You may have heard of couples that strive for exact equality when it comes to chores, i.e. I scrub a dish, you scrub a dish, I change a diaper, you change a diaper. But new research finds that keeping score with chores isn't the best path to a high-quality relationship. Instead the data points to two items that should have a permanent place on a father's to-do list: Do housework alongside your spouse Spend quality time with the kids "We found that it didn't matter who did what, but how satisfied people were with the division of labor," said Brigham Young University ...

In a recently published article in Communication & Sport, Jimmy Sanderson, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Clemson University, and Elizabeth Emmons, a doctoral student in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama explore people's willingness to forgive then Texas Rangers player Josh Hamilton after an incident in January 2012. Hamilton serves as a unique study for fan behavior, as he as arguably generates as much attention as a human interest story as he does for his athletic performance. Hamilton's ...

Managing the delicate issue of sexual expression amongst people with dementia is the focus of a new education resource produced by Griffith University researcher Dr Cindy Jones. The first resource of its kind and the subject of funding from the Department of Health and Aging and Queensland Dementia Training and Study Centres (DTSC), Sexualities and Dementia: Education Resource for Health Professionals is aimed at assisting health professionals working across care settings. Based on national and international literature and research by Dr Jones from Griffith's Centre ...

Illnesses caused by many of the world's most deadly viruses cannot be effectively treated with existing drugs or vaccines. A study published by Cell Press in the March 21 issue of the journal Chemistry & Biology has revealed several compounds that can inhibit multiple viruses, such as highly lethal Ebola virus, as well as pathogens responsible for rabies, mumps, and measles, opening up new therapeutic avenues for combating highly pathogenic viruses. "The medical field currently does not have ideal antiviral therapies, often no therapeutics at all, and the development ...

In infected individuals, HIV mutates rapidly to escape recognition by immune cells. This process of continuous evolution is the main obstacle to natural immunity and the development of an effective vaccine. A new study published by Cell Press in the March 21 issue of the journal Immunity reveals that the immune system has the capacity to adapt such that it can recognize mutations in HIV. The findings suggest that our immune cells' adaptability could be harnessed to help in the fight against AIDS. An international collaboration between research groups in France, England, ...

PHILADELPHIA — Scientists have characterized how the functionality of genetically engineered T cells administered therapeutically to patients with melanoma changed over time. The data, which are published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, highlight the need for new strategies to sustain antitumor T cell functionality to increase the effectiveness of this immunotherapeutic approach. Early clinical research has indicated that cell-based immunotherapies for cancer, in particular melanoma, have potential because patients treated ...

Seventy-five percent of the world's population consumes nearly twice the daily recommended amount of sodium (salt), according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention 2013 Scientific Sessions. Global sodium intake from commercially prepared food, table salt, salt and soy sauce added during cooking averaged nearly 4,000 mg a day in 2010. The World Health Organization recommends limiting sodium to less than 2,000 mg a day and the American Heart Association ...

Researchers from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute and Nippon Medical School in Japan have identified a protein likely to be involved in the exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This protein, Siglec-14, could serve as a potential new target for the treatment of COPD exacerbation. In a study published today in the journal Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences the researchers show that COPD patients who do not express Siglec-14, a glycan-recognition protein, are less susceptible to exacerbation compared with those who do. COPD is a chronic ...

JUPITER, FL – March 21, 2013 – Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in Jupiter, FL, have developed cutting-edge technology that can successfully screen human blood for disease markers. This tool may hold the key to better diagnosing and understanding today's most pressing and puzzling health conditions, including autoimmune diseases. "This study validates that the 'antigen surrogate' technology will indeed be a powerful tool for diagnostics," said Thomas Kodadek, PhD, a professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Cancer Biology and vice chairman of ...

(Boston) – Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified a new chemical class of compounds that have the potential to block genetically diverse viruses from replicating. The findings, published in Chemistry & Biology, could allow for the development of broad-spectrum antiviral medications to treat a number of viruses, including the highly pathogenic Ebola and Marburg viruses. Claire Marie Filone, PhD, postdoctoral researcher at BUSM and the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), is the paper's first ...

The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) released the widely-anticipated "ACMG Recommendations for Reporting of Incidental Findings in Clinical Exome and Genome Sequencing" report at its 2013 Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting today in Phoenix. The ACMG Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting is one of the largest gatherings of medical and health professionals in genetics in the world. As exome and genome sequencing become more commonly used in medical care, doctors will increasingly be able to learn about genetic changes that increase an individual's risk ...

NEW YORK – Depressive symptoms after heart disease are associated with a markedly increased risk of death or another heart attack. However, less has been known about whether treating heart attack survivors for depressive symptoms could relieve these symptoms, be cost-effective, and ultimately, reduce medical risk? Columbia University Medical Center's Karina W. Davidson, PhD and her research team now report a patient-centered approach that answers these questions in the affirmative. With a grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute ...

TORONTO, March 21, 2013—Homeless people and their health care providers need to know more about traumatic brain injuries to help prevent and treat such injuries, a new study has found. Homeless people have a disproportionately higher risk for TBI compared to the general population, yet little is known about the severity of those injuries, who exactly is suffering from them and what the long-term consequences are. "A better understanding of TBI, its presentation and characteristics in the homeless is vital in order to enable appropriate interventions, treatments, and ...

