LA JOLLA, Calif., July 8 2013 – Silencing genes that have malfunctioned is an important approach for treating diseases such as cancer and heart disease. One effective approach is to deliver drugs made from small molecules of ribonucleic acid, or RNA, which are used to inhibit gene expression. The drugs, in essence, mimic a natural process called RNA interference. In a new paper appearing today online in the journal, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have developed nanoparticles that appear to solve a big challenge ...

Infrared imagery from the AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite revealed that Erick, now a tropical depression has reduced in strength and size and continues to weaken. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Tropical Depression Erick late on July 8 and captured an infrared image that revealed Erick was quickly weakening. The AIRS image taken on July 8 at 4:17 p.m. EDT showed a small area of clouds and circulation near the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula. The strongest thunderstorms with cloud top ...

Scientists discovered a tiny new species of catfish in the waters of Rio Rio Paraíba do Sul basin, Brazil. The new species Pareiorhina hyptiorhachis belongs to a genus of armored catfishes native to South America where and found only in Brazil. These peculiar fish get their name from their strange elongated mouth barbels that remind of cat's whiskers. The new species is distinguished from others species of the genus by the presence of a conspicuous ridge on the trunk posterior to the dorsal fin (postdorsal ridge). The description of the diminutive new species was published ...

For decades, women between the ages of 21 and 69 were advised to get annual screening exams for cervical cancer. In 2009, however, accumulating scientific evidence led major guideline groups to agree on a new recommendation that women be screened less frequently: every three years rather than annually. Despite the revised guidelines, about half of the obstetrician-gynecologists surveyed in a recent study said they continue to provide annual exams – an outdated practice that may be more harmful than helpful, said Drs. Russell Harris and Stacey Sheridan of the Cecil G. ...

New Orleans, LA – A study conducted by Dr. James Diaz, Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and Program Director of the Environmental/Occupational Health Sciences Program at the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health, analyzed cases of a parasitic lung infection and found new modes of transmission and associated behaviors, identifying new groups of people at risk. Dr. Diaz hopes to raise the index of suspicion among medical professionals so non-traditional patients and those not exhibiting all symptoms but who are at risk can be diagnosed ...

An intensive lifestyle intervention, proven to help people lose weight to prevent diabetes, also works in primary care when delivered over the telephone to obese patients with metabolic syndrome. Group telephone sessions appear to be particularly effective for greater weight loss, according to a new study by Drs. Paula Trief and Ruth Weinstock from SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, and colleagues. Their work¹ appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer. Metabolic syndrome affects a third of US adults and is associated ...

CHICAGO -- Antibiotic-resistant superbugs like carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) present a challenge to healthcare professionals as patients move from different care settings and facilities, unknowingly spreading healthcare-associated infections. In a new study, researchers screened all patients for CRE at admission to a long-term acute care hospital (LTACH). They found patients colonized with CRE coming into the LTACH from hospitals, but they also found transmission occurring among patients in the LTACH. LTACHs provide similar care as hospitals but focus on ...

Before scientists and engineers can realize the dream of using stem cells to create replacements for worn out organs and battle damaged body parts, they'll have to develop ways to grow complex three-dimensional structures in large volumes and at costs that won't bankrupt health care systems. Researchers are now reporting advances in these areas by using gelatin-based microparticles to deliver growth factors to specific areas of embryoid bodies, aggregates of differentiating stem cells. The localized delivery technique provides spatial control of cell differentiation within ...

As modern Egypt searches for a new leader, Israeli archaeologists have found evidence of an ancient Egyptian leader in northern Israel. At a site in Tel Hazor National Park, north of the Sea of Galilee, archeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have unearthed part of a unique Sphinx belonging to one of the ancient pyramid-building pharaohs. The Hazor Excavations are headed by Prof. Amnon Ben-Tor, the Yigael Yadin Professor in the Archaeology of Eretz Israel at the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, and Dr. Sharon Zuckerman, a lecturer at the ...

Many parents have a difficult time persuading their preschool-aged children to try vegetables, let alone eat them regularly. Food and nutrition researchers have found that by offering a dip flavored with spices, children were more likely to try vegetables -- including those they had previously rejected. "Less than 10 percent of four-to-eight-year-olds consume the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) recommended daily servings of vegetables," said Jennifer S. Savage, associate director of the Center for Childhood Obesity Research at Penn State. "Even more striking is ...

WHAT: The emergence of a novel H7N9 avian influenza virus in humans in China has raised questions about its pandemic potential as well as that of related influenza viruses. In a commentary published online today, scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, address these questions by evaluating past outbreaks of H7 subtype influenza viruses among mammals and birds and comparing H7 viruses with other avian influenza viruses and strains. In recent decades, the scientists write, avian H7 viruses ...

Sophia Antipolis -- A resurgence in cardiovascular R&D is urgently needed to curb a new epidemic of cardiovascular diseases, according to leading cardiologists and industry representatives in the Cardiovascular Round Table (CRT). The CRT is an independent forum established by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and comprised of cardiologists and representatives of the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. The group's views are outlined in "Championing Cardiovascular Health Innovation in Europe", published in European Heart Journal.(1) Professor Michel Komajda ...

Spontaneous survivors of acetaminophen overdose have significantly lower overall health compared to survivors or transplant recipients following acute liver failure caused by non-drug induced liver injury according to a new study published online in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society. Findings show that acetaminophen overdose survivors report more days of impaired mental and physical health, and activity limitations due to poor health, pain, anxiety and depression. ...

