Probiotic supplements have the potential to prevent diarrhoea caused by antibiotics, according to a new Cochrane systematic review. The authors studied Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infections in patients taking antibiotics and found symptoms of diarrhoea were substantially reduced when patients were also treated with probiotics. Antibiotics disturb the beneficial bacteria that live in the gut and allow other harmful bacteria like C. difficile to take hold. Although some people infected with C. difficile show no symptoms, others suffer diarrhoea or colitis. The ...

A multi-national team of researchers has identified genetic markers that predict educational attainment by pooling data from more than 125,000 individuals in the United States, Australia, and 13 western European countries. The study, which appears in the journal Science, was conducted by the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC), which includes researchers at NYU, Erasmus University, Cornell University, Harvard University, the University of Bristol, and the University of Queensland, among other institutions. The SSGAC conducted what is called a genome-wide ...

When Felix Fischer of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) set out to develop nanostructures made of graphene using a new, controlled approach to chemical reactions, the first result was a surprise: spectacular images of individual carbon atoms and the bonds between them. "We weren't thinking about making beautiful images; the reactions themselves were the goal," says Fischer, a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division (MSD) and a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. "But ...

Researchers have found that conditions in the womb can affect kidney development and have serious health implications for the child not only immediately after birth, but decades later. In a paper published today in The Lancet an international team, including Monash University's Professor John Bertram and the University of Queensland's Professor Wendy Hoy, reviewed existing, peer-reviewed research on kidney health and developmental programming - the effects of the in utero environment on adult health. The accumulated evidence linked low birth weight and prematurity ...

There is a lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of technologies used to reduce arsenic contamination finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal Environmental Evidence. More studies assessing the technologies themselves and how they are used in the community are needed to ensure that people have access to safe, clean water. Arsenic is now recognised to be one of the world's greatest environmental hazards, threatening the lives of several hundred million people. Naturally occurring arsenic leaches into water from surrounding rocks and once in the water ...

Given the option, many women with symptoms of urinary tract infections are choosing to avoid antibiotics and give their bodies a chance to heal naturally, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Family Practice. The research shows that 70% of women with symptoms of uncomplicated urinary tract infections who did not use antibiotics for a week were cured or showed improvement. Antimicrobial-resistant bacteria are already a big problem and the incidence of 'superbugs', which are resistant to several antibiotics, is on the rise. Over use of antibiotics ...

This is the first study to examine the effectiveness of higher doses of oseltamivir in cases of hospitalized severe human influenza (seasonal, pandemic and bird flu strains). The authors say their findings have implications for global guidelines, clinical management and pandemic preparedness, including for the current H7N9 outbreak. Human influenza is usually a self-limiting illness. Occasionally, however, it can lead to respiratory complications, admission to hospital, and death. Some studies suggest that, if given early, oseltamivir can help reduce mortality. This has ...

According to standard theory, the best response to current circumstances should be unaffected by what has happened in the past. But the Bristol study, published in the leading journal Science, shows that in a changing, unpredictable world it is important to be sensitive to past conditions. The research team, led by Professor John McNamara in Bristol's School of Mathematics, built a mathematical model to understand how animals should behave when they are uncertain about the pattern of environmental change. They found that when animals are used to rich conditions but ...

Frontiers in Psychology When language switching has no apparent cost: Lexical access in sentence context Bilinguals have the remarkable ability to switch from one language to the other. In a new study, Jason Gullifer and colleagues from Pennsylvania State University, USA, looked at whether language switching incurs a processing cost. They show that the mind has little difficulty in preventing such mix-ups between languages. When 26 North American Latino people were asked to read aloud an underlined word within a text that mixed English and Spanish, they did not think ...

Rounded pebbles on the surface of Mars indicate that a stream once flowed on the red planet, according to a new study by a team of scientists from NASA's Curiosity rover mission, including a University of California, Davis, geologist. The study will be published in the May 31 issue of the journal Science. Rounded pebbles of this size are known to form only when transported through water over long distances. They were discovered between the north rim of the planet's Gale Crater and the base of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside the crater. The finding represents the first ...

Every chemist's dream, to snap an atomic-scale picture of a chemical before and after it reacts, has now come true, thanks to a new technique developed by chemists and physicists at the University of California, Berkeley. Using a state-of-the-art atomic force microscope, the scientists have taken the first atom-by-atom pictures – including images of the chemical bonds between atoms – clearly depicting how a molecule's structure changed during a reaction. Until now, scientists have only been able to infer this type of information from spectroscopic analysis. "Even though ...

Sharks are worth more in the ocean than in a bowl of soup, according to researchers from the University of British Columbia. A new study, published today in Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation, shows that shark ecotourism currently generates more than US$314 million annually worldwide and is expected to more than double to US$780 million in the next 20 years. In comparison, the landed value of global shark fisheries is currently US$630 million and has been in decline for the past decade. An estimated 38 million sharks are killed per year to feed the global ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A mystery of the moon that imperiled astronauts and spacecraft on lunar missions has been solved by a Purdue University-led team of scientists as part of NASA's GRAIL mission. Large concentrations of mass lurk on the lunar surface hidden like coral reefs beneath the ocean waves - an unseen and devastating hazard. These concentrations change the gravity field and can either pull a spacecraft in or push it off course, sealing its fate to a crash on the face of the moon. "In 1968 these mass concentrations were an unwelcome discovery as scientists ...

