May 17, 2013, Shenzhen, China---- Why Tibetan antelope can live at elevations of 4,000-5,000m on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau? In a collaborative research published in Nature Communications, investigators from Qinghai University, BGI, and other institutes provide evidence that some genetic factors may be associated with the species' adaption to harsh highland environments. The data in this work will also provide implications for studying specific genetic mechanisms and the biology of other ruminant species. The Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) is a native of the ...

Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region. They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture –before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region. Current archaeological thinking is that it was the advent of rice cultivation along the Lower Yangtze River that marked the beginning of agriculture in southern China. Poor organic preservation in the study region, as in many others, means that ...

Materials belonging to the family of dilute magnetic oxides (DMOs) — an oxide-based variant of the dilute magnetic semiconductors — are good candidates for spintronics applications. This is the object of study for Davide Sangalli of the Microelectronics and Microsystems Institute (IMM) at the National Research Council (CNR), in Agrate Brianza, Italy, and colleagues. They recently explored the effect of iron (Fe) doping on thin films of a material called zirconia (ZrO2 oxide). For the first time, the authors bridged the gap between the theoretical predictions and the experimental ...

Scientists investigating the interaction of a group of proteins in the brain responsible for protecting nerve cells from damage have identified a new target that could increase cell survival. The discovery, made by researchers from the University's School of Biochemistry and published in the EMBO journal with additional comment in Nature Reviews, could eventually lead to new therapies for stroke and other brain diseases. The research builds on earlier work by the team which identified a protein, known as SUMO, responsible for controlling the chemical processes which ...

Philadelphia, PA, May 17, 2013 – The most common cause of failure after glaucoma surgery is scarring at the surgical site, so researchers are actively looking for ways to minimize or prevent scar formation. Previous work had suggested that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) activates fibrosis, whereas VEGF inhibition results in reduced scar formation and better surgical results. In a series of studies using a rabbit model of glaucoma surgery, investigators have determined that VEGF probably exerts its effects through induction of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1, ...

Athens, Ga. – Age has little to do with how patients should be treated after suffering a stroke, according to new research from the University of Georgia. Historically, younger stroke victims receive different after-stroke intervention strategies than those over a certain age. However, Neale Chumbler, a UGA professor and head of the department of health policy and management in the College of Public Health, found patients responded equally to care efforts. Looking at 127 Veterans Affairs medical centers and a sample of 3,196 patients treated for ischemic strokes, ...

CINCINNATI—Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that the race and sex of study personnel can influence a patient's decision on whether or not to participate in clinical research. The study, presented today at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine's annual meeting in Atlanta, that there is an interaction of the race and sex of the study assistant and the race of the patient. Lead author Kimberly Hart says that her team found that black patients, both male and female, were about 15 percent less likely to be willing to participate in research ...

CINCINNATI—Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that incorporating a peer-referral program for HIV testing into emergency departments can reach new groups of high-risk patients and brings more patients into the hospital for testing. Co-author and assistant professor of emergency medicine Michael Lyons, MD, says public health officials study multiple approaches to increasing early diagnosis of HIV. These approaches include a recent emphasis on expanding testing in health care centers, particularly emergency departments (EDs) that treat disadvantaged, ...

Among patients with chronic kidney disease, those with very low kidney function had a higher risk of having a heart attack than those with higher kidney function over a four-year period. The link between higher LDL cholesterol and heart attack risk was weaker for patients with very low kidney function than for patients with higher kidney function. 60 million people globally have chronic kidney disease. Washington, DC (May 16, 2013) — LDL cholesterol is not a useful marker of heart disease risk in patients with kidney disease, according to a study appearing in an upcoming ...

Massachusetts' healthcare reform didn't result in substantially more hospital use or higher costs, according to data presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013. The findings were true even among safety-net hospitals, which often have an open-door policy to accept patients regardless of the ability to pay. These hospitals are most likely to care for people who need free services, use Medicaid or must pay their own hospital bills. "In light of the Affordable Healthcare Act, we wanted to validate concerns ...

MAY 16, 2013—An ad hoc coalition of unlikely insurgents—scientists, journal editors and publishers, scholarly societies, and research funders across many scientific disciplines—today posted an international declaration calling on the world scientific community to eliminate the role of the journal impact factor (JIF) in evaluating research for funding, hiring, promotion, or institutional effectiveness. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, or DORA, was framed by a group of journal editors, publishers, and others convened by the American Society for Cell ...

HOUSTON – (May 16, 2013) – In a paper published in Science Express, a group of experts led by bioethicists in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine provide a framework for the new American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) recommendations on reporting incidental findings in clinical exome and genome sequencing. In March 2013, the ACMG recommended that all laboratories conducting clinical sequencing seek and report pathogenic and expected pathogenic mutations for a short list of carefully chosen genes and conditions. ...