Toronto – If achieving a work/life balance wasn't hard enough, researchers say many of us are juggling a third factor: school. That creates conflicts, say Bonnie Cheng, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, and Julie McCarthy, an associate professor at the Rotman School and the University of Toronto Scarborough, often resulting in dissatisfaction in the area that caused that conflict. For example, skipping a family function to stay late at work can lead to less satisfaction with work. But avoidance techniques can help, their most ...

HOUSTON – (July 9, 2013) – A Rice University laboratory pioneering memory devices that use cheap, plentiful silicon oxide to store data has pushed them a step further with chips that show the technology's practicality. The team led by Rice chemist James Tour has built a 1-kilobit rewritable silicon oxide device with diodes that eliminate data-corrupting crosstalk. A paper on the new work appears this week in the journal Advanced Materials. With gigabytes of flash memory becoming steadily cheaper, a 1k nonvolatile memory unit has little practical use. But as a proof ...

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating motor neuron disease that rapidly atrophies the muscles, leading to complete paralysis. Despite its high profile — established when it afflicted the New York Yankees' Lou Gehrig — ALS remains a disease that scientists are unable to predict, prevent, or cure. Although several genetic ALS mutations have been identified, they only apply to a small number of cases. The ongoing challenge is to identify the mechanisms behind the non-genetic form of the disease and draw useful comparisons with the genetic forms. Now, using ...

Fast-accumulating data seem to indicate that our close cousins, the Neandertals, were much more similar to us than imagined even a decade ago. But did they have anything like modern speech and language? And if so, what are the implications for understanding present-day linguistic diversity? The MPI for Psycholinguistics researchers Dan Dediu and Stephen C. Levinson argue in their paper in Frontiers in Language Sciences that modern language and speech can be traced back to the last common ancestor we shared with the Neandertals roughly half a million years ago. The Neandertals ...

Using nanostructured glass, scientists at the University of Southampton have, for the first time, experimentally demonstrated the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional digital data by femtosecond laser writing. The storage allows unprecedented parameters including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000°C and practically unlimited lifetime. Coined as the 'Superman' memory crystal, as the glass memory has been compared to the "memory crystals" used in the Superman films, the data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in ...

New Rochelle, NY -- Next-generation hydrogels can form synthetic scaffolds to support the formation of replacement tissues and organs in the emerging area of regenerative medicine. Embedding peptides into the hydrogels stimulates the growth of essential microvascular networks to ensure a good blood supply. Novel, cutting-edge technology in which hydrogels functionalized with laminin-derived peptides were transplanted in a mouse cornea and were shown to support cell growth and blood vessel formation is described in an article in BioResearch Open Access, a peer-reviewed open ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 9, 2013—Wildfires produce a witch's brew of carbon-containing particles, as anyone downwind of a forest fire can attest. A range of fine carbonaceous particles rising high into the air significantly degrade air quality, damaging human and wildlife health, and interacting with sunlight to affect climate. But measurements taken during the 2011 Las Conchas fire near Los Alamos National Laboratory show that the actual carbon-containing particles emitted by fires are very different than those used in current computer models, providing the potential for ...

DETROIT – While the use of ultrasound to identify tumors during kidney cancer surgery is gaining acceptance, a research team at Henry Ford Hospital has successfully taken it a step further by showing an added benefit when the procedure is done robotically. Simply put, the kidney surgeon who performs the ultrasound robotically has direct control over the painstaking procedure instead of having to rely on an assistant for part of the task. The researchers compared the robotic ultrasound probe to the same procedure using a laparoscopic ultrasound probe, which requires an ...

DETROIT – While stem-cell therapy offers great promise for the treatment of stroke, much research remains to be done to show its long-term effectiveness and to understand the potential for dangerous side effects. These are the conclusions drawn by Henry Ford Hospital neurologists Jing Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., and Michael Chopp, Ph.D., scientific director of the Henry Ford Hospital Neuroscience Institute, in a review of their own and other current research into the next-generation treatment of one of the leading causes of death and disability around the world. The article has ...

The Need for Discussion About Prostate Cancer Screening Choices, Optimizing Shared Decision Making Three research studies and an accompanying editorial address the importance of shared decision making around prostate cancer screening. Although prostate cancer is among the most common cancers among men in the United States, the value of screening for prostate cancer by measuring prostate-specific antigen levels remains highly controversial because screening can lead to invasive procedures and treatments that in turn can cause substantial harm. Because such harms may outweigh ...

Ever since the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, the number of enrollees in Medicare Advantage, Medicare's managed care program, has jumped from 5.3 million to 14.4 million in 2013. While most individuals in Medicare opt for the traditional, fee-for-service benefit, many more are enrolling in HMOs and other managed care options. This dynamic heightens the importance of a question health care professionals and policymakers have been asking for many years: Does the system of fixed reimbursement inherent to HMOs and other forms of health ...

1. Task force finds insufficient evidence to recommend for or against screening for primary open-angle glaucoma The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) found insufficient evidence to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) in adults. Glaucoma is an acquired degeneration of the optic nerve that is the second most common cause of blindness worldwide. Open-angle is the most common type of glaucoma where an increase in pressure on the optic nerve occurs slowly over time. The goal of potential screening ...