South American rainforests thrived during three extreme global warming events in the past, say paleontologists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in a new report published in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science. No tropical forests in South America currently experience average yearly temperatures of more than 84 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius). But by the end of this century, average global temperatures are likely to rise by another 1 F (0.6 C), leading some scientists to predict the demise of the world's most diverse terrestrial ecosystem. ...

Observations by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity have revealed areas with gravel and pebbles that are characteristic of a former riverbed. Researchers, including members of the Niels Bohr Institute, have analysed their shapes and sizes and the rounded pebbles clearly show that there has been flowing water on Mars. The results are published in the scientific journal, Science. The Mars rover's stereo camera took pictures of a few areas with densely packed pebbles, cemented together like concrete. The image field of an area named Hottah was a mosaic of approximately 1.4 meters ...

Scientists at the University of Leeds have found a way to target and destroy a key protein associated with the development of cervical and other cancers. The E7 protein is produced early in the lifecycle of the human papillomavirus (HPV) and blocks the body's natural defences against the uncontrolled division of cells that can lead to cancer. Researchers at the University of Leeds' School of Molecular and Cellular Biology have synthesised a molecule, called an RNA aptamer, that latches onto the carcinogenic protein and targets it for destruction, significantly reducing ...

Giving double doses of the antiviral drug oseltamivir, or Tamiflu, offers no clinical or virological advantages over a standard dose for patients admitted to hospital with severe influenza infection, according to a randomised trial published today and funded by the Wellcome Trust, US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Singapore National Medical Research Council. This is the first study to look at the effectiveness of higher doses of oseltamivir in cases of severe flu infection and has implications for global guidelines on clinical management ...

Despite satellite images that show vast networks of channels, past Mars rover missions have shown limited evidence for flowing water on Mars. Now, rocks analyzed by NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover team, including Linda Kah, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, provide solid evidence that Mars had rivers or streams. This suggests that the environment was drastically different than today's cold and dry conditions, with the potential to support life. A paper on the team's findings is published in this week's edition ...

CHICAGO–A new study of young women with breast cancer has found that most chose to have a mastectomy rather than a surgical procedure that would conserve the breast, researchers will report at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, May 31-June 4, in Chicago. Shoshana Rosenberg, ScD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard School of Public Health, and her colleagues evaluated 277 women who were diagnosed with breast cancer at age 40 or younger, who reported having a choice between a mastectomy and a breast conserving lumpectomy, and whose ...

(NEW YORK, NY, May 30, 2013) – A new study from Columbia University School of Nursing supports a growing body of evidence that women are less likely to contract bloodstream or surgical site infections than their male counterparts. Researchers investigated the incidence of infection in thousands of hospitalized patients and found the odds for women succumbing to a bloodstream infection (BSI) and surgical-site infection (SSI) were significantly lower than for men. The odds of community-associated BSI were 30% higher in men compared to women, for healthcare-associated ...

(Boston) – A study led by Boston University School of Medicine has identified a novel approach to create an unlimited number of human red blood cells and platelets in vitro. In collaboration with Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and Boston Medical Center (BMC), the researchers differentiated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into these cell types, which are typically obtained through blood donations. This finding could potentially reduce the need for blood donations to treat patients requiring blood transfusions and could help researchers examine novel ...

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers studying a key molecular player called Hsp70 that is responsible for protein homeostasis have uncovered how it binds together with another molecule responsible for intracellular energy transfer to enhance its overall activity and efficiency – details that have previously not been well understood. Heat shock proteins, particularly the 70-kilodalton heat shock proteins, Hsp70, are important for cellular processes such as protein folding and protecting cells from stress. It is also involved with protein assembly, degradation and ...

Structural biologists from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have captured the first three-dimensional crystalline snapshot of a critical but fleeting process that takes place thousands of times per second in each human cell. The research appears online today in the journal Cell Reports and could prove useful in the study of cancer and other diseases. The biological "freeze-frame" shows the initial step in the formation of actin, a sturdy strand-like filament that is vital for humans. Actin filaments help cells maintain their shape. The filaments, which ...

Salmon and other native freshwater fish in California will likely become extinct within the next century due to climate change if current trends continue, ceding their habitats to non-native fish, predicts a study by scientists from the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis. The study, published online in May in the journal PLOS ONE, assessed how vulnerable each freshwater species in California is to climate change and estimated the likelihood that those species would become extinct in 100 years. The researchers found that, of 121 native ...

Two Johns Hopkins gynecologic surgeons are among the first in the nation to perform a robotic hysterectomy using a single, small incision. Amanda Nickles Fader, M.D., associate professor of gynecologic oncology and director of the Kelly Gynecologic Oncology Service and the Minimally Invasive Surgery Center in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics; and Stacey Scheib, M.D., assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics and director of the Multidisciplinary Fibroid Center in the Division of Gynecologic Specialties at Johns Hopkins, recently performed other several ...