Mass poultry vaccination programmes introduced to combat Salmonella infections have led to a dramatic fall in the number of cases since the late 1990s, according to a researcher at the University of Liverpool. Salmonella are important food-borne pathogens worldwide, causing diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea, fever and abdominal pain. There are currently around 6 million cases of illness from Salmonella across the EU each year, the majority of which are linked to food items such as eggs, chicken, beef, pork, salad vegetables and dairy products. Between 1981 and 1991, the ...

This press release is available in French. Quebec City, January 16, 2013—Genetics plays a major role in peer rejection and victimization in early elementary school, according to a study recently published on the website of the journal Child Development by a team directed by Dr. Michel Boivin, a research professor at Université Laval's School of Psychology. To come to this conclusion, Boivin and his team tested over 800 twins at three time points: when they were in kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 4. This sample consisted of 41% monozygotic twins—"true" twins who share ...

Since 1992 the number of deaths linked to breast cancer in Spain has decreased among young and middle aged patients but not among the elderly. Spanish researchers also predict that it will continue to decline over the next decade, although more slowly as observed up until now. A new study headed by a team of Spanish researchers has analysed breast cancer mortality in Spain among different age groups from 1981 to 2007, setting a valid prediction up until 2023. Studying this age-related tendency is interesting because any improvement could have significant social and ...

Charles Dickens' tales are filled with immortal characters — think of A Christmas Carol's Scrooge and Great Expectations' Miss Havisham. But more than whims of literary invention, his characters and plots often deal with the difficult social realities of Victorian England. His portrayal of the disabled — both in terms of medicine and the social discrimination they faced — is no exception. "Social attitudes towards the disabled can often be traced through art, from ancient times through today," explains Prof. Avi Ohry of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, ...

Scientists at the Academy of Finland's Centre of Excellence in Computational Inference Research have developed novel computational methods that have yielded essential knowledge of how hospital-acquired bacteria spread and develop. These new methods, based on randomised algorithms, make it possible to analyse extensive genomic data significantly faster and more efficiently than previously. By applying these results, it is possible to better follow hospital-acquired infections in the future, or even fight them in real time. The new methods are used to develop models of ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Despite modern designs intended to allow migratory fish to pass, hydropower dams on major Northeast U.S. waterways, including the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers, have failed to let economically important species such as salmon, shad and river herring reach their spawning grounds, say a team of economists and fish ecologists including Adrian Jordaan of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This raises serious questions about the impact of new dams now being planned and constructed on major waterways worldwide, say the researchers in the current ...

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- A Kansas State University researcher is developing more efficient ways to save costs, time and energy when creating nanomaterials and lithium-ion batteries. Gurpreet Singh, assistant professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, and his research team have published two recent articles on newer, cheaper and faster methods for creating nanomaterials that can be used for lithium-ion batteries. In the past year, Singh has published eight articles -- five of which involve lithium-ion battery research. "We are exploring new methods for quick and cost-effective ...

Obese and overweight people are gaining weight rapidly in low-and middle-income countries while those who are severely undernourished are not experiencing similar weight gains, according to a University of Toronto and Harvard School of Public Health study. This growing divide may force governments in the developing world to care for people who fall dramatically short on their calorie intake while simultaneously treating health problems associated with obesity, including diabetes and heart disease. "One might think that as a country grows economically, the majority of ...

CAMBRIGDE, MA -- Epileptic seizures occur when neurons in the brain become excessively active. However, a new study from MIT neuroscientists suggests that some seizures may originate in non-neuronal cells known as glia, which were long believed to play a mere supporting role in brain function. In a study of fruit flies, the researchers identified a glial-cell mutation that makes the flies much more prone to epileptic seizures. Mutations in the gene, which influences glial cells' communication with neurons, appear to make neurons much more excitable. That excitability ...

Radiocarbon dates of tiny fossilised marine animals found in Antarctica's seabed sediments offer new clues about the recent rapid ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and help scientists make better predictions about future sea-level rise. This region of the icy continent is thought to be vulnerable to regional climate warming and changes in ocean circulation. Reporting this month in the journal Geology a team of researchers from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the University of Tromsø presents ...

NEW YORK (January 16, 2013) — A team of American and Chinese conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and University of Montana recently counted nearly 1,000 wild yaks from a remote area of the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau. The finding may indicate a comeback for this species, which was decimated by overhunting in the mid 20th century. The team counted 990 yaks in a rugged area called Hoh Xil – a national nature reserve nearly the size of West Virginia but devoid of people. The remote region lies in the mid-eastern Tibetan-Himalayan highlands, home to some ...

High-performance infrared cameras are crucial for civilian and military applications such as night-vision goggles and search-and-rescue operations. Existing cameras usually fall into one of two types: active cameras, which use an invisible infrared source to illuminate the scene, usually in the near or short-wavelength infrared; and passive cameras, which detect the thermal radiation given off by a warm object, typically in the mid- or long-wavelength infrared, without the need for any illumination. Both camera types have advantages and disadvantages in the field. Integrating ...

