Boston –Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have developed a risk score calculation that can help predict which patients with rhabdomyolysis (a condition that occurs due to muscle damage) may be at risk for the severe complication of kidney failure or death. This research will publish online September 2, 2013 in JAMA Internal Medicine. Rhabdomyolysis occurs when muscles are crushed and rupture, leaking toxic compounds into the circulation and can be caused by any condition that damages skeletal muscle and causes injury. Risk factors include crush injuries, ...

For the first time, a dramatic global climate shift has been linked to the impact in Quebec of an asteroid or comet, Dartmouth researchers and their colleagues report in a new study. The cataclysmic event wiped out many of the planet's large mammals and may have prompted humans to start gathering and growing some of their food rather than solely hunting big game. The findings appear next week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A preprint of the article is available to journalists starting Wednesday, Aug. 28, at http://www.eurekalert.org/account.php. The ...

Sydney, Australia: The amount of raw materials needed to sustain the economies of developed countries is significantly greater than presently used indicators suggest, a new Australian study has revealed. Using a new modelling tool and more comprehensive indicators, researchers were able to map the flow of raw materials across the world economy with unprecedented accuracy to determine the true "material footprint" of 186 countries over a two-decade period (from 1990 to 2008). The study, involving researchers from the University of New South Wales, CSIRO, the University ...

The idea that men and women are fundamentally different from each other is widely accepted. And throughout the world, this has created distinct ideas about which social and physical characteristics are necessary in each gender to maintain healthy human development. However, social revolutions throughout the last century have challenged traditional ideas about not only which traits are normal and necessary for survival, but also how humans acquire them. Thanks to a new study from researchers at Case Western Reserve University, science is continuing the charge. By studying ...

ANN ARBOR—Darwin referred to the origin of species as "that mystery of mysteries," and even today, more than 150 years later, evolutionary biologists cannot fully explain how new animals and plants arise. For decades, nearly all research in the field has been based on the assumption that the main cause of the emergence of new species, a process called speciation, is the formation of barriers to reproduction between populations. Those barriers can be geographic—such as a new mountain, river or glacier that physically separates two populations of animals or plants—or ...

Gardiner's frogs from the Seychelles islands, one of the smallest frogs in the world, do not possess a middle ear with an eardrum yet can croak themselves, and hear other frogs. An international team of scientists using X-rays has now solved this mystery and established that these frogs are using their mouth cavity and tissue to transmit sound to their inner ears. The results are published in PNAS on September 2, 2013. The team led by Renaud Boistel from CNRS and University of Poitiers, comprised also scientists from Institut Langevin of ESPCI ParisTech, the Laboratoire ...

Candida albicans is a common fungus found living in, and on, many parts of the human body. Usually this species causes no harm to humans unless it can breach the body's immune defences, where can lead to serious illness or death. It is known as an opportunistic pathogen that can colonise and infect individuals with a compromised immune system. New research, presented today at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn Conference, gives us a greater understanding of how mucosal surfaces in the body respond to C. albicans to prevent damage being done during infection. Researchers ...

A new species of fungus that eats amphibians' skin has ravaged the fire salamander population in the Netherlands, bringing it close to regional extinction. Fire salamanders, recognisable by their distinctive yellow and black skin patterns, have been found dead in the country's forests since 2010. The population has fallen to around 10 individuals, less than four per cent of its original level, but what has been killing them has been a mystery until now. Scientists from Ghent University, Imperial College London, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Dutch conservation group ...

If your attendance at too many rock concerts has impaired your hearing, listen up. University of Iowa researchers say that the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an ideal model to study hearing loss in humans caused by loud noise. The reason: The molecular underpinnings to its hearing are roughly the same as with people. As a result, scientists may choose to use the fruit fly to quicken the pace of research into the cause of noise-induced hearing loss and potential treatment for the condition, according to a paper published this week in the online Early Edition ...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Human infants' responses to the vocalizations of non-human primates shed light on the developmental origin of a crucial link between human language and core cognitive capacities, a new study reports. Previous studies have shown that even in infants too young to speak, listening to human speech supports core cognitive processes, including the formation of object categories. Alissa Ferry, lead author and currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Language, Cognition and Development Lab at the Scuola Internationale Superiore di Studi Avanzati in Trieste, ...

A study estimates that total annual costs for five major health care-associated infections (HAIs) were $9.8 billion, with surgical site infections contributing the most to overall costs, according to a report published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. HAIs are associated with high costs and better evaluation of the cost of these infections could help providers and payers justify investing in prevention, according to background information in the study by Eyal Zimlichman, M.D., M.Sc., of Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard Medical School, ...

A gap in earnings between male and female U.S. physicians has persisted over the last 20 years, according to a research letter by Seth A. Seabury, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and colleagues. Using nationally representative data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1987 to 2010, the researchers estimated trends in the male-female earnings gap among physicians, other health care workers, and workers overall. The sample included 1,334,894 individuals, including 6,258 physicians and 31,857 other health care professionals, and ...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in mothers appears to be associated with an increased risk for child maltreatment beyond that associated with maternal depression, according to a study published by JAMA Pediatrics, a JAMA Network publication. The psychopathology of a caregiver is understood to be an important risk factor for child maltreatment and maternal depression is associated with an increased use of corporal punishment and physical abuse of children. Until recently, research on maternal depression and maltreatment risk has largely ignored the high rate of comorbidity ...

