This news release is available in German. "When water boils, its molecules are released as vapor. We call this change of the physical state of matter a phase transition," explains Sebastian Diehl from the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Innsbruck. Together with his colleagues from the Institute for Experimental Physics and the theorist Markus Mueller from the Complutense University of Madrid, he studied the transition between two quantum mechanical orders in a way never before observed. The quantum physicists in Innsbruck use a new device ...

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative neurological disorder marked by a progressive loss of motor control. Despite intensive research, there are currently no approved therapies that have been demonstrated to alter the progression of the disease. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Dr. Thomas Foltynie and colleagues at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London investigated the use of a drug approved for diabetes care, Exenatide, in PD patients. PD patients were divided into two groups: 20 patients received Exenatide injections ...

ATS 2013, PHILADELPHIA - Women are less likely than men to receive care in a trauma center after severe injury, according to a new study of almost 100,000 Canadian patients. "Gender-based disparities in access to healthcare services in general have been recognized for some time and evidence is emerging that these disparities extend to the treatment of severe injuries in trauma centers," says lead author Andrea Hill. MSc, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. "Our study confirms and expands on ...

In ICU patients who have septic shock, the anatomic source of infection has a strong effect on the chances of survival, according to a new study from researchers in Canada. "Understanding the local infection source in patients with septic shock may influence treatment strategies and clinical outcomes," said researcher Peter Dodek, MD MHSc, professor of critical care medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "Accordingly, we examined the relationship between anatomic source of infection and hospital mortality in nearly 8,000 patients who had septic ...

ATS 2013, PHILADELPHIA ─ Patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) typically suffer from depression more frequently than those without COPD, resulting in higher levels of disability and illness and increasing the overall healthcare burden for the COPD population. Now, a study from researchers in Argentina indicates female COPD patients and patients who experience significant shortness of breath may have the greatest risk for developing depression. The results of the study will be presented at the ATS 2013 International Conference. "About ...

ATS 2013, PHILADELPHIA – Many studies have shown that men and women who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) - a disorder that causes breathing to halt intermittently during sleep – have a higher mortality rate than those who do not have the disorder. Now, a study from researchers at the Cleveland Clinic shows that OSA patients who also have poor functional capacity have an even greater risk of mortality and suggests that an assessment of functional capacity in this population can help physicians identify patients most at risk for death. The results of the study ...

ATS 2013, PHILADELPHIA – A metabolic profile of intensive care unit (ICU) patients based on biomarkers of four metabolites can be used to accurately predict mortality, according to a new study. "Existing models for predicting mortality in the ICU may not always be accurate and they can also be cumbersome to use," said researcher Angela J. Rogers MD, MPH, Instructor in Medicine at Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston. "Levels of lactate, a metabolite from the carbohydrate pathway, are an established biomarker for ICU mortality. ...

Food microbiology laboratories continue to submit false negative results and false positive results on a routine basis. A retrospective study of nearly 40,000 proficiency test results over the past 14 years, presented today at the 113th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, examined the ability of food laboratories to detect or rule out the presence of Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter. "There is concern when laboratories report that pathogens are not found in a food sample, when in fact they are there," ...

Orlando, FL (May 20, 2013) — Research presented at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) explores pharmaceutical advances for treating irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea (IBS-D) and hepatitis C. An international study holds promising results for patients suffering from IBS-D. In the phase II study, researchers found that the drug ibodutant significantly improved symptoms in more than 50 percent of the individuals treated. "While there's been a lot of progress in medicines for IBS with constipation, we haven't seen the same in IBS with diarrhea," said Jan Tack, MD, professor ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at higher risk of melanoma, a form of skin cancer, report researchers at Mayo Clinic. Researchers found that IBD is associated with a 37 percent greater risk for the disease. The findings were presented at the Digestive Disease Week 2013 conference in Orlando, Fla. More than 1.5 million Americans have Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis (UC), the most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease. Both conditions inflame the lining of the intestine, leading to bouts of watery diarrhea, rectal bleeding, ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In a new study described in the journal Oncogene, researchers reveal how a key player in cell growth, immunity and the inflammatory response can be transformed into a primary contributor to tumor growth. Scientists call this Jekyll-and-Hyde molecule NF-kappa B. In healthy cells, it is a powerful "first responder," a vital part of the body's immune and inflammatory responses. It spends most of its life in the cell's cytoplasm, quietly awaiting orders. But when extracellular signals – of a viral or bacterial invasion, for example – set off chemical alarms, ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – New Geology articles posted online ahead of print 9 and 16 May 2013 cover a wide swath of geoscience subdisciplines, including minerals exploration, archaeology, planetary geology, tectonics, oceanography, geophysics, and paleobotany. Locations studied include Siberia; the Sumatran subduction margin; the Monte Arsiccio mine at Alpi Apuane, Italy; Ukraine; Mars; and the Southeastern U.S. Atlantic Margin. Brief highlights follow: 1. Rubies, jadeite, and plate tectonics; 2. The clear fingerprint of ice ages left on coral reefs around the world; 3. ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – New Geosphere postings online on 7 and 16 May include additions to two special issues: CRevolution 2: Origin and Evolution of the Colorado River System II and The ANDRILL McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) and Southern McMurdo Sound (SMS) Drilling Projects. Other articles cover India-Asia collision; a Late Triassic snapshot in the U.S. Southwest; the Alabama and western Georgia Blue Ridge; and the Jemez Mountains volcanic field. Abstracts for these and other Geosphere papers are available at http://geosphere.gsapubs.org/. Representatives of the media may obtain ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 20, 2013 – At a time when the spotlight is focused on obesity more than ever, new research suggests that frequency of candy consumption is not associated with weight or certain adverse health risks. According to a recent data analysis published in the April 30th issue of Nutrition Journal, adults who consume candy at least every other day are no more likely to be overweight nor have greater risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) than moderate consumers (about once a week) or even less frequent candy eaters (less than 3 times per month).1 Almost ...

