of sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction based in a large part on the process known as Muller's ratchet, the mechanism by which a genome accrues deleterious and ...

Scientists have pushed back the boundaries of atom-based transport, creating a current by characterizing the many-body effects in the transport of the atoms along a periodic lattice. This work by Anton Ivanov and colleagues from the Institute for Theoretical Physics, at the University of Heidel-berg, Germany, adopted a new analytical approach before comparing it to approximate numerical simulations, and is reported in a paper recently published in EPJ B. Ultra-cold atoms trapped in optical potentials offer solutions for the transport of particles capable of producing ...

An international team of scientists, including biologists from, the University of York, has discovered five new species of bats in West Africa. The team, which also included researchers from the Czech University of Life Sciences and the Academy of Sciences, Charles University in the Czech Republic, discovered a wealth of unexpected diversity among Vesper bats in Senegal. During seven expeditions to the Niokolo-Koba National Park in south-eastern Senegal, and subsequent genetic analysis, the scientists discovered that five species of bats looked similar to other populations ...

UPTON, NY - Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified a series of clues that particular arrangements of electrical charges known as "stripes" may play a role in superconductivity-the ability of some materials to carry electric current with no energy loss. But uncovering the detailed relationship between these stripe patterns and the appearance or disappearance of superconductivity is extremely difficult, particularly because the stripes that may accompany superconductivity are very likely moving, or fluctuating. As ...

Researchers from the universities in Mainz, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Ulm have proposed a new platform for quantum simulation. In a theoretical paper recently published in Physical Review Letters, they show that a combined system of ultracold trapped ions and fermionic atoms could be used to emulate solid state physics. This system may outperform possibilities of existing platforms as a number of phenomena found in solid state systems are naturally included, such as the fermionic statistics of the electrons and the electron-sound wave interactions. Quantum simulation was ...

New drugs which may have the potential to stop faulty brain cells dying and slow down the progression of Parkinson's, have been identified by scientists in a pioneering study which is the first of its kind. Experts from the world leading Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) conducted a large scale drugs trial in the lab using skin cells from people with this progressive neurological condition which affects one in every 500 people in the UK. The researchers tested over 2,000 compounds to find out which ones could make faulty mitochondria work ...

Washington, DC, September 3, 2013 – 100 percent of student nurses surveyed observed lapses in infection prevention and control practices during their clinical placements, according to a British study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). Infection prevention and control (IPC) education is a fundamental component of the nursing curriculum, but little is understood about nursing students' experience of IPC in the clinical setting ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (September 1, 2013) - For older adults undergoing surgery for spinal stenosis, some simple indicators of poor preoperative health predict a high risk of major medical complications, reports a study in the September 1 issue of Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. In combination, these risk factors may help in identifying patients at increased risk of heart attack and other serious events after spinal stenosis surgery, according to the report by Dr Richard A. Deyo and colleagues of Oregon ...

Monday, Sept. 3, 2013, Cleveland: Patients with coronary artery disease and low levels of "good cholesterol – or high-density lipoprotein (HDL) – who were treated with a drug designed to increase HDL levels and reduce coronary plaque build-up, experienced no better results than those treated with placebo, according to research conducted by the Cleveland Clinic Coordinating Center for Clinical Research (C5Research). The drug, RVX-208, induces the production of apolipoprotein A1 (apoA1), a major protein in HDL. Prior research has shown that higher levels of HDL are associated ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT researchers have shown that they can turn genes on or off inside yeast and human cells by controlling when DNA is copied into messenger RNA — an advance that could allow scientists to better understand the function of those genes. The technique could also make it easier to engineer cells that can monitor their environment, produce a drug or detect disease, says Timothy Lu, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biological engineering and the senior author of a paper describing the new approach in the journal ACS ...

MAYWOOD, Il. -- Fifteen percent of the most common type of strokes occur in adolescents and young adults, and more young people are showing risk factors for such strokes, according to a report in the journal Neurology. Neurologist Jose Biller of Loyola University Medical Center is a co-author of the report, a consensus statement developed by the American Academy of Neurology. Between 532,000 and 852,000 persons ages 18 to 44 in the United States have had a stroke. U.S. hospital discharges for stroke among persons ages 15 to 44 increased 23-to-53 percent between 1995-1996 ...

