Thursday, September 19, 2013, Cleveland: Overweight patients with type 2 diabetes continue to experience the benefits of bariatric surgery up to nine years after the procedure, according to new research from Cleveland Clinic's Bariatric & Metabolic Institute, published online today in the journal, Annals of Surgery. Prior research has shown that bariatric surgery effectively treats diabetes and reduces cardiovascular risk factors, but few studies have reported the long-term metabolic effects of bariatric surgery. This trial shows that obese patients with type 2 diabetes ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Some overweight older adults don't need to lose weight to extend their lives, but they could risk an earlier death if they pack on more pounds. In fact, the nationwide study found that people who were slightly overweight in their 50s but kept their weight relatively stable were the most likely to survive over the next 16 years. They had better survival rates than even normal-weight individuals whose weight increased slightly, but stayed within the normal range. On the other hand, those who started out as very obese in their 50s and whose weight continued ...

Berkeley — Calcium can do much more than strengthen bones. The mineral is a critical nutrient for healthy tree growth, and new research shows that adding it to the soil helps reverse the decades-long decline of forests ailing from the effects of acid rain. The paper, published today (Thursday, Sept. 19), in the journal Environmental Science and Technology (EST) Letters, and led by John Battles, professor of forest ecology at the University of California, Berkeley, also presents strong evidence that acid rain impairs forest health. The paper reports on 15 years of ...

Scientists have successfully analysed the genetic make-up of the offspring of pregnant coelacanth females for the first time. They found that the likelihood that the offspring is fathered by one single individual is very high – unlike with many other fish species. Dr Kathrin Lampert from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Prof Dr Manfred Schartl from the University of Würzburg, together with their colleagues, report about their findings in the journal "Nature Communications". Analysis of the microsatellite DNA The pregnant coelacanth females studied by the researchers ...

The breakthrough concerns a gene called OPA1, which when mutated is responsible for dominant optic atrophy, a hereditary visual disease characterized by a progressive and symmetrical loss vision that becomes apparent early in life. In an in-depth study of OPA1, groups led by Dr. Luca Scorrano, professor of Biochemistry at the University of Padua and researcher of the Dulbecco Telethon Institute, and Dr. José Antonio Enríquez, coordinator of the Tissue Homeostasis and Repair Program at the CNIC, found that this gene has the capacity to act as a "helper" in cellular metabolism, ...

A piece of research submitted by the Artificial Intelligence and Approximate Reasoning Group (GIARA) of the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre received an award from the European Association of Fuzzy Logic and Soft Computing (EUSFLAT) during its biennial meeting (EUSFLAT 2013) held in Milan last week. The researchers have developed a method that improves the delimitation of tumours in medical images. As they explained, "when the doctor decides where tumour tissue should be separated from healthy tissue, our algorithm ensures that he/she is never going choose the worst ...

The entorhinal cortex is a link between the brain's memory centre, the hippocampus, and the other areas of the brain. It is, however, more than an interface that only transfers nervous impulses. The entorhinal cortex also has an independent role in learning and thinking processes. This is particularly applicable for spatial navigation. "We know precious little about how this happens," says Prof. Dietmar Schmitz, a researcher at the Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Site Speaker for the DZNE in Berlin. "This is why we are investigating ...

WASHINGTON -- Eight-year-old twin boys, camping in a backyard tent, received penetrating blast injuries when a bolt of lightning struck a transformer near their tent, sending them to the emergency department for treatment. The extremely rare case study was published online yesterday in Annals of Emergency Medicine. ("'Thunderstruck' -- Penetrating Thoracic Injury from Lightning Strike") "One of the boys had a missile trajectory through the lung -- very much like injuries caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) -- which we could have missed because on the outside ...

University of Adelaide researchers have made a major discovery that highlights the important role played by immune cells in the risk of developing breast cancer. Researchers have focused their efforts on immune cells known as macrophages in the breast, and how the role of these cells changes because of fluctuations in hormones during different times of the month. The results of laboratory studies – published online ahead of print in the journal Biology of Reproduction – show that while the immune cells have a role to play in the normal function of the breast, at certain ...

BOSTON –In molecular biology, the ribosome represents the machinery necessary to assemble proteins, the building blocks of life. In this process, information encoded in the genome's DNA is first transcribed to messenger RNA in the nucleus, then transported to the ribosome where protein-assembly instructions are put in motion to translate the code into actual proteins. But in recent years, it has been demonstrated that the ribosome is far more than just a processing unit; indeed, current research points to an important role for this complex structure in actively regulating ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The bodies of mammals, including humans, respond to injury by releasing endogenous opioids -- compounds that mitigate acute pain. A team of researchers led by those at the University of Kentucky has uncovered groundbreaking new information about how the body responds to traumatic injury with the development of a surprisingly long-lasting opioid mechanism of natural chronic pain control. Remarkably, the body develops both physical and physiological dependence on this opioid system, just as it does to opiate narcotic drugs. The research is featured on the ...

A team of astronomers has discovered enormous arms of hot gas in the Coma cluster of galaxies by using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton. These features, which span at least half a million light years, provide insight into how the Coma cluster has grown through mergers of smaller groups and clusters of galaxies to become one of the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity. A new composite image, with Chandra data in pink and optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey appearing in white and blue, features these spectacular arms. ...

