In a large, international, randomized trial, initial radiotherapy was compared to temozolomide chemotherapy. A statistically significant difference between the two treatment strategies was not observed for progression-free survival, although radiotherapy was numerically favored. However, molecular tumor characterization may allow the treatment approach to be personalized and one or the other treatment modality to be selected. The results of EORTC trial 22033-26033 will be presented Saturday, 01 June 2013 at an ASCO 2013 Oral Abstract Session by the coordinator of the ...

New Rochelle, NY, May 29, 2013—YouTube has more than 10 million unique users a month who are younger than 18 years of age, making it an ideal online environment in which to study the impact of various media content and peer feedback on adolescents. A series of experiments were designed to test the effectiveness of using YouTube to present controlled media content and peer comments to teens, and to measure their preferences and moral judgments. The results are presented in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., ...

Human scabs have become the model for development of an advanced wound dressing material that shows promise for speeding the healing process, scientists are reporting. Their study appears in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Shutao Wang and colleagues explain that scabs are a perfect natural dressing material for wounds. In addition to preventing further bleeding, scabs protect against infection and recruit the new cells needed for healing. Existing bandages and other dressings for wounds generally are intended to prevent bleeding and infections. Wang's ...

A further report on the results of EORTC trial 26951 indicates that CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) status and O 6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter methylation as assessed by MGMT-STP27 are the most informative for identifying grade III glioma patients who might benefit from the addition of procarbazine, CCNU and vincristine (PCV) chemotherapy to radiation therapy. Prior results had shown that PCV chemotherapy following standard radiation therapy delayed tumor growth and extended the lives of patients with anaplastic oligodendroglial tumors, a ...

Though its surface has been turned to carbon, the bunny-like features can still be easily observed with a microscope. This rabbit sculpture, the size of a typical bacterium, is one of several whimsical shapes created by a team of Japanese scientists using a new material that can be molded into complex, highly conductive 3-D structures with features just a few micrometers across. Combined with state-of-the-art micro-sculpting techniques, the new resin holds promise for making customized electrodes for fuel cells or batteries, as well as biosensor interfaces for medical uses. ...

Global use of nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and release of 64 billion tons of greenhouse gases that would have resulted from burning coal and other fossil fuels, a new study concludes. It appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen state that nuclear power has the potential to help control both global climate change and illness and death associated with air pollution. That potential exists, they say, despite serious questions about safety, disposal of radioactive waste ...

A building that helped launch generations of scientists, including Nobel laureates, on their careers of discovery has joined the Hall of Fame of notable venues, being named a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society (ACS). That's the topic of an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the ACS, the world's largest scientific society. Susan J. Ainsworth, C&EN senior editor, explains that the ACS recognized the R.B. Wetherill Laboratory of Chemistry building on the Purdue University's ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Blood offers promise as a way to detect Alzheimer's disease at its earliest onset, Mayo Clinic researchers say. They envision a test that would detect distinct metabolic signatures in blood plasma that are synonymous with the disease -- years before patients begin showing cognitive decline. Their study was recently published online in the journal PLOS ONE. Researchers analyzed cerebrospinal fluid and plasma samples from 45 people in the Mayo Clinic Study on Aging and Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's Disease Center (15 with no cognitive decline, 15 with mild ...

Washington, DC—A new international study finds that prolonged, intense initial treatment in children with multi-system Langerhans cell histiocytosis (MS-LCH) can achieve survival rates as high as 84 percent—a full 15 percent improvement over the previous clinical trial in this series. The study, LCH-III, is published in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology. It is the third in a series of international randomized clinical trials for LCH that spans twenty years initiated and coordinated by the Histiocyte Society, a group of more than 200 physicians and ...

PITTSBURGH—Popular social media site Twitter may eventually resemble a broadcast medium like television or radio, with users reading messages written by celebrities and corporations rather than writing their own "tweet" messages of up to 140 characters, suggests a new study coauthored by Andrew T. Stephen, assistant professor of business administration and Katz Fellow in Marketing in the University of Pittsburgh's Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration. In one of the first studies to use social media as a laboratory for social ...

New research published by an international team of psychologists has shown that people can suppress incriminating memories and thereby avoid detection in brain activity guilt detection tests. Such tests, which are commercially available in the USA and are used by law enforcement agencies in several countries, including Japan and India, are based on the logic that criminals will have specific memories of their crime stored in their brain. Once presented with reminders of their crime in a guilt detection test, it is assumed that their brain will automatically and uncontrollably ...

Go to about any public square, and you see pigeons pecking at the ground, always in search of crumbs dropped by a passerby. While the pigeons' scavenging may seem random, new research by psychologists at the University of Iowa suggest the birds are capable of making highly intelligent choices, sometimes with problem-solving skills to match. The study by Edward Wasserman and colleagues centered on the "string task," a longstanding, standard test of intelligence that involves attaching a treat to one of two strings and seeing if the participant (human or animal) can reel ...

Radiation oncology research received 197 grants, totaling only 1.6 percent ($85.5 million) of the $5.4 billion in cancer research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, according to a study available online and in the June 1, 2013, print issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics (Red Journal), the official scientific journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). The study reviewed the more than 50,000 grants funded by the NIH, totaling $30.9 billion. Investigation revealed 952 ...

