A drug developed at Linköping University in Sweden protects against the side effects of cancer treatments while strengthening the effects on the tumour. An international drug evaluation is now starting up on a larger group of patients. The results of the studies with the compound, known as calmangafodipir, were published in the latest issue of the cancer journal Translational Oncology with Professor Rolf G. G. Andersson as the main author. The research was initiated on a substance called mangafodipir, which was used as a contrast media in magnetic resonance scans. But ...

This press release is available in German. Image sensors are at the core of every digital camera. Before a snapshot appears on the display, the sensors first convert the light from the lens to electrical signals. The image processor then uses these to create the final photo. Many compact and cellphone cameras contain silicon-based image sensors produced using CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology. Prof. Paolo Lugli and Dr. Daniela Baierl from TUM have developed a cost-effective process to improve the performance of these CMOS sensors. Their approach ...

Public acceptance of climate change's reality may have been influenced by the rate at which words moved from scientific journals into the mainstream, according to anthropologist Michael O'Brien, dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri. A recent study of word usage in popular literature by O'Brien and his colleagues documented how the usage of certain words related to climate change has risen and fallen over the past two centuries. Understanding how word usage affects public acceptance of science could lead to better science communication and ...

New Orleans, LA – Research led by Dr. Suresh Alahari, the Fred Brazda Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans and its Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center, details exactly how the Her2 cancer gene promotes the progression and spread of breast cancer cells. The inactivation of a tumor suppression gene called Nischarin is among the mechanisms identified. The findings provide a new therapeutic target to block the function of Her2. The research was published in Cancer Research, OnlineFirst on January 21, 2013. About 30% of breast ...

(Garrison, NY) Arguing that obesity "may be the most difficult and elusive public health problem the United States has ever encountered" and that anti-obesity efforts having made little discernible difference, Daniel Callahan, co-founder and President Emeritus of The Hastings Center, proposes a bold and controversial approach to fighting the epidemic. Callahan says that the public health community can learn from one of the most successful public health campaigns: the anti-smoking campaign. A primary strategy has been to stigmatize smokers, he says, making it clear that ...

The kindness of mankind most likely developed from our more sinister and self-serving tendencies, according to Princeton University and University of Arizona research that suggests society's rules against selfishness are rooted in the very exploitation they condemn. The report in the journal Evolution proposes that altruism — society's protection of resources and the collective good by punishing "cheaters" — did not develop as a reaction to avarice. Instead, communal disavowal of greed originated when competing selfish individuals sought to control and cancel out one ...

NEW YORK - January 22, 2013 - In 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission mandated that public companies submit portions of annual (10-K) and quarterly (10-Q) reports—in a digitized format known as eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The goal of this type of data was to provide more relevant, timely, and reliable "interactive" data to investors and analysts. The XBRL-formatted data is meant to allow users to manipulate and organize the financial information according to their own purposes faster, cheaper, and more easily than current alternatives. But how ...

Using a brain-imaging technique that examines the entire infant brain, researchers have found that the anatomy of certain brain areas – the hippocampus and cerebellum – can predict children's language abilities at 1 year of age. The University of Washington study is the first to associate these brain structures with future language skills. The results are published in the January issue of the journal Brain and Language. "The brain of the baby holds an infinite number of secrets just waiting to be uncovered, and these discoveries will show us why infants learn languages ...

1. Evidence Review: Some Behavioral Interventions May Reduce Child Abuse and Neglect Risk assessment and behavioral interventions in pediatric clinics may reduce child abuse and neglect, according to a recent evidence review. Researchers reviewed studies published since 2004 when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force last published recommendations on child abuse and neglect to determine the effectiveness of primary care relevant interventions on child abuse and neglect outcomes. The researchers also sought to determine adverse effects of interventions. Physicians and ...

A team of researchers based at Johns Hopkins has decoded a system that makes certain types of immune cells impervious to HIV infection. The system's two vital components are high levels of a molecule that becomes embedded in viral DNA like a code written in invisible ink, and an enzyme that, when it reads the code, switches from repairing the DNA to chopping it up into unusable pieces. The researchers, who report the find in the Jan. 21 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say the discovery points toward a new approach to eradicating HIV ...

CHICAGO --- How do you annihilate lymphoma without using any drugs? Starve it to death by depriving it of what appears to be a favorite food: HDL cholesterol. Northwestern Medicine® researchers discovered this with a new nanoparticle that acts like a secret double agent. It appears to the cancerous lymphoma cell like a preferred meal -- natural HDL. But when the particle engages the cell, it actually plugs it up and blocks cholesterol from entering. Deprived of an essential nutrient, the cell eventually dies. A new study by C. Shad Thaxton, M.D., and Leo I. Gordon, ...

Older adults with hearing loss are more likely to develop problems thinking and remembering than older adults whose hearing is normal, according to a new study by hearing experts at Johns Hopkins. In the study, volunteers with hearing loss, undergoing repeated cognition tests over six years, had cognitive abilities that declined some 30 percent to 40 percent faster than in those whose hearing was normal. Levels of declining brain function were directly related to the amount of hearing loss, the researchers say. On average, older adults with hearing loss developed a significant ...

