New research at the University of Adelaide has demonstrated that teenagers born prematurely may suffer brain development problems that directly affect their memory and learning abilities. The research, conducted by Dr Julia Pitcher and Dr Michael Ridding from the University of Adelaide's Robinson Institute, shows reduced 'plasticity' in the brains of teenagers who were born preterm (at or before 37 weeks gestation). The results of the research are published today in the Journal of Neuroscience. "Plasticity in the brain is vital for learning and memory throughout life," ...

Recent studies questioning the role of specialist heart attack centres produced misleading results because doctors tend to send the sickest patients to have the best care, according to new research. Many heart attack patients in the UK are sent to a specialist centre for primary angioplasty - a surgical procedure to reopen the blocked artery. Randomised trials have found that angioplasty is much more successful than drug treatment alone, but research based on "real-world" data suggest that patients given an angioplasty don't tend to do better. Now researchers at Imperial ...

Washington, DC — Men in committed relationships choose to keep a greater distance between themselves and an unknown woman they find attractive when given the hormone oxytocin, according to new research in the November 14 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest oxytocin may help promote fidelity within monogamous relationships. Oxytocin plays a vital role in triggering childbirth and facilitating nursing. The hormone, which is produced in a region of the brain called the hypothalamus, is also involved in the formation of social bonds. In humans and other ...

Despite widespread condemnation of female genital surgeries as a form of mutilation and a violation of human rights, an international advisory group argues that the practice is poorly understood and unfairly characterized. In a public policy statement in the Hastings Center Report, the Public Policy Advisory Network on Female Genital Surgeries in Africa, a group that includes doctors, anthropologists, legal scholars, and feminists, argues that media coverage of the practice is hyperbolic and one sided, "painting the now familiar portrait of African female genital surgeries ...

Older North American farmers work fewer hours than their younger peers but spend more time operating heavy machinery and equipment—raising their risk of serious injury, according to new research from the University of Alberta. A survey of 2,751 Saskatchewan farmers showed that as farmers age they turn to less physically strenuous work such as operating machinery. Farmers aged 45 to 64 years spent six to eight more days a year operating tractors and combines than farmers 20 years their junior—a situation that puts older farmers at risk, say the study authors. "It's important ...

In this News Digest: Summary of a study being published online November 13, 2012 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, reporting that earlier discussions about end of life (EOL) care preferences are strongly associated with less aggressive care in the last days of life and increased use of hospice care for patients with advanced cancer. EOL care discussions that took place before the last 30 days of life resulted in less frequent use of chemotherapy in the last 14 days of life and lower use of acute or ICU care in the last 30 days of life, which are both known to ...

Global climate models abound. What is harder to pin down, however, is how a warmer global temperature might affect any specific region on Earth. Dr. Marco Tedesco, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at The City College of New York, and a colleague have made the global local. Using a regional climate model and the output of three global climate models, they predict how different greenhouse gas scenarios would change the face of Greenland over the next century and how this would impact sea level rise. The resulting fine-scale model gives a high-resolution ...

With grilled chicken, salads and oatmeal now on fast food menus, you might think fast food has become healthier. And indeed, there has been greater attention in the media and legislatively, paid to the healthfulness of fast food. But a close look at the industry has found that calorie counts have changed little, while the number of food items has doubled. A study led by Katherine W. Bauer, assistant professor in Temple University's Department of Public Health and Center for Obesity Research and Education, found that the average calorie content of foods offered by eight ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — In a sobering study published in the journal Environmental Health, researchers at UC Davis and UCLA measured food-borne toxin exposure in children and adults by pinpointing foods with high levels of toxic compounds and determining how much of these foods were consumed. The researchers found that family members in the study, and preschool children in particular, are at high risk for exposure to arsenic, dieldrin, DDE (a DDT metabolite), dioxins and acrylamide. These compounds have been linked to cancer, developmental disabilities, birth defects and ...

From monsters under the bed to bogeymen in the closet, most children experience nighttime fears at some point in their development. And while most grow out of them without any professional intervention, others contend with persistent and extended periods of these fears, with a risk of developing anxiety problems later in life. As part of a large-scale project on nighttime fears funded by the Israeli Science Foundation, Prof. Avi Sadeh of Tel Aviv University's School of Psychological Sciences is exploring how these fears fit into the normal developmental process — and ...

Cambridge, Mass. – November 13, 2012 – Bioengineers at Harvard have developed a gel-based sponge that can be molded to any shape, loaded with drugs or stem cells, compressed to a fraction of its size, and delivered via injection. Once inside the body, it pops back to its original shape and gradually releases its cargo, before safely degrading. The biocompatible technology, revealed this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, amounts to a prefabricated healing kit for a range of minimally invasive therapeutic applications, including regenerative medicine. "What ...

PHILADELPHIA - The cancer-causing form of the gene Myc alters the metabolism of mitochondria, the cell's powerhouse, making it dependent on the amino acid glutamine for survival. In fact, 40 percent of all "hard-to-treat" cancers have a mutation in the Myc gene. Accordingly, depriving cells of glutamine selectively induces programmed cell death in cells overexpressing mutant Myc. Using Myc-active neuroblastoma cancer cells, a team led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator M. Celeste Simon, Ph.D., scientific director for the Abramson Family Cancer ...

