Recurrent episodes of malaria cause chronic inflammation in blood vessels that might predispose to future infections and may increase susceptibility to cardiovascular disease, a Wellcome Trust study in Malawian children finds. The findings could explain the indirect burden of malaria on childhood deaths in areas where the disease is highly prevalent and children experience multiple clinical episodes of malaria in a year. Malaria is caused by infection with a parasite that starts by infecting the liver and then moves into red blood cells. The most deadly of the malaria ...

A new technique that allows scientists to measure the electrical activity in the communication junctions of the nervous systems has been developed by a researcher at Queen Mary University of London. The junctions in the central nervous systems that enable the information to flow between neurons, known as synapses, are around 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair (one micrometer and less) and as such are difficult to target let alone measure. By applying a high-resolution scanning probe microscopy that allows three-dimensional visualisation of the structures, ...

North Carolina State University researchers have developed a way for search engines to provide users with more accurate, personalized search results. The challenge in the past has been how to scale this approach up so that it doesn't consume massive computer resources. Now the researchers have devised a technique for implementing personalized searches that is more than 100 times more efficient than previous approaches. At issue is how search engines handle complex or confusing queries. For example, if a user is searching for faculty members who do research on financial ...

Romanian scientists have discovered a novel approach for the optical manipulation of macromolecules and biological cells. Their findings, published in EPJ B, stem from challenging the idea that visible light would induce no physical effect on them since it is not absorbed. Instead, Sorin Comorosan, working as a physicist at the National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering based in Magurele, Romania, and as a biologist at the Fundeni Clinical Institute, Bucharest, Romania, and colleagues, had the idea to use green photon beams. With them, it is possible to perform ...

CHICAGO (September 18, 2013) – Patient satisfaction has an increasing impact on hospitals' bottom lines, factoring into Medicare reimbursement of hospital care. A new study finds patients placed in Contact Precautions (Contact Isolation) were twice as likely to report perceived problems with care compared to patients without Contact Precautions, placing the common infection control practice at odds with hospital interests. The study was published in the October issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of ...

CHICAGO (September 18, 2013) – With the evolving changes in the delivery of healthcare to children worldwide, which frequently include long-distance travel and lodging for specialized medical treatments, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) partnered with Ronald McDonald House Charities to release the first-ever infection prevention and control guidelines for "home away from home" pediatric residential facilities to help prevent the spread of infectious pathogens among vulnerable pediatric populations. The new guidelines were published in the October ...

Current drug treatments for HIV work well to keep patients from developing AIDS, but no one has found a way to entirely eliminate the virus from the human body, so patients continue to require lifelong treatment to prevent them from developing AIDS. Now, a team of researchers led by Dr. David N. Levy, Associate Professor of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology at the New York University College of Dentistry (NYUCD), have discovered a new way that HIV-1 reproduces itself which could advance the search for new ways to combat infection. For decades, scientists have ...

UPTON, NY -- The quest to harness hydrogen as the clean-burning fuel of the future demands the perfect catalysts -- nanoscale machines that enhance chemical reactions. Scientists must tweak atomic structures to achieve an optimum balance of reactivity, durability, and industrial-scale synthesis. In an emerging catalysis frontier, scientists also seek nanoparticles tolerant to carbon monoxide, a poisoning impurity in hydrogen derived from natural gas. This impure fuel -- 40 percent less expensive than the pure hydrogen produced from water -- remains largely untapped. Now, ...

TORONTO, Sept. 18, 2013—One of the common side effects of HIV and AIDS is neurocognitive impairments – changes in how fast a person can process information, pay attention, multi-task and remember things – yet there are no adequate tests to screen patients for these problems, according to a new study out of St. Michael's Hospital. The incidence of severe forms of HIV-associated neuorcognitive disorders, or HAND, has declined significantly with the availability of combination antiretroviral drug therapy over the last 20 years. But the prevalence of the milder form has ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A newly published analysis of data from hundreds of soil samples from 31 properties around southern Rhode Island finds that the lead concentration in soil at the surface is not always a reliable indicator of the contamination a foot deeper. The study, led by Brown University Superfund Research Program researchers at the request of the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH), informs ongoing efforts to assess the impact of the state's legacy of lead-painted water towers. Towers all over the state, including at six sites analyzed in the study, were ...

Edmonton -- A University of Alberta researcher says health professionals should be cautious about prescribing inhaled corticosteroids to high-risk patients such as pneumonia survivors, citing a twofold risk for repeat infection. Dean Eurich led a research team that examined inhaled corticosteroid use among elderly patients for a clinical study. The team evaluated more than 6,200 seniors who survived an initial episode of pneumonia but were still at high risk of developing another bout of infection. Over the five-year study, 653 seniors had a repeat episode -- and inhaled ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio— A lens invented at The Ohio State University combines the focusing ability of a human eye with the wide-angle view of an insect eye to capture images with depth. The results could be smartphones that rival the photo quality of digital cameras, and surgical imaging that enables doctors to see inside the human body like never before. Engineers described the patent-pending lens in the Technical Digest of the 25th IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems. "Our eye can change focus. An insect eye is made of many small optical components ...

NASA's Aqua satellite caught the birth of the eighteenth tropical depression of the northwestern Pacific Ocean tropical cyclone season. Tropical Depression 18W was born in the South China Sea and is expected to be short-lived after a quick landfall in central Vietnam. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of disorganized Tropical Depression 18W on Sept. 18 at 0616 UTC/2:16 a.m. EDT. Satellite imagery showed that the circulation is large, and that convection and thunderstorms appear disorganized ...

