AUSTIN, Texas — Invasive "crazy ants" are displacing fire ants in areas across the southeastern United States, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. It's the latest in a history of ant invasions from the southern hemisphere and may prove to have dramatic effects on the ecosystem of the region. The "ecologically dominant" crazy ants are reducing diversity and abundance across a range of ant and arthropod species — but their spread can be limited if people are careful not to transport them inadvertently, according to Ed LeBrun, a research associate ...

New Rochelle, May 16, 2013–Lethal and rescuer genes are defined as genes that when inactivated result in cell death or enhanced cell growth, respectively. The ability to identify these genes in large-scale automated screening campaigns could lead to the discovery of valuable new drug targets. A genome-wide lethality screen that relies on RNA interference technology and led to the validation of 239 gene candidates essential for cell survival is described in ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies, a peer-reviewed journal published from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. ...

ANN ARBOR—The type of sensors that pick up the rhythm of a beating heart in implanted cardiac defibrillators and pacemakers are vulnerable to tampering, according to a new study conducted in controlled laboratory conditions. Implantable defibrillators monitor the heart for irregular beating and, when necessary, administer an electric shock to bring it back into normal rhythm. Pacemakers use electrical pulses to continuously keep the heart in pace. In experiments in simulated human models, an international team of researchers demonstrated that they could forge an erratic ...

UPTON, NY-Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered that DNA "linker" strands coax nano-sized rods to line up in way unlike any other spontaneous arrangement of rod-shaped objects. The arrangement-with the rods forming "rungs" on ladder-like ribbons linked by multiple DNA strands-results from the collective interactions of the flexible DNA tethers and may be unique to the nanoscale. The research, described in a paper published online in ACS Nano, a journal of the American Chemical Society, could result in the fabrication ...

BOSTON – The endothelium, the cellular layer lining the body's blood vessels, is extremely resilient. Measuring just a few hundred nanometers in thickness, this super-tenuous structure routinely withstands blood flow, hydrostatic pressure, stretch and tissue compression to create a unique and highly dynamic barrier that maintains the organization necessary to partition tissues from the body's circulatory system. It's also extremely adaptable. In instances when the barrier must be physically breached to enable immune cells to reach various regions of the body to fight ...

Depressed cancer survivors are twice as likely to die prematurely than those who do not suffer from depression, irrespective of the cancer site. That's according to a new study, by Floortje Mols and colleagues, from Tilburg University in The Netherlands. Their work is published online in Springer's Journal of Cancer Survivorship. The prevalence of cancer is rising, as are the number of individuals who are cured of their cancer or are living with it as a chronic disease. This is partly due to the aging of the population and more effective treatments. As a result, many ...

Sophia Antipolis, 16 May 2013: A packed programme is promised for EHRA EUROPACE2013 meeting, taking place in Athens, Greece, June 23 to 26, with the results of ten late breaking clinical trials and over 1000 original abstracts featured, offering exciting opportunities for news stories. The biennial meeting, which for the first time represents a collaboration between the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) of the ESC and the ESC Working Groups on Cardiac Cellular Electrophysiology and e Cardiology, promises to be more wide ranging than ever before. An eagerly anticipated ...

There are no technical or functional reasons for Amazon and Apple to fence off their e-book worlds using proprietary e-book formats. This is the result of a research study conducted by Professor Dr. Christoph Bläsi and Professor Dr. Franz Rothlauf of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and handed over today to Neelie Kroes, EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, in Brussels. The researchers emphasize the fact that the format standard proposal EPUB3 supports all features needed for multimedia and interactive e-books. Amazon and Apple, however, use other formats that ...

Do most scientists agree that human activity is causing global climate change? Yes, they do, according to an extensive analysis of the abstracts or summaries of scientific papers published over the past 20 years, even though public perception tends to be that climate scientists disagree over the fundamental cause of climate change. To help put a stop to the squabbling, two dozen scientists and citizen-scientists from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the US—including Sarah Green, professor and chair of chemistry at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin. The nanoparticles were designed to sense glucose levels in the body and respond by secreting the appropriate amount of insulin, thereby replacing the function of pancreatic islet cells, which are destroyed in patients with Type 1 diabetes. Ultimately, this type of system could ensure that blood-sugar levels remain balanced and improve patients' quality of life, according ...

TORONTO, May 16, 2013—Men who are heavy drinkers and homeless for long periods of time have 400 times the number of head injuries as the general population, according to a new study by researchers who said they were shocked by their findings. These men have 170 times as many severe head injuries as the general population and 300 times as many injuries that cause bleeding in the brain. The study by Dr. Tomislav Svoboda, a family physician at St. Michael's Hospital, appears online in Emergency Medicine Journal. The study also looked at head injuries in the general homeless ...

MINNEAPOLIS – People who have skin cancer may be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, according to new research published in the May 15, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The link does not apply to melanoma, a less common but more aggressive type of skin cancer. The study involved 1,102 people with an average age of 79 who did not have dementia at the start of the study. The participants were followed for an average of 3.7 years. At the start of the study, 109 people reported that they had skin cancer in ...

Mosquitoes infected with the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum are significantly more attracted to human odors than uninfected mosquitoes, according to research published May 15 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by James Logan and colleagues from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK. The authors investigated the response of mosquitoes infected with P. falciparum malaria parasites and uninfected to human odor collected on a fabric matrix. Mosquitoes that were infected with the parasites landed and probed significantly more than uninfected mosquitoes ...

People suffering from clinical depression express personal goals and reasons for their attainment or failure in less specific terms than people without the disorder. This lack of specificity in representing personal goals may be partially responsible for the motivational deficits seen in these patients, according to research published May 15 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Joanne Dickson from the University of Liverpool, UK and Nicholas Moberly from the University of Exeter, UK. Participants in the study were asked to list specific personally meaningful goals ...

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, ...