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Science10 Feb 2014

EHR-based screening program for AAA cuts the number of at-risk men by more than half

PASADENA, CALIF., Feb. 10, 2014 — A screening program for abdominal aortic aneurysms, integrated into an electronic health record, dramatically reduced the number of unscreened at-risk men by more than 50 percent within 15 months, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in the Journal of Vascular Surgery. An abdominal aortic aneurysm is a balloon-like bulge in the aorta, which – if ruptured – can result in death. It is estimated that more than one million Americans are living with undiagnosed AAA, according to the Society for Vascular Surgery. Since 2005, ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

Is height important in matters of the heart? New study says yes

Is height important in matters of the heart? According to new research from Rice University and the University of North Texas, the height of a potential partner matters more to women than men, and mostly for femininity and protection. The study, "Does Height Matter? An Examination of Height Preferences in Romantic Coupling," was conducted in two parts. Part one, which used data from the Yahoo! personal dating advertisements of 455 males (average height of 5 feet 8 inches and average age of 36 years) and 470 females (average height of 5 feet 4 inches and average age of ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

Keep romance alive with double dates

Austin – February 10, 2014 – Going on a double date may be more effective at reigniting passion in your own relationship than the classic candlelit dinner for two. According to new research, striking up a friendship with another couple in which you discuss personal details of your life will bring you closer to your own partner. "Passionate love is one of the first dimensions of love to decrease in couples over time as the newness of a relationship begins to wane," says Keith Welker, a doctoral student at Wayne State University. "Relationships have widely been thought ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

Study suggests ways to improve common furniture fire test

The bench-scale test widely used to evaluate whether a burning cigarette will ignite upholstered furniture may underestimate the tendency of component materials to smolder when these materials are used in sofas and chairs supported by springs or cloth, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and American University researchers report in a new study.* The study comes as regulations and methods for evaluating the likelihood that soft-furniture materials will ignite are undergoing scrutiny. In November 2013, California removed an open-flame test from its furniture ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

New pain target for bacterial infections

Components in the outer wall of bacteria directly activate pain sensors, triggering immediate pain and inflammatory responses. This finding by a multinational team of researchers led by Professor Karel Talavera (KU Leuven, Belgium) and Professor Félix Viana (Institute of Neuroscience, Spain) sheds new light on pain associated with bacterial infections and reveals a new target for drugs designed to treat them. Bacterial infections are a global health problem and their treatment remains a major challenge to modern medicine. Infections of Gram-negative bacteria, in particular, ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

Mechanism elucidated: How smell perception influences food intake

In animals, as in humans, hunger mechanisms are known to stimulate food intake. Hunger triggers a set of mechanisms that encourage feeding, for example by increasing sensory perceptions such as the sense of smell. The researchers have now succeeded in revealing what links hunger and increased smell perception in the brain, and the resulting urge to eat. The researchers have discovered how this mechanism is initiated in the endocannabinoid system in mice. This system interconnects receptors located in the brain and involved in different sensations such as euphoria, anxiety, ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

University clinical pharmacologist researching chronic lead intoxication in goats

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- The Nile is a river in Egypt. Sometimes that river is polluted with industrial waste, such as lead, which can cause detrimental effects on local sheep and goats via the water supply. Kansas State University's Ronette Gehring is an associate professor of clinical pharmacology in the of anatomy and physiology department of the university's College of Veterinary Medicine. She has joined a team of researchers from Egypt, Jordan and the United States in evaluating the effect of chronic lead intoxication in goats. In December 2013, the researchers published ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

Report calls for abolition of fixed retirement age

A report led by a professor at the University of Southampton recommends the worldwide removal of the fixed or default retirement age (DRA). Professor Yehuda Baruch from the Southampton Management School, in collaboration with Dr Susan Sayce from the University of East Anglia and Professor Andros Gregoriou from the University of Hull, has found that, on a global scale, current pension systems are unsustainable. Professor Baruch comments: "We have a global problem with funding pensions, which assume people will retire around their mid-60s. Young people are tending to ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

