Well at least this is true for sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps) and grey short-tailed opossums (Monodelphis domestica), finds an article in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, and shows that handedness in marsupials is dependent on gender. This preference of one hand over another has developed despite the absence of a corpus collosum, the part of the brain which in placental mammals allows one half of the brain to communicate with the other. Many animals show a distinct preference for using one hand/paw/hoof over another. This is often related ...

Research suggests that there may be a better way of measuring blood loss due to trauma than the current method, finds an article in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care. The study shows that base deficit (BD) is a better indicator of hypovolemic shock than the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) classification, which uses a combination of heart rate, systolic blood pressure and the Glasgow Coma Scale. Using data from the TraumaRegister DGU® 16,305 patients injured between 2002 and 2010 were classified according to BD and then assessed for demographics, ...

A UC San Francisco team has developed a tool that can help determine – and perhaps influence – senior citizens' 10-year survivability rates. The simple checklist helps doctors assess health risks that influence the longevity of older adults, and according to the authors, could be an opportunity for seniors to really engage with their primary care provider in having informed discussions about their health care maintenance. The UCSF team created a 12-item "mortality index" based on data of more than 20,000 adults over the age of 50 from 1998 until 2008, from the Health ...

About Sabin Vaccine Institute Sabin Vaccine Institute is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization of scientists, researchers, and advocates dedicated to reducing needless human suffering caused by vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases. Sabin works with governments, leading public and private organizations, and academic institutions to provide solutions for some of the world's most pervasive health challenges. Since its founding in 1993 in honor of the oral polio vaccine developer, Dr. Albert B. Sabin, the Institute has been at the forefront of efforts to control, ...

Support services for people living with HIV will benefit from better information about prosecutions for the sexual transmission of HIV, according to a report released today by researchers from Sigma Research at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Birkbeck, University of London. The study, called 'Keeping Confidence: HIV and the criminal law from service provider perspectives', explores how criminal prosecutions for HIV transmission in England and Wales are handled by those who deliver health and social care services for people with HIV. The researchers ...

The perpetration of homicide by people with mental disorders has received much attention, but their risk of being victims of homicide has rarely been examined. Yet such information may help develop more effective strategies for improving the safety and health of people with mental illness. So a team of researchers from Sweden and the USA assessed mental disorders and homicides across the entire population of Swedish adults between 2001 and 2008. Mental disorders were grouped into the following categories: substance use disorder; schizophrenia; mood disorders including ...

People with high blood pressure enrolled in a clinical pharmacist-led web-based monitoring program were more likely to lower their pressure to recommended level than people who did not use the program. The study was published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. The study, led by David J. Magid, M.D., M.P.H., at Kaiser Permanente Colorado in Denver, followed people who use the American Heart Association's Heart360 program. Heart360 is a free, online tool for tracking heart health where users can upload blood pressure ...

The mating success of male butterflies is often lower if they are inbred. But how do female butterflies know which males to avoid? New research reveals that inbred male butterflies produce significantly less sex pheromones, making them less attractive to females. The research was published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. If animals (and humans) breed with a relative their offspring will be inbred and more likely to have genetic disorders. Because of these disorders inbred males are often weaker and, for instance, less able to defend the nest or ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Scientists are using ever more complex models running on ever more powerful computers to simulate the earth's climate. But new research suggests that basic physics could offer a simpler and more meaningful way to model key elements of climate. The research, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, shows that a technique called direct statistical simulation does a good job of modeling fluid jets, fast-moving flows that form naturally in oceans and in the atmosphere. Brad Marston, professor of physics at Brown University and ...

ANN ARBOR—Researchers at the University of Michigan have found a new potential benefit of a molecule in green tea: preventing the misfolding of specific proteins in the brain. The aggregation of these proteins, called metal-associated amyloids, is associated with Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. A paper published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explained how U-M Life Sciences Institute faculty member Mi Hee Lim and an interdisciplinary team of researchers used green tea extract to control the generation of metal-associated ...

A screening tool from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) eases and greatly quickens one of the thorniest tasks in the biofuels industry: determining cell wall chemistry to find plants with ideal genes. NREL's new High-Throughput Analytical Pyrolysis tool (HTAP) can thoroughly analyze hundreds of biomass samples a day and give an early look at the genotypes that are most worth pursuing. Analysis of a sample that previously took two weeks can now be done in two minutes. That is potentially game changing for tree nurseries and the ...

Experiencing ostracism — being deliberately ignored or excluded — hurts, but ostracizing someone else could hurt just as much, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Humans are social animals and they typically avoid causing harm to others when they can. But past experiments — and real-life events — suggest that people are willing to inflict harm in order to comply with authorities. Graduate student Nicole Legate, along with her advisor, Richard Ryan of the University of Rochester, and colleagues, ...