The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series describes how the search for a less-expensive, sustainable source of biomass, or plant material, for producing gasoline, diesel and jet fuel has led scientists to duckweed, that fast-growing floating plant that turns ponds and lakes green. Based on a report by Christodoulos A. Floudas, Ph.D., in the ACS journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the new podcast is available without charge at iTunes and from http://www.acs.org/globalchallenges. ...

A team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA, Alexandria, Va.) has demonstrated an improved microfluidic technique for recovering DNA from real-world, complex mixtures such as dirt. According to a recent paper,* their technique delivers DNA from these crude samples with much less effort and in less time than conventional techniques. It yields DNA concentrations that are optimal for human identification procedures and can potentially be miniaturized for use outside the laboratory. Forensic ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Over the last decade researchers have amassed increasing evidence that relatively low levels of a protein called sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) can indicate an elevated risk of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome years in advance. In a collection of studies described in a new paper, published online Sept. 18 in the journal Clinical Chemistry, Dr. Simin Liu, professor of epidemiology and medicine at Brown, led an effort to measure SHBG levels in 13,547 women who take part of the national Women's Health Initiative. The team ...

When NASA's Terra satellite passed over Tropical Storm Humberto on Sept. 17, the MODIS instrument aboard took a picture of the storm and it resembled the letter "A" as it moves through the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. The strongest band of thunderstorms appear in the eastern quadrant of the storm, and the northern and western quadrants also have clouds and showers, but a section of the southern quadrant appears cloud-free, causing Humberto to resemble a letter "A." Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center or NHC noted, however, that the low-level center has been very ...

DALLAS -- Overactivity of a protein that normally cues cells to divide sabotages the body’s natural cellular recycling process, leading to heightened cancer growth and chemotherapy resistance, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found. The epidermal growth factor receptor, or EGFR, is found at abnormally high levels on the surface of many types of cancer cells. The study, led by Dr. Beth Levine and published Sept. 12 in Cell, revealed that EGFR turns off autophagy, a process by which cells recycle unneeded parts, by binding to a protein, Beclin 1, which normally ...

The development of fine motor control—the ability to use your fingertips to manipulate objects—takes longer than previously believed, and isn't entirely the result of brain development, according to a pair of complementary studies. The research opens up the potential to use therapy to continue improving the motor control skills of children suffering from neurodevelopmental disorders such as cerebral palsy, a blanket term for central motor disorders that affects about 764,000 children and adults nationwide "These findings show that it's not only possible but critical ...

Nearly one in 10 U.S. watersheds is "stressed," with demand for water exceeding natural supply, according to a new analysis of surface water in the United States. What's more, the lowest water flow seasons of recent years -- times of great stress on rivers, streams, and sectors that use their waters -- are likely to become typical as climates continue to warm. "By midcentury, we expect to see less reliable surface water supplies in several regions of the United States," said the study's lead author, Kristen Averyt, associate director for science at the Cooperative Institute ...

Powerful thunderstorms wrapped around Tropical Storm Usagi's center and its southern quadrant in visible data from NASA's Aqua satellite on Sept. 18. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Usagi on Sept. 18 at 04:40 UTC/12:40 a.m. EDT, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer known better as "MODIS" took a picture of the northwestern Pacific Ocean storm. The image showed thick bands of powerful thunderstorms south of the center of circulation, and wrapping tightly around the center. Convective banding was also developing in other quadrants of the storm, indicating ...

A smartphone app can quickly screen for cognitive dysfunction often found in patients with cirrhosis, according to a new Virginia Commonwealth University study. The cognitive dysfunction, known as minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE), has been difficult to diagnose. Published in the September issue of the journal Hepatology, the study tested the validity of the Stroop smartphone application – called EncephalApp_Stroop – as a method to screen for MHE. Validation of the app as a health care tool opens the door for its use as a point-of-care (POC) instrument that providers ...

NASA's TRMM satellite watched Tropical Storm Humberto's rainfall pick up over two days as it re-formed, and as part of NASA's HS3 mission, two of NASA's Global Hawk unmanned aircraft have been investigating the zombie storm. The two Global Hawks also celebrated a combined 100 flights. NASA's Global Hawk 871 departed from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. today, Sept. 17, at 10 a.m. EDT from Runway 04. This marked the twenty-fifth flight for NASA 871. Meanwhile, NASA 872 was returning to home base after making its seventy-fifth flight. These flights ...

VIDEO: This 3-D flyby of Tropical Storm Ingrid's rainfall was created from TRMM satellite data for Sept. 16. Heaviest rainfall appears in red towers over the Gulf of Mexico, while moderate... Click here for more information. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite known as TRMM can compile the rain in which rain is falling as it orbits from space. When it passed over Tropical Storm Ingrid on Sept. 16 TRMM gathered data and it was used to create a NASA 3-D flyby ...

Tropical Storm Manuel dropped very heavy rains that caused floods and mudslides and took lives on Mexico's Pacific coast. Manuel's rainfall was captured and tallied from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite known as TRMM. Tropical storm Manuel may have dissipated, but the storm dropped very heavy rainfall along Mexico's Pacific coast where 21 people have been reported killed due to flooding and landslides caused by extreme rainfall. At the same time, on Sept. 16, Hurricane Ingrid weakened to a tropical storm and came ashore from the Gulf of Mexico into ...