People with diabetes often develop clogged arteries that cause heart disease, and new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that low vitamin D levels are to blame. In a study published Nov. 9 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the researchers report that blood vessels are less like to clog in people with diabetes who get adequate vitamin D. But in patients with insufficient vitamin D, immune cells bind to blood vessels near the heart, then trap cholesterol to block those blood vessels. "About 26 million Americans now have type ...

Under certain circumstances neuroticism can be good for your health, according to a University of Rochester Medical Center study showing that some self-described neurotics also tended to have the lowest levels of Interleukin 6 (IL-6), a biomarker for inflammation and chronic disease. Researchers made the preliminary discovery while conducting research into how psychosocial factors such as personality traits influence underlying biology, to predict harmful conditions like inflammation. Known as one of the "Big 5" traits, neuroticism is usually marked by being moody, nervous, ...

Obesity and dental cavities increase and become epidemic as children living below the poverty level age, according to nurse researchers from the Case Western Reserve University and the University of Akron. "It's the leading cause of chronic infections in children," said Marguerite DiMarco, associate professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. Researchers Sheau-Huey Chiu, assistant professor, and graduate assistant Jessica L. Prokp, from the University of Akron's College of Nursing, contributed to the study. Researchers ...

Cancers arise when a normal cell acquires a mutation in a gene that regulates cellular growth or survival. But the particular cell this mutation happens in—the cell of origin—can have an enormous impact on the behavior of the tumor, and on the strategies used to treat it. Robert Wechsler-Reya, Ph.D., professor and program director at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, and his team study medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain cancer in children. A few years ago, they made an important discovery: medulloblastoma can originate from one of two cell types: ...

CINCINNATI—A University of Cincinnati (UC) Cancer Institute lung cancer research team reports that lung cancer stem cells can be isolated—and then grown—in a preclinical model, offering a new avenue for investigating immunotherapy treatment options that specifically target stem cells. John C. Morris, MD, and his colleagues report their findings in the Nov. 13, 2012, issue of PLOS One, a peer-reviewed online publication that features original research from all disciplines within science and medicine. Stem cells are unique cells that can divide and differentiate into ...

Irvine, Calif., Nov. 13, 2012 — UC Irvine biologists have discovered that fats within cells store a class of proteins with potent antibacterial activity, revealing a previously unknown type of immune system response that targets and kills bacterial infections. Steven Gross, UCI professor of developmental & cell biology, and colleagues identified this novel intercellular role of histone proteins in fruit flies, and it could herald a new approach to fighting bacterial growth within cells. The study appears today in eLife, a new peer-reviewed, open-access journal supported ...

CINCINNATI—People living near a former uranium ore processing facility in Ohio are experiencing a higher than average rate of lupus, according a new study conducted by scientists at the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Lupus is a chronic inflammatory disease that can affect the skin, joints, kidneys, lungs, nervous system and other organs of the body. The underlying causes of lupus are unknown, but it is usually more common in women of child-bearing age. For this new study, a collaborative team of UC and Cincinnati Children's ...

Implantable defibrillators currently on the market apply between 600 and 900 volts to the heart, almost 10 times the voltage from an electric outlet, says Ajit H. Janardhan, MD, PhD, a cardiac electrophysiology fellow at the Washington University's School of Medicine. After being shocked, he says, some patients get post-traumatic stress disorder. Patients may even go so far as to ask their physicians to remove the defibrillator, even though they understand that the device has saved their lives. The huge shocks are not only unbearably painful, they damage the heart muscle ...

Languages are highly complex systems and yet most children seem to acquire language easily, even in the absence of formal instruction. New research on young children's use of British Sign Language (BSL) sheds light on one of the mechanisms - iconicity - that may endow children with this amazing ability. For spoken and written language, the arbitrary relationship between a word's form – how it sounds or how it looks on paper – and its meaning is a particularly challenging feature of language acquisition. But one of the first things people notice about sign languages is ...

This press release is available in Spanish and French. Monterrey, 13 November 2012—Today, the Nuevo León state ministry of sustainable development, with support from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), launched a revamped air quality information management system in Monterrey, Mexico, using AirNow-International. This CEC initiative, developed in coordination with Canadian, Mexican and US government agencies, is laying the foundation for improved ways to inform citizens around the country about air quality in their communities with real-time data that ...

On Nov. 13, 2012, the sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 9:04 p.m. EST. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where Global Positioning System (GPS) and communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing, anywhere from minutes to hours. This flare is classified as an M6 flare. M-class flares are the weakest flares ...

On Nov. 13, 2012, certain parts of Earth will experience a total solar eclipse, which, like all eclipses, will only be visible when you are aligned in a straight line with the moon and the sun. In this case the eclipse will only be seen from a narrow corridor in the southern hemisphere that is mostly over the ocean but also cuts across the northern tip of Australia. The JAXA/NASA Hinode mission will experience a partial eclipse of the sun near the same time as the observers in Australia. Hinode will coordinate its observations with those from the ground, before, during, ...

On the night of Aug. 5, 2010, as residents slept, water began rushing through Leh, an Indian town in a high desert valley in the Himalayas. Average total rainfall in the area for August is about a half-inch. During this 24-hour period more than 8 inches fell, causing severe damage and leaving 193 dead, hundreds missing and thousands homeless. "Flash flooding events don't happen often but when they do they are some of the scariest, most dangerous and quickest natural disasters that can happen," said Kristen Rasmussen, a University of Washington graduate student in ...