Sacramento, CA (August 2, 2013) – In a new observational study published in the Journal of Food Science, researchers looked at the association of grape consumption, in the non-alcoholic forms most commonly consumed – fresh grapes, raisins and 100% grape juice – with the diet quality of a recent, nationally representative sample of U.S. children and adults. Their findings suggest that, among adults and children, consumption of grapes and grape products is associated with healthier dietary patterns and improved nutrient intakes. Researchers analyzed the diets of more than ...

By differentiating monkey stem cells into liver cells and inducing successful infection, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have shown for the first time that the hepatitis C virus (HCV) can replicate in monkeys, according to research published in the journal Gastroenterology. The new findings may lead to the first new animal model and provide new avenues for developing treatments and vaccines for this disease, which impacts more than three million people in the United States. Scientists have tried for decades to develop animal models to study ...

WASHINGTON — Prothrombin complex concentrates (PCCs) are faster and more effective than fresh frozen plasma at reversing hemorrhage caused by the anti-coagulant warfarin, despite plasma being the most commonly used therapy. A literature review published last month in Annals of Emergency Medicine suggests that physicians in the United States should join those around the world in following recommendations of multiple specialty organizations to use PCCs as the first line of defense in this common and life-threatening emergency ("Rapid Reversal of Warfarin-Associated Hemorrhage ...

RICHLAND, Wash. -- Chemists have unexpectedly made two differently colored crystals – one orange, the other blue – from one chemical in the same flask while studying a special kind of molecular connection called an agostic bond. The discovery, reported in Angewandte Chemie International Edition on July 29, is providing new insights into important industrial chemical reactions such as those that occur while making plastics and fuels. "We were studying agostic bonds in a project to make liquid fuels like methanol from carbon dioxide to replace fuels we get from oil," said ...

Research from the University of Copenhagen has revealed the effects of a decade of decentralised wage negotiations in the private sector. In an article in the Journal of Labor Economics, researchers conclude that wages have risen for all employees and that companies are now better able to retain key personnel. "Average wages rise when employees and managers negotiate on an individual basis, without a collective-bargaining agreement dictating fixed rates for all," explains Jakob Roland Munch, professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen. For the first time, ...

At NASA's White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, N.M., a sounding rocket is being readied for flight. Due to launch on Aug. 8, 2013, the VERIS rocket, short for Very high Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, will launch for a 15-minute trip carrying an instrument that can measure properties of the structures in the sun's upper atmosphere down to 145 miles across, some eight times clearer than any similar telescope currently in space. When it comes to observing the sun, different instruments and techniques must be used to study different temperatures of material or different ...

Most aircraft carrying Doppler radar look like they've grown a tail, developed a dorsal fin, or sprouted a giant pancake on their backs. But when the unmanned Global Hawk carries a radar system this summer, its cargo will be hard to see. The autonomous and compact High-altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Profiler, or HIWRAP, a dual-frequency conical-scanning Doppler radar, will hang under the aircraft's belly as it flies above hurricanes to measure wind and rain and to test a new method for retrieving wind data. HIWRAP is one of the instruments that will fly in this summer's ...

On July 31, NASA's TRMM satellite saw Tropical Storm Gil intensifying and the storm became a hurricane. NASA's Aqua satellite and NOAA's GOES-15 satellite captured views of Gil on Aug. 1 as it was being chased by another developing tropical system. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Hurricane Gil on August 1 at 10:11 UTC or 6:11 a.m. EDT. Strongest storms and heaviest rains appear around the center where cloud top temperatures exceed -63F/-52. Microwave imagery on Aug. 1 from NASA's Aqua satellite ...

Tropical Storm Jebi developed on July 31 and NASA satellite data on Aug. 1 shows the storm filling up at least half of the South China Sea. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Tropical Storm Jebi on August 1 at 6:11 UTC or 2:11 a.m. EDT when it passed overhead from space. Strongest storms and heaviest rains appeared south of the center and in a large band of thunderstorms wrapping into the center from the southwest. Additionally, fragmented bands of thunderstorms are also east of the center of ...

Chicago, IL (August 1, 2013): A novel interactive 3-dimensional(3-D) simulation platform offers surgical residents a unique opportunity to hone their diagnostic and patient management skills, and then have those skills accurately evaluated according to a new study appearing in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The findings may help establish a new tool for assessing and training surgical residents. Previous research studies have shown that the management of patient complications following operations is an extremely important skill ...

ASTRO Chairman Michael L. Steinberg, MD, FASTRO, called attention to the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) striking report released today, "Medicare: Higher Use of Costly Prostate Cancer Treatment by Providers Who Self-Refer Warrants Scrutiny," that details clear mistreatment of patients who trusted their physicians to care for their prostate cancer. Dr. Steinberg and radiation oncologists nationwide called on Congress to pass the "Promoting Integrity in Medicare Act of 2013" (PIMA), introduced earlier today by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jim McDermott ...

The seasonal influence of aerosols on Australia's tropical climate can now be included in climate models following completion of the first long-term study of fine smoke particles generated by burning of the savanna open woodland and grassland. Australia's biomass burning emissions comprise about eight per cent of the global total, ranking third by continent behind Africa (48 per cent) and South America (27 per cent). Lead researcher, CSIRO's Dr Ross Mitchell, said fine particles generated by burning of the tropical savanna of Northern Australia are a globally significant ...

