A new Lancet series on maternal and childhood nutrition finds that over 3 million children die every year of malnutrition—accounting for nearly half of all child deaths under 5. Along with state-of-the-art global estimates on the long-term burden of malnutrition, the series presents a new framework for prevention and treatment that considers underlying factors, such as food security, social conditions, resources, and governance. Professor Robert Black, Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, led the consortium of experts ...

A team of researchers from Emory, University of Miami and Scripps Research Institute has identified a compound that can reduce PTSD-like symptoms in mice after they are exposed to stress. The discovery could lead to a treatment given to people shortly after a traumatic event, aimed at preventing possible PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The results are scheduled for publication Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The team's research meshes with recent studies – one looking at military personnel injured in Iraq -- hinting that morphine administration ...

DeKalb, Ill. – An international team of paleontologists that includes Northern Illinois University anthropologist Dan Gebo is announcing the discovery of a nearly complete, articulated skeleton of a new tiny, tree-dwelling primate dating back 55 million years. The Eocene Epoch fossil was recovered from Hubei Province in central China. "This is the oldest primate skeleton of this quality and completeness ever discovered and one of the most primitive primate fossils ever documented," Gebo said. "The origin of primates sets the first milestone for all primate lineages, ...

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania…An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of the world's oldest known fossil primate skeleton representing a previously unknown genus and species named Archicebus achilles. The fossil was unearthed from an ancient lake bed in central China's Hubei Province, near the course of the modern Yangtze River. In addition to being the oldest known example of an early primate skeleton, the new fossil is crucial for illuminating a pivotal event in primate and human evolution—the evolutionary divergence between the lineage leading to ...

A clinical study has found that electronic stimulation therapy to reduce obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is safe and effective. The Stimulation Therapy for Apnea Reduction (The STAR Trial) evaluated an implantable electronic stimulation device called Inspire™ Upper Airway Stimulation (UAS) therapy designed to deliver mild stimulation to the main nerve of the tongue (hypoglossal nerve) on each breathing cycle during sleep. The stimulation is intended to restore tone to key airway muscles and prevent airway collapse. Patients control when the Inspire therapy is turned ...

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, the University of Oxford, NIMR Tanzania and Retrogenix LTD, have identified how malaria parasites growing inside red blood cells stick to the sides of blood vessels in severe cases of malaria. The discovery may advance the development of vaccines or drugs to combat severe malaria by stopping the parasites attaching to blood vessels. The results are now published in the scientific journal Nature. Though researchers have known for over a century that red blood cells ...

Survivors of sexual violence have long gone without treatment and suffered debilitating symptoms of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. But a randomized controlled study of 405 rape survivors in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo proves that short-term therapy delivered by para-professionals is effective at reducing mental health symptoms, according to a study released in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, "Controlled Trial of Psychotherapy for Congolese Survivors of Sexual Violence," provided 154 women cognitive processing therapy ...

Tampa, FL (June 5, 2013) -- A combination of nontoxic dietary and hyperbaric oxygen therapies effectively increased survival time in a mouse model of aggressive metastatic cancer, a research team from the Hyperbaric Biomedical Research Laboratory at the University of South Florida has found. The study, "The Ketogenic Diet and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Prolong Survival in Mice with Systemic Metastatic Cancer," was published online today in PLOS ONE. Led by Dominic D'Agostino, PhD, principal investigator in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the ...

Researchers from the UCLA Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology have isolated a new population of primitive, stress-resistant human pluripotent stem cells easily derived from fat tissue that are able to differentiate into virtually every cell type in the human body without genetic modification. The cells, called Multi-lineage Stress-Enduring (Muse-AT) stem cells from fat, or adipose, tissue, were discovered by "scientific accident" when a piece of equipment failed in the lab, killing all the stem cells in the experiment except for the Muse-AT cells. The research team ...

Medieval chronicles have given an international group of researchers a glimpse into the past to assess how historical volcanic eruptions affected the weather in Ireland up to 1500 years ago. By critically assessing over 40,000 written entries in the Irish Annals and comparing them with measurements taken from ice cores, the researchers successfully linked the climatic aftermath of volcanic eruptions to extreme cold weather events in Ireland over a 1200-year period from 431 to 1649. Their study, which has been published today, 6 June, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental ...

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have reported* the first observation of the "spin Hall effect" in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a cloud of ultracold atoms acting as a single quantum object. As one consequence, they made the atoms, which spin like a child's top, skew to one side or the other, by an amount dependent on the spin direction. Besides offering new insight into the quantum mechanical world, they say the phenomenon is a step toward applications in "atomtronics"—the use of ultracold atoms as circuit components. The spin ...

Boston, MA – Reaching puberty at an unusually early age can have adverse effects on social behavior and psychological development, as well as physical effects, including short stature, and lifelong health risks, such as diabetes, breast cancer and heart disease. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), in a multi-institutional collaboration with Boston Children's Hospital, the Broad Institute, and the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, have identified that a genetic mutation leads to a type of premature puberty, known as central precocious puberty. Central precocious ...

When injected into mice immediately following a traumatic event, a new drug prevents the animals from developing memory problems and increased anxiety that are indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists utilized mouse studies to suggest that a receptor called Oprl1 is altered in mice with PTSD-like symptoms. They then worked with a group at the Scripps Research Institute who had previously developed the Oprl1-targeted drug to examine its effects on fear memory modulation. The group has also shown that in humans, ...

