DURHAM, N.C. -- Close family members of people with Alzheimer's disease are more than twice as likely as those without a family history to develop silent buildup of brain plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease, according to researchers at Duke Medicine. The study, published online in the journal PLOS ONE on April 17, 2013, confirms earlier findings on a known genetic variation that increases one's risk for Alzheimer's, and raises new questions about other genetic factors involved in the disease that have yet to be identified. An estimated 25 million people worldwide ...

An international team of researchers has decoded the genome of a creature whose evolutionary history is both enigmatic and illuminating: the African coelacanth. A sea-cave dwelling, five-foot long fish with limb-like fins, the coelacanth was once thought to be extinct. A living coelacanth was discovered off the African coast in 1938, and since then, questions about these ancient-looking fish – popularly known as "living fossils" – have loomed large. Coelacanths today closely resemble the fossilized skeletons of their more than 300-million-year-old ancestors. Its genome ...

The European Commission needs to make some key innovations in its science funding programme if Europe is to enjoy the full benefits of the €70 billion to be spent on science research as part of the Horizon 2020 programme kicking off in 2014, according to an academic paper published by SAGE in the Journal of Health Services Research & Policy today. The Commission has already taken important steps to reduce administration costs and stimulate the participation of small business in research, but there are still significant gaps, say the authors of Europe's 'Horizon 2020' ...

While studying rats' ability to navigate familiar territory, Johns Hopkins scientists found that one particular brain structure uses remembered spatial information to imagine routes the rats then follow. Their discovery has implications for understanding why damage to that structure, called the hippocampus, disrupts specific types of memory and learning in people with Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline. And because these mental trajectories guide the rats' behavior, the research model the scientists developed may be useful in future studies on higher-level ...

Chevy Chase, MD—Reminding primary care doctors to test at-risk patients for osteoporosis can prevent fractures and reduce health care costs, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Osteoporosis is a condition that is common, costly and undertreated. Low trauma fractures in older individuals are a "red flag" for osteoporosis, but those at risk often are not treated for the condition. Rates of osteoporosis testing and treatment are typically less than 20 percent in the first ...

Chevy Chase, MD––Although the drug zoledronic acid slows bone loss in osteoporosis patients, it also boosts levels of a biomarker that stops bone formation, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Osteoporosis weakens bones and increases the risk patients will suffer fractures. The findings suggest combination therapy may be a more effective approach to battling this common condition. "The key to effectively treating osteoporosis lies in increasing bone mass," said the study's ...

Chevy Chase, MD––Hair strands contain valuable information about senior citizens' stress levels that can be used to determine an individual's cardiovascular disease risk, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Unlike a blood test that captures a snapshot of stress hormone levels at a single point in time, a scalp hair analysis can be used to view trends in levels of the stress hormone cortisol over the course of several months. This approach allows researchers to have a better ...

Astronomers using a world-wide collection of telescopes have discovered the most prolific star factory in the Universe, surprisingly in a galaxy so distant that they see as it was when the Universe was only six percent of its current age. The galaxy, dubbed HFLS3, 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, is producing the equivalent of nearly 3,000 Suns per year, a rate more than 2,000 times that of our own Milky Way. The galaxy is massive, with a huge reservoir of gas from which to form new stars. "This is the most detailed look into the physical properties of such a distant ...

DALLAS – April 17, 2013 – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a specific gene that regulates the heart's ability to regenerate after injuries. The function of the gene, called Meis1, in the heart was not known previously. The findings of the UTSW investigation are available online in Nature. "We found that the activity of the Meis1 gene increases significantly in heart cells soon after birth, right around the time heart muscle cells stop dividing. Based on this observation we asked a simple question: If the Meis1 gene is deleted from the heart, ...

Patient satisfaction is an important indicator of a hospital's service quality, but new Johns Hopkins research suggests that it doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the surgical care patients receive. "We found that the quality of what goes on in the operating room doesn't closely correlate with the patient's perception of the quality of his or her medical care," says Martin A. Makary, M.D., M.P.H., an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and leader of the study described online in JAMA Surgery. "It is important for ...

HIV-infected women in sub-Saharan Africa who fed their babies exclusively with breast milk for more than the first four months of life had the lowest risk of transmitting the virus to their babies through breast milk, according to researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Women who stopped breast feeding earlier than four months had the highest concentrations of HIV in their breast milk, and those who continued to breastfeed, but not exclusively, had concentration levels in-between the two practices. The findings are online in the journal Science ...

To maneuver a car into a parking spot parallel to the road can be quite a challenge. It would be an easy task, of course, if only the vehicle could move sideways. As this is not possible, the sideways motion must be pieced together – sometimes elegantly, sometimes less so – in a series of forward and backward movements and turns on the steering wheel. Such a finely tuned sequence of movements also enables cats to almost always land on their feet after a free fall. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now used a similar principle for steering a quantum system into a desired state. ...

Fame and achievement in performance-related careers may be earned at the cost of a shorter life, according to a study published online today in QJM: An International Journal of Medicine. Based on the premise that an obituary in the New York Times (NYT) usually implies success in one's career, Professor Richard Epstein and Catherine Epstein analysed 1000 consecutive obituaries published in the NYT during 2009-2011 in terms of gender, age, occupation, and cause of death. They separated subjects into four broad occupational categories: performance/sport (including actors, ...

