Individuals suffering from anorexia nervosa perceive their bodies as being larger than they are and this disturbed body representation affects their movements, according to research published May 29 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Anouk Keizer and colleagues from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Previous studies of anorexia nervosa have largely focused on patients' disturbed perception of body image. Here, researchers examined how these disturbances may extend to unconscious, action-related representations of the body by asking anorexic and healthy participants ...

Sleep consolidates emotional memories in healthy children but not in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to research published May 29 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Alexander Prehn-Kristensen and colleagues from University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein. The study suggests these deficits in sleep-related emotional processing may exacerbate emotional problems experienced in the daytime by children with ADHD. For the study, healthy adults, healthy children and children with ADHD were shown pictures that had emotional relevance, ...

Forty-two may or may not be the answer to everything, but it likely defines the temperature limit where animal life thrives, according to the first laboratory study of heat-loving Pompeii worms from deep-sea vents, published May 29 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Bruce Shillito and colleagues from the University Pierre and Marie Curie, France. The worms, named Alvinella pompejana, colonize black smoker chimney walls at deep-sea vents, thrive at extremes of temperature and pressure, and have thus far eluded scientists' attempts to bring them to the surface alive ...

A new federal law allowing young adults to remain on their parents' medical insurance until age 25 has shielded them, their families and hospitals from the full financial consequences of serious medical emergencies, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Examining hospital emergency department use during the first year after the federal Affordable Care Act provision went into effect, researchers estimate that $147 million in nondiscretionary medical care was newly covered by private insurance. Without the new regulation, those costs would have been paid by young people ...

WOOSTER,Ohio — An Ohio State University researcher and his collaborators have discovered a chemical that causes "kidney" failure in mosquitoes, which may pave the way to the development of new insecticides to fight deadly mosquito-transmitted diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. The discovery is reported in the May 29 issue of the online journal PLOS ONE. "Our team has found a chemical that interferes with the function of a class of mosquito proteins, called potassium channels, and which compromises the ability of mosquitoes to excrete urine," said Peter Piermarini, ...

The temporary placement of umbrella-like, metal mesh filters in abdominal veins to stop potentially lethal blood clots from traveling to the lungs during and after weight loss surgery may actually increase the risk of death in morbidly obese patients, according to new Johns Hopkins research. The study's findings, reported in the journal JAMA Surgery, suggest that more tried-and-true measures to prevent venous thromboembolism (VTE) and its deadlier cousin pulmonary embolism (PE) — such as a standard prophylactic dose of blood thinners, early ambulation, and use of leg ...

In a study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, a team of researchers led by NJIT Associate Professor Gareth Russell has applied a novel method for linking large-scale habitat fragmentation to population sustainability. "Our goal was to assess the extinction risk for bird species in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, a global 'hotspot' of bird diversity," said Russell. "Based on elevation restrictions and forest type requirements, as well as ongoing tropical deforestation, we already knew that most species have access to far less habitat than typically assumed. But ...

PHILADELPHIA – Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania have developed a new gene therapy to thwart a potential influenza pandemic. Specifically, investigators in the Gene Therapy Program, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, directed by James M. Wilson, MD, PhD, demonstrated that a single dose of an adeno-associated virus (AAV) expressing a broadly neutralizing flu antibody into the nasal passages of mice and ferrets gives them complete protection and substantial reductions in flu replication when exposed to lethal strains ...

Contact: Anita Srikameswaran Phone: 412-578-9193 E-mail: SrikamAV@upmc.edu Contact: Susan Manko Phone: 412-586-9771 E-mail: MankoSM@upmc.edu END ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers report that they have determined the precise chemical structure of the HIV capsid, a protein shell that protects the virus's genetic material and is a key to its virulence. The capsid has become an attractive target for the development of new antiretroviral drugs. The report appears as the cover article in the journal Nature. Scientists have long sought to understand how the HIV capsid is constructed, and many studies have chipped away at its mystery. Researchers have used a variety of laboratory techniques – cryo-electron microscopy, cryo-EM ...

Chevy Chase, MD—Practicing a form of meditation and stretching can help relieve symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and normalize stress hormone levels, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). More than 7 million adults nationwide are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a typical year. The mental health condition, triggered by a traumatic event, can cause flashbacks, anxiety and other symptoms. PTSD patients have high levels of corticotrophin-releasing ...

Chevy Chase, MD—Levels of a biomarker in a pregnant woman's blood can help physicians gauge her risk of developing gestational diabetes during the first trimester, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Gestational diabetes is a form of diabetes that can develop during pregnancy, often during the second trimester. The condition causes glucose levels in the bloodstream to be higher than normal. Early diagnosis and treatment can help the woman manage the condition. If left untreated, ...

Chevy Chase, MD—Pregnant women who have thyroid disorders face greater risk of preterm birth and other complications that have short- and long-term consequences for the health of mother and child, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). The risk of complications is heightened for both women who have underactive thyroid glands – a condition known as hypothyroidism – and those with overactive thyroid glands, or hyperthyroidism. Up to four percent of all pregnancies involve mothers ...

