One in 25,000 people worldwide is affected by neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2), a condition where the loss of a tumour suppressor called Merlin results in multiple tumours in the brain and nervous system. Sufferers may experience 20 to 30 tumours at any one time and such numbers often lead to hearing loss, disability and eventually death. Those with NF2 may also experience peripheral neuropathy, which is when the nerves carrying messages to and from the brain and spinal column to the rest of the body do not work. Peripheral neuropathy leads to further complications for ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Researchers have shown theoretically how to control or eliminate the formation of "dendrites" that cause lithium-ion batteries to fail, an advance that if realized would improve safety and might enable the batteries to be charged within a matter of minutes instead of hours. The dendrites are lithium deposits that form on electrode surfaces and may continue to grow until they cause an internal short circuit, which results in battery failure and possible fire. Researchers have created an analytical theory that shows how to design experiments to study ...

DALLAS – March 5, 2013 – UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists report the first successful blocking of tumor development in a genetic mouse model of an incurable human cancer. "To my knowledge, this is the first time that a mouse model of a genetically defined malignant human cancer has been generated in which the formation of the tumor from beginning to end can be monitored and in which blocking the pathway cures the mouse of the tumor," said Dr. Luis Parada, chair of the department of developmental biology at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study published ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- As newspaper sales continue to decline, many news organizations are searching for ways to improve readership and revenues from their online presences. Now, University of Missouri researchers have found that news organizations should target readers with certain personality traits in order to optimize their online viewership. Paul Bolls, an associate professor of strategic communication at the MU School of Journalism and a 2011-2012 MU Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow, has found that news consumers who have "reward-seeking" personalities are more likely ...

New York, NY, March 5, 2013 – A JDRF-funded study out of Switzerland has shown that a single gene called SIRT1 may be involved in the development of type 1 diabetes (T1D) and other autoimmune diseases. The study, "Identification of a SIRT1 Mutation in a Family with Type 1 Diabetes," was published today in Cell Metabolism and represents the first demonstration of a monogenetic defect leading to the onset of T1D. The research began when Marc Donath, M.D., endocrinologist and researcher at the University Hospital Basel in Switzerland, discovered an interesting pattern of ...

NEW YORK, NY (March 5, 2013) — Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), with collaborators at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, have discovered how the most common genetic mutations in familial Parkinson's disease damage brain cells. The mutations block an intracellular system that normally prevents a protein called alpha-synuclein from reaching toxic levels in dopamine-producing neurons. The findings suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing this digestive system, or preventing its disruption, may prove valuable in the ...

It's among the most ancient of questions: What are the origins of life on Earth? A new experiment simulating conditions in deep space reveals that the complex building blocks of life could have been created on icy interplanetary dust and then carried to Earth, jump-starting life. Chemists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Hawaii, Manoa, showed that conditions in space are capable of creating complex dipeptides – linked pairs of amino acids – that are essential building blocks shared by all living things. The discovery opens the door ...

A combination of financial, cultural and communication barriers plays a role in preventing underserved Latino men with prostate cancer from accessing the care and treatment they need, according to a new study by researchers at the UCLA School of Nursing. The study, "Barriers to Prostate Cancer Care: Affordable Care Is Not Enough," is published in the March issue of the peer-reviewed journal Qualitative Health Research. According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among Latino men. Additionally, Latino men are ...

(Boston) – An international group of researchers has discovered seven new regions of the human genome—called loci—that are associated with increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness. The AMD Gene Consortium, a network of international investigators representing 18 research groups, also confirmed 12 loci identified in previous studies. The study, which is published online in Nature Genetics and represents the most comprehensive genome-wide analysis of genetic variations associated with AMD, was supported by the National Eye Institute ...

The uplift of the Isthmus of Panama 2.6 million years ago formed a land-bridge that has long thought to be the crucial step in the interchange of animals between the Americas, including armadillos and giant sloths moving up into North America and relatives of modern horses, rabbits, foxes, pigs, cats, dogs, and elephants down into South America. However, in the March 2013 issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, researchers from the University of Florida and the Smithsonian Tropical Research institute describe fossil crocodilians that shed a surprising new light ...

A special supplement on patient safety strategies will be published with the March 5 issue. In addition to the 10 articles included in the supplement, Annals of Internal Medicine also will publish a special five-page graphic narrative on the topic of medical errors. Please see summaries at the bottom of the page for information. Full text of the graphic novel and articles in the supplement are available upon request. 1. Screening with Colonoscopy May Reduce Risk for Late-stage Cancer By 70 Percent Screening with sigmoidoscopy yields similar results in cancer of ...

Study results presented today at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections by the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) show that a series of community efforts can increase the number of people who get tested and know their HIV status, especially among men and young people with HIV who might otherwise transmit the virus to others. The study was also able to demonstrate a modest 14% reduction in new HIV infections in the intervention communities compared to the control communities. NIMH Project Accept (HPTN 043) ...

Medicare patients who enrolled in hospice received better care at a significantly lower cost to the government than those who did not use the Medicare hospice benefit. The data indicate that annual savings to Medicare could amount to $2.4 million to $6.4 million, if 1,000 additional Medicare beneficiaries chose to enroll in hospice 53-105 days before death, or 15-30 days prior to death. The study, led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is published in the March issue of Health Affairs. It is part of Health Affairs' Care Span series, funded ...

