23 May 2013, Paris, France: A new investigational device - the Helio System (TF-FA) - being developed for use with the Sapien XT Transcatheter Heart Valve was successfully deployed in all four patients in a small, first-in-human feasibility study of its use in high-risk aortic insufficiency reported at EuroPCR 2013. The HELIO dock system acts as an anchor to help stabilise the SAPIEN XT valve for patients with aortic insufficiency. The native leaflets in the heart are captured between the transcatheter heart valve and the dock. "This is an innovative, minimally invasive ...

23 May 2013, Paris, France: Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is effective and safe in Asian patients, according to early experience based on first results from a multicentre Asian registry reported at EuroPCR 2013. "TAVI has become a treatment option for selected patients with symptomatic severe aortic stenosis. But current data are virtually all from North American or European centres," Paul Chiam, senior consultant cardiologist at the National Heart Center, Singapore, told the conference. He explained that it is unknown whether the smaller average ...

New Orleans, LA – After studying noise in one French Quarter neighborhood of New Orleans to determine whether or not noise levels exceeded municipal ordinances, Annette Hurley, PhD, Assistant Professor of Audiology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, and Eric Arriaga, a third-year LSUHSC doctor of audiology student, recommend that people use today's technology to protect their own hearing health. Their case study is published online in the current issue of Advance for Hearing Practice Management. "An important part of an audiologist's practice is aiding patients ...

SAN ANTONIO (May 24, 2013) — The news about youth and diabetes keeps getting worse. The latest data from the national TODAY diabetes study shows that children who develop Type 2 diabetes are at high risk to develop heart, kidney and eye problems faster and at a higher rate than people who acquire Type 2 diabetes as adults. "Once these kids have Type 2 diabetes, they seem to be at very high risk for early complications when compared to adults," said Jane Lynch, M.D., professor of pediatric endocrinology in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science ...

PORTAND, Ore. – A new discovery at Oregon Health & Science University highlights an ingenious method to ensure the body effectively reacts when infected with the highly evasive HIV virus that causes AIDS. The same team of researchers has been utilizing this unique approach to develop its own HIV vaccine candidate, which has so far shown promising results in animal studies. This latest research finding will be published in the May 24, 2013, edition of the journal Science. "A major challenge in developing an effective HIV vaccine is figuring out how to target this evasive ...

Women at a particular stage in their monthly menstrual cycle may be more vulnerable to some of the psychological side-effects associated with stressful experiences, according to a study from UCL. The results suggest a monthly window of opportunity that could potentially be targeted in efforts to prevent common mental health problems developing in women. The research is the first to show a potential link between psychological vulnerability and the timing of a biological cycle, in this case ovulation. A common symptom of mood and anxiety problems is the tendency to experience ...

Washington, DC (May 23, 2013) — Maintaining a heart healthy lifestyle may also help protect chronic kidney disease patients from developing kidney failure and dying prematurely, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The findings suggest that patients with kidney disease should be encouraged to improve their heart health. Poor kidney health puts people at risk of developing heart problems, but it's unclear whether the opposite is true. Does heart health also affect kidney health? To investigate, ...

Teams of highly respected Alzheimer's researchers failed to replicate what appeared to be breakthrough results for the treatment of this brain disease when they were published last year in the journal Science. Those results, presented online Feb. 9, 2012, suggested that the drug bexarotene (marketed as Targretin®) could rapidly reverse the buildup of beta amyloid plaques (Aβ) — a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease — in the brains of mice. According to the authors of the 2012 report, drug treatment quickly removed most of the plaques and brought rapid reversal ...

Since the discovery of Prontosil in 1932, sulfonamide antibiotics have been used to combat a wide spectrum of bacterial infections, from acne to chlamydia and pneumonia. However, their side effects can include serious neurological problems like nausea, headache, dizziness, hallucinations and even psychosis. In a recent Science publication, EPFL researchers have shown for the first time how sulfonamides can interfere with a patient's nervous system. The problem is that, even though we know how sulfonamides work, we do not understand the actual molecular mechanics behind ...

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health report they have discovered in mouse studies that a small molecule released in the spinal cord triggers a process that is later experienced in the brain as the sensation of itch. The small molecule, called natriuretic polypeptide b (Nppb), streams ahead and selectively plugs into a specific nerve cell in the spinal cord, which sends the signal onward through the central nervous system. When Nppb or its nerve cell was removed, mice stopped scratching at a broad array of itch-inducing substances. The signal wasn't going ...

VIDEO: This movie shows the preferences of wild type and glucose-averse cockroaches for off-the-shelf store-bought foods with and without glucose. Click here for more information. Sugar isn't always sweet to German cockroaches, especially to the ones that avoid roach baits. In a study published May 24 in the journal Science, North Carolina State University entomologists show the neural mechanism behind the aversion to glucose, the simple sugar that is a popular ingredient ...

An extremely precise measurement of the distance to a star system has finally allowed astronomers to solve a decade-old puzzle, confirming understanding of the way exotic objects like black holes interact with nearby stars. Published today in prestigious journal Science, a team of astronomers headed by Dr James Miller-Jones from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), have measured the distance to star system SS Cygni to be 372 light years, much closer than a previous measurement made by the Hubble Space Telescope in ...