CHICAGO – Hearing loss appears to be associated with accelerated cognitive decline and cognitive impairment in a study of older adults, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. The prevalence of dementia is projected to double every 20 years because of the world's aging population so identifying the factors and understanding the pathways that lead to cognitive decline and dementia in older adults is a public health priority, the authors write in the study background. Frank R. Lin, M.D., Ph.D., of The Johns Hopkins ...

CHICAGO – Regular aspirin use appears to be associated with an increased risk of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is a leading cause of blindness in older people, and it appears to be independent of a history of cardiovascular disease and smoking, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Aspirin is one of the most widely used medications in the world and is commonly used in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, such as myocardial infarction (heart attack) and ischemic stroke. While ...

CHICAGO – A study of medical records at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health plan suggests the rate of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis increased from 2001 to 2010, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Pediatrics, a JAMA Network publication. ADHD is one of the most common chronic childhood psychiatric disorders, affecting 4 percent to 12 percent of all school-aged children and persisting into adolescence and adulthood in about 66 percent to 85 percent of affected children. The origin of ADHD is not fully understood, ...

DENVER, January 21, 2013 — In a new study published today in JAMA Pediatrics (formerly Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine), Kaiser Permanente researchers found that 49 percent of children ages 2-24 months did not receive all recommended vaccinations or did not get vaccinated according to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices schedule. Kaiser Permanente researchers used the Vaccine Safety Datalink — a collaborative effort among the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and nine managed care organizations — to analyze immunization records of ...

PASADENA, Calif., January 21, 2013 – The rate of children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder rose dramatically between 2001 and 2010 with non-Hispanic white children having the highest diagnosis rates, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics (formerly Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine). The study also showed there was a 90 percent increase in the diagnosis of ADHD among non-Hispanic black girls during the same nine-year period. The study examined the electronic health records of nearly 850,000 ...

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY The risk of ischaemic heart disease – a disease affecting some 150,000 Danes – is three times higher in persons with high levels of the so-called 'ugly' cholesterol. This is the finding of a new study of 73,000 Danes, which is shedding light on a long debate on this topic. The results have just been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Most Danes are aware that high cholesterol is life-threatening. But very few know which type of cholesterol is the most frequent killer. Cholesterol is divided into 'the good' HDL ...

The benefits and side effects of dissolving particles in our ocean's surfaces to increase the marine uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2), and therefore reduce the excess amount of it in the atmosphere, have been analysed in a new study published today. The study, published today, 22 January, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, assesses the impact of dissolving the naturally occurring mineral olivine and calculates how effective this approach would be in reducing atmospheric CO2. The researchers, from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine ...

Bacterial pneumonia is one of the commonest and most serious infections occurring in people infected with HIV. A metanalysis of cohort and case control studies published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine finds that current smokers with HIV were at double the risk of bacterial pneumonia than non-smoking counterparts, but that when people stopped smoking their risk was reduced. The metanalysis reanalysed the data of several thousand participants with HIV, from 14 studies based in USA, Europe and South Africa. Overall it appeared that current smoking ...

Two aspects of perfectionism are involved in body dissatisfaction and the development of eating disorders, according to a study of over a thousand women published this week in BioMed Central's open access journal, Journal of Eating Disorders. Adaptive perfectionism is high standards driving a person towards achieving a goal body image, and maladaptive perfectionism is concerned with mistakes and other people's opinions. The finding indicates that both are involved in heightened concerns about body image, which in turn places people at risk of developing an eating disorder. ...

The findings prompt the researchers to consider whether car design might need to change to afford greater protection to the considerable proportion of obese people in the population - currently around a third of all US adults. The researchers used data from the US Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) for 1996 to 2008. This is operated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and records all fatalities arising within 30 days of a traffic collision. During this period, details of 57,491 road traffic collisions were submitted to the system. The researchers ...

The strongest evidence seems to be for jobs involving cleaning or cleaning agents, the research suggests. The authors base their findings on the job histories up to the age of 42 of almost 7,500 British adults born in 1958, all of whom were taking part in the National Child Development Study, which is tracking the long term health of more than 11,000 people living in Britain. Information about symptoms of asthma or wheezy bronchitis was collected at the ages of 7, 11, 16, 33 and 42 from 9,500 participants. After excluding 2,000 who had these symptoms before the ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Last year, a team of researchers at Brown University discovered that certain skin cells use a light-sensitive receptor found outside of the eye to sense ultraviolet light and quickly begin pumping out melanin to protect against DNA damage. In a new study, lab members identify a key player in that biomolecular chain of events that could someday become a pharmacological target for improving this protective response. The new discovery, published the week of Jan. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that human ...

Experts from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia were among the leaders of two large national studies showing that extending CPR longer than previously thought useful saves lives in both children and adults. The research teams analyzed impact of duration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in patients who suffered cardiac arrest while hospitalized. "These findings about the duration of CPR are game-changing, and we hope these results will rapidly affect hospital practice," said Robert A. Berg, M.D., chief of Critical Care Medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. ...