Study finds 3-fold increase in pregnancy among young girls with mental illness

TORONTO, February 10, 2014 – Young girls with mental illness are three times more likely to become teenage parents than those without a major mental illness, according to a first-of-its-kind study by researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Women's College Hospital. The study, published today in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to examine trends in fertility rates among girls with mental illness. "Research tells us that young girls are at high risk of pregnancy complications, including preterm birth, poor fetal growth and postpartum ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

Drifting herbicides produce uncertain effects

Farmers should take extra precautions so drifting herbicides do not create unintended consequences on neighboring fields and farms, according to agricultural researchers. The researchers found a range of effects -- positive, neutral and negative -- when they sprayed the herbicide dicamba on old fields -- ones that are no longer used for cultivation -- and on field edges, according to J. Franklin Egan, research ecologist, USDA-Agricultural Research Service. He said the effects should be similar for a related compound, 2,4-D. "The general consensus is that the effects ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

Young, unvaccinated adults account for severest flu cases

DURHAM, N.C. – A snapshot of patients who required care at Duke University Hospital during this year's flu season shows that those who had not been vaccinated had severe cases and needed the most intensive treatment. In an analysis of the first 55 patients treated for flu at the academic medical center from November 2013 through Jan. 8, 2014, Duke Medicine researchers found that only two of the 22 patients who required intensive care had been vaccinated prior to getting sick. The findings were published online in Monday, Feb. 10, 2014, in the American Journal of Respiratory ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

Researchers discover immune signature that predicts poor outcome in influenza patients

(Memphis, Tenn. – February 10, 2014) St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have identified a signature immune response that might help doctors identify which newly diagnosed influenza patients are most likely to develop severe symptoms and suffer poor outcomes. The findings also help explain why infants and toddlers are at elevated risk for flu complications. The research appears in the upcoming issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The discovery came after investigators tracked flu infections for 28 days in 84 individuals ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

How do polar bears stay warm? Research finds an answer in their genes

BUFFALO, N.Y. — In the winter, brown and black bears go into hibernation to conserve energy and keep warm. But things are different for their Arctic relative, the polar bear. Within this high-latitude species, only pregnant females den up for the colder months. So how do the rest survive the extreme Arctic winters? New research points to one potential answer: genetic adaptations related to the production of nitric oxide, a compound that cells use to help convert nutrients from food into energy or heat. In a new study, a team led by the University at Buffalo reports ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

Experimental care program keeps people with dementia at home longer, study shows

An 18-month pilot program that brought resources and counselors to elderly Baltimore residents with dementia and other memory disorders significantly increased the length of time they lived successfully at home, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. Staying at home was a clear preference for most of those who participated in the study. "The project demonstrated that we were able to help such people age in place without sacrificing their quality of life," says study leader Quincy Miles Samus, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the ...

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Technology10 Feb 2014

Research reveals the give and take of urban temperature mitigating technologies

TEMPE, Ariz. – Life in a warming world is going to require human ingenuity to adapt to the new realities of Earth. Greenhouse-gas induced warming and megapolitan expansion are both significant drivers of our warming planet. Researchers are now assessing adaptation technologies that could help us acclimate to these changing realities. But how well these adaptation technologies – such as cool roofs, green roofs and hybrids of the two – perform year round and how this performance varies with place remains uncertain. Now a team of researchers, led by Matei Georgescu, ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

The genetic origins of high-altitude adaptations in Tibetans

Genetic adaptations for life at high elevations found in residents of the Tibetan plateau likely originated around 30,000 years ago in peoples related to contemporary Sherpa. These genes were passed on to more recent migrants from lower elevations via population mixing, and then amplified by natural selection in the modern Tibetan gene pool, according to a new study by scientists from the University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University, published in Nature Communications on Feb. 10. The transfer of beneficial mutations between human populations and selective ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

Study involving twin sisters provides clues for battling aggressive cancers

CINCINNATI – Analyzing the genomes of twin 3-year-old sisters – one healthy and one with aggressive leukemia – led an international team of researchers to identify a novel molecular target that could become a way to treat recurring and deadly malignancies. Scientists in China and the United States report their findings online Feb. 9 in Nature Genetics. The study points to a molecular pathway involving a gene called SETD2, which can mutate in blood cells during a critical step as DNA is being transcribed and replicated. The findings stem from the uniquely rare opportunity ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

Genome editing goes hi-fi

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—February 9, 2014—Sometimes biology is cruel. Sometimes simply a one-letter change in the human genetic code is the difference between health and a deadly disease. But even though doctors and scientists have long studied disorders caused by these tiny changes, replicating them to study in human stem cells has proven challenging. But now, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have found a way to efficiently edit the human genome one letter at a time—not only boosting researchers' ability to model human disease, but also paving the way for therapies that ...

