Facebook and other social networking technologies could serve as effective tools for preventing HIV infection among at-risk groups, new UCLA research suggests. In a study published in the February issue of the peer-reviewed journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases, researchers found that African American and Latino men who have sex with men voluntarily used health-related Facebook groups, which were created by the study's investigators, to discuss such things as HIV knowledge, stigma and prevention and ultimately to request at-home HIV testing kits. "Researchers, policymakers ...

HOUSTON -- (Feb. 6, 2013) -- A new Rice University-led study finds the real estate mantra "location, location, location" may also explain one of Earth's enduring climate mysteries. The study suggests that Earth's repeated flip-flopping between greenhouse and icehouse states over the past 500 million years may have been driven by the episodic flare-up of volcanoes at key locations where enormous amounts of carbon dioxide are poised for release into the atmosphere. "We found that Earth's continents serve as enormous 'carbonate capacitors,'" said Rice's Cin-Ty Lee, the lead ...

A minimally invasive procedure to remove blood clots in brain tissue after hemorrhagic stroke appears safe and may also reduce long-term disability, according to late-breaking research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. Of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have intracerebral hemorrhages (ICH) each year, most are severely debilitated, said Daniel Hanley, M.D., lead author and professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md. ICH is the most common type of bleeding stroke. It occurs when ...

Eating Southern-style foods may be linked to a higher risk of stroke, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. In the first large-scale study on the relationship between Southern foods and stroke, researchers characterized a Southern diet by a high intake of foods such as fried chicken, fried fish, fried potatoes, bacon, ham, liver and gizzards, and sugary drinks such as sweet tea. In addition to being high in fat, fried foods tend to be heavily salted. "We've got three major factors working together in ...

Nearly one in 12 American stroke survivors may have contemplated suicide or wished themselves dead, according to a study presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. The proportion of stroke survivors who contemplated suicide was striking, compared with patients with other health conditions, said Amytis Towfighi, M.D., lead author of the study and an assistant professor of Clinical Neurology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and chair of the Department of Neurology at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation ...

About one-third of American infants and children who suffer bleeding into brain tissue, may later have seizures and as many as 13 percent will develop epilepsy within two years, according to new research reported at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. Bleeding into brain tissue is a type of stroke called intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Each year, an estimated 6.4 newborns and children per every 100,000 in the United States suffer strokes. About half of the strokes are hemorrhagic, typically caused by rupturing of weakened or malformed ...

More than a third of patients who suffer a major bleeding in the brain and have their life support withdrawn might have eventually regained an acceptable level of functioning if life support had been sustained, suggests a new study presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2013. In the United States, 10 percent of the estimated 795,000 strokes each year are intracerebral hemorrhages (ICH). ICH is the most common type of bleeding stroke and it occurs when a weakened blood vessel inside the brain ruptures and leaks blood into surrounding ...

For sockeye salmon coming home after years spent at sea, a magnetic map is apparently responsible for their remarkable sense of direction. That's according to an analysis of data collected over 56 years and reported online on February 7 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. "To find their way back home across thousands of kilometers of ocean, salmon imprint on the magnetic field that exists where they first enter the sea as juveniles," said Nathan Putman of Oregon State University. "Upon reaching maturity, they seek the coastal location with the same magnetic ...

AUDIO: This is a recording of ant pupa sound. Click here for more information. For young ants at the pupal stage of life—caught between larva and adulthood—status is all about being heard. The findings, reported online on February 7 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, add to evidence that ants can communicate abstract information through sound in addition to chemical cues. "One of the truly fascinating characteristics of social insects is their power of self-organization, ...

As the elderly age, their ability to concentrate, reason, and recall facts tends to decline in part because their brains generate fewer new neurons than they did when they were younger. Now, researchers reporting in the February 7th issue of the Cell Press journal Cell Stem Cell have discovered a molecule that accumulates with age and inhibits the formation of new neurons. The finding might help scientists design therapies to prevent age-related cognitive decline. The investigators identified the molecule, called Dickkopf-1 or Dkk1, in the brains of aged mice. By blocking ...

Studies in animals have raised concerns that tumors may grow faster after the anticancer drug sunitinib is discontinued. But oncologists and physicists who collaborated to analyze data from the largest study of patients with kidney cancer convincingly demonstrate that such tumor acceleration does not occur in humans. The findings, publishing online on February 7th in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports, suggest that sunitinib does not cause lingering risks for patients after their treatment ends. "We were able to demonstrate that this applied across all patients and that ...

Through a series of investigations in mice and humans, Johns Hopkins researchers have identified a protein that appears to be the target of both antidepressant drugs and electroconvulsive therapy. Results of their experiments explain how these therapies likely work to relieve depression by stimulating stem cells in the brain to grow and mature. In addition, the researchers say, these experiments raise the possibility of predicting individual people's response to depression therapy, and fine-tuning treatment accordingly. Reports on separate aspects of the research were published ...

