Scientists at the University of Liverpool and Callaghan Innovation in New Zealand have developed a new chemical approach to help harness the natural ability of complex sugars to treat Alzheimer's disease. The team used a new chemical method to produce a library of sugars, called heparan sulphates, which are known to control the formation of the proteins in the brain that cause memory loss. Heparan sulphates are found in nearly every cell of the body, and are similar to the natural blood-thinning drug, heparin. Now scientists have discovered how to produce them chemically ...

Dr. Geneviève Durrieu (from the Pharmaco-epidemiology team assessing the use of medication and the risks involved, Unit 1027 "Epidemiology and public health analyses: risks, chronic diseases and handicaps" - Inserm / Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier) led the French part of this study, the results of which are published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Within the framework of this international study, is France proving to be a model student? Prescription-only drugs play a major part in the therapeutic care of the patient. However, they can also have ...

After analysing football league players over nine seasons, from 2000 to 2009, Spanish researchers have come up with a mathematical method for estimating the goal-scoring performance of each player. According to their ranking, the most able strikers are Messi, Ronaldo Nazário, Makkay, Villa and Etoo. Over nine seasons, researchers from the faculties of Economic and Business Sciences at the Universities of Granada and Jaén analysed the performance of football players in the Spanish league from 2000/2001 to 2008/2009, with the aim of creating a mathematical model to evaluate ...

Interim results of an EORTC intergroup trial have confirmed that adjuvant imatinib impacts short-term freedom from relapse in patients with localized, surgically resected, high/ intermediate-risk GIST. In the high-risk subgroup, a non-statistically significant trend in favor of the adjuvant arm was observed in terms of Imatinib failure-free survival. This new endpoint for the adjuvant setting, survival free from any failure of the first employed tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was designed to incorporate secondary resistance, currently the main factor adversely affecting prognosis ...

Instead of through pigments, these 'polymer opals' get their colour from their internal structure alone, resulting in pure colour which does not run or fade. The materials could be used to replace the toxic dyes used in the textile industry, or as a security application, making banknotes harder to forge. Additionally, the thin, flexible material changes colour when force is exerted on it, which could have potential use in sensing applications by indicating the amount of strain placed on the material. The most intense colours in nature - such as those in butterfly wings, ...

New research suggesting that elective hernia surgery offers value-for-money and improved quality of life for patients has been published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. The new analysis is based on patients' own assessments of their health-related quality of life together with costs reported by hospitals. The research also indicates that keyhole surgery may offer more health benefit and value for money than open surgery for hernia operations. Recently it has been suggested that the NHS could save money by reducing access to hernia repair surgery. An inguinal ...

This news release is available in German. On 29 May 2013, the 2nd Annual Global Meeting of the Global Research Council (GRC) in Berlin has ended. Over three days, the heads of about 70 science and research councils from around the world as well as high-ranking guests from science and research, science administration and research policy attended the meeting. The topics of discussion and endorsement were an Action Plan towards Open Access, a high-level Statement of Principles for Research Integrity as well as new statutes for the GRC. Hosted jointly by the German Research ...

WASHINGTON--Geochemistry analysis conducted by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory of fossil sediment injection structures off the New Zealand coast in February and March, reveal no presence of modern day expulsions of methane gas, a potential contributor to global 'greenhouse effect' warming. The main focus of this most recent expedition was to investigate the geological origin of seafloor anomalies discovered during a 2007 marine-life survey on the Chatham Rise. During the 2007 survey scientists discovered several large sea floor craters, or pockmarks, including a ...

For the first time, a new kind of so-called Klein tunnelling—representing the quantum equivalent of crossing an energy wall— has been presented in a model of two interacting particles. This work by Stefano Longhi and Giuseppe Della Valle from the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnology in Milan, Italy, is about to be published in EPJ B. Klein tunnelling is a quantum phenomenon referring to the fact that a high-potential barrier can be transparent to a particle moving at a speed nearing that of light, referred to as relativistic. Most of the previous Klein tunnelling ...

People who walk or bike to work are likely to influence their co-workers and partners to do the same, according to health researchers. "Social influences are important, specifically interpersonal influences, such as spouses and co-workers," said Melissa Bopp, assistant professor of kinesiology, Penn State. She emphasized that community and employers also significantly influence whether people choose to actively commute. More than 80 percent of American adults do not meet the guidelines for aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities, according to Healthy People 2020, ...

A pioneering imaging technique to track the effects of next-generation nanomedicines on patients has been harnessed by a University of Strathclyde academic. Professor Dr. M. N. V. Ravi Kumar and Dr. Dimitrios Lamprou, of the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, believe an advanced form of atomic force microscopy, known as PeakForce QNM, could boost developments in the field of nanomedicines, the encapsulation of potent drugs in tiny particles measuring billionths of a meter in diameter. They described how this detailed imaging approach may also help ...

New research is tweaking an old adage about how to get ahead in a competitive workplace: It's not just who you know, but what you believe in. A recently published BYU business study finds that employees who are "true believers" in the mission of their organization are more likely to increase in status and influence than non-believers. "Many organizations today have a well-defined mission with enduring principles that matter, not only to employees, but to other stakeholders," said John Bingham, BYU professor of organizational leadership and strategy. "It's a shift from ...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have identified the molecular mechanism behind the transformation of one of the components in Alzheimer's disease. They identified the crucial step leading to formations that kill brain cells. Alzheimer's disease is associated with memory a loss and personality changes. It is still not known what causes the onset of the disease, but once started it cannot be stopped. The accumulation of plaques in the brain is widely considered a hallmark of the disease. The key discovery identified the chemical reaction that causes the plaques ...