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Technology10 Feb 2014

Cochlear implants -- with no exterior hardware

Cochlear implants — medical devices that electrically stimulate the auditory nerve — have granted at least limited hearing to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who otherwise would be totally deaf. Existing versions of the device, however, require that a disk-shaped transmitter about an inch in diameter be affixed to the skull, with a wire snaking down to a joint microphone and power source that looks like an oversized hearing aid around the patient's ear. Researchers at MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratory (MTL), together with physicians from Harvard Medical ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

Scientists invent advanced approach to identify new drug candidates from genome sequence

JUPITER, FL—February 9, 2014—In research that could ultimately lead to many new medicines, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a potentially general approach to design drugs from genome sequence. As a proof of principle, they identified a highly potent compound that causes cancer cells to attack themselves and die. "This is the first time therapeutic small molecules have been rationally designed from only an RNA sequence—something many doubted could be done," said Matthew Disney, PhD, an associate professor at TSRI ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

Fight or flight? Vocal cues help deer decide during mating season

Previous studies have shown that male fallow deer, known as bucks, can call for a mate more than 3000 times per hour during the rut (peak of the mating season), and their efforts in calling, fighting and mating can leave them sounding hoarse. In this new study, published today (10 February) in the journal Behavioral Ecology, scientists were able to gauge that fallow bucks listen to the sound quality of rival males' calls and evaluate how exhausted the caller is and whether they should fight or keep their distance. "Fallow bucks are among the most impressive vocal athletes ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

Pacific trade winds stall global surface warming -- for now

Heat stored in the western Pacific Ocean caused by an unprecedented strengthening of the equatorial trade winds appears to be largely responsible for the hiatus in surface warming observed over the past 13 years. New research published today in the journal Nature Climate Change indicates that the dramatic acceleration in winds has invigorated the circulation of the Pacific Ocean, causing more heat to be taken out of the atmosphere and transferred into the subsurface ocean, while bringing cooler waters to the surface. "Scientists have long suspected that extra ocean ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

Seven new genetic regions linked to type 2 diabetes

Seven new genetic regions associated with type 2 diabetes have been identified in the largest study to date of the genetic basis of the disease. DNA data was brought together from more than 48,000 patients and 139,000 healthy controls from four different ethnic groups. The research was conducted by an international consortium of investigators from 20 countries on four continents, co-led by investigators from Oxford University's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. The majority of such 'genome-wide association studies' have been done in populations with European ...

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Science10 Feb 2014

Optogenetic toolkit goes multicolor

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Optogenetics is a technique that allows scientists to control neurons' electrical activity with light by engineering them to express light-sensitive proteins. Within the past decade, it has become a very powerful tool for discovering the functions of different types of cells in the brain. Most of these light-sensitive proteins, known as opsins, respond to light in the blue-green range. Now, a team led by MIT has discovered an opsin that is sensitive to red light, which allows researchers to independently control the activity of two populations of neurons ...

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Medicine10 Feb 2014

Clues to cancer pathogenesis found in cell-conditioned media

Philadelphia, PA, February 10, 2014 – Primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) is a rare B-cell neoplasm distinguished by its tendency to spread along the thin serous membranes that line body cavities without infiltrating or destroying nearby tissue. By growing PEL cells in culture and analyzing the secretome (proteins secreted into cell-conditioned media), investigators have identified proteins that may explain PEL pathogenesis, its peculiar cell adhesion, and migration patterns. They also recognized related oncogenic pathways, thereby providing rationales for more individualized ...

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