PHILADELPHIA - With a better understanding of underlying mechanisms that cause a rare neurodevelopmental disorder in the Old Order Mennonite population, referred to as Pretzel syndrome, a new study reports that five children were successfully treated with a drug that modifies the disease process, minimizing seizures and improving receptive language. The study, by researchers including experts from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, appears in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The disease - PSME or polyhydramnios, megalencephaly, ...

Boston, Mass.—The higher the percentage of people in a city, town or neighborhood with Facebook interests suggesting a healthy, active lifestyle, the lower that area's obesity rate. At the same time, areas with a large percentage of Facebook users with television-related interests tend to have higher rates of obesity. Such are the conclusions of a study by Boston Children's Hospital researchers comparing geotagged Facebook user data with data from national and New York City-focused health surveys. Together, the conclusions suggest that knowledge of people's online interests ...

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have designed a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid. "For solar and wind power to be used in a significant way, we need a battery made of economical materials that are easy to scale and still efficient," said Yi Cui, a Stanford associate professor of materials science and engineering and a member of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, a SLAC/Stanford joint ...

CHICAGO --- With the help of genetics, prostate specific antigen (PSA) screenings may become more accurate and reduce the number of unnecessary prostate biopsies, according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine®. Personalized PSA testing using genetic variants could account for an 18 percent reduction in the number of men who likely would have undergone unnecessary biopsies, according to the study. It will be published in the May 2013 issue of The Journal of Urology. The high survival rate of men with prostate cancer is largely a reflection of PSA testing, but support ...

ANN ARBOR—Long-term exposure to air pollution may be linked to heart attacks and strokes by speeding up atherosclerosis, or "hardening of the arteries," according to a University of Michigan public health researcher and colleagues from across the U.S. Sara Adar, the John Searle Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health, and Joel Kaufman, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and medicine at the University of Washington, led the study that found that higher concentrations of fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) were ...

Like the Roman god Janus, methane presents Earth's atmosphere with two situational faces. As the main component of natural gas, methane when burned as a fuel produces less carbon dioxide than the burning of oil or coal, which makes it a plus for global climate change. However, pure methane released into the atmosphere via leaks from unconventional oil and gas extraction, coal mining or from the melting of Arctic ice is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, contributing an estimated 30-percent of current net climate warming. To exploit the good and blunt ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL 5 P.M. EDT, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013, Cleveland: A microbial byproduct of intestinal bacteria contributes to heart disease and serves as an accurate screening tool for predicting future risks of heart attack, stroke and death in persons not otherwise identified by traditional risk factors and blood tests, according to Cleveland Clinic research published today in The New England Journal of Medicine. The research team was led by Stanley Hazen, M.D., Ph.D., Vice Chair of Translational Research, Chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine for ...

Scientists at the Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center, a U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service Human Nutrition Research Center at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, led by Dr. Martin Ronis have determined that dietary substitution of saturated fats enriched in medium chain triglycerides (MCT) for polyunsaturated fat prevents the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD occurs in patients with obesity and type II diabetes and is being seen at younger ages in association with the obesity epidemic. NAFLD is characterized ...

Online exchanges that trade hard currency for the rapidly emerging cyber money known as Bitcoin have a 45 percent chance of failing — often taking their customers' money with them. The finding is from a new computer science study that applied survival analysis to examine the factors that prompt Bitcoin currency exchanges to close. Results showed also that currency exchanges that buy and sell a higher volume of Bitcoins are less likely to shut down, but more likely to suffer a security breach. The study analyzed 40 exchanges that buy and sell the virtual Bitcoin to ...

University of Alberta researchers were certainly surprised when they discovered the unusual response of pikas to patches of vegetation that had previously been grazed on by caterpillars from a species normally found in the high Arctic. U of A biology researcher Isabel C. Barrio analyzed how two herbivores, caterpillars and pikas, competed for scarce vegetation in alpine areas of the southwest Yukon. The caterpillars come out of their winter cocoons and start consuming vegetation soon after the snow melts in June. Weeks later, the pika starts gathering and storing food ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A research team of biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside has provided a new view on the relationship between the earliest accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere, arguably the most important biological event in Earth history, and its relationship to the sulfur cycle. A general consensus exists that appreciable oxygen first accumulated in Earth's atmosphere around 2.4 to 2.3 billion years ago. Though this paradigm is built upon a wide range of geological and geochemical observations, the famous "smoking gun" for what has come to ...

Ants play a variety of important roles in many ecosystems. As frequent visitors to flowers, they can benefit plants in their role as pollinators when they forage on sugar-rich nectar. However, a new study reveals that this mutualistic relationship may actually have some hidden costs. By transmitting sugar-eating yeasts to the nectar on which they feed, ants may be indirectly altering the nectar-chemistry and thus affecting subsequent pollinator visitations. Many species of plants benefit from interacting with ants, and some even secrete special sugary substances to ...