WASHINGTON, DC -- Medicaid paid for nearly half of the 3.8 million births in the United States in 2010 -- an amount that has been rising over time, according to a report out today. The study, published in the September 2013 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Women's Health Issues, offers the most comprehensive information to date on Medicaid financing of births in each of the 50 states and nationally. The new data will help researchers gauge the impact of health reform on maternal and child health, the authors say. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), some states are ...

Scientists from the Institute of Health Economics and Health Care Management (IGM) and from the Institute of Epidemiology II (EPI II) discovered that weight gain leads to deterioration in physical health. Female study participants, however, experienced improved mental quality of life as their weight increased, a result that was observed even in women who were already overweight when the study began. For this study, Professor Dr Rolf Holle, Michael Laxy and their team evaluated data from the population-based longitudinal KORA study on the association between body weight ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Social networking sites have become incredibly popular in recent years, with Facebook now ranking as the third most popular website in the U.S. With so many people spending so much time on Facebook, public relations professionals are using the site more and more to communicate to the public. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri School of Journalism have found that posting public relations information on Facebook during a time of crisis can improve the overall image of the organization that is experiencing the crisis. Seoyeon Hong, a doctoral ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Like naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus gaber), blind mole-rats (of the genus Spalax) live underground in low-oxygen environments, are long-lived and resistant to cancer. A new study demonstrates just how cancer-resistant Spalax are, and suggests that the adaptations that help these rodents survive in low-oxygen environments also play a role in their longevity and cancer resistance. The findings are reported in the journal Biomed Central: Biology. "We've shown that, compared to mice and rats, blind mole-rats are highly resistant to carcinogens," said ...

Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013, Cleveland: Patients with clogged and hardened arteries who already have their blood pressure under control may benefit from an additional blood pressure-lowering medication, according to research from the Cleveland Clinic Coordinating Center for Clinical Research (C5Research). The researchers found that the renin-inhibitor aliskiren tended to slow coronary disease progression and reduced the risk of death, stroke and heart attack in these patients by about 50 percent, compared to placebo, suggesting that patients with prehypertension may benefit ...

People with epilepsy could be helped by new research into the way a key molecule controls brain activity during a seizure. Researchers have identified the role played by of a protein – called BDNF – and say the discovery could lead to new drugs that calm the symptoms of epileptic seizures. Scientists analysed the way cells communicate when the brain is most active – such as in epileptic seizures – when electrical signalling by the brain's neurons is increased. They found that the BDNF molecule – which is known to be released in the brain during seizures – blocks a ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- For most animals, scent is the instant messenger of choice for quickly exchanging personal profiles. Scientists, however, have long dismissed birds as odor-eschewing luddites that don't take advantage of scent-based communications. In a first-of-its-kind study, however, a Michigan State University researcher has demonstrated that birds do indeed communicate via scents, and that odor reliably predicts their reproductive success. The study appears in the current issue of Animal Behaviour and focuses on volatile compounds in avian preen secretions. Birds' ...

The hepatitis C virus hijacks the body's immune system, leaving T cells unable to function. A new study in animal models suggests that blocking a protein that helps the virus thrive could restore immune function, allowing the body to fight infection. The work, led by teams at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and Emory University, was published online Aug. 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Previous studies show that antibody treatments that inhibit the protein, called programmed cell death 1 (PD-1), can shrink tumors in ...

For many firms, losing significant revenue and profit to employee theft has been a cost of doing business. But a new study from Washington University in St. Louis finds that information technology monitoring is strikingly effective in reducing theft and fraud, especially in the restaurant industry. "Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology Monitoring on Employee Theft and Productivity," by Lamar Pierce, PhD, associate professor of strategy at Olin Business School, finds that mining sales data of employees increased restaurant revenue about 7 percent. The ...

If you're poor and aging in America, the golden years may not be pretty, especially if you are black. University of Central Florida assistant professor Latarsha Chisholm and colleagues conducted a study, which found that nursing homes that serve predominantly black residents tend to struggle financially and provide lower quality care than nursing homes with no black residents. Results were recently published in the Health Services Research journal. "There is no simple fix," Chisholm said. "It is a complex issue, but we need to address it because disparities are everyone's ...

Despite widespread adoption by hospitals of surgical robot technology over the past decade, a "slapdash" system of reporting complications paints an unclear picture of its safety, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. In a report published online in the Journal for Healthcare Quality, the Johns Hopkins team says that of the 1 million or so robotic surgeries performed since 2000, only 245 complications -- including 71 deaths -- were reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. When an adverse event or device malfunction occurs, hospitals are required to report ...