Baltimore, Md. — June 5, 2013. The bacteria that live in the human gut may play an important role in immune response to vaccines and infection by wild-type enteric organisms, according to two recent studies resulting from a collaborative effort between the University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute for Genome Sciences and the Center for Vaccine Development. The first study, published online in PLOS ONE, http://umm.gd/13E3OHl, examines the impact of an oral typhoid vaccination on the microbiota, or populations of bacteria, in the human gut. The second study, also ...

Ulsan, South Korea– The research team of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Case Western Reserve University and University of North Texas have paved a new way for affordable commercialization of fuel cells with efficient metal-free electrocatalysts using edge-halogenated graphene nanoplatelets. Fuel cell technology has come a long way since the early days in the Apollo space program. Certainly the idea of running a car on pure hydrogen is an exciting prospect as the only emissions will be pure water. But how much will you be willing to pay ...

Tiny bubbles of water found in quartz grains in Australia may hold the key to understanding what caused the Earth's first ice age, say scientists. The Anglo-French study, published in the journal Nature, analysed the amount of ancient atmospheric argon gas (Ar) isotopes dissolved in the bubbles and found levels were very different to those in the air we breathe today. The researchers say their findings help explain why Earth didn't suffer its first ice age until 2.5 billion years ago, despite the Sun's rays being weaker during the early years of our planet's formation. "The ...

The first study drew the conclusion that people cooperate more if they are forced to make decisions when pressed for time. The research group (Rand et al.) let the test subjects make decisions under pressure on social dilemmas. They found that the decisions made at the time were more oriented towards cooperation. The conclusion was that decisions under pressure that build on intuition promote cooperation. It has gotten a lot of attention and aroused a great deal of discussion. But it is not true, argues a group of researchers at several universities, including Linköping ...

Engineers in the Coordinated Robotics Lab at the University of California, San Diego, have developed new image processing techniques for rapid exploration and characterization of structural fires by small Segway-like robotic vehicles. A sophisticated on-board software system takes the thermal data recorded by the robot's small infrared camera and maps it onto a 3D scene constructed from the images taken by a pair of stereo RGB cameras. This allows small mobile robotic vehicles to create a virtual reality picture that includes a 3D map and temperature data that can ...

Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), led by Dr. Lee Bulla, have characterized a protein produced by the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis (Bti), which is highly toxic against Anopheles gambiae, the principal mosquito vector of malaria. The protein toxin, which has been known for a number of years, is produced in a complex of other protein toxins, called Cry toxins, which also have mosquitocidal activity against other species of mosquito. The novelty of the research done by the UTD scientists is that they differentially fractionated ...

DETROIT — The local food movement is gaining traction in cities across America, with urban gardens contributing a healthy source of fresh produce for local citizens as well as providing a social outlet for gardeners and creating open spaces for residents to enjoy. Urban gardening is not without risks, however. Many garden plots within cities were previously inhabited by residences or industrial buildings that disposed of toxic chemicals on site, creating potential health hazards from the use of lead in paint, gasoline and industrial activities. To properly assess the ...

NJIT Assistant Professor Mei Liu, PhD, a computer scientist, has recently shown in a new study that electronic medical records can validate previously reported adverse drug reactions and report new ones. "Comparative Analysis of Pharmacovigilance Methods in Detection of Adverse Drug Reactions from Electronic Medical Records" (Journal of American Medical Informatics Association, May 2013) examined the use of retrospective medication orders and inpatient laboratory results documented in the medical records to identify adverse reactions. Twelve years of data from Vanderbilt ...

How much will BP pay to compensate for damage from the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig disaster? One article in a three-part cover package on the disaster in this week's edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) focuses on what promises to be a long, complicated federal trial — now getting underway in New Orleans — that will provide an answer. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. Jeff Johnson, C&EN senior correspondent, details how Gulf Coast states plan to divvy up the restoration penalties from the devastating ...

If you suspect that opening windows to let in fresh air might be good for you, a new study by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has confirmed your hunch. Analyzing extensive data on ventilation rates collected from more than 150 classrooms in California over two years, the researchers found that bringing classroom ventilation rates up to the state-mandated standard may reduce student absences due to illness by approximately 3.4 percent. With this reduction in student absence, California's school districts would gain $33 million annually ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (June 5, 2013) -- A gene linked to autism spectrum disorders that was manipulated in two lines of transgenic mice produced mature adults with irreversible deficits affecting either learning or social interaction. The findings, published in the May 29 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, have implications for potential gene therapies but they also suggest that there may be narrow windows of opportunity to be effective, says principal investigator Philip Washbourne, a professor of biology and member of the University of Oregon's Institute of Neuroscience. The ...

A faith in the explanatory and revealing power of science increases in the face of stress or anxiety, a study by Oxford University psychologists suggests. The researchers argue that a 'belief in science' may help non-religious people deal with adversity by offering comfort and reassurance, as has been reported previously for religious belief. 'We found that being in a more stressful or anxiety-inducing situation increased participants' "belief in science",' says Dr Miguel Farias, who led the study in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University. 'This ...