Shipping lanes through the Arctic Ocean won't put the Suez and Panama canals out of business anytime soon, but global warming will make these frigid routes much more accessible than ever imagined by melting an unprecedented amount of sea ice during the late summer, new UCLA research shows. "The development is both exciting from an economic development point of view and worrisome in terms of safety, both for the Arctic environment and for the ships themselves," said lead researcher Laurence C. Smith, a professor of geography at UCLA. The findings, which explore accessibility ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have discovered how oxidative stress can turn to the dark side a cellular protein that's usually benign, and make it become a powerful, unwanted accomplice in neuronal death. This finding, reported today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could ultimately lead to new therapeutic approaches to many of the world's debilitating or fatal diseases. The research explains how one form of oxidative stress called tyrosine nitration can lead to cell death. Through the common link of inflammation, this may relate to health problems ...

Boston, MA — The public is very supportive of government action aimed at changing lifestyle choices that can lead to obesity, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases—but they're less likely to support such interventions if they're viewed as intrusive or coercive, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study. The study also found that support was higher for interventions that help people make more healthful choices, such as menu labeling requirements, than for interventions that penalize certain choices or health conditions, such as charging higher ...

Flocks of birds, schools of fish, and groups of any other living organisms might have a mathematical function in common. Studying aquatic microorganisms, Andrea Giometto, a researcher EPFL and Eawag, showed that for each species he studied, body sizes were distributed according to the same mathematical expression, where the only unknown is the average size of the species in an ecosystem. His article was published in in PNAS in March 2013. Several observations suggest that the size distribution function could be universal. Giometto made his observations in the lab on ...

A marathon runner approaches the finishing line, but suddenly the sweaty athlete collapses to the ground. Everyone probably assumes that this is because he has expended all energy in his muscles. What few people know is that it might also be a braking mechanism in the brain which swings into effect and makes us too tired to continue. What may be occurring is what is referred to as 'central fatigue'. "Our discovery is helping to shed light on the paradox which has long been the subject of discussion by researchers. We have always known that the neurotransmitter serotonin ...

Boston, Mass. - The underdeveloped immune systems of newborns don't respond to most vaccines, leaving them at high risk for infections like rotavirus, pertussis (whooping cough) and pneumococcus. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have identified a potent compound that activates immune responses in newborns' white blood cells substantially better than anything previously tested, and that could potentially make vaccines effective right at birth. The ability to immunize babies at birth—rather than two months of age, when most current vaccination series begin—would ...

CHICAGO --- A new mother may constantly worry and check to see if her baby is still breathing. Or she may fret about germs, obsessing whether she's properly sterilized the bottles, then wash and rewash them. A new Northwestern Medicine® study found that women who have recently given birth have a much higher rate of obsessive-compulsive symptoms than the general population. The study found 11 percent of women at two weeks and six months postpartum experience significant obsessive-compulsive symptoms compared to 2 to 3 percent in the general population. This is the ...

A study that analyzed data from more than 82,000 veterans suggests that infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was associated with an increased risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI, heart attack) beyond what is explained by recognized risk factors, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Due to the successful antiretroviral therapy (ART), people infected with HIV are living longer and are at risk for heart disease, authors wrote in the study background. Matthew S. Freiberg, M.D., M.Sc., of ...

A team of scientists and clinicians at UC San Francisco has discovered how to detect abnormal brain rhythms associated with Parkinson's by implanting electrodes within the brains of people with the disease. The work may lead to developing the next generation of brain stimulation devices to alleviate symptoms for people with the disease. Described this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the work sheds light on how Parkinson's disease affects the brain, and is the first time anyone has been able to measure a quantitative signal ...

PHILADELPHIA — The mammalian placenta is more than just a filter through which nutrition and oxygen are passed from a mother to her unborn child. According to a new study by a research group from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, if a mother is exposed to stress during pregnancy, her placenta translates that experience to her fetus by altering levels of a protein that affects the developing brains of male and female offspring differently. These findings suggest one way in which maternal-stress exposure may be linked to neurodevelopmental diseases ...

SEATTLE – Alzheimer's disease is the fastest growing threat to health in the US. HIV/AIDS and alcohol are severely eroding the health of Russians. Violence is claiming the lives of young men in large swaths of Latin America, constituting a homicide-driven health crisis. Despite health gains in sub-Saharan Africa, infectious diseases still cause hundreds of thousands of child deaths. These are just some of the new findings from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2010 Study (GBD 2010), a systemic, scientific effort to quantify the comparative magnitude ...

SEATTLE – Britons are living longer lives and enjoying better health, but they are still grappling with disabling conditions such as back and neck pain and depression, often more than people in most other European countries. Health in the United Kingdom is eroded by preventable causes of death such as smoking, unhealthy diets, and use of alcohol and drugs. As a result, the UK's pace of decline in premature mortality has fallen well behind the average of 14 other original members of the European Union, Australia, Canada, Norway, and the United States (EU15+) over the past ...