A new Dartmouth College study finds human-caused climate change may have little impact on many species of tropical lizards, contradicting a host of recent studies that predict their widespread extinction in a rapidly warming planet. The findings, which appear in the journal Global Change Biology, offer new hope for survival of a creature thought to be doomed: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12253/abstract Most predictions that tropical cold-blooded animals, especially forest lizards, will be hard hit by climate change are based on global-scale measurements ...

LEMONT, Ill. – An international team of scientists using a new X-ray method recorded the internal structure and cell movement inside a living frog embryo in greater detail than ever before. This result showcases a new method to advance biological research and the search for new treatments for genetic diseases. Scientists at Northwestern University and the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie in Germany, in collaboration with the Advanced Photon Source at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, released the most precise depiction ever of the embryonic ...

HEIDELBERG, 17 May 2013 – Countries that have higher levels of corruption struggle to attract and retain skilled workers report the authors of a new study published in EMBO reports. Qualified workers are in demand in many countries around the world. They are internationally mobile and have the flexibility to take on new challenges. However, if the exodus of skilled workers exceeds the immigration rate of highly qualified individuals it may have a negative impact on the economic performance of a country. The authors studied the migration of highly skilled workers across ...

Control of heart disease risk factors varies widely among outpatient practices, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013. Researchers compared electronic health records of 115,737 patients in 18 primary care and cardiology practices participating in The Guideline Advantage™, a collaboration of the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association and American Heart Association that aims to reduce risks for chronic diseases. They found: The percentage of people whose hypertension ...

An experimental, inexpensive iPhone application transmitted diagnostic heart images faster and more reliably than emailing photo images, according to a research study presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013. The app could help save lives by speeding treatment for the deadliest type of heart attack known as STEMI (ST segment elevation myocardial infarction), in which a clot blocks blood flow to the heart. A critical step in prompt, effective STEMI treatment is rapid transmission of an electrocardiogram ...

Researchers have shown that, by using global positioning systems (GPS) to measure ground deformation caused by a large underwater earthquake, they can provide accurate warning of the resulting tsunami in just a few minutes after the earthquake onset. For the devastating Japan 2011 event, the team reveals that the analysis of the GPS data and issue of a detailed tsunami alert would have taken no more than three minutes. The results are published on 17 May in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). Most ...

ATLANTA - Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a procedure traditionally used during cardiac surgeries and in the ICU that functions as an artificial replacement for a patient's heart and lungs, has also been used to resuscitate cardiac arrest victims in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Now, a novel study of this technique in the U.S. has been completed by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, indicating a potential role for this intervention to save patients who are unable to be resuscitated through conventional measures. ...

ATLANTA – May 17, 2013– A new review finds cancer survivors suffer a diverse and complex set of impairments, affecting virtually every organ system. Writing in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Julie Silver, M.D., associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues say a majority of cancer survivors will have significant physical and psychological impairments as a result of treatments, and that these often go undetected and/or untreated, resulting in disability. Current data shows more than four in ten people will develop cancer during their lifetime. Due ...

A new, highly sensitive blood test that quickly detects even the lowest levels of malaria parasites in the body could make a dramatic difference in efforts to tackle the disease in the UK and across the world, according to new research published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. In two studies led by researchers in the UK and Switzerland, the new LAMP (loop-mediated isothermal amplification) test was compared to existing methods in London laboratories that deal with imported cases of malaria to the UK, and to diagnostic methods used in the field in Uganda, where ...

The processes to allow people to self-manage their own illness are not being used appropriately by health professionals to the benefit of their patients, new research suggests. Self-management support aims to increase the patient's ability to take ownership over their condition and in some cases, to self-treat. It is widely seen as critical to ensure the sustainability of health services in terms of costs. Although potentially effective, patient based interventions can be limited as not all patients engage with them. However, embedding self-management support discussions ...

May 17, 2013, Shenzhen, China---- Why Tibetan antelope can live at elevations of 4,000-5,000m on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau? In a collaborative research published in Nature Communications, investigators from Qinghai University, BGI, and other institutes provide evidence that some genetic factors may be associated with the species' adaption to harsh highland environments. The data in this work will also provide implications for studying specific genetic mechanisms and the biology of other ruminant species. The Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) is a native of the ...

Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region. They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture –before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region. Current archaeological thinking is that it was the advent of rice cultivation along the Lower Yangtze River that marked the beginning of agriculture in southern China. Poor organic preservation in the study region, as in many others, means that ...

Materials belonging to the family of dilute magnetic oxides (DMOs) — an oxide-based variant of the dilute magnetic semiconductors — are good candidates for spintronics applications. This is the object of study for Davide Sangalli of the Microelectronics and Microsystems Institute (IMM) at the National Research Council (CNR), in Agrate Brianza, Italy, and colleagues. They recently explored the effect of iron (Fe) doping on thin films of a material called zirconia (ZrO2 oxide). For the first time, the authors bridged the gap between the theoretical predictions and the experimental ...