A dysfunction of a certain Calcium channel, the so called P/Q-type channel, in neurons of the cerebellum is sufficient to cause different motor diseases as well as a special type of epilepsy. This is reported by the research team of Dr. Melanie Mark and Prof. Dr. Stefan Herlitze from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. They investigated mice that lacked the ion channel of the P/Q-type in the modulatory input neurons of the cerebellum. "We expect that our results will contribute to the development of treatments for in particular children and young adults suffering from absence ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study finds that two genes individually associated with rare autism-related disorders are also jointly linked to more general forms of autism. The finding suggests a new genetic pathway to investigate in general autism research. The genes encode the proteins NHE6 and NHE9, which are responsible for biochemical exchanges in the endosomes of cells. Mutations in the NHE6 gene are a direct cause of Christianson Syndrome, while mutations in the NHE9 gene lead to a severe form of autism with epilepsy. In the new study, a statistical ...

"We are very excited, we are finally seeing the concrete results of so many years of hard work". This is how the scientists of the Planck project have commented the first data resulting from the observations carried out by Planck. The mission of the ESA satellite is to observe the past of our Universe, going back in time and reaching the very first instant right after the Big Bang. The image that the Planck scientists convey today is that of a 'child' Universe, dating back to about 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when its temperature was similar to that of the most external ...

The two endangered fish species, Squalius aradensis and S. torgalensis, most generally belong to the Cyprinidae, or the carp family. This is the largest fish, and vertebrate family, formed of freshwater fish with a diversity of more than 2,400 species. The family also has an important economic value as a food source. More specifically, the two species studied are members of the subfamily Leuciscinae, formed of small freshwater fish commonly known as minnows. A new genetic study of the two endangered fish was recently published in the open access journal Comparative Cytogenetics. S. ...

"Are there genetic risk factors for PCa? Yes, and BRCA2 and HOXB13 are useful for predicting high-risk disease," said Jack Cuzick (GB) president of the International Society for Cancer Prevention (ISCaP), referring to the two genes implicated in high-risk prostate disease. Cuzick gave a report on the Consensus Statement for Prostate Cancer Prevention at the closing plenary session of the 28 Annual EAU Congress held in Milan, Italy from March 15 to 19. "The goal should be to integrate with other protein markers in order to develop risk-adapted screening algorithms," he ...

This press release is available in German. System-wide networks of proteins are indispensable for organisms. Function and evolution of these networks are among the most fascinating research questions in biology. Bioinformatician Thomas Rattei, University of Vienna, and physicist Hernan Makse, City University New York (CUNY), have reconstructed ancestral protein networks. The results are of high interest not only for evolutionary research but also for the interpretation of genome sequence data. Recently, the researchers published their paper in the renowned journal PLOS ...

Planck refines our knowledge of the Universe's composition and evolution New maps provide excellent evidence for our standard model of cosmology Planck dates Universe at 13.82 billion years old Anomalies suggest that Universe may be different on scales larger than those we can directly observe Most accurate values yet for the ingredients of the Universe, with normal matter contributing just 4.9% of the mass/energy density of the Universe and dark matter making up 26.8% - nearly a fifth more than the previous estimate. Europe's Planck satellite - a flagship mission ...

BOSTON, MA—According to a new study, the last few meals before surgery might make a difference in recovery after surgery. Fat tissue is one of the most dominant components that make up the body, and fat tissue is always traumatized during major surgery. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) found that this direct trauma greatly impacts the chemical balance of fat tissue—chemicals that are known to communicate with nearby and distant organs. In the study, mice that consumed a typical Western, high-fat diet showed an exaggerated imbalanced response. Importantly, ...

(Boston) – A new study involving researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) has identified barriers that clinicians face in correctly ordering appropriate laboratory tests and highlights some solutions that may simplify this process and improve patient outcomes. The study, published in the March 2013 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, was led by Elissa Passiment, EdM, of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science and James L. Meisel, MD, associate professor of medicine at BUSM. Passiment, Meisel and colleagues identified ...

MANHATTAN -- A Kansas State University research team has found that despite humans increasing nitrogen production through industrialization, nitrogen availability in many ecosystems has remained steady for the past 500 years. Their work appears in the journal Nature. "People have been really interested in nitrogen in current times because it's a major pollutant," said Kendra McLauchlan, assistant professor of geography and director of the university's Paleoenvironmental Laboratory. "Humans are producing a lot more nitrogen than in the past for use as crop fertilizer, ...

Philadelphia, PA, March 21, 2013 – The April issue of Translational Research examines the progress and outlook of gene therapy research, with a specific focus on the clinical applicability of gene therapy today. Research articles included in the special issue highlight current studies that, after decades of trial and error, may provide evidence for a clear path of treatment and cure for many diseases. There are more than 1,800 genetic disorders known in humans, and only a small fraction of these can be treated and even fewer cured. Some of these disorders are exceedingly ...

University of Colorado Boulder astronomers targeting one of the brightest quasars glowing in the universe some 11 billion years ago say "sideline quasars" likely teamed up with it to heat abundant helium gas billions of years ago, preventing small galaxy formation. CU-Boulder Professor Michael Shull and Research Associate David Syphers used the Hubble Space Telescope to look at the quasar -- the brilliant core of an active galaxy that acted as a "lighthouse" for the observations -- to better understand the conditions of the early universe. The scientists studied gaseous ...