Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have identified a new component of the cellular mechanism by which humans and animals automatically check the quality of their nerve cells to assure they're working properly during development. In a paper published in this week's issue of the journal Neuron, the scientists report the discovery in the laboratory roundworm C. elegans of a "quality check" system for neurons that uses two proteins to squelch the signals from defective neurons and marks them for either repair or destruction. "To be able to see, talk and ...

PHILADELPHIA -- For young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), making the transition from school to the first rites of independent adult life, including a first job and a home away from home, can be particularly challenging. Two newly published studies show precisely how stark the situation is for finding success in employment and independent living among young adults on the autism spectrum, compared to their peers with other types of disabilities. The researchers emphasize the need to strengthen services to help adolescents and young adults and their families ...

PITTSBURGH—Examining the varying personality types of multiple animal species at once—in addition to common single-species studies—could help biologists better predict ecological outcomes, according to a recent University of Pittsburgh study. By observing the interplay in a common predator-prey system (the jumping spider and the house cricket), a team of Pitt biologists found that it was the interactions between the personality types of two species that best predicted survival outcomes—and not the personality types of either species alone. Their findings were highlighted ...

A global group of experts has established research priorities addressing care for women prior to pregnancy, in a consensus statement published in PLOS Medicine this week. Sohni Dean and Zulfiqar Bhutta from the Aga Khan University, Karachi, collaborated with colleagues to identify the most important research areas for preconception care that need to be addressed in order to reduce deaths and disability in women and children. Prevention of maternal and child mortality has featured prominently in the Millennium Development Goals and the subsequent follow-up targets, but ...

Late diagnosis of HIV infection and entry into care remains a substantial problem across Europe according to a study published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The study, which was an international collaboration led by Amanda Mocroft from University College London, UK, analysed data from the COHERE in EuroCOORD study, an international collaboration including over 84,000 individuals with HIV infections from 35 European countries from January 2000 to January 2011. The researchers analysed data from over 20 observational studies from across Europe that contribute data to the ...

Roll-out of voluntary male circumcision services into the community of Orange Farm, South Africa is linked to substantial reductions in HIV infection levels, according to a study published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The study, (ANRS-12126), conducted by Bertran Auvert and colleagues from the University of Versailles (France), also reported that substantial uptake of voluntary male circumcision in one community was not linked to changes in sexual behavior that might affect HIV infection rates. In this study, Bertran Auvert and colleagues estimated HIV infection levels ...

Heart failure patients and others who need implanted cardiac devices to help their heart beat regularly may benefit from a new technology to guide their implantation procedure. It uses electromagnets, which work like a GPS tracking system, instead of radiation-based imaging, researchers reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology. Electromagnetic tracking technology was used successfully to implant Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) devices in heart failure patients, and substantially cut patients' and doctors' ...

Hamilton, ON (September 3, 2013) - A global study has found that many patients don't know they have hypertension and, even if they do, too few are receiving adequate drug therapy for their hypertension. This is true in high income countries, like Canada, as well as middle and low income countries, say an international team of researchers led by the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences. The report, which was published today by JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association, is part of the PURE (Prospective ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- In 1909, an Iranian telegraph operator living in the remote desert town of Kerman noticed an unusual movement of the magnetic needle of his telegraph instrument. While other telegraph operators during the late 1800s and early 1900s noticed the phenomenon, the Iranian telegraph operator proposed an earthquake early warning system, as detailed in an article published today by the journal Seismological Research Letters (SRL). Nineteenth century telegraph operators in New Zealand, Switzerland, Chile, the Caribbean and elsewhere noted the usefulness of electric ...

In a randomized trial that included about 2,000 patients with or at high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), use of a fixed-dose combination medication for blood pressure, cholesterol, and platelet control compared to usual care resulted in significantly improved medication adherence after 15 months and small improvements in systolic blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, according to a study in the September 4 issue of JAMA. "The long-term use of cardiovascular disease preventive therapy is low among people with established disease. This shortfall ...

In a study that included more than 140,000 participants from17 countries of varying income levels, researchers found a large gap between both detection and control of hypertension across all countries studied, with just over half of participants with hypertension aware of their diagnosis, and about one-third of those being treated for hypertension successfully controlling their blood pressure, according to a study in the September 4 issue of JAMA. "High blood pressure is the leading cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and deaths globally. It is associated with at least ...

A study based on a nationally representative sample of adults in China in 2010 indicates that nearly 12 percent of Chinese adults had diabetes and the prevalence of prediabetes was about 50 percent, according to a study in the September 4 issue of JAMA. "Noncommunicable chronic diseases have become the leading causes of mortality and disease burden worldwide. It was estimated that 34.5 million deaths globally were due to noncommunicable diseases in 2010, which reflected a significant increase from 1990. Mortality from diabetes doubled during this period and increased ...

The use of 4 different 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine immunization schedules in healthy term infants resulted in no statistically significant differences in antibody levels between the infants after the booster dose at 12 months of age for almost all serotypes, according to a study in the September 4 issue of JAMA. "The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that more than 800,000 children younger than 5 years died from pneumococcal disease in 2000, making it the leading vaccine-preventable cause of death. Since the licensure in 2000 of the first 7-valent ...