Scientists investigating the interaction of a group of proteins in the brain responsible for protecting nerve cells from damage have identified a new target that could increase cell survival. The discovery, made by researchers from the University's School of Biochemistry and published in the EMBO journal with additional comment in Nature Reviews, could eventually lead to new therapies for stroke and other brain diseases. The research builds on earlier work by the team which identified a protein, known as SUMO, responsible for controlling the chemical processes which ...

Philadelphia, PA, May 17, 2013 – The most common cause of failure after glaucoma surgery is scarring at the surgical site, so researchers are actively looking for ways to minimize or prevent scar formation. Previous work had suggested that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) activates fibrosis, whereas VEGF inhibition results in reduced scar formation and better surgical results. In a series of studies using a rabbit model of glaucoma surgery, investigators have determined that VEGF probably exerts its effects through induction of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1, ...

Athens, Ga. – Age has little to do with how patients should be treated after suffering a stroke, according to new research from the University of Georgia. Historically, younger stroke victims receive different after-stroke intervention strategies than those over a certain age. However, Neale Chumbler, a UGA professor and head of the department of health policy and management in the College of Public Health, found patients responded equally to care efforts. Looking at 127 Veterans Affairs medical centers and a sample of 3,196 patients treated for ischemic strokes, ...

CINCINNATI—Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that the race and sex of study personnel can influence a patient's decision on whether or not to participate in clinical research. The study, presented today at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine's annual meeting in Atlanta, that there is an interaction of the race and sex of the study assistant and the race of the patient. Lead author Kimberly Hart says that her team found that black patients, both male and female, were about 15 percent less likely to be willing to participate in research ...

CINCINNATI—Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that incorporating a peer-referral program for HIV testing into emergency departments can reach new groups of high-risk patients and brings more patients into the hospital for testing. Co-author and assistant professor of emergency medicine Michael Lyons, MD, says public health officials study multiple approaches to increasing early diagnosis of HIV. These approaches include a recent emphasis on expanding testing in health care centers, particularly emergency departments (EDs) that treat disadvantaged, ...

Among patients with chronic kidney disease, those with very low kidney function had a higher risk of having a heart attack than those with higher kidney function over a four-year period. The link between higher LDL cholesterol and heart attack risk was weaker for patients with very low kidney function than for patients with higher kidney function. 60 million people globally have chronic kidney disease. Washington, DC (May 16, 2013) — LDL cholesterol is not a useful marker of heart disease risk in patients with kidney disease, according to a study appearing in an upcoming ...

Massachusetts' healthcare reform didn't result in substantially more hospital use or higher costs, according to data presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013. The findings were true even among safety-net hospitals, which often have an open-door policy to accept patients regardless of the ability to pay. These hospitals are most likely to care for people who need free services, use Medicaid or must pay their own hospital bills. "In light of the Affordable Healthcare Act, we wanted to validate concerns ...

MAY 16, 2013—An ad hoc coalition of unlikely insurgents—scientists, journal editors and publishers, scholarly societies, and research funders across many scientific disciplines—today posted an international declaration calling on the world scientific community to eliminate the role of the journal impact factor (JIF) in evaluating research for funding, hiring, promotion, or institutional effectiveness. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, or DORA, was framed by a group of journal editors, publishers, and others convened by the American Society for Cell ...

HOUSTON – (May 16, 2013) – In a paper published in Science Express, a group of experts led by bioethicists in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine provide a framework for the new American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) recommendations on reporting incidental findings in clinical exome and genome sequencing. In March 2013, the ACMG recommended that all laboratories conducting clinical sequencing seek and report pathogenic and expected pathogenic mutations for a short list of carefully chosen genes and conditions. ...

This news release is available in German. Once introduced for biological pest control, Asian lady beetle Harmonia axyridis populations have been increasing uncontrollably in the US and Europe since the turn of the millennium. The species has been proliferating rapidly in Germany; conservationists fear that the Asian lady beetle will out-compete native beetle species. Scientists from the University of Giessen and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have now found the reason why this animal is so successful. Apart from a strongly antibiotic ...

Depressed middle-aged women have almost double the risk of having a stroke, according to research published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. In a 12-year Australian study of 10,547 women 47-52 years old, researchers found that depressed women had a 2.4 times increased risk of stroke compared to those who weren't depressed. Even after researchers eliminated several factors that increase stroke risks, depressed women were still 1.9 times more likely to have a stroke. "When treating women, doctors need to recognize the serious nature of poor mental health ...

Science publishes the article in Science Express, which facilitates rapid publication of select studies. "This study is a breakthrough for our research group after years of work. When we reduce the production of the enzyme in mice, the development of all the clinical symptoms of progeria is reduced or blocked. We have also studied cultured cells from children with progeria, and can see that when the enzyme is inhibited, the growth of the cells increases by the same mechanism as in mouse cells," says Martin Bergö, Professor at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg ...