Long-term treatment of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with certain stimulant medications may alter the density of the dopamine transporter, according to research published May 15 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Gene-Jack Wang and colleagues from Brookhaven National Laboratory and the intramural program at NIH. ADHD is commonly treated using drugs to target dysfunctional dopamine signaling in the brain, such as methylphenidate (commonly known as Ritalin). The researchers found that adults with ADHD who had been prescribed the drug methylphenidate ...

WASHINGTON — A clinical trial has shown that patients, and their physicians, are eager to jump into next-era cancer care — analysis of an individual's tumor to find and target genetic mutations that drive the cancer. Results of the study, CUSTOM, are being presented at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology years before investigators thought they would be ready. CUSTOM is the first completed prospective clinical trial that used genetic analysis alone to assign cancer treatment for patients with one of three different cancers. "We expected ...

WASHINGTON — Continuous infusion of a novel agent not only halted the progression of Ewing sarcoma in rats, while some tumors also regressed to the point that cancer cells could not be detected microscopically, say researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Their study, which will be presented at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, provides pre-clinical evidence necessary to initiate a clinical trial. "This agent has the potential to be more effective, and considerably less toxic, than the current drugs now used to ...

STANFORD, Calif. - In a new study, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers provide the first evidence that African clawed frogs in California harbor a deadly fungal infection that is decimating amphibian populations across the globe. Among 28 samples tested, the researchers identified three frogs, including one found in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, that were carriers of the pathogen that has led to the decline or extinction of some 200 amphibian species worldwide. The research was conducted on archived samples from the herpetology collection at the California ...

SEATTLE – People diagnosed with cancer are more than two-and-a-half times more likely to declare bankruptcy than those without cancer, according to a new study from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Researchers also found that younger cancer patients had two- to five-fold higher bankruptcy rates compared to older patients, and that overall bankruptcy filings increased as time passed following diagnosis. The study, led by corresponding author Scott Ramsey, M.D., Ph.D., an internist and health economist at Fred Hutch, was published online on May 15 as a Web First in ...

At a time when the U.S. health system is facing both an increasing demand for primary care services and a worsening shortage of primary care physicians, one broadly recommended strategy has been to increase the number and the responsibilities of nurse practitioners. In 2010 an Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee recommended that "advance practice registered nurses should be able to practice to the full extent of their education and training" and that nurse practitioners should be able to admit patients to hospitals and hospices, lead medical teams and medical homes, and ...

Middle aged and out of shape? It's not too late to get fit — and reduce your risk for heart failure, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013. Researchers ranked fitness levels of 9,050 men and women (average age 48) who took two fitness tests — eight years apart — during mid-life. After 18 years of follow-up, they matched the fitness information to Medicare claims for heart failure hospitalizations. "People who weren't fit at the start of the study were at higher risk for heart ...

Young women tend to be less healthy and have a poorer quality of life than similar-aged men before suffering a heart attack, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013. "Compared with young men, women under 55 years are less likely to have heart attacks. But, when they do occur, women are more likely to have medical problems, poorer physical and mental functioning, more chest pain and a poorer quality of life in the month leading up to their heart attack," said Rachel Dreyer, Ph.D., ...

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, detected the H1N1 (2009) virus in free-ranging northern elephant seals off the central California coast a year after the human pandemic began, according to a study published today, May 15, in the journal PLOS ONE. It is the first report of that flu strain in any marine mammal. "We thought we might find influenza viruses, which have been found before in marine mammals, but we did not expect to find pandemic H1N1," said lead author Tracey Goldstein, an associate professor with the UC Davis One Health Institute and ...

Writing in Nature, a large international team led Dr Roman Gorbachev from The University of Manchester shows that, when graphene placed on top of insulating boron nitride, or 'white graphene', the electronic properties of graphene change dramatically revealing a pattern resembling a butterfly. The pattern is referred to as the elusive Hofstadter butterfly that has been known in theory for many decades but never before observed in experiments. Combining graphene with other materials in multiple-layered structures could lead to novel applications not yet explored by ...

A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life. This water could be some of the oldest on the planet and may even contain life. Not just that, but the similarity between the rocks that trapped it and those on Mars raises the hope that comparable life-sustaining water could lie buried beneath the red planet's surface. The findings, published in Nature today, may force us to rethink which parts of our planet are fit for life, ...

A comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed articles on the topic of global warming and climate change has revealed an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-caused. The study is the most comprehensive yet and identified 4000 summaries, otherwise known as abstracts, from papers published in the past 21 years that stated a position on the cause of recent global warming – 97 per cent of these endorsed the consensus that we are seeing man-made, or anthropogenic, global warming (AGW) Led by John Cook at the University of Queensland, the study ...

Scientists will attempt to find out how malaria parasites manipulate their mosquito hosts after discovering that smell could be a major factor. In a study published in PLOS ONE today, a team of researchers led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine show for the first time that female mosquitoes infected with malaria parasites are significantly more attracted to human odour than uninfected mosquitoes. This was demonstrated in a laboratory setting in which infected female Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto mosquitoes were attracted to human odours three times ...

People in the military who suffer more than one mild traumatic brain injury face a significantly higher risk of suicide, according to research by the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah. A survey of 161 military personnel who were stationed in Iraq and evaluated for a possible traumatic brain injury – also known as TBI – showed that the risk for suicidal thoughts or behaviors increased not only in the short term, as measured during the past 12 months, but during the individual's lifetime. The risk of suicidal thoughts increased significantly ...

Climate change has been impacting global fisheries for the past four decades by driving species towards cooler, deeper waters, according to University of British Columbia scientists. In a Nature study published this week, UBC researchers used temperature preferences of fish and other marine species as a sort of "thermometer" to assess effects of climate change on the world's oceans between 1970 and 2006. They found that global fisheries catches were increasingly dominated by warm-water species as a result of fish migrating towards the poles in response to rising ocean ...

Boston – Twenty percent of American males and 10 percent of American females will experience a kidney stone at some point in their lifetime. Often, these patients will be advised to drink more fluids as a way to prevent future stone formation. Now, new research from Brigham and Women's Hospital finds that some beverages may be more helpful than others when it comes to preventing recurrent kidney stones. In a study published online May 15, 2013 in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN), researchers report that the consumption of sugar sweetened ...

New York, NY—May 15, 2013—A team of researchers from Columbia University, City University of New York, the University of Central Florida (UCF), and Tohoku University and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, have directly observed a rare quantum effect that produces a repeating butterfly-shaped energy spectrum, confirming the longstanding prediction of this quantum fractal energy structure, called Hofstadter's butterfly. The study, which focused on moiré-patterned graphene, is published in the May 15, 2013, Advance Online Publication (AOP) of Nature. First ...

Metal-on-metal hip implants can cause inflammation of the joint lining (synovitis) long before symptoms appear, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used to identify this inflammation, according to a new study by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery. The study, which appears in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery, demonstrates that MRI can be used to identify implants that are going to fail before people become symptomatic. "The study shows that synovitis exists in asymptomatic people in a fairly high prevalence," said Hollis Potter, ...

Scientists pinpointed areas of the world where Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) mammals and amphibians occur. Regions containing the highest concentrations of these species are highlighted as global conservation priorities. The research paper is published today (15th May) in PLOS ONE. The map reveals that high priority conservation areas for mammals and amphibians are different, reflecting the varied evolutionary histories and threats facing the two groups. For mammals, management efforts are best focused in Southeast Asia, southern Africa and ...

ATHENS, Ohio (May 15, 2013)—Two fossil discoveries from the East African Rift reveal new information about the evolution of primates, according to a study published online in Nature this week led by Ohio University scientists. The team's findings document the oldest fossils of two major groups of primates: the group that today includes apes and humans (hominoids), and the group that includes Old World monkeys such as baboons and macaques (cercopithecoids). Geological analyses of the study site indicate that the finds are 25 million years old, significantly older than fossils ...

Researchers from University Hospitals Case Medical Center's (UHCMC) Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland, OH, will present findings from two studies evaluating new technologies designed to address common barriers to patient enrollment in clinical trials. Results from a large-scale, randomized trial demonstrated that the use of tailored, web-based videos delivering educational information to patients before an oncologist visit can significantly improve knowledge and reduce attitudinal barriers that impact enrollment in clinical trials. A second, preliminary study showed that ...

In ancient Greece, the city-states that waited until their own harvest was in before attacking and destroying a rival community's crops often experienced better long-term success. It turns out that ant colonies that show similar selectivity when gathering food yield a similar result. The latest findings from Stanford biology Professor Deborah M. Gordon's long-term study of harvester ants reveal that the colonies that restrain their foraging except in prime conditions also experience improved rates of reproductive success. Importantly, the study provides the first evidence ...

This news release is available in German. Below a critical temperature, certain fluids become superfluid and lose internal friction. In addition, fluids in this state conduct heat extremely efficiently, with energy transport occurring in a distinct temperature wave. Because of the similarities to a sound wave, this temperature wave is also called second sound. To explain the nature of superfluids, the famous physicist Lev Landau developed the theory of two-fluid hydrodynamics in Moscow in 1941. He assumed that fluids at these low temperatures comprise a superfluid ...

Men often suffer from more severe cases of psoriasis than women, which may explain why the cost of care for men is higher. This is the conclusion of researchers at Sweden's Umeå University in a new study. It is known that psoriasis affects about as many women as men. However, it has been shown, both in Sweden and internationally, that men receive more frequent and more expensive care for their disease, compared to women. "We find these differences unsettling, which is why we performed this study," says the senior author of the study, Marcus Schmitt-Egenolf, chief physician ...

Scientists at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio have identified four genes in baboons that influence levels of "bad" cholesterol. This discovery could lead to the development of new drugs to reduce the risk of heart disease. "Our findings are important because they provide new targets for the development of novel drugs to reduce heart disease risk in humans," said Laura Cox, Ph.D., a Texas Biomed geneticist. "Since these genes have previously been associated with cancer, our findings suggest that genetic causes of heart disease may overlap with causes ...