In an examination of a type of treatment for allergic rhinitis and asthma that is used in Europe but not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, researchers found moderate strength in the evidence from previous studies to support the use of sublingual immunotherapy for the treatment of these conditions, according to an article in the March 27 issue of JAMA. Sublingual immunotherapy involves administration of aqueous allergens under the tongue for local absorption to desensitize the allergic individual over an extended treatment period to diminish allergic symptoms. Allergic ...

The sequencing and assembly of the genome of the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae, is published online this week in Genome Biology. The species is native to North America, where it is currently wreaking havoc in an area of forest ten times larger than previous outbreaks. This paper determines genes that may be involved in colonizing the trees, such as enzymes for degrading plant cell walls, and identifies potential sex chromosomes in the beetle. D. ponderosae is a species of bark beetle, native to North America, that attacks various species of pine trees. ...

DNA barcode sequencing without the amplification of DNA by PCR beats the problem of false positives which can inflate estimates of biodiversity, finds a study published in BioMed Central and BGI Shenzhen's open access journal GigaScience. This method tested on a bulk 'squashome' of mixed insect samples is also able rapidly and cost-effectively estimate biomass. Often samples collected in the field are too small be sequenced directly. Traditionally, to get round this problem, DNA from the sample is amplified using multiple cycles of PCR. However this process is highly ...

March 27th, 2013, Hong Kong, China – GigaScience (a BGI and BioMed Central open access journal) announces the publication of an article that presents a new method for assessing and understanding biodiversity that uses a DNA-soup made from crushed-up insects and next generation sequencing technology. This bulk-collected insect goo has the potential to rapidly and cost-effectively reveal the diversity and make-up of both known and unknown species collected in a particular time and place. The new method devised by Xin Zhou and colleagues at BGI Shenzhen, China, is a more accurate ...

The indicators currently being used to guide policy and investments into protected areas in the Amazon may not be having the desired effect. This is according to a new study published today, 27 March, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, which has analysed 66 protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon and performed a critical analysis of the tool – the Rapid Assessment and Prioritisation of Protected Area Management (RAPPAM) – that is used to manage, prioritise and assess the effectiveness of conservation efforts in these areas. The researchers, ...

Overweight and obese women are more likely to require specialist medical care during their pregnancy due to the increased risk of adverse neonatal and maternal outcomes, finds a new study published today (27 March) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The study, carried out by a team from Queen's University Belfast and Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, found that maternal obesity has significant health implications contributing to increased morbidity and mortality for both mother and baby. With worldwide obesity rates having doubled over ...

PHILADELPHIA—Radiation oncologists at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital are stressing the need for evidence-based, standardized guidelines on dietary recommendations for cancer patients—and with good reason. A new analysis revealed that online dietary recommendations for cancer patients, if even present on an institution's website, appear to be consistently inconsistent. A review of all 21 of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) member institutions found that only four provided nutritional guidelines, with seven linking to external sites. What's more, ...

Being mugged or randomly attacked in the street often leaves people paranoid and distrustful of others long after the attack, according to a study published today. The research highlights a previously under-recognised consequence of physical assault which will help to inform therapy for those seeking help. In the study, four out of five victims reported that since the assault they were more fearful of other people than they wanted to be. Importantly the study identified what led to excessive mistrust lasting over the next six months. Being attacked close to home, feeling ...

In England, hospital is still the most common place for patients with cancer to die but an increase in home and hospice deaths since 2005 suggests that the National End of Life Care Programme (a Programme to promote the rollout of national end-of-life care initiatives) has helped more people to die at their preferred place of death, according to a UK study funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research (NIHR HS&DR) Programme, published in this week's PLOS Medicine. In a large analysis led by Dr Wei Gao and Professor Irene Higginson ...

Scientists are getting closer to a Chagas disease vaccine, something many believed impossible only 10 years ago. Research from the Sealy Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has resulted in a safe vaccine candidate that is simple to produce and shows a greater than 90 percent protection rate against chronic infection in mice. In a paper published online in PLOS ONE, the researchers describe how they identified and tested potential Trypanosoma cruzi (also known as T. cruzi or Chagas disease) antigen candidates and delivery ...

Research: Association between maternal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level and pregnancy and neonatal outcomes: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies Editorial: Vitamin D sufficiency in pregnancy There is a link between vitamin D insufficiency and adverse health outcomes such as gestational diabetes and preeclampsia in mothers-to-be and low birth weight in newborns, suggests a paper published on bmj.com today. Vitamin D insufficiency has been associated with a number of adverse health outcomes and has been recognised as a public health concern. Plus, ...

In poorer countries, young children are more likely to die in the months before their mother's death, when she is seriously ill, and also in the period after her death, according to a study by international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. These findings are important as they highlight the urgent need for proactive and coordinated community-based interventions to support families, especially vulnerable children, when a mother becomes seriously ill, not just in the period following her death. Research was carried out in a large socio-economically ...

VANCOUVER, Wash.—Scientists have long thought that mice might serve as a model for how humans learn to vocalize. But new research led by scientists at Washington State University-Vancouver has found that, unlike humans and songbirds, mice do not learn how to vocalize. But the results, published in the current Journal of Neuroscience, point the way to a more finely focused, genetic tool for teasing out the mysteries of speech and its disorders. To see if mice learn to vocalize, WSU neurophysiologist Christine Portfors took more than a dozen male mice and destroyed their ...

