Physicians can and should help mitigate the negative health effects of climate change because they will be at the forefront of responding to the effects of global warming, argues an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Doctors could use their political influence to lobby government on climate issues that are already affecting health and to become signatories to the Doha Declaration on Climate, Health and Wellbeing. They can also act at a professional level, by leading health institutions to cut back on greenhouse gases and reduce clinical waste. "The ...

February 4, 2013 Cambridge, MA: On Monday, February 4, 2013, JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) will launch the first scholarly scientific video publication for chemistry. Following its successful introduction of video publications for the biological and physical sciences, JoVE received numerous requests for a chemistry counterpart. In response, the journal is launching a new section, JoVE Chemistry, dedicated to visualized publication of experiments across different areas of chemistry research including organic chemistry, chemical biology, electrochemistry, and ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 4, 2013 – University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) researchers have uncovered a technique to halt the growth of cancer cells, a discovery that led them to a potential new anti-cancer therapy. When deprived of a key protein, some cancer cells are unable to properly divide, a finding described in the cover story of the February issue of the Journal of Cell Science. This research is supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. "This is the first time anyone has explained how altering this protein at a key stage in cell ...

For decades, popular writers have entertained readers with the premise that men and women are so psychologically dissimilar they could hail from entirely different planets. But a new study shows that it's time for the Mars/Venus theories about the sexes to come back to Earth. From empathy and sexuality to science inclination and extroversion, statistical analysis of 122 different characteristics involving 13,301 individuals shows that men and women, by and large, do not fall into different groups. In other words, no matter how strange and inscrutable your partner may ...

Extremes of temperature and rainfall are affecting the survival of elephants working in timber camps in Myanmar and can double the risk of death in calves aged up to five, new research from the University of Sheffield has found. With climate change models predicting higher temperatures and months without rainfall; this could decrease the populations of already endangered Asian elephants. The researchers matched monthly climate records with data on birth and deaths, to track how climate variation affects the chances of elephant survival. It is hoped this research ...

Boston, MA—Your family history is important, not just because it shaped you into who you are today, but it also impacts your risk for developing cancer and other chronic diseases. For example, if one of your family members had cancer, your primary care doctor needs to know. Being able to identify individuals at increased risk can help reduce mortality. In a study published this week in the online version of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) found that patients who use a web-based risk appraisal tool are more likely ...

PITTSBURGH—Historic lake sediment dug up by University of Pittsburgh researchers reveals that oceanic influences on rainfall in Central America have varied over the last 2,000 years, highlighting the fluctuating influence the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have on precipitation. The Pitt study, published in the February print edition of the peer-reviewed journal Geology, shows that factors currently producing drier climates in Central America actually resulted in wetter conditions a few hundred years ago, providing a deeper understanding of drought cycles in that region ...

State and local health departments face significant barriers and usually do not get involved when confronted with public health concerns resulting from food animal production sites, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. The authors of the study, published in PLOS ONE, an open-access publisher of scientific research, examined the role of local and state health departments in responding to and preventing community-driven concerns associated with animal production sites. This ...

In 2005, Susan Lolle and colleagues from Purdue University published a paper in Nature, concluding that Arabidopsis thaliana plants do not obey the laws of Mendelian inheritance (the idea that all genes are inherited from their parents). Instead, Lolle found that these plants were demonstrating genetic traits from older generations, which shouldn't be possible according to our current understanding of how genes are passed on. At the time of publishing, the paper was recommended by 20 F1000Prime Faculty Members, and it is still one of the all-time top 10 papers on the ...

Boston, MA, February 4, 2013 – A team of scientists just won a battle in the war against antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" -- and only time will tell if their feat is akin to the bacterial "Battle of Gettysburg" that turns the tide toward victory. They won this particular battle, or at least gained some critical intelligence, not by designing a new antibiotic, but by interfering with the metabolism of the bacterial "bugs" – E. coli in this case – and rendering them weaker in the face of existing antibiotics, as reported today in Nature Biotechnology. It's the "kick ...

After the recorder, the violin is the instrument most commonly offered to children by state schools in the UK. The violin is a challenging instrument. Rapid, independent motion of the digital joints in the left hand is desirable. This study was conceived after an 11-year-old patient volunteered that she had given up playing the violin because of difficulty and discomfort manoeuvring the left small and ring fingers independently. On exami¬nation, she was found to have absent FDS (flexor digitorum superficialis) function in the small finger. The research investigated whether ...

Two wasp species, Calymmochilus dispar and Gelis apterus, have been recorded as parasitoids on ant-eating spiders in a study published in the open access journal ZooKeys. The host spider, Zodarion styliferum, belongs to the largest genus of predominantly ant-eating spiders. Their distribution area includes Europe, Asia and North Africa, significantly with at least 35 species reported for the Iberian Peninsula only, marking a record in numbers in Portugal, where this study was conducted. Available data on the biology of the host spider shows that all species of the genus ...

Examining the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) - data that characterises about 10% of the UK population - a team of researchers from Cardiff University's School of Medicine looked at the risk of death for patients taking insulin compared with other treatments designed to lower blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes. The team's epidemiological study found people have greater risk of individual complications associated with diabetes such as heart attack, stroke, eye complications and renal disease when compared with patients treated with alternative ...