The microbial population in the air of the New York City subway system is nearly identical to that of ambient air on the city streets. This research, published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, establishes an important baseline, should it become necessary to monitor the subway's air for dispersal of potentially dangerous microbes. Also, the combination of new methodologies in the study, including fast collection of aerosols and rapid sequencing technology, provide an efficient means for monitoring which was not previously available. The ...

In March 2013, a novel H7N9 influenza virus was identified in China as the etiological agent of a flu-like disease in humans, resulting in some deaths. A group of scientists, led by Professor Chen Hualan (National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory, State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Biotechnology, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) have investigated the origins of this novel H7N9 influenza virus (Shi et al., 2013). Following analysis of H7N9 influenza viruses collected from live poultry markets, it was found that these viruses ...

Cincinnati, OH, April 25, 2013 -- Most children who suffer from sports-related concussions recover within a few days. However, in a small number of children, symptoms can last for a month or more. Although there have been numerous theories as to what might predict a longer recovery time, there is no definitive answer as to why it takes some children longer to recover. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers attempted to identify risk factors that might predispose some children with concussions to longer recovery times. Dr. ...

Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine have figured out how to measure an infant's risk of developing autism by looking for abnormalities in his/her placenta at birth, allowing for earlier diagnosis and treatment for the developmental disorder. The findings are reported in the April 25 online issue of Biological Psychiatry. One out of 50 children are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but the diagnosis is usually made when these children are 3 to 4 years of age ...

Belmont, MA — Belief in God may significantly improve the outcome of those receiving short-term treatment for psychiatric illness, according to a recent study conducted by McLean Hospital investigators. In the study, published in the current issue of Journal of Affective Disorders, David H. Rosmarin, PhD, McLean Hospital clinician and instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, examined individuals at the Behavioral Health Partial Hospital program at McLean in an effort to investigate the relationship between patients' level of belief in God, ...

Viewing sexually explicit material through media such as the Internet, videos, and magazines may be directly linked with the sexual behavior of adolescents and young adults, but only to a very small extent. That is the conclusion of a new study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine. The findings suggest that the practice is just one of many factors that may influence the sexual behaviors of young people. Concerns have been raised that viewing sexually explicit material may negatively affect sexual behaviors, particularly in young people. Because previous studies ...

Melatonin injections delayed symptom onset and reduced mortality in a mouse model of the neurodegenerative condition amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In a report published online ahead of print in the journal Neurobiology of Disease, the team revealed that receptors for melatonin are found in the nerve cells, a finding that could launch novel therapeutic approaches. Annually about 5,000 people are diagnosed with ALS, which is characterized by progressive ...

Exciting new data presented today at the International Liver Congress™ 2013 include results from early in vitro and in vivo studies targeting covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA), which may form the basis of a cure for chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. HBV cccDNA is organized into mini-chromosomes within the nucleus of infected cells by histone and non-histone proteins. Despite the availability of efficient therapies against HBV, long-term persistence of cccDNA necessitates life-long treatments to suppress the virus. The following three experimental studies ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Thursday 25 April 2013: New data from clinical studies presented for the first time at the International Liver Congress™ 2013 provide new rationale for an old and established treatment option for portal hypertension. Additionally, spleen stiffness predicts the occurrence of clinical complications, which is of paramount importance in clinical practice. In patients with cirrhosis, increasing blood pressure in the abdominal circulatory system (known as portal hypertension) leads to potentially lethal complications which might be prevented with ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Thursday 25 April 2013: Research announced today at the International Liver CongressTM 2013 has revealed the deadly impact that alcohol and body weight have on liver disease. Women should forgo the wine and doughnuts after a new study found the harmful combination of high alcohol intake and high body mass index (BMI) causes an increased risk of chronic liver disease. The study analysed a cohort of over 107,000 women to investigate how a female's weight and alcohol consumption affected their chances of suffering and dying from chronic liver ...

Preparing for an initial consultation with a divorce attorney Article provided by Debbie Robb Visit us at http://www.debbierobblaw.com/ When a relationship is breaking down, there may be threats of divorce. Arguments may start about finances or any number of topics as communication becomes more strained. When a marriage is beyond reconciliation, an important step is meeting with a divorce attorney. When you contact an attorney, it important to know that everything you share even from the first call is confidential. Gathering information and documents before the ...

Shorter intern hours actually increase medical errors Article provided by Law Offices of John J. LaCava, LLC Visit us at http://www.infolaw.com/ First-year doctors--also called medical interns--typically work long hours. Until recently, these young doctors were on-call up to 36 hours. In 2003, regulations were put into place limiting their shifts to 30 hours. In 2011, regulators feared that the longer shifts were causing interns to become fatigued, putting them at a greater risk of making medical errors, so their shifts were further reduced to 16 hours. Common ...

Some California drivers poorly reflected in recent statistics Article provided by Hanasab & Zolekhian, LLP Visit us at http://www.hzpersonalinjury.com Recent statistics indicate that Americans seem to be improving their driving skills. In fact, in 2011, the number of fatal collisions dropped to the lowest it has been in over 60 years. According to the Huffington Post, recent federal transportation reports indicate that 32,367 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2011. This number represents a 1.9 percent decrease from 2010. California drivers aren't ...