Research from the University of Iowa suggests that cancer care is more accessible in rural areas than thought, and this increased accessibility should be considered as changes are made in the health care system under the Affordable Care Act. Thomas Gruca, professor of marketing in the Tippie College of Business and study co-author, found that significant portions of Iowa's population are, indeed, an excessive distance from full-service cancer care centers located in larger cities like Des Moines, Omaha/Council Bluffs, or Davenport. But his study finds that number drops ...

AURORA, Colo. (March 26, 2013) Adolescent type 1 diabetes patients face greater risk for heart attacks, strokes, blindness and kidney failure later in life if their transition from pediatric to adult care is not carefully managed, two CU researchers have found. The estimated median age at transition to adult care was 20.1 years and 77 percent of individuals with type 1 diabetes had left pediatric care by age 21. The study suggests that without support, they were 2.5 times more likely to have high blood glucose levels when transitioning from pediatric to adult care The ...

A new study in the journal Geology is the latest to tie a string of unusual earthquakes, in this case, in central Oklahoma, to the injection of wastewater deep underground. Researchers now say that the magnitude 5.7 earthquake near Prague, Okla., on Nov. 6, 2011, may also be the largest ever linked to wastewater injection. Felt as far off as Milwaukee, more than 800 miles away, the quake—the biggest ever recorded in Oklahoma--destroyed 14 homes, buckled a federal highway and left two people injured. Small earthquakes continue to be recorded in the area. The study appeared ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Breakfast might be the most important meal of the day, but up to 60 percent of American young people consistently skip it. Now, Heather Leidy, an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, says eating a breakfast rich in protein significantly improves appetite control and reduces unhealthy snacking on high-fat or high-sugar foods in the evening, which could help improve the diets of more than 25 million overweight or obese young adults in the U.S. Leidy is the first to examine the impact of breakfast consumption on daily ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – March 26, 2013 – A proof-of-concept study suggests the possibility of engineering artificial ovaries in the lab to provide a more natural option for hormone replacement therapy for women. In Biomaterials, a team from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine report that in the laboratory setting, engineered ovaries showed sustained release of the sex hormones estrogen and progesterone. Although there are medications that can compensate for the loss of female sex hormone production, the drugs are often not recommended ...

From Junior Seau, former San Diego Chargers linebacker, to Dave Duerson, former Chicago Bears safety — who both committed suicide as a result of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) have been making gruesome headlines at an alarming rate. In the United States alone, TBIs account for an estimated 1.6 - 3.8 million sports injuries every year, with approximately 300,000 of those being diagnosed among young, nonprofessional athletes. But TBIs are not confined to sports; they are also considered a signature wound among soldiers of the Iraq ...

Washington, D.C. (March 26, 2013) – Despite some very high-profile female candidates and elected officials, and what looks like a changing landscape of U.S. politics, a new study conducted by American University professor and director of its Women and Politics Institute Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox (Loyola Marymount University) reveals that young women are less likely than young men ever to have considered running for office, to express interest in a candidacy at some point in the future, or to consider elective office a desirable profession. In their new ...

A once-promising approach for using next-generation, ultra-intense lasers to help deliver commercially viable fusion energy has been brought into serious question by new experimental results and first-of-a-kind simulations of laser-plasma interaction. Researchers at The Ohio State University are evaluating a two-stage process in which a pellet of fusion fuel is first crushed by lasers on all sides, shrinking the pellet to dozens of times its original size, followed by an ultra-intense burst of laser light to ignite a chain reaction. This two-stage approach is called Fast ...

The nation's 40 federally-funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) spent $17.8 billion on research and development (R&D) in fiscal year (FY) 2011, according to a recent report from the National Science Foundation. More than $850 million of the total was supplied by funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. FFRDCs are privately operated R&D organizations financed by the federal government. They include national labs and observatories. Federal funding accounted for 97.6 percent, or $17.4 billion, of the FFRDCs' total expenditures in FY 2011. ...

In a National Science Foundation funded study, Kathleen Alexander, an associate professor of wildlife at Virginia Tech, found that climate drives a large part of diarrheal disease and increases the threat of climate change for vulnerable communities. The only study of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa is based on three decades of historical data and has important implications for arid countries around the world struggling with poverty and increasing health challenges. Alexander, a veterinarian, teaches in Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment and ...

When it officially came online at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) in early January 2012, Gordon was instantly impressive. In one demonstration, it sustained more than 35 million input/output operations per second--then, a world record. Input/output operations are an important measure for data intensive computing, indicating the ability of a storage system to quickly communicate between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world. Input/output operations specify how fast a system can retrieve randomly organized data common in large ...

PHILADELPHIA - Certified Primary Stroke Centers are three times more likely to administer clot-busting treatment for strokes than non-certified centers, reports a new study by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, looked at a wide sample of hospitals across the United States, and provides insight into practice across the US health care system as experts examine ways to increase the use of this important therapy. Clot busting treatment is used to open blocked ...