Since dried filters from the mouths of filter-feeding rays hit apothecary shop menus in Asia -- the thought being that eating ground-up filters will cleanse one's liver -- there's been no way to know which of these gentle-natured rays was being slaughtered. Unlike predatory rays that attack and crush prey with their mouths, the filter-feeder rays eat plankton particles, larvae and fish eggs that they sieve from seawater. Most lack barbs other rays are notorious for, and the filter-feeders are generally considered harmless, although one group is provocatively named devil ...

What was a tropical storm rapidly intensified into Typhoon Usagi within 24 hours as it moves through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. NASA satellite data revealed a 20-mile-wide eye and bands of thunderstorms spiraling into the center of the monster storm. The MODIS instrument, or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured an amazing image of Typhoon Usagi on Sept. 19 at 02:25 UTC moving near the Philippines. The image showed spiraling bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the well-developed center of circulation and a clear eye. ...

TORONTO, Sept. 19, 2013—Cheque-cashing outlets may be strategically targeting persons who live in high-crime neighbourhoods, according to researchers at St. Michael's Hospital. Dr. Joel Ray, a physician-researcher at the hospital's Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, compared the density of cheque-cashing places in Toronto neighbourhoods with police-reported crime data. Along with his colleagues, Dr. Ray observed a nearly seven times higher rate of cheque-cashing places in neighbourhoods with the highest rate of violent crime, even after accounting for nearby retail alcohol ...

Philadelphia – The latest approach to islet transplantation, in which clusters of insulin-producing cells known as islets are transplanted from a donor pancreas into another person's liver, has produced substantially improved results for patients with type 1 diabetes, and may offer a more durable alternative to a whole pancreas transplant. Participants in the new study received islet cells isolated from the pancreas of organ donors to help their bodies produce insulin, the life-sustaining hormone responsible for absorbing glucose from the blood. The new approach, which ...

NEW YORK (September 19, 2013) -- Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered why a tiny alteration in a brain gene, found in 20 percent of the population, contributes to the risk for anxiety, depression and memory loss. Their discovery, reported in Nature Communications, describes new functions for the alteration, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene. This gene is a powerful regulator of the growth and function of neurons, and the establishment of brain circuitry. The common alteration occurs when ...

Most youths are concerned about other people's feelings, they feel bad or guilty when they have done something wrong and they adhere to social rules. A small group of youths, however, does not. These youths express psychopathic personality traits that are associated with adult psychopathy, a serious personality disorder that is linked with antisocial behavior and criminality. A study conducted by Selma Salihovic and her research team at Örebro University in Sweden shows that for this small group of youth, psychopathic traits remain quite stable over a period of four years. ...

ST. LOUIS – In a recent study published in The Journal of Comparative Neurology, Saint Louis University professor of pharmacological and physiological science Michael Ariel, Ph.D., reported surprising findings about the eye movements of pond turtles who can retract their head deep into their shell. While researchers expected that the pond turtle's eyes would operate like other animals with eyes on the side of their heads, this particular species of turtle appears to have characteristics of both front and side-eyed animals, affecting a specific eye muscle's direction of ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (September 19, 2013) – JAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes announced its research article highlights from the October issue now available on the journal website. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer Health. Earlier HIV Treatment Increases Costs But Improves Survival (note: article first appeared online in April 2013 JAIDS as publish ahead of print) Updates of Lifetime Costs of Care and Quality of Life Estimates for HIV-Infected Persons in the United States: Late Versus Early Diagnosis and Entry into Care, led by Paul G. Farnham, ...

NASA's TRMM satellite passed over Manuel on Sept. 19 at 0116 UTC and measured its rainfall as it was strengthening into a hurricane. TRMM noticed heavy rainfall and some hot towering thunderstorms, which were indications that the storm was intensifying. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image that showed Manuel was making landfall during the morning of Sept. 19, and at 11 a.m. EDT, Hurricane Manuel officially made landfall near Culican, Mexico. A Hurricane Warning is in effect for La Cruz to Topolobampo and a Tropical Storm Watch is in effect from north of Topolobampo ...

Imagery from NOAA's GOES-East satellite on Sept. 19 showed Tropical Depression Humberto had lost its organization, while one tropical low struggled near Bermuda, and another one was taking shape in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico. NASA's HS3 hurricane mission is sending an unmanned Global Hawk aircraft to investigate the developing system in the Gulf. NOAA's GOES-East satellite provided a visible image of the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 19 at 7:45 a.m. EDT that showed the three tropical systems. The image was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight ...

VIDEO: The Dual Action Virolytic Entry Inhibitor (DAVEI) molecule tricks HIV into popping itself by making it behave as if it's attached to a healthy cell. DAVEI triggers the virus to... Click here for more information. Pinning down an effective way to combat the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus, the viral precursor to AIDS, has long been challenge task for scientists and physicians, because the virus is an elusive one that mutates frequently and, as a result, ...

Working with cells in test tubes and in mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that a chemical commonly used as a dog food preservative may prevent the kind of painful nerve damage found in the hands and feet of four out of five cancer patients taking the chemotherapy drug Taxol. The Food and Drug Administration-approved preservative, an antioxidant called ethoxyquin, was shown in experiments to bind to certain cell proteins in a way that limits their exposure to the damaging effects of Taxol, the researchers say. The hope, they say, is to build on the protective ...

Bracing in adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis reduces the likelihood that the condition will progress to the point that surgery is needed, according to a study published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The work was supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health. Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a curvature of the spine with no clear underlying cause. In mild cases, monitoring over time by a physician may be all that is needed. However, in more severe ...