Lumbar disc degeneration (LDD) is characterized by pain in the lumbar region of the spine as a result of a compromised disc. LDD is fairly common and thought to be the result of both environmental and genetic risk factors; however, the genetic factors that promote LDD are largely unknown. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Danny Chan and colleagues at the University of Hong Kong found mutations that reduced production of carbohydrate sulfotransferase 3 (CHST3) were associated with early-onset LDD. Mutations in families with LDD were mapped to the ...

Charlottesville, VA (October 8, 2013). Researchers found a significant reduction in the number of deaths of patients hospitalized in New York State with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) between 2001 and 2009. The Brain Trauma Foundation, in collaboration with the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, published the first edition of the "Guidelines for Management of Severe Traumatic Brain Injury" in 1986. Data from 22 trauma centers in New York State were studied by researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College, the Brain Trauma Foundation, and Jamaica Hospital ...

WASHINGTON, DC -- Approximately one in five Medicare patients are rehospitalized within 30 days of discharge.* The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) considers this rate excessive, and began reducing payments to hospitals that have excessive readmission rates in October 2012 under a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. While the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program penalizes readmission to any hospital, most hospitals are only tracking same-hospital readmissions using administrative data that is recorded for billing purposes. However, ...

WASHINGTON, DC—The chance of ending up in a nursing facility appears to be significantly lower for older patients who undergo a laparoscopic procedure than for those who have open surgical resection for colon cancer, according to a study presented during a scientific poster session at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. Investigators from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, found that selected patients over the age of 70 were more likely to be discharged to their own homes—instead of a nursing facility—following laparoscopic operations ...

WASHINGTON, DC—New combinations of postoperative pain treatment decreased both pain and the use of narcotic pain relievers according to two studies presented this week at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. One pain treatment utilized the simple but nonstandard application of ice packs after major abdominal operations in patients, and the other treatment was a prolonged drug delivery method using nanotechnology in animals. Past research has shown that postoperative pain is often undertreated.* The standard pain treatment after most major operations ...

Eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia often run in families, but identifying specific genes that increase a person's risk for these complex disorders has proved difficult. Now scientists from the University of Iowa and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have discovered -- by studying the genetics of two families severely affected by eating disorders -- two gene mutations, one in each family, that are associated with increased risk of developing eating disorders. Moreover, the new study shows that the two genes interact in the same signaling ...

Over 80% of the world's ice-free land is at risk of profound ecosystem transformation by 2100, a new study reveals. "Essentially, we would be leaving the world as we know it," says Sebastian Ostberg of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany. Ostberg and collaborators studied the critical impacts of climate change on landscapes and have now published their results in Earth System Dynamics, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). The researchers state in the article that "nearly no area of the world is free" from the risk of climate ...

This is shown by complementary studies now published by scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). "We managed to quantify a number of crucial impacts of climate change on the global land area," says Dieter Gerten, lead-author of one of the studies. Mean global warming of 2 degrees, the target set by the international community, is projected to expose an additional 8 percent of humankind to new or increased water scarcity. 3.5 degrees – likely to occur if national emissions reductions remain at currently pledged levels – would affect 11 percent ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists report in Nature Communications that they have engineered yeast to consume acetic acid, a previously unwanted byproduct of the process of converting plant leaves, stems and other tissues into biofuels. The innovation increases ethanol yield from lignocellulosic sources by about 10 percent. Lignocellulose is the fibrous material that makes up the structural tissues of plants. It is one of the most abundant raw materials on the planet and, because it is rich in carbon it is an attractive source of renewable biomass for biofuels production. The ...

Turning to the Internet to find out what ails you is common, but for folks who have trouble handling uncertainty, "cyberchondria" – the online counterpart to hypochondria – worsens as they seek answers, a Baylor University researcher says. "If I'm someone who doesn't like uncertainty, I may become more anxious, search further, monitor my body more, go to the doctor more frequently — and the more you search, the more you consider the possibilities," said Thomas Fergus, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences. "If ...

Bruno Mourvillier, M.D., of the Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, and colleagues conducted a study to examine whether treatment with hypothermia would improve the functional outcome of comatose patients with bacterial meningitis compared with standard care. Among adults with bacterial meningitis, the death rate and frequency of neurologic complications are high, indicating the need for new therapeutic approaches. Clinical trials of patients with trauma who were treated with hypothermia have shown a decrease of intracranial pressure, suggesting a potential ...

PULLMAN, Wash.—Using Montana's fast-growing Flathead County as a template, a Washington State University researcher has found that moderately restrictive land-use policies can significantly curb the potential damage of rural wildfires. However, highly restrictive planning laws will not do much more. "Effective land-use planning can reduce wildfire risk," says Travis Paveglio, a clinical assistant professor in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication whose research focuses on wildfire, environmental hazards and natural resource management. "However, it's one of a suite ...

Bacterial cells use an impressive range of strategies to grow, develop and sustain themselves. Despite their tiny size, these specialized machines interact with one another in intricate ways. In new research conducted at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, Jonathan Badalamenti, César Torres and Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown explore the relationships of two important bacterial forms, demonstrating their ability to produce electricity by coordinating their metabolic activities. In a pair of papers recently appearing in the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering, ...

