A class of water-loving, jelly-like materials with uses ranges ranging from the mundane, such as superabsorbent diaper liners, to the sophisticated, such as soft contact lenses, could be tapped for a new line of serious work: testing the biological effects of nanoparticles now being eyed for a large variety of uses. New research* by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) demonstrates that three-dimensional scaffolds made with cells and supporting materials known as hydrogels can serve as life-like measurement platforms for evaluating how ...

Using a powerful combination of microanalytic techniques that simultaneously image photoelectric current and chemical reaction rates across a surface on a micrometer scale, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have shed new light on what may become a cost-effective way to generate hydrogen gas directly from water and sunlight.* Their quarry is a potentially efficient, cost-effective, photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell—essentially a solar cell that produces hydrogen gas instead of electric current. "A major challenge with solar energy is ...

Solar activity continued on May 14, 2013, as the sun emitted a fourth X-class flare from its upper left limb, peaking at 9:48 p.m. EDT. This flare is classified as an X1.2 flare and it is the 18th X-class flare of the current solar cycle. The flare caused a radio blackout – categorized as an R3, or strong, on NOAA's space weather scales from R1 to R5 -- which has since subsided. The flare was also associated with a non-Earth-directed CME. CMEs and flares are separate but related solar phenomena: solar flares are powerful bursts that send light and radiation into space; ...

Women in their 40s continue to undergo routine breast cancer screenings despite national guidelines recommending otherwise, according to new Johns Hopkins research. In 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) sifted through the evidence and recommended that while women ages 50-74 should continue to undergo mammograms every two years, those between the ages of 40 and 49 without a family history of breast cancer should discuss the risks and benefits of routine screening mammography with their physicians to make individual decisions. As a result of the altered ...

URBANA –Two University of Illinois scientists have developed an environmentally friendly and more economical way of pretreating Miscanthus in the biofuel production process. "We pretreat the biomass with switchable butadiene sulfone in the presence of water to break down the plant cell wall, which consists of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, the source of biofuels and value-added products," said Hao Feng, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition who also has extensive research experience with biofuels. The new technique is a green alternative to current ...

SALT LAKE CITY – Research conducted by the Pelvic Floor Disorders Network, an initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health, has revealed that the long-term success rates of a surgery to treat pelvic organ prolapse are lower than expected. Nearly one-third of women develop anatomic or symptomatic treatment failure within five years of undergoing sacrocolpopexy for pelvic organ prolapse, according to a study published in the May 15 issue of JAMA. "Each year, 225,000 women in the United States undergo surgery for pelvic organ prolapse, but little is known about ...

Obese patients who received robotic kidney transplants had fewer wound complications than patients who received traditional "open" transplant surgery, according to surgeons at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System. The findings should allow more obese patients to receive kidney transplants. Patients with a body mass index (BMI) greater than 35 who have end-stage kidney disease are often denied transplantation, and patients with a BMI over 40 often die on dialysis without an opportunity for transplant. Obesity "markedly increases the risk of wound ...

BOSTON – "Lack of access to dental care in the United States has reached epic proportions. Dental disease is the number one chronic illness affecting children – more common than asthma. The Institute of Medicine clearly states that the current dental delivery system doesn't work for a third of the people in the U.S. "The American Dental Association survey and report confirm the extent of the problem, but the association's recommendations for combating the problem are sorely lacking in one area: the refusal to include midlevel dental providers in the fight to expand access ...

The eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula, a finger of the southern polar continent that juts toward South America, has experienced summer warming of perhaps a half-degree per decade – a greater rate than possibly anywhere else on Earth – in the last 50 years, and that warming is largely attributed to human causes. But new University of Washington research shows that the Southern Hemisphere's fall months – March, April and May – are the only time when there has been extensive warming over the entire peninsula, and that is largely governed by atmospheric circulation ...

Community groups in rural Vietnam comprised of local health workers, politicians and laywomen (Maternal and Newborn Health Groups) set up to tackle challenges to maternal and neonatal health may reduce the neonatal death rate after three years and increase antenatal care attendance, according to a study by researchers from Sweden and Vietnam published in this week's PLOS Medicine. These findings are important as they show that is it feasible to implement community-based activity into the public sector system at low cost. The researchers, led by Lars-Åke Persson from ...

The bacterium M. pneumoniae is carried at high rates in the upper respiratory tracts of healthy children and usual diagnostic tests cannot differentiate between such asymptomatic carriage and actual respiratory tract infection, according to a study by Dutch researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. These findings are important as they suggest that clinicians may need to reconsider the clinical significance of a positive test result for the presence of this bacterium. The researchers, led by Annemarie van Rossum from Erasmus MC–Sophia in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, ...

While considerable recent progress has been made against childhood diarrheal diseases, the number of children dying from diarrhoea remains unacceptably high. This week, PLOS Medicine publishes a report based upon the work of over 150 international experts who convened to review and discuss research priorities to address this global problem. Zulfiqar Bhutta from the Aga Khan University in Pakistan and colleagues report that the most important priority is for more research on implementation of known interventions. Research questions involving improving implementation, especially ...

Non-communicable diseases (NCD) and mental disorders each constitute a huge portion of the worldwide health care burden, and often occur together, so they should be addressed together. These are the conclusions of the third article in a series published in PLOS Medicine that provides a global perspective on integrating mental health. Victoria Ngo from the RAND Corporation in California and international colleagues say that collaborative care models, where NCD care and mental health care are integrated and provided in the primary care setting, are effective for patients, ...