This news release is available in German. Once introduced for biological pest control, Asian lady beetle Harmonia axyridis populations have been increasing uncontrollably in the US and Europe since the turn of the millennium. The species has been proliferating rapidly in Germany; conservationists fear that the Asian lady beetle will out-compete native beetle species. Scientists from the University of Giessen and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have now found the reason why this animal is so successful. Apart from a strongly antibiotic ...

Depressed middle-aged women have almost double the risk of having a stroke, according to research published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. In a 12-year Australian study of 10,547 women 47-52 years old, researchers found that depressed women had a 2.4 times increased risk of stroke compared to those who weren't depressed. Even after researchers eliminated several factors that increase stroke risks, depressed women were still 1.9 times more likely to have a stroke. "When treating women, doctors need to recognize the serious nature of poor mental health ...

Science publishes the article in Science Express, which facilitates rapid publication of select studies. "This study is a breakthrough for our research group after years of work. When we reduce the production of the enzyme in mice, the development of all the clinical symptoms of progeria is reduced or blocked. We have also studied cultured cells from children with progeria, and can see that when the enzyme is inhibited, the growth of the cells increases by the same mechanism as in mouse cells," says Martin Bergö, Professor at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg ...

DETROIT – If you're a left-brain thinker, chances are you use your right hand to hold your cell phone up to your right ear, according to a newly published study from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The study – to appear online in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery – shows a strong correlation between brain dominance and the ear used to listen to a cell phone. More than 70% of participants held their cell phone up to the ear on the same side as their dominant hand, the study finds. Left-brain dominant people – who account for about 95% of the population and have ...

Promotion of influenza vaccines is one of the most visible and aggressive public health policies today, writes Doshi. Today around 135 million doses of influenza vaccine annually enter the US market, with vaccinations administered in drug stores, supermarkets - even some drive-throughs. This enormous growth has not been fuelled by popular demand but instead by a public health campaign that delivers a straightforward message: influenza is a serious disease, we are all at risk of complications from influenza, the flu shot is virtually risk free, and vaccination saves lives. Yet, ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (05/15/2012)—Informed consent is the backbone of patient care. Genetic testing has long required patient consent and patients have had a "right not to know" the results. However, as 21st century medicine now begins to use the tools of genome sequencing, an enormous debate has erupted over whether patients' rights will continue in an era of medical genomics. Recent recommendations from the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) suggest no. On March 22, the ACMG released recommendations stating that when clinical sequencing is undertaken ...

Boston, MA – Bicycle engineering guidelines often used by state regulators to design bicycle facilities need to be overhauled to reflect current cyclists' preferences and safety data, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. They say that U.S. guidelines should be expanded to offer cyclists more riding options and call for endorsing cycle tracks – physically separated, bicycle-exclusive paths adjacent to sidewalks – to encourage more people of all ages to ride bicycles. The study appears online May 16, 2013 and will appear in ...

While 99 percent of Earth's land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world's glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder. The new research found that all glacial regions lost mass from 2003 to 2009, with the biggest ice losses occurring in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalayas. The glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic sheets lost an ...

How much all glaciers contribute to global sea-level rise has never been calculated before with this accuracy. An international group of researchers involving two geographers from the University of Zurich has confirmed that melting of glaciers caused about one third of the observed sea-level rise, while the ice sheets and thermal expansion of sea water account for one third each. So far, estimates on the contribution of glaciers have differed substantially. Now 16 scientists from nine countries have compared the data from traditional measurements on the ground with satellite ...

Amsterdam, May 17, 2013 - Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the publication of a recent study in Reproductive BioMedicine Online on 5-day old human blastocysts showing that those with an abnormal chromosomal composition can be identified by the rate at which they have developed to blastocysts, thereby classifying the risk of genetic abnormality without a biopsy. In a new study the same group has undertaken a retrospective study, using their predictive model to assess the likelihood ...

Men experience a higher burden of disease and lower life expectancy than women, but policies focusing on the health needs of men are notably absent from the strategies of global health organisations, according to a Viewpoint article in this week's Lancet. The article reinterprets data from the 'Global Burden of Disease: 2010' study which shows that all of the top ten causes of premature death and disability, and top ten behavioural risk factors driving rates of ill-health around the world, affect men more than they affect women (see tables in Notes to Editors). In every ...

ORLANDO, Fla., May 16, 2013 — The hardening of arteries is a hallmark of atherosclerosis, an often deadly disease in which plaques, excessive connective tissue, and other changes build up inside vessel walls and squeeze off the flow of oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. Now, researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have described the molecular and cellular pathway that leads to this hardening of the arteries—and zeroed in on a particularly destructive protein called Dkk1. Their study was published online today by Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and ...

For decades, scientists have used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of today's largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Markings of a high shoreline from three million years ago, for example – when Earth was going through a warm period – were thought to be evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at that time. This assumption has led many scientists to think that if the world's largest ice sheets collapsed in the past, then they may do just the same in our modern, progressively warming world. However, a new groundbreaking study now challenges ...