ZURICH - Video compositing to create special effects, replace backgrounds or combine multiple takes of an actor's performance is an integral, but highly labor-intensive, part of modern film making. Researchers at Disney Research, Zürich, however, have found an innovative way to create these composite videos that is simple, fast, and easy to use. Rather than perform a painstaking segmentation of elements that are to be added or subtracted from a video, the Disney system, called DuctTake, uses computer algorithms to find a spatiotemporal "seam" through the video frame that ...

A humanoid robot can receive an object handed to it by a person with something approaching natural, human-like motion thanks to a new method developed by scientists at Disney Research, Pittsburgh in a project partially funded by the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies (interACT) at Carnegie Mellon University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Recognizing that a person is handing something and predicting where the human plans to make the handoff is difficult for a robot, but the researchers from Disney and KIT solved the problem by using ...

The study comprised over 24,000 Finnish subjects and was led by Professor Samuli Ripatti. The results revealed that a panel of 28 genetic markers improved detection of individuals with high risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) (10-year risk ≥20%) over traditional risk factors. Identification of high-risk individuals is an important preventive strategy for CHD, because the current guidelines recommend statin treatment for the high-risk group. "The results indicate that genetic markers could be useful in CHD prevention, when used in addition to traditional risk factor ...

Jerusalem, May 20, 2013 –A new study conducted using extensive medical records of over one million Israeli adolescents before military service shows clearly how exposure to the Israeli sun of young, light-skinned children increases substantially the risk of cutaneous melanoma (a serious form of skin cancer). The incidence of cutaneous melanoma is on the rise in all parts of the world where light-skinned people live. Rates have tripled over the last decades in the United States, and the rise was even steeper in Europe. What about in Israel? What segments of the population ...

A new computer model could help scientists predict when a particular strain of avian influenza might become infectious from bird to human, according to a report to be published in the International Journal Data Mining and Bioinformatics. Chuang Ma of the University of Arizona, Tucson, and colleagues at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, explain that since 1997 several strains of avian influenza A virus (AIV), commonly known as "bird flu" have infected people directly from their natural bird hosts leading to numerous ...

A new study conducted at the University of Bristol and published online today in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology sheds light on how the brain and inner ear developed in dinosaurs. Stephan Lautenschlager from Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, together with Tom Hübner from the Niedersächsische Landesmuseum in Hannover, Germany, picked the brains of 150 million year old dinosaurs. The two palaeontologists studied different fossils of the Jurassic dinosaur Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki: a very young (juvenile) individual of approximately three years of age and ...

There is a link between use of anabolic-androgenic steroids and reduced mental health later in life. This is the main conclusion of a new study on elite male strength athletes that researchers from the University of Gothenburg recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Twenty per cent of the subjects in the study admitted steroid use. The study is published by CERA, which is the University of Gothenburg's centre for education and research on addiction. Together with colleagues from Sahlgrenska University Hospital, they found a connection between abuse ...

SAN DIEGO (May 20, 2013) - A novel vaccine study from South Dakota State University (SDSU) will headline the groundbreaking research that will be unveiled at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists' (AAPS) National Biotechnology Conference (NBC). The meeting takes place Monday, May 20 - Wednesday, May 22 at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina. "The main goal of a vaccine is to stimulate the immune system to fight against a pathogen that causes the disease", explained Dr. Hemachand Tummala, assistant professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at SDSU. "We ...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have mapped the significance of heredity for common forms of atherosclerotic disease. No studies have previously examined whether different forms of the disease share heredity. The study looked at coronary heart disease, ischemic stroke, peripheral arterial disease and atherosclerosis of the aorta in individuals whose siblings and parents have suffered different types of cardiovascular disease. The results showed that heredity is highest for atherosclerosis of the aorta followed by peripheral arterial disease, coronary heart disease ...

Earthquakes that last minutes rather than seconds are a relatively recent discovery, according to an international team of seismologists. Researchers have been aware of these slow earthquakes, only for the past five to 10 years because of new tools and new observations, but these tools may explain the triggering of some normal earthquakes and could help in earthquake prediction. "New technology has shown us that faults do not just fail in a sudden earthquake or by stable creep," said Demian M. Saffer, professor of geoscience, Penn State. "We now know that earthquakes ...

A new study conducted by researchers at the Child Study Center at NYU Langone Medical Center found men diagnosed as children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were twice as likely to be obese in a 33-year follow-up study compared to men who were not diagnosed with the condition. The study appears in the May 20 online edition of Pediatrics. "Few studies have focused on long-term outcomes for patients diagnosed with ADHD in childhood. In this study, we wanted to assess the health outcomes of children diagnosed with ADHD, focusing on obesity rates and ...