MAYWOOD – The initial success rates of the most durable surgery for a common condition in women declines over the long-term, according to data published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The procedure, abdominal sacrocolpopexy, is used to manage pelvic organ prolapse, a widespread but little-known condition that occurs when the vaginal wall protrudes outside of the vaginal opening. More than 225,000 surgeries are performed annually in the United States for pelvic organ prolapse. The cost for these procedures is more than $1 billion per year, ...

Even though patients receiving an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) for primary prevention often receive a dual-chamber ICD, an analysis that included more than 32,000 patients receiving an ICD without indications for pacing finds that the use of a dual-chamber device compared with a single-chamber device was associated with a higher risk of device-related complications and similar 1-year mortality and hospitalization outcomes, according to a study in the May 15 issue of JAMA. "The central decision regarding ICD therapy is whether to use a single- or dual-chamber ...

Results after seven years of follow-up suggest that women considering abdominal sacrocolpopexy (surgery for pelvic organ prolapse [POP]) should be counseled that this procedure effectively provides relief from POP symptoms; however, the anatomic support deteriorates over time; and that adding an anti-incontinence procedure decreases, but does not eliminate the risk of stress urinary incontinence, and mesh erosion can be a problem, according to a study in the May 15 issue of JAMA. "Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when the uterus or vaginal walls bulge into or beyond the ...

Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the United States. Declines in smoking among youths were observed from the late 1990s. "However, limited information exists on trends in smokeless tobacco use among U.S. youths," writes Israel T. Agaku, D.M.D., M.P.H., of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues. As reported in a Research Letter in the May 15 issue of JAMA, the authors analyzed recent trends in prevalence of smokeless tobacco use among youths using the 2000-2011 National Youth Tobacco Survey, a biennial national ...

Berkeley — New technology developed at the University of California, Berkeley, is using wireless signals to provide real-time, non-invasive diagnoses of brain swelling or bleeding. The device analyzes data from low energy, electromagnetic waves, similar to the kind used to transmit radio and mobile signals. The technology, described in the May 14 issue of the journal PLOS ONE, could potentially become a cost-effective tool for medical diagnostics and to triage injuries in areas where access to medical care, especially medical imaging, is limited. The researchers tested ...

All mammals sleep, as do birds and some insects. However, how this basic function is regulated by the brain remains unclear. According to a new study by researchers from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, a brain region called the lateral habenula plays a central role in the regulation of REM sleep. In an article published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, the team shows that the lateral habenula maintains and regulates REM sleep in rats through regulation of the serotonin system. This study is the first to show a role of the lateral habenula in linking serotonin metabolism ...

Women with a lean body shape have a greater risk of developing endometriosis than women who are morbidly obese, according to the largest prospective study to investigate the link. The study, which is published online today (Wednesday) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction [1], found that the risk of endometriosis was 39% lower in morbidly obese women – those with a body mass index (BMI) greater than 40 kg/m2 – compared with women with a current BMI in the low normal range (18.5-22.4 kg/m2). When the researchers looked back at the women's ...

Women's immune systems age more slowly than men's, suggests research in BioMed Central's open access journal Immunity & Ageing. The slower decline in a woman's immune system may contribute to women living longer than men. Researchers looked at the blood of healthy volunteers in Japan, ranging in age between 20 and 90 years old; in both sexes the total number of white blood cells per person decreased with age. The number of neutrophils decreased for both sexes and lymphocytes decreased in men and increased in women. Younger men generally have higher levels of lymphocytes ...

Scientists from Royal Holloway University have found that when white Caucasians are under the illusion that they have a dark skin, their racial bias changes in a positive way. In the study that was funded by the European Research Council and published today in Cognition, the team used the tried and tested Rubber Hand Illusion, where participants are asked to look at a fake hand being touched, while at the same time, the experimenter touches the participants' own hand which is hidden out of view. The combination of seeing the touch on the rubber hand and feeing touch ...

The authors say that, while helmets reduce head injuries and their use should be encouraged, in the context of existing safety campaigns, the impact of legislation seems to be minimal. Cyclists are vulnerable road users and head injuries among cyclists account for 75% of cycling related deaths. But debate exists about whether or not helmet legislation is an effective strategy to reduce serious head injuries among cyclists of all ages. So a team of researchers based in Canada examined changes in the rate of cycling related head injuries associated with helmet legislation ...

The journal says it is committed to "stepping up its commitment to patient partnership" and wants to "develop a strategy for patient partnership that will be reflected across the entire journal." In an editorial, BMJ editors along with Professor Victor Montori and Dave Paul at the Mayo Clinic in the US, argue that the preservation of institutional bureaucracies, as well as professional and commercial vested interests, "have consistently trumped the interests of patients." They say clinicians and patients need to work in partnership "if we are to improve healthcare and ...

Having a hysterectomy with or without ovary removal in mid-life does not increase a woman's risk of cardiovascular disease compared to women who reach natural menopause, contrary to many previously reported studies, according to research published online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. "Middle-aged women who are considering hysterectomy should be encouraged because our results suggest that increased levels of cardiovascular risk factors are not any more likely after hysterectomy relative to after natural menopause," said Karen A. Matthews, ...