In an update to previous research, Johns Hopkins neurologists say minimally invasive delivery of the drug tPA directly into potentially lethal blood clots in the brain helped more patients function independently a year after suffering an intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), a deadly and debilitating form of stroke. Rates of functional recovery with the active tPA treatment far surpassed those achieved with standard "supportive" therapy that essentially gives clots a chance to shrink on their own. In the current Johns Hopkins-led study, ICH patients who randomly received the ...

A stroke survivor's chances of living independently after 90 days are not improved by the use of devices inserted into the artery to dissolve or remove a stroke-causing clot shortly after the onset of symptoms, according to a randomized controlled trial involving 656 patients. The study, funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, compared the intra-arterial device-based approach plus the current standard of intravenous (IV) tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA), a clot-busting drug with IV t-PA ...

VIDEO: This video (S3 in the paper) shows the transport defect of the serotonin receptor in a KIF13A knock out neuron compared with a wild type neuron. Click here for more information. When motors break down, getting where you want to go becomes a struggle. Problems arise in much the same way for critical brain receptors when the molecular motors they depend on fail to operate. Now, researchers reporting in Cell Reports, a Cell Press publication, on February 7, have shown ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The mystery of how salmon navigate across thousands of miles of open ocean to locate their river of origin before journeying upstream to spawn has intrigued biologists for decades, and now a new study may offer a clue to the fishes' homing strategy. In the study, scientists examined 56 years of fisheries data documenting the return of sockeye salmon to the Fraser River in British Columbia – and the route they chose around Vancouver Island showed a correlation with changes in the intensity of the geomagnetic field. Results of the study, which was supported ...

STANFORD, Calif. — It's established dogma that the immune system develops a "memory" of a microbial pathogen, with a correspondingly enhanced readiness to combat that microbe, only upon exposure to it — or to its components though a vaccine. But a discovery by Stanford University School of Medicine researchers casts doubt on that dogma. In a path-breaking study to be published online Feb. 7 in Immunity, the investigators found that over the course of our lives, CD4 cells — key players circulating in blood and lymph whose ability to kick-start the immune response to viral, ...

A study out today in the journal Cell Stem Cell shows that human brain cells created by reprogramming skin cells are highly effective in treating myelin disorders, a family of diseases that includes multiple sclerosis and rare childhood disorders called pediatric leukodystrophies. The study is the first successful attempt to employ human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) to produce a population of cells that are critical to neural signaling in the brain. In this instance, the researchers utilized cells crafted from human skin and transplanted them into animal models ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that zinc helps control infections by gently tapping the brakes on the immune response in a way that prevents out-of-control inflammation that can be damaging and even deadly. Scientists determined in human cell culture and animal studies that a protein lures zinc into key cells that are first-responders against infection. The zinc then interacts with a process that is vital to the fight against infection and by doing so helps balance the immune response. This study revealed for the first time that zinc homes in on this pathway ...

A study at the University of Liverpool into the spread of sexually transmitted infection in ladybirds has shown that disease risk to large populations cannot be predicted without a full understanding of the disease dynamics at small geographical scale. Scientists investigated a virulent form of infection in the central and northern European populations of the two-spot ladybird to understand the conditions that favoured disease spread. Researchers found that disease burden in two locations of the same habitat – the lime tree - were very different, despite being within ...

Boston, MA, Feb. 7, 2013 – Doctors routinely track their patients' hand-eye coordination to monitor any neuromuscular deficits, particularly as patients age or when they are injured -- but the tests they have been using to track this kind of information may be subjective and qualitative. Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Hebrew SeniorLife, Boston (BIDMC), recently completed the first clinical study of a new rapid neuroassessment device they developed to quantitatively ...

DALLAS – Feb. 7, 2013 – UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists have synthesized a peptide that shows potential for pharmaceutical development into agents for treating infections, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer through an ability to induce a cell-recycling process called autophagy. Autophagy is a fundamental recycling process in which intracellular enzymes digest unneeded and broken parts of the cell into their individual building blocks, which are then reassembled into new parts. The role of autophagy is crucial both in keeping cells healthy and in enabling ...

JUPITER, FL, February 7, 2013 – Using two different compounds they developed, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have been able to show in animal models that inhibiting a specific enzyme protects heart cells and surrounding tissue against serious damage from heart attacks. The compounds also protect against additional injury from restored blood flow after an attack, a process known as reperfusion. The study, which was led by Philip LoGrasso, a professor and senior scientific director of discovery biology at Scripps Florida, appears ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The stark contrast between America's "me-first" culture and the "collective-good" mentality in China is reflected in the two countries' use of social networking sites, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University scholar. U.S. citizens spend more time on the networking sites, consider them to be more important and have more "friends" on the sites, the research found. The most popular social networking site in the United States is Facebook; in China it's Ozone. Linda Jackson, MSU professor of psychology, said Chinese citizens tend ...

In time for Valentine's Day, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin is featuring several new studies all about relationships – including the link between income in marriage and health, the role of jealousy in becoming a parent, and how humor affects romantic couples in conflict. Being the breadwinner has health costs Men whose wives earn more income are more likely to use erectile dysfunction medication than those who outearn their wives, even when the inequality is small, according to a new study. Researchers looking at more than 200,000 married couples in Denmark ...