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS – Most know that hiding something from others can cause internal angst. New research suggests the consequences can go far beyond emotional strife and that being forced to keep information concealed, such as one's sexual orientation, disrupts the concealer's basic skills and abilities, including intellectual acuity, physical strength, and interpersonal grace—skills critical to workplace success. "With no federal protection for gays and lesbians in the work place, our work suggests that the wisdom of non-discrimination ...

Next time your kids complain about putting on sunscreen, tell them this: Sunscreen shields a superhero gene that protects them from getting cancer. It is widely accepted that sunscreen stops you from getting burnt but to date there has been academic debate about the effectiveness of sunscreen in preventing skin cancers. Now QUT has undertaken a world-first human study to assess the impact of sunscreen at the molecular level. Researchers found sunscreen provides 100 per cent protection against all three forms of skin cancer: BCC (basal cell carcinoma); SCC (squamous ...

According to a Finnish study, women with eating disorders are less likely to have children than others in their age group. The discrepancy is the most apparent in anorexia sufferers. In this group, the number of pregnancies was less than half of that of the control group. The likelihood of abortion was more than double for bulimics than for others in the same age group. Meanwhile, the likelihood for miscarriage was more than triple for binge-eating disorder (BED) sufferers. For women who had been in treatment for BED, nearly half of their pregnancies ended in miscarriage. "Early ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Sophia Antipolis, France – 08 October 2013: Air pollution increases heart attacks, according to research that will be presented at the Acute Cardiac Care Congress 2013 by Dr Savina Nodari from Brescia, Italy. The Acute Cardiac Care Congress 2013 is the annual meeting of the Acute Cardiovascular Care Association (ACCA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). It will take place from Saturday 12 to 14 October in Madrid, Spain. Cutting edge science and the latest treatments in acute cardiovascular care will be presented ...

Many chemicals we use in everyday life are derived from fossil resources. Due to the increasing concerns on the use of fossil resources, there has been much interest in producing chemicals from renewable resources through biotechnology. Phenol is an important commodity chemical, and is a starting material for the production of numerous industrial chemicals and polymers, including bisphenol A and phenolic resins, and others. At present, the production of phenol entirely depends on the chemical synthesis from benzene, and its annual production exceeds 8 million tons worldwide. ...

Professor Martin Richards, of the Archaeogenetics Research Group at the University of Huddersfield, has published a paper uncovering new information about how Ashkenazi Jewish men moved into Europe from the Middle East, and their marriage practices with European women. The origins of Ashkenazi Jews – that is, Jews with recent ancestry in central and Eastern Europe – is a long-standing controversy. It is usually assumed that their ancestors migrated into Europe from Palestine in the first century AD, after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, with some intermarriage ...

Graphene has extreme conductivity and is completely transparent while being inexpensive and nontoxic. This makes it a perfect candidate material for transparent contact layers for use in solar cells to conduct electricity without reducing the amount of incoming light - at least in theory. Whether or not this holds true in a real world setting is questionable as there is no such thing as "ideal" graphene - a free floating, flat honeycomb structure consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms: interactions with adjacent layers can change graphene's properties dramatically. ...

The first ever evidence of a comet entering Earth's atmosphere and exploding, raining down a shock wave of fire which obliterated every life form in its path, has been discovered by a team of South African scientists and international collaborators. The discovery has not only provided the first definitive proof of a comet striking Earth, millions of years ago, but it could also help us to unlock, in the future, the secrets of the formation of our solar system. "Comets always visit our skies – they're these dirty snowballs of ice mixed with dust – but never before in ...

MODESTO, Calif., Oct. 8, 2013 -- A new study published in the October issue of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that study participants eating 1.5 ounces of dry-roasted, lightly salted almonds every day experienced reduced hunger and improved dietary vitamin E and monounsaturated ("good") fat intake without increasing body weight.[i] Snacking has become nearly universal behavior in the United States, with an estimated 97% of Americans consuming at least one snack per day.[ii] In light of increasing snacking frequency[ii] and snack size[iii] among U.S. ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The part of the brain that makes humans and primates social creatures may play a similar role in carnivores, according to a growing body of research by a Michigan State University neuroscientist. In studying spotted hyenas, lions and, most recently, the raccoon family, Sharleen Sakai has found a correlation between the size of the animals' frontal cortex and their social nature. In her latest study, Sakai examined the digitally recreated brains of three species in the Procyonid family – the raccoon, the coatimundi and the kinkajou – and found the ...

Ancona, Italy, 8 October 2013 – Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects millions of people worldwide. As a result of an increase in life expectancy, the number of patients with dementia is expected to increase dramatically. Due to the lack of effective treatments that can slow down or reverse the progression of AD, preventive measures to lower the prevalence rate of AD by means of managing potential or actual risk factors is a reasonable clinical strategy. In this respect, identifying treatable factors which are able to promote cognitive deterioration would have important practical ...

A major study conducted at the Sahlgrenska Academy has now disproved theories of a viral cause for breast cancer and the brain tumour, glioblastoma. The study, which was based on over seven billion DNA sequences and which is published in Nature Communications, found no genetic traces of viruses in these forms of cancer. It has been scientifically proven that about 15 per cent of all cancer cases are the result of viral infection, but many researchers believe that even more cancers could be caused by viruses. Among other theories, it is suggested that the Epstein-Barr ...