This press release is available in German. Thanks to the strange laws of quantum mechanics, quantum computers would be able to carry out certain computational tasks much faster than conventional computers. Among the most promising technologies for the construction of a quantum computer are systems of single atoms, confined in so-called ion traps and manipulated with lasers. In the laboratory, these systems have already been used to test key building blocks of a future quantum computer. "Currently, we can carry out successful quantum computations with atoms," explain ...

SEATTLE – Patients whose aggressive lymphomas have relapsed or failed to respond to the current front-line chemotherapy regimen now have an effective second line of attack against their disease. Reporting the results of a first-of-its-kind phase 1 clinical trial to test the effectiveness of a new class of drugs to augment standard chemotherapy, a team led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientists found that giving patients high doses of Vorinostat (suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid) in combination with another round of commonly used second-line drugs resulted in ...

Feeling shame about past instances of problem drinking may increase the likelihood of relapse and other health problems, according to a new study in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study, conducted by researchers from the University of British Columbia, shows that behavioral displays of shame strongly predicted whether recovering alcoholics would relapse in the future. Public shaming has long been viewed as a way to encourage people to amend their ways and research suggests that experiences of shame can motivate ...

Ottawa, ON (February 4, 2013) – People tend to lose muscle mass as they age; researchers are investigating ways to delay or counteract age-related muscle loss. A study conducted by the Exercise Metabolism Research Group at McMaster University suggests that current guidelines for meat consumption are based on the protein needed to prevent deficiency without consideration for preservation of muscle mass, particularly for older individuals who are looking to maintain their muscle as they age. This research was published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. Thirty-five ...

President Obama today awarded 12 eminent researchers the National Medal of Science and 11 extraordinary inventors the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honors bestowed by the U.S. government upon scientists, engineers and inventors. The recipients received their awards at a White House ceremony. This marks the 50th anniversary of the presentation of the first National Medals of Science in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy. "I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators," Obama said when the awardees were announced. "They represent the ...

Reston, Va. – While amyloid imaging may now be most associated with detecting plaques in the brain, it has the potential to change the way cardiac amyloidosis is diagnosed. According to first-of-its-kind research published in the February issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, positron emission tomography (PET) with 11C-PIB can positively visualize amyloid deposits in the heart. Currently there is no noninvasive test available for specific diagnosis. Cardiac amyloidosis is a deadly disorder caused by abnormal amyloid deposits in the heart tissue. Early diagnosis before ...

This press release is available in Spanish. Farmers can fine-tune their use of cover crops to help manage costs and maximize benefits in commercial organic production systems, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists. Production expenses for high-value organic crops like lettuce and broccoli can exceed $7,000 per acre, so producers often try to streamline costs with an annual two- to three-crop rotation. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) horticulturalist Eric Brennan designed a long-term investigation that examined several different cover ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. — In the beloved American stories of the Little House on the Prairie, author Laura Ingalls Wilder writes emotionally about how scarlet fever robs her big sister Mary of her sight. But in a new study published today in the journal Pediatrics, University of Michigan researchers found it is likely scarlet fever had nothing to do with Mary's blindness. Senior author Beth A. Tarini, M.D., and her co-authors used evidence from newspaper reports, Laura Ingalls' memories and school registries to conclude Mary's blindness was probably caused by viral meningoencephalitis. "Since ...

Though a small group of proteins, the family called Ras controls a large number of cellular functions, including cell growth, differentiation, and survival. And because the protein has a hand in cellular division, mutated Ras, which can be detected in one-third of all tumors, contributes to many human cancers by allowing for the rapid growth of diseased cells. Now Prof. Yoel Kloog of Tel Aviv University's Department of Neurobiology, along with Dr. Itamar Goldstein of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Sheba Medical Center and their students Helly Vernitsky and ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Studies have found that conditional cash transfer programs, in which governments pay citizens if they consistently practice societally beneficial behaviors, have improved pediatric health care and education in Mexico, increased HIV testing in Malawi, and reduced sexually transmitted infections in Tanzania. Public health researchers therefore investigated whether the idea could be applied to HIV risk behaviors among gay men and male sex workers in Mexico City. A new study reports not only that some members of those populations would ...

A new kind of pterosaur, a flying reptile from the time of the dinosaurs, has been identified by scientists from the Transylvanian Museum Society in Romania, the University of Southampton in the UK and the Museau Nacional in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. The fossilised bones come from the Late Cretaceous rocks of Sebeş-Glod in the Transylvanian Basin, Romania, which are approximately 68 million years old. The Transylvanian Basin is world-famous for its many Late Cretaceous fossils, including dinosaurs of many kinds, as well as fossilised mammals, turtles, lizards and ancient ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (February 4, 2013) - Visual symptoms and abnormalities occur at high rates in people with traumatic brain injury (TBI)—including Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans with blast-related TBI, reports a study, "Abnormal Fixation in Individuals with AMD when Viewing an Image of a Face", in the February issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Vision problems are similar for military and civilian patients with TBI, ...