Children in a malaria-endemic community in Ghana who received a micronutrient powder with iron did not have an increased incidence of malaria, according to a study in the September 4 issue of JAMA. Previous research has suggested that iron supplementation for children with iron deficiency in malaria-endemic areas may increase the risk of malaria. "In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria is a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality, and iron deficiency is among the most prevalent preventable nutritional deficiencies. The provision of iron to children with iron deficiency ...

"Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection causes infant fulminant hepatitis (IFH), and chronic HBV infection may progress to chronic liver disease (CLD) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Taiwan launched a nationwide HBV immunization program for newborns in July 1984, which has successfully lowered the prevalence of chronic HBV carriers, incidence of HCC, and mortality of IFH in vaccinated birth cohorts. The mortality of CLD before and after HBV immunization has never been examined," write Chun-Ju Chiang, Ph.D., of National Taiwan University, Taipei, and colleagues. As reported ...

Washington, DC — Sleep increases the reproduction of the cells that go on to form the insulating material on nerve cell projections in the brain and spinal cord known as myelin, according to an animal study published in the September 4 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings could one day lead scientists to new insights about sleep's role in brain repair and growth. Scientists have known for years that many genes are turned on during sleep and off during periods of wakefulness. However, it was unclear how sleep affects specific cells types, such as oligodendrocytes, ...

The use of whole bacterial genome sequencing will allow scientists to inexpensively track how bovine tuberculosis (TB) is transmitted from farm to farm, according to research presented this week at the Society of General Microbiology Autumn Conference. Bovine TB is primarily a disease of cattle, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis. The disease is hugely expensive, costing the Government over £91 million in England in 2010/11. Researchers from the University of Glasgow, working in collaboration with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute and the Department ...

People are much more likely to take preventive medicines if they're combined in one pill, an international study has found. The findings are published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Taking aspirin, cholesterol-lowering and blood pressure-lowering drugs long-term more than halves heart attack and stroke recurrence. However, only about 50 per cent of people with cardiovascular disease in high-income countries take all recommended preventive medications. In low- and middle-income countries, only five to 20 per cent do. This leaves tens of millions ...

A study of around 5,000 older men has shown that stressful life events such as death of a loved one, or serious financial problems, significantly raised the risk of falls in the year following the incident. The research is published online today in the journal Age and Ageing. Dr Howard A. Fink of the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis and colleagues conducted a study of 5,994 community-dwelling men over the age of 65 who were enrolled in the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) study in six locations across the United States. 5,125 participated in a second study visit ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- During a normal conversation, your brain is constantly adjusting the volume to soften the sound of your own voice and boost the voices of others in the room. This ability to distinguish between the sounds generated from your own movements and those coming from the outside world is important not only for catching up on water cooler gossip, but also for learning how to speak or play a musical instrument. Now, researchers have developed the first diagram of the brain circuitry that enables this complex interplay between the motor system and the auditory ...

New research from the University of East Anglia has shown that females can maximise the genetic quality of their offspring by being promiscuous. Researchers studied red junglefowl (the wild ancestor of the domestic chicken) in a collaborative project with the University of Oxford, Stockholm University and Linköping University. Findings published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveal that mating with different males helps females produce offspring that are more resistant to diseases. This is down to 'cryptic female choice' -- where an internal ...

Frontiers in Physiology Not a bat choice: echolocation works better than eyesight, even under adequate light A new study in Frontiers in Physiology shows for the first time that bats catch insects by sonar as it is far more efficient than using vision, even during twilight. Bats have eyes and may not have evolved their ultrasonic sonar from the earliest time of their existence on earth. Approximately 1000 species of bats use sonar to detect prey, despite showing considerable variation in the preferred size of their prey and their mode of hunting. But why? Many bats ...

Electronic devices with touchscreens are ubiquitous, and one key piece of technology makes them possible: transparent conductors. However, the cost and the physical limitations of the material these conductors are usually made of are hampering progress toward flexible touchscreen devices. Fortunately, a research collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University has shown a new a way to design transparent conductors using metal nanowires that could enable less expensive — and flexible — touchscreens. The research was conducted by graduate student ...

A visible image of Tropical Storm Toraji was captured on Sept. 3 at 02:10 UTC/Sept. 2 at 10:10 p.m. is it continued moving north past eastern China and approached southern Japan. The image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite. The image showed strong thunderstorms wrapped around the center of the tropical storm. Bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the center from the north extended over Kyushu. Kyushu is the third largest island of Japan and is farthest southwest of Japan's four main ...

A lot of things happen over a holiday weekend, and while people in the United States were celebrating Labor Day weekend, the Eastern Pacific Ocean's Tropical Storm Kiko came and went. Satellite data captured Tropical Storm Kiko's birth on Sept. 1 and saw its remnants weakening on Sept. 3. As Kiko dissipates, another low pressure system is forming near the southwestern coast of Mexico. NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured the life of Kiko from the time it became Tropical Depression 11 on Aug. 31. The depression formed about 500 miles/805 km west-southwest of the southern ...