Researchers from the Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program at Sydney's Centenary Institute have confirmed that, far from being "junk", the 97 per cent of human DNA that does not encode instructions for making proteins can play a significant role in controlling cell development. And in doing so, the researchers have unravelled a previously unknown mechanism for regulating the activity of genes, increasing our understanding of the way cells develop and opening the way to new possibilities for therapy. Using the latest gene sequencing techniques and sophisticated computer ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- New evidence suggests the 1906 earthquake ruptured the San Andreas Fault in a single trace through Portola Village, current day Town of Portola Valley, and indicates a revised location for the fault trace. Portola Valley, south of San Francisco, has been extensively studied and the subject of the first geological map published in California. Yet studies have offered conflicting conclusions, caused in part by a misprinted photograph and unpublished data, as to the location and nature of the 1906 surface rupture through the area. "It is critical for ...

The future is looking good for drugs designed to combat Alzheimer's disease. EPFL scientists have unveiled how two classes of drug compounds currently in clinical trials work to fight the disease. Their research suggests that these compounds target the disease-causing peptides with high precision and with minimal side-effects. At the same time, the scientists offer a molecular explanation for early-onset hereditary forms of Alzheimer's, which can strike as early as thirty years of age. The conclusions of their research, which has been published in the journal Nature Communications, ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating devices out of a water-based hydrogel material that can be patterned, folded and used to manipulate objects. The technique holds promise for use in "soft robotics" and biomedical applications. "This work brings us one step closer to developing new soft robotics technologies that mimic biological systems and can work in aqueous environments," says Dr. Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing ...

By exploiting the full computational power of the Japanese supercomputer, K Computer, researchers from the RIKEN HPCI Program for Computational Life Sciences, the Okinawa Institute of Technology (OIST) in Japan and Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany have carried out the largest general neuronal network simulation to date. The simulation was made possible by the development of advanced novel data structures for the simulation software NEST. The relevance of the achievement for neuroscience lies in the fact that NEST is open-source software freely available to every scientist ...

Researchers at the University of Basel have successfully replaced the rare element iodine in copper-based dye-sensitized solar cells by the more abundant element cobalt, taking a step forward in the development of environmentally friendly energy production. The journal «Chemical Communications» has published the results of these so-called Cu-Co cells. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) transform light to electricity. They consist of a semiconductor on which a dye is anchored. This colored complex absorbs light and through an electron transfer process produces electrical ...

As any nervous first-time mother will confirm, the initial three months of pregnancy are the most risky time: many expectant women are reluctant to inform their friends or colleagues that they are pregnant until after this period is past. It is less well known that horses suffer from similar problems, with a considerable number of pregnancies failing to progress beyond the first five weeks. The explanation is still unclear but may relate to a problem with the mare's immune system, as the latest work in the group of Christine Aurich in the Vetmeduni's Centre for Artificial ...

New research into the fight against Dengue, an insect-borne tropical disease that infects up to 390 million people worldwide annually, may influence the development of anti-viral therapies that are effective against all four types of the virus. The findings, led by researchers at the University of Bristol and published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry today [2 August], show for the first time that there may be significant differences in specific properties of the viral proteins for the four dengue virus types. Due to the effects of globalisation, including increased ...

A study of gene expression led by scientists at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the University of Cambridge has revealed the first steps of evolution in gene regulation in mice. Published in the journal Cell, the research has implications for the study of differences in gene regulation between people. "We found an impressive amount of variation between these apparently very similar mice in terms of transcription-factor binding, which is an important indicator of gene-regulation activity," says Paul Flicek of EMBL-EBI. "Often you'll see a specific ...

Lixisenatide (trade name: Lyxumia) has been approved in Germany since February 2013 for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus in combination with oral blood-glucose lowering drugs or basal insulin when these, together with diet and exercise, do not provide adequate glycaemic control. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether this new drug offers an added benefit over the current standard therapy. No such added benefit ...

The clot-inhibiting drug apixaban (trade name: Eliquis) has been approved in Germany since November 2012 for the prevention of embolism and stroke in adults with non-valvular atrial fibrillation. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the "Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products" (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined the added benefit of apixaban. IQWiG found an indication of a considerable added benefit of apixaban for each of two patient groups: Patients who can also be treated with a vitamin K antagonist ...

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and the University of Lausanne have discovered that the sleeping patterns of baby birds are similar to that of baby mammals. What is more, the sleep of baby birds appears to change in the same way as it does in humans. Studying barn owls in the wild, the researchers discovered that this change in sleep is strongly correlated with the expression of a gene involved in producing dark, melanic feather spots, a trait known to covary with behavioral and physiological traits in adult owls. These findings raise the intriguing ...

Vandetanib (trade name: Caprelsa) has been approved in Germany since February 2012 for the treatment of adult patients who have a particular form of aggressive thyroid cancer. In a new benefit assessment, the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has now examined the added benefit of the drug pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG). There is a hint that pain occurs later or gets worse later in a part of the patients, the ones aged under 65 years.But because of the overall poor data on side effects, no ...