The way in which stars evolve and end their lives was for many years considered to be well understood. Detailed computer models predicted that stars of a similar mass to the Sun would have a period towards the ends of their lives -- called the asymptotic giant branch, or AGB [1] -- when they undergo a final burst of nuclear burning and puff off a lot of their mass in the form of gas and dust. This expelled material [2] goes on to form the next generations of stars and this cycle of mass loss and rebirth is vital to explain the evolving chemistry of the Universe. This ...

The physics behind some of the most extraordinary stellar objects in the Universe just became even more puzzling. A group of astronomers led by McGill researchers using NASA's Swift satellite have discovered a new kind of glitch in the cosmos, specifically in the rotation of a neutron star. Neutron stars are among the densest objects in the observable universe; higher densities are found only in their close cousins, black holes. A typical neutron star packs as much mass as half-a-million Earths within a diameter of only about 20 kilometers. A teaspoonful of neutron ...

Astrophysicists have found that contrary to decades of orthodoxy, stars with a high sodium content die before reaching the final, spectacular stages of life. In a study published today in Nature, an international group of researchers led by Dr Simon Campbell of the Monash Centre for Astrophysics (MoCA), used the European Southern Observatory's 'Very Large Telescope' (VLT) to observe NGC 6752, a globular cluster of stars in our galaxy, 13,000 light years from Earth. They found that 70 per cent of stars in the tightly bound group fail to reach the final red giant phase. ...

Researchers have identified a sub-group of cells that could contribute to prostate cancer recurrence, opening up new ways to treat the disease, which claims more than 3000 lives a year in Australia. Published today in Science Translational Medicine, a study led by Monash University researchers has found prostate cancer cells that survive androgen withdrawal treatment. Previously unidentified, these cells are potential targets for future treatments. As they are present early in disease development, there is the possibility of therapy before the cancer reaches the aggressive, ...

A study at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine identified a protein that is responsible for regulating blood vessel growth by mediating the efficient removal of cholesterol from the cells. Unregulated development of blood vessels can feed the growth of tumors. The work, led by Yury Miller, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego, will be published in the advance online edition of the journal Nature on May 29. Cholesterol is a structural component of the cell and is indispensable for normal cellular function, although its excess ...

University Park, PA -- One of the densest objects in the universe, a neutron star about 10,000 light years from Earth, has been discovered suddenly putting the brakes on its spinning speed. The event is a mystery that holds important clues for understanding how matter reacts when it is squeezed more tightly than the density of an atomic nucleus -- a state that no laboratory on Earth has achieved. The discovery, by an international team of scientists that includes a Penn State University astronomer, will be published in the journal Nature on 30 May 2013. The scientists ...

HOUSTON -- (May 30, 2013) – In some neurodegenerative diseases, and specifically in a devastating inherited condition called spinocerebellar ataxia 1 (SCA1), the answer may not be an "all-or-nothing," said a collaboration of researchers from Baylor College of Medicine, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital and the University of Minnesota in a report that appears online in the journal Nature. The problem might be solved with just a little less. "If you can only decrease the levels of ataxin-1 (the protein involved in SCA1) ...

UCLA research has shown that that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are far more likely than other kids to develop serious substance abuse problems as adolescents and adults. But do stimulant medications used to treat ADHD contribute to the risk? UCLA psychologists have conducted the most comprehensive assessment ever on this question and have found that children with ADHD who take medications such as Ritalin and Adderall are at no greater risk of using alcohol, marijuana, nicotine or cocaine later in life than kids with ADHD who don't take these ...

During the last ice age, when thick ice covered the Arctic, many scientists assumed that the deep currents below that feed the North Atlantic Ocean and help drive global ocean currents slowed or even stopped. But in a new study in Nature, researchers show that the deep Arctic Ocean has been churning briskly for the last 35,000 years, through the chill of the last ice age and warmth of modern times, suggesting that at least one arm of the system of global ocean currents that move heat around the planet has behaved similarly under vastly different climates. "The Arctic ...

Charles H. Hennekens, MD, DrPH, the first Sir Richard Doll professor and senior academic advisor to the dean in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University has published in the current issue of the Lancet the most comprehensive analyses of the benefits and risks of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which include cyclo-oxygenase-2 inhibitors (coxibs). Hennekens and colleagues from around the world, under the direction of the Clinical Trial Service and Epidemiology Studies Unit at the University of Oxford, conducted a world-wide ...

Researchers at Griffith University's Centre for Quantum Dynamics have demonstrated that, contrary to what the Heisenberg uncertainty relation may suggest, particle properties such as position and momentum can be measured simultaneously with high precision. But it comes at a cost. The findings have been published in Experimental Test of Universal Complementarity Relations in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters. Co-author Dr Michael Hall said the work represents an important advance in the quantitative understanding and experimental verification of complementarity; ...

It is a commonly held perception that getting in shape and staying there requires hard work and hours upon hours of training. New research shows the opposite – it seems that only four minutes of vigorous activity three times per week is enough to be fit and healthy. Regular training improves maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), which is a well-established measure of physical fitness. However, just how much exercise, and how intense that exercise should be to deliver the biggest benefit remains to be defined. Now, researchers from the KG Jebsen – Centre of Exercise in Medicine ...