Patients who experience chronic pain may experience improvement in symptoms if their primary care providers are specifically trained in multiple aspects of pain, including emotional consequences. A collaborative team headed by Thomas C. Chelimsky, M.D., professor and chairman of the department of neurology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, conducted a pilot study assessing the Primary Practice Physician Program for Chronic Pain (4PCP) and its impact on both patients and providers. The findings are published in the Clinical Journal of Pain, http://journals.lww.com/clinicalpain/toc/publishahead. Chronic ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida paleontologists have discovered remarkably well-preserved fossils of two crocodilians and a mammal previously unknown to science during recent Panama Canal excavations that began in 2009. The two new ancient extinct alligator-like animals and an extinct hippo-like species inhabited Central America during the Miocene about 20 million years ago. The research expands the range of ancient animals in the subtropics — some of the most diverse areas today about which little is known historically because lush vegetation prevents paleontological ...

New research from Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and the Puget Sound Blood Center (PSBC) has revealed how stresses of flow in the small blood vessels of the heart and brain could cause a common protein to change shape and form dangerous blood clots. The scientists were surprised to find that the proteins could remain in the dangerous, clot-initiating shape for up to five hours before returning to their normal, healthy shape. The study -- the first of its kind -- focused on a protein called von Willebrand factor, or VWF, a key player in clot formation. ...

(Boston) – Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have, for the first time, identified a specific group of cells in the brainstem whose activation during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is critical for the regulation of emotional memory processing. The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, could help lead to the development of effective behavioral and pharmacological therapies to treat anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias and panic attacks. There are two main stages of sleep – REM and non-REM – and both are ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Each year, more than 130,000 children younger than 13 are treated in U.S. emergency departments after motor-vehicle crash-related injuries. Each of these visits offer a chance to pass along tips for proper use of child passenger restraints, but a new study from the University of Michigan indicates emergency departments may not be taking advantage of those opportunities. In the study published today in Pediatric Emergency Care, more than one-third of ER physicians say they are uncertain whether their departments provide information about child passenger ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Women's issues play a major role in the health of the nation and should be a key consideration for policymakers as they design and set up the new insurance exchanges, according to a report co-authored by policy experts at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS). The report offers a checklist for the state-based health insurance exchanges, one that will help ensure that women, children and family members can get the services they need to prevent costly and debilitating medical problems. "Women often use a ...

PHILADELPHIA - Omega-3 fatty acids found in oily fish may have diverse health-promoting effects, potentially protecting the immune, nervous, and cardiovascular systems. But how the health effects of one such fatty acid -- docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) -- works remains unclear, in part because its molecular signaling pathways are only now being understood. Toshinori Hoshi, PhD, professor of Physiology, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues showed, in two papers out this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ...

BETHESDA, MD – March 5, 2013 -- A team of European scientists from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and the Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD) at the University of Cologne in Germany has taken an important step closer to understanding the root cause of age-related dementia. In research involving both worms and mice, they have found that age-related dementia is likely the result of a declining ability of neurons to dispose of unwanted aggregated proteins. As protein disposal becomes significantly ...

In Africa and Thailand, communities that worked together on HIV-prevention efforts saw not only a rise in HIV screening but a drop in new infections, according to a new study presented this week at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta. The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health's Project Accept — a trial conducted by the HIV Prevention Trials Network to test a combination of social, behavioral and structural HIV-prevention interventions — demonstrated that a series of community efforts was able to boost the number of people tested ...

Chevy Chase, MD—In a Position Statement unveiled today, The Endocrine Society advocates that all methods for measuring estrogens, which play a crucial role in human biology, be made traceable to a common standard. In addition to the well-known role of estrogens in sexual development, these hormones, particularly estradiol, have a significant impact on the health of the skin, blood vessels, bones, muscle, kidney, liver, digestive system, brain, lung and pancreas. Studies have linked changes in estradiol levels to coronary artery disease, stroke and breast cancer. "Estradiol ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Biochemists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst including assistant professor Peter Chien recently gained new insight into how protein synthesis and degradation help to regulate the delicate ballet of cell division. In particular, they reveal how two proteins shelter each other in "mutually assured cleanup" to insure that division goes smoothly and safely. Cells must routinely dispose of leftover proteins with the aid of proteases that cut up and recycle used proteins. The problem for biochemists is that the same protein molecule can be toxic garbage ...

A new report published today concludes that nearly half of Africa's wild lion populations may decline to near extinction over the next 20-40 years without urgent conservation measures. The plight of many lion populations is so bleak, the report concludes that fencing them in - and fencing humans out - may be their only hope for survival. Led by the University of Minnesota's Professor Craig Packer and co-authored by a large team of lion biologists, including Panthera's President, Dr. Luke Hunter, and Lion Program Director, Dr. Guy Balme, the report, entitled Conserving ...

In order to build and maintain cells, DNA is copied into ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules, also called transcripts. Transcripts are often like a recipe for making proteins, and a collection of all the transcripts in a cell is called a transcriptome. Pankaj Jaiswal, Assistant Professor of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University, Samuel Fox, a Postdoctoral Associate in Jaiswal's laboratory, and colleagues assembled transcriptomes of a noxious weed, Brachypodium sylvaticum, or slender false brome. The transcriptome provides an extensive genetic tool for studying ...