Can economic incentives such as gift cards, T-shirts, and time off from work motivate members of the public to increase their donations of blood? A team of researchers including Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Assistant Professor Mario Macis says the answer is an emphatic yes. Pointing to a large body of recent research that supports their argument, the three economists write in the May 24, 2013, issue of Science that the World Health Organization and national blood collection agencies should reconsider their opposition to economic incentives for much-needed blood ...

Sometimes astronomy is like real estate -- what's important is location, location, and location. Astronomers have resolved a major problem in their understanding of a class of stars that undergo regular outbursts by accurately measuring the distance to a famous example of the type. The researchers used the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and the European VLBI Network (EVN) to precisely locate one of the most-observed variable-star systems in the sky -- a double-star system called SS Cygni -- at 370 light-years from Earth. This new distance ...

An anti-cancer drug reverses memory deficits in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health researchers confirm in the journal Science. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging and Alzheimer's Association, reviewed previously published findings on the drug bexarotene, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in cutaneous T cell lymphoma. The Pitt Public Health researchers were able to verify that the drug does significantly improve cognitive deficits in mice ...

UEA scientists make breast cancer advance that turns previous thinking on its head Scientists at the University of East Anglia have made an advance in breast cancer research which shows how some enzymes released by cancerous cells could have a protective function. New research published today in the Journal of Biological Chemistry reveals that an enzyme called MMP-8 (matrix metalloproteinase-8) could be acting as a locator to the immune system, which then becomes activated to attack tumours. It was originally thought that the production of MMPs by breast cancer cells ...

Canada and other countries should reassess guidelines that prohibit offering economic incentives such as gift cards to potential blood donors, says a study from the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM). "Blood donation guidelines recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and many blood collection agencies are largely based on research that assessed only what study participants said they would do – not their observed behaviour when donating blood," says Nicola Lacetera, Assistant Professor in UTM's Department of Management. "These are two very different things." Using ...

Frontiers in Plant Science Automated conserved noncoding sequence (CNS) discovery reveals differences in gene content and promoter evolution among grasses Within the genome of each species, there are thousands of stretches of DNA that undergo little change in position and sequence over millions of years, but do not code for any proteins. Some of these evolutionarily stable sequences, so-called conserved noncoding sequences (CNSs), are known to regulate the expression of other genes or the condensation of chromosomes, but the function of many CNSs remains unknown. Michael ...

A billon-frames-per-second film has captured the vibrations of gold nanocrystals in stunning detail for the first time. The film, which was made using 3D imaging pioneered at the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) at UCL, reveals important information about the composition of gold. The findings are published in the journal Science. Jesse Clark, from the LCN and lead author of the paper said: "Just as the sound quality of a musical instrument can provide great detail about its construction, so too can the vibrations seen in materials provide important information ...

An academic paper on the archaeology of the Search for Richard III reveals for the first time specific details of the grave dug for King Richard III and discovered under a car park in Leicester. University of Leicester archaeologists have published the first peer-reviewed paper on the University-led archaeological Search for Richard III in the prestigious journal Antiquity. The paper reveals: Richard III was casually placed in a badly prepared grave – suggesting gravediggers were in a hurry to bury him He was placed in an 'odd position' and the torso crammed in The ...

Treatment with high potency statins (especially atorvastatin and simvastatin) may increase the risk of developing diabetes, suggests a paper published today on bmj.com. Statins are among the most widely prescribed medications for the prevention of cardiovascular events. Although tolerated well, an association with new-onset diabetes has recently been suggested. One trial suggested a 27% increased risk of diabetes with rosuvastatin whereas another suggested patients taking pravastatin benefitted from a 30% lower risk. As there is limited data on this subject, researchers ...

People eating at fast food restaurants largely underestimate the calorie content of meals, especially large ones, according to a paper published today on bmj.com. From 2006 to 2010 many American states and cities passed laws requiring chain restaurants to print calorie content on menus. The US Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 included a provision that will require all restaurant chains with more than 20 US sites to print calorie content on menus. Previous research has shown that adults and children underestimate calorie content often by large amounts. ...

STANFORD, Calif. - Ethnic background plays a surprisingly large role in how diabetes develops on a cellular level, according to two new studies led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The researchers reanalyzed disease data to demonstrate that the physiological pathways to diabetes vary between Africa and East Asia and that those differences are reflected in part by genetic differences. The studies will be published online simultaneously May 23 in the journals PLoS Genetics and Diabetes Care. "We have new insights into the differences in diabetes ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., – May 23, 2013 – Two out of five medical students have an unconscious bias against obese people, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. The study is published online ahead of print in the Journal of Academic Medicine. "Bias can affect clinical care and the doctor-patient relationship, and even a patient's willingness or desire to go see their physician, so it is crucial that we try to deal with any bias during medical school," said David Miller, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine at Wake Forest Baptist ...

(Edmonton) A University of Alberta physicist brought together back-yard astronomers and professionals to confirm the mysterious behaviour of two stars more than 300 light years from Earth. U of A astrophysics researcher Gregory Sivakoff was part of an international team that re-examined an established theory about periodic bursts of light coming from a binary star. The two stars are called a binary star because they rotate around each other. The accepted theory on why the binary star, named SS Cygni, emits periodic bursts of light involves an interaction between the ...