For the last ten years, theoretical physicists have shown that the intense connections generated between particles as established in the quantum law of 'entanglement' may hold the key to eventual teleportation of quantum information. Now, for the first time, researchers have worked out how entanglement could be 'recycled' to increase the efficiency of these connections. Published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the result could conceivably take us a step closer to sci-fi style teleportation in the future, although this research is purely theoretical in nature. ...

In an advance toward stain-proof, spill-proof clothing, protective garments and other products that shrug off virtually every liquid — from blood and ketchup to concentrated acids — scientists are reporting development of new "superomniphobic" surfaces. Their report on surfaces that display extreme repellency to two families of liquids — Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquids — appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Anish Tuteja and colleagues point out that scientists have previously reported "omniphobic" surfaces, the term meaning that such surfaces can ...

This press release is available in French. Montreal, January 16, 2013 – Language mixing – using elements from two languages in the same sentence – is frequent among bilingual parents and could pose a challenge for vocabulary acquisition by one- and two-year-old children, according to a new study by Concordia University psychology professor Krista Byers-Heinlein. Those results are likely temporary, however, and are often counterbalanced by cognitive advantages afforded to children raised in a bilingual environment. With immigration and international mobility on the ...

Many mothers of newborns in neonatal intensive care units have difficulty finding private, quiet places in the hospital to express milk, according to a new study from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. The lack of privacy—if it causes mothers to miss feedings or makes them too timid to express milk—is an even greater health risk for low-weight premature newborns, because milk enriched with the mother's antibodies helps ward off infection and gastrointestinal problems. "The meaning of privacy might differ for mothers and the ...

Public relations professionals who have provided ethics counsel to senior management are at least as fervent about serving the public interest — sometimes even more so — as they are about their duty to their organizations, according to a Baylor University researcher. A new study of 30 senior public relations professionals, most of whom had served as an "organizational conscience," showed the individuals viewed themselves as an "independent voice" in the organization and not "mired by its perspective or politics," said study author Marlene S. Neill, Ph.D., a lecturer in ...

ANN ARBOR -- A review of the available evidence underscores the safety of the federal childhood immunization schedule, according to a report released today by the Institute of Medicine. University of Michigan population ecologist Pejman Rohani served on the 13-person committee that wrote the report. Roughly 90 percent of American children receive most childhood vaccines advised by the federal immunization schedule by the time they enter kindergarten, the committee noted. However, some parents choose to spread out their children's immunizations over a different time frame ...

WASHINGTON -- A review of the available evidence underscores the safety of the federal childhood immunization schedule, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. Should signals indicate the need for investigation of the schedule, however, the report offers a framework for conducting safety research using existing or new data collection systems. Roughly 90 percent of American children receive most childhood vaccines advised by the federal immunization schedule by the time they enter kindergarten, noted the committee that wrote the report. However, some parents ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (January 16, 2013) – With the rapidly expanding use of brain and spinal cord stimulation therapy (neuromodulation), new "remote presence" technologies may help to meet the demand for experts to perform stimulator programming, reports a study in the January issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The preliminary study by Dr. Ivar Mendez of Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, supports ...

PHILADELPHIA -- In the first study to examine discussion of drug side effects on Internet message boards, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that breast cancer survivors taking the commonly prescribed adjuvant therapy known as aromatase inhibitors (AIs) often detailed in these forums troublesome symptoms resulting from the drugs, and they were apt to report discontinuing the treatment or switching to a different drug in the same class. The findings are published online this week in the journal Pharmacoepidemiology and ...

Fashionable people may turn up their noses at jute — the cheap fiber used to make burlap, gunny sacks, twine and other common products — but new research is enhancing jute's appeal as an inexpensive, sustainable reinforcement for mortar and concrete. The study appears in ACS' journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. Subhasish B Majumder and colleagues note that there has been a resurgence of interest in using economical, sustainable natural fibers, rather than steel or synthetic fibers, to reinforce the cement compositions used to make concrete and mortar, ...

Scientists are reporting development of the first practical way to make large amounts of a promising new anti-cancer substance that kills cancer cells differently than existing medicines. Their article on synthesis of the substance, and tests demonstrating its effectiveness in the laboratory, appears in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Isamu Shiina and colleagues explain that the substance, AMF-26, showed promise against certain forms of cancer in laboratory studies, fostering excitement about its potential for development as a new anti-cancer drug. That excitement ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (January 16, 2012) – Efforts to correct false beliefs about health care reform may backfire, depending on individuals' political views and level of knowledge, suggests a study in the February issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. In the study, more politically knowledgeable people with positive views of Sarah Palin were likely to harden their opposition to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) when presented with information debunking Palin's "death panel" claim, according to the study ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (January 16, 2013) – Researchers using sophisticated genetic testing techniques have identified a promising new biomarker for diagnosis of glioma—the most common type of malignant brain tumor, reports the January issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The biomarker ELTD1 "may serve as an additional biomarker for gliomas in preclinical and clinical diagnosis of gliomas," according to the study by Rheal A. Towner of Oklahoma ...