Monitoring pain and providing analgesics to patients in intensive care units (ICUs) during non-surgical procedures, such as turning and washing, can not only reduce the amount of pain but also reduce the number of serious adverse events including cardiac arrest, finds new research in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care. Although pain at rest is routinely noted, pain during procedures is less regularly reported and its effect on patients unknown. To assess this missing information and to implement techniques to help better control pain where necessary, ...

Equipped with the zebrafish genome, researchers have designed a method to assay the function of each and every gene and to explore the effects genetic variation has on zebrafish. So far the team has generated one or more mutations in almost 40% of all zebrafish genes. The resource will be a comprehensive catalogue of how changes to our genes can have physical and biochemical consequences, giving other researchers the tools to understand human disease. Many genes are similar between the human genome and those of less complex animals. As a vertebrate, the zebrafish (Danio ...

Researchers demonstrate today that 70 per cent of protein-coding human genes are related to genes found in the zebrafish and that 84 per cent of genes known to be associated with human disease have a zebrafish counterpart. Their study highlights the importance of zebrafish as a model organism for human disease research. The team developed a high-quality annotated zebrafish genome sequence to compare with the human reference genome. Only two other large genomes have been sequenced to this high standard: the human genome and the mouse genome. The completed zebrafish genome ...

ABOUT THE DREAM PROJECT The Dialogue on Reverse Engineering Assessment and Methods Project (DREAM Project), founded in 2006 by Andrea Califano (Columbia University) and Gustavo Stolovitzky (IBM), was originally conceived as an initiative to advance thenascent field of network biology through the organization of Challenges on network reconstruction and pathway inference. Since the first set of network inference challenges of 2007 (DREAM2) the concept of using collaborative-competitions as a vehicle to carry on a meaningful dialogue in the computational biology community ...

An historic fish, with an intriguing past, now has had its genome sequenced, providing a wealth of information on the genetic changes that accompanied the adaptation from an aquatic environment to land. A team of international researchers led by Chris Amemiya, PhD, Director of Molecular Genetics at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) and Professor of Biology at the University of Washington, will publish "The African coelacanth genome provides insights into tetrapod evolution" April 18 as the cover article in Nature. The coelacanth genome was sequenced ...

Bear hunters will tell you that a good way to attract a bear is to put out bait. And in 10 states, including Michigan and Wisconsin, that's perfectly legal. Hunting dogs are another useful technique in the bear-hunter's toolkit, and 17 states say that's just fine. But who else likes bear bait? Gray wolves, that's who. And wolves that are feeling territorial about a bear bait stash can—and sometimes do—kill hunting dogs released at the bait site. Like most interactions between wildlife and human beings, wolf attacks on hunting dogs illustrate a tangled trade-off: ...

VIDEO: Mapping molecular motions -- the "magic " of chemistry revealed. Despite the enormous number of possible arrangements of atoms during a structural transition, such as occurs with changes in charge distribution... Click here for more information. TORONTO, ON – Call it the ultimate nature documentary. Scientists at the University of Toronto have recorded atomic motions in real time, offering a glimpse into the very essence of chemistry and biology at the ...

April 17, 2013 — (BRONX, NY) — Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered how the protein that blocks HIV-1 from multiplying in white blood cells is regulated. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS, and the discovery could lead to novel approaches for addressing HIV-1 "in hiding" – namely eliminating reservoirs of HIV-1 that persist in patients undergoing antiretroviral therapy. The study was published today in the online edition of the journal Cell Host & Microbe. Antiretroviral therapy can reduce blood levels of HIV-1 until ...

Federally funded safety-net clinics for the uninsured lag behind other health care providers in controlling blood pressure among the low-income patients who rely on them for care, a new Michigan State University analysis suggests. High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular complications including heart disease and stroke, and is especially common and dangerous for patients with diabetes, said lead researcher Adesuwa Olomu, associate professor in the MSU Department of Medicine. In recent decades, a growing share of the 67 million ...

SEATTLE, WA, and QUEBEC CITY, QC, April 17, 2013 – IDRI (Infectious Disease Research Institute), a Seattle-based non-profit research organization that is a leading developer of adjuvants used in vaccines combating infectious disease, and Medicago Inc. (TSX: MDG; OTCQX: MDCGF), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing highly effective and competitive vaccines based on proprietary manufacturing technologies and Virus-Like Particles (VLPs), today reported positive interim results from a Phase I clinical trial for an H5N1 Avian Influenza VLP vaccine candidate ("H5N1 ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Pain is an undeniable focal point for patients with sickle cell disease but it's not the best focus for drug development, says one of the dying breed of physicians specializing in the condition. Rather scientists need to get back to the crux of the disease affecting 1 in 500 black Americans and find better ways to prevent the hallmark sickling that impedes red blood cells' oxygen delivery, damaging blood vessel walls and organs along the way, said Dr. Abdullah Kutlar, Director of the Sickle Cell Center at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents ...

Smaller begets bigger. Such is often the case for galaxies, at least: the first galaxies were small, then eventually merged together to form the behemoths we see in the present universe. Those smaller galaxies produced stars at a modest rate; only later—when the universe was a couple of billion years old—did the vast majority of larger galaxies begin to form and accumulate enough gas and dust to become prolific star factories. Indeed, astronomers have observed that these star factories—called starburst galaxies—became prevalent a couple of billion years after the Big ...