Women who experienced severe physical or sexual abuse during childhood are much more likely to have a food addiction as adults than women who did not experience such abuse, according to a new study published in the journal Obesity. The study's findings provide valuable new information regarding potential causes and treatments for food addiction and obesity. National surveys indicate that more than a third of American women experienced some form of physical or sexual abuse before they reached 18 years of age. Also, research shows that such childhood abuse has consequences ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Cancer patients, physicians and insurers want to be sure that whatever therapy is recommended and provided to patients is based on evidence, preferably results from randomized clinical trials. But are there enough clinical trials data to provide this level of confidence? A University of North Carolina School of Medicine study says not necessarily. Radiation oncologists evaluated how often patients were seen in their clinic with medical decisions to be made that were not specifically addressed by randomized controlled trials. They determined that ...

The fabled ivory carvings from the ancient Phoenician city of Arslan Tash — literally meaning "Stone Lion" — may appear a dull monochrome in museums today, but they glittered with brilliant blue, red, gold and other colors 2,800 years ago, a new study has confirmed after decades of speculation. It appears in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry. Ina Reiche and colleagues explain that these carvings are rare, housed in museums like the Louvre, and art experts regard them as the most beautiful ivory carvings of the era. Experts long believed that the lion heads, amulets ...

A healthy Nordic diet lowers cholesterol levels, and therefore the risk of cardiovascular disease, a pan-Nordic study where Lund University participated has found. There was also decreased inflammation associated with pre-diabetes. - The subjects who ate a Nordic diet had lower levels of harmful LDL cholesterol and higher levels of "good" HDL cholesterol. The amount of harmful fat particles in the blood also declined, says Lieselotte Cloetens, a biomedical nutrition researcher at Lund University. The 'healthy Nordic diet' used in the study contains local produce such ...

In a large, international, randomized trial, initial radiotherapy was compared to temozolomide chemotherapy. A statistically significant difference between the two treatment strategies was not observed for progression-free survival, although radiotherapy was numerically favored. However, molecular tumor characterization may allow the treatment approach to be personalized and one or the other treatment modality to be selected. The results of EORTC trial 22033-26033 will be presented Saturday, 01 June 2013 at an ASCO 2013 Oral Abstract Session by the coordinator of the ...

New Rochelle, NY, May 29, 2013—YouTube has more than 10 million unique users a month who are younger than 18 years of age, making it an ideal online environment in which to study the impact of various media content and peer feedback on adolescents. A series of experiments were designed to test the effectiveness of using YouTube to present controlled media content and peer comments to teens, and to measure their preferences and moral judgments. The results are presented in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., ...

Human scabs have become the model for development of an advanced wound dressing material that shows promise for speeding the healing process, scientists are reporting. Their study appears in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Shutao Wang and colleagues explain that scabs are a perfect natural dressing material for wounds. In addition to preventing further bleeding, scabs protect against infection and recruit the new cells needed for healing. Existing bandages and other dressings for wounds generally are intended to prevent bleeding and infections. Wang's ...

A further report on the results of EORTC trial 26951 indicates that CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) status and O 6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter methylation as assessed by MGMT-STP27 are the most informative for identifying grade III glioma patients who might benefit from the addition of procarbazine, CCNU and vincristine (PCV) chemotherapy to radiation therapy. Prior results had shown that PCV chemotherapy following standard radiation therapy delayed tumor growth and extended the lives of patients with anaplastic oligodendroglial tumors, a ...

Though its surface has been turned to carbon, the bunny-like features can still be easily observed with a microscope. This rabbit sculpture, the size of a typical bacterium, is one of several whimsical shapes created by a team of Japanese scientists using a new material that can be molded into complex, highly conductive 3-D structures with features just a few micrometers across. Combined with state-of-the-art micro-sculpting techniques, the new resin holds promise for making customized electrodes for fuel cells or batteries, as well as biosensor interfaces for medical uses. ...

Global use of nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and release of 64 billion tons of greenhouse gases that would have resulted from burning coal and other fossil fuels, a new study concludes. It appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen state that nuclear power has the potential to help control both global climate change and illness and death associated with air pollution. That potential exists, they say, despite serious questions about safety, disposal of radioactive waste ...

A building that helped launch generations of scientists, including Nobel laureates, on their careers of discovery has joined the Hall of Fame of notable venues, being named a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society (ACS). That's the topic of an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the ACS, the world's largest scientific society. Susan J. Ainsworth, C&EN senior editor, explains that the ACS recognized the R.B. Wetherill Laboratory of Chemistry building on the Purdue University's ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Blood offers promise as a way to detect Alzheimer's disease at its earliest onset, Mayo Clinic researchers say. They envision a test that would detect distinct metabolic signatures in blood plasma that are synonymous with the disease -- years before patients begin showing cognitive decline. Their study was recently published online in the journal PLOS ONE. Researchers analyzed cerebrospinal fluid and plasma samples from 45 people in the Mayo Clinic Study on Aging and Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's Disease Center (15 with no cognitive decline, 15 with mild ...