Adhering to a Mediterranean-type diet (MedDi) does not appear associated with the time to clinical onset of Huntington disease (phenoconversion), according to a study by Karen Marder, M.D., M.P.H., of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, N.Y., and colleagues. The Mediterranean diet, a diet high in plant foods (e.g. fruits, nuts, legumes, and cereals) and fish, with olive oil as the primary source of monounsaturated fat (MUSF) and low to moderate intake of wine, as well as low intake of red meat, poultry, and dairy products, is known to be ...

LOS ANGELES — The common refrain about health care is that it's a broken system. A new joint program between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California (USC), demonstrates a way to mend the system with a new patient-centered program that is getting raves from patients, as well as the residents and nurses who provide their care. Results from the program are highlighted in a study being released in September. The program, Galaxy Health, debuted at Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center (LAC+USC) in 2012 with a goal of substantially ...

With new insights into the classical game theory match-up known as the "Prisoner's Dilemma," University of Pennsylvania biologists offer a mathematically based explanation for why cooperation and generosity have evolved in nature. Their work builds upon the seminal findings of economist John Nash, who advanced the field of game theory in the 1950s, as well as those of computational biologist William Press and physicist-mathematician Freeman Dyson, who last year identified a new class of strategies for succeeding in the Prisoner's Dilemma. Postdoctoral researcher Alexander ...

Scientists have uncovered strong evidence that soot, or black carbon, sent into the air by a rapidly industrializing Europe, likely caused the abrupt retreat of mountain glaciers in the European Alps. The research, published Sept. 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may help resolve a longstanding scientific debate about why the Alps glaciers retreated beginning in the 1860s, decades before global temperatures started rising again. Thomas Painter, a snow and ice scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is lead author of ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A collaborative project involving a Kansas State University ecologist has shown that the Clean Air Act has helped forest systems recover from decades of sulfur pollution and acid rain. The research team -- which included Jesse Nippert, associate professor of biology -- spent four years studying centuries-old eastern red cedar trees, or Juniperus virginiana, in the Central Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia. The region is downwind of the Ohio River Valley coal power plants and experienced high amounts of acidic pollution -- caused by sulfur dioxide ...

Scientists estimate that there is a minimum of 320,000 viruses in mammals awaiting discovery. Collecting evidence of these viruses, or even a majority of them, they say, could provide information critical to early detection and mitigation of disease outbreaks in humans. This undertaking would cost approximately $6.3 billion, or $1.4 billion if limited to 85% of total viral diversity -- a fraction of the economic impact of a major pandemic like SARS. Close to 70% of emerging viral diseases such as HIV/AIDS, West Nile, Ebola, SARS, and influenza, are zoonoses -- infections ...

NEW YORK – September 3, 2013 – EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that focuses on local conservation and global health issues, and the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health announced a new strategy to identify the total number of wildlife viruses that could potentially cause emerging disease outbreaks that threaten both public and wildlife health. Combining field investigations with a new statistical approach, scientists estimate that there may exist a minimum of 320,000 viruses awaiting discovery from ...

Researchers from major universities in the U.S. have developed specific tests to identify cancer biomarkers in patients with dermatomyositis—a systemic inflammatory disease associated with increased risk of malignancy. According to study findings published in the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) journal, Arthritis & Rheumatism, the assays detect antibodies against anti-transcriptional intermediary factor-1 (TIF-1γ) and nuclear matrix protein NXP-2. Patients with dermatomyositis experience muscle weakness, skin inflammation, and sometimes inflammation of the ...

Consistently uniform, easily manufactured microcapsules containing a brain cancer drug may simplify treatment and provide more tightly controlled therapy, according to Penn State researchers. "Brain tumors are one of the world's deadliest diseases," said Mohammad Reza Abidian, assistant professor of bioengineering, chemical engineering and materials science and engineering. "Typically doctors resect the tumors, do radiation therapy and then chemotherapy." The majority of chemotherapy is done intravenously, but, because the drugs are very toxic and are not targeted, ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, ILL. -- Asthma is a disease that mostly affects young boys and adult women. And according to a new study, women in their 40s and 50s with asthma are hospitalized more than twice as often as men in the same age group. The 10-year study is published in the September issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI). "Until puberty, boys have higher rates of asthma than girls," said Robert Yao-wen Lin, MD, allergist and lead study author. "Then, during the menopausal ...

LOS ANGELES — Teenagers who see friends smoking and drinking alcohol in photographs posted on Facebook and Myspace are more likely to smoke and drink themselves, according to a new study from the University of Southern California (USC). "Our study shows that adolescents can be influenced by their friends' online pictures to smoke or drink alcohol," said Thomas W. Valente, Ph.D., professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the study's principal investigator. "To our knowledge, this is the first study to apply social network analysis methods ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Tuesday 3 September 2013: Low BMI is a risk factor for CVD in hypertensive patients with diabetes, according to research presented at the ESC Congress today by Dr Takanori Nagahiro from Japan. The findings provide evidence for an obesity paradox in hypertensive patients with glucose intolerance. Dr Nagahiro said: "Obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) but several studies have reported that low body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) was associated with worse cardiovascular outcome compared to middle or higher BMI. This strange phenomenon ...