An international trial has provided surgeons with a formula which predicts when brain haemorrhage patients need surgery for the best outcome. Brain haemorrhage affects some 4 million patients a year worldwide and the trial, run from Newcastle University, will help to ensure the best treatment is given at the right time. David Mendelow, Professor of Neurosurgery at Newcastle University and honorary consultant within the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who ran the trials, has devised a formula published today in The Lancet online which will allow surgeons to ...

Scientists at The University of Nottingham have found that a genetic rogue element produced by sequences until recently considered 'junk DNA' could promote cancer progression. The researchers, led by Dr Cristina Tufarelli, in the School of Graduate Entry Medicine and Health Sciences, discovered that the presence of this faulty genetic element — known as chimeric transcript LCT13 — is associated with the switching off of a known tumour suppressor gene (known as TFPI-2) whose expression is required to prevent cancer invasion and metastasis. Their findings, published online ...

Calls to lift protections for the iconic Hawaiian green sea turtle may be premature, according to a new study led by a Stanford researcher. Although the number of Hawaiian green sea turtles has increased since 1978 when the species was listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the population may still be only a fraction of historic levels, the research shows. "It's critical to compare the animal's population level to its historic abundance, not just to recent levels," said study coauthor John N. "Jack" Kittinger, an early career fellow at Stanford's Center for Ocean ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (May 29, 2013) – Experimental genetic techniques may one day provide plastic and reconstructive surgeons with an invaluable tool—the ability to promote growth of the patient's own tissues for reconstructive surgery. A review of recent progress toward developing effective gene therapies for use in "regenerative surgery" appears in the June issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the END ...

When assessing information presented by the tobacco industry, the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and regulatory bodies in other countries, should be aware that they are dealing with companies with a long history of intentionally misleading the public. They therefore should actively protect their public-health policies on smoking from the commercial interests of the tobacco industry and not consider the industry as a stakeholder, concludes a study by experts from the US and Germany published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The researchers, led by Stanton ...

Treatments for depression that don't involve antidepressant drugs but rather focus on different forms of talking therapy (referred to as psychotherapeutic interventions) are all beneficial, with no one form of therapy being better than the others, according to a study by international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. These findings are important as they suggest that patients with depression should discuss different forms of non-drug therapy with their doctors and explore which type of psychotherapy best suits them. The researchers, led by Jürgen Barth ...

Women who have mental health disorders around the time of birth are more likely to have previously experienced domestic violence, according to a study by UK researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The researchers, led by Louise Howard from King's College London, found that high levels of symptoms of perinatal* depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder were linked to having experienced domestic violence either during pregnancy, the past year, or over a woman's lifetime. The researchers (also the authors of the published study) reached these ...

Recent reduction in the use of antibiotic growth promoters in animal feeds has resulted in a dramatic increase in the severe poultry disease - necrotic enteritis. New research suggests that the disease, which is costing the worldwide poultry industry an estimated £600 million a year, could be prevented by immunisation with a vaccine that is being developed at the University of Exeter. Professor Richard Titball of the University of Exeter said: "Necrotic enteritis is a major concern for the poultry farming industry worldwide and poultry producers are waiting for this ...

A new study, published 28 May in the open access journal PLOS Biology, has revealed the potential importance of rare species in the functioning of highly diverse ecosystems. Using data from three very different ecosystems—coral reefs, tropical forests and alpine meadows—a team of researchers led by David Mouillot at the University of Montpellier 2, France, has shown that it is primarily the rare species, rather than the more common ones, that have distinct traits involved in unique ecological functions. As biodiversity declines, these unique features are therefore particularly ...

Ithaca, N.Y.--A novel disease in songbirds has rapidly evolved to become more harmful to its host on at least two separate occasions in just two decades, according to a new study. The research provides a real-life model to help understand how diseases that threaten humans can be expected to change in virulence as they emerge. "Everybody who's had the flu has probably wondered at some point, 'Why do I feel so bad?'" said Dana Hawley of Virginia Tech, the lead author of the study to be published in PLOS Biology on May 28, 2013. "That's what we're studying: Why do pathogens ...

EPFL researchers have detected microplastic pollution in one of Western Europe's largest lakes, Lake Geneva, in large enough quantities to raise concern. While studies in the ocean have shown that these small bits of plastic can be harmful to fish and birds that feed on plankton or other small waterborne organisms, the full extent of their consequences in lakes and rivers is only now being investigated. The study, which is being extending under a mandate by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, was published in the latest issue of the journal Archives des Sciences. ...

There is a higher risk of death for patients who have elective surgery later in the week and at the weekend, compared with those earlier in the week, a paper published today on bmj.com suggests. Previous research has suggested a significantly higher risk of death if admitted as an emergency patient at the weekend compared with a weekday. Plus, other papers have described the "weekend effect". Researchers offer two potential explanations for this: poorer quality of care at the weekend (which can be attributed to staffing levels and / or less senior / experienced staff) ...