Ann Arbor, Mich. — Few situations can provoke more anxiety for people with peanut or tree-nut allergies than having an allergic reaction while flying on an airplane and being unable to get help. But in a new study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology-In Practice, researchers found passengers who engaged in eight mitigating factors were less likely to report an allergic reaction. This is the first study to show that in-flight peanut and tree nut allergy is an international problem, says lead author and pediatrician Matthew Greenhawt, M.D., M.B.A., ...

This year's unusually long and rocky flu season would be nothing compared to the pandemic that could occur if bird flu became highly contagious among humans, which is why UCLA researchers and their colleagues are creating new ways to predict where an outbreak could emerge. "Using surveillance of influenza cases in humans and birds, we've come up with a technique to predict sites where these viruses could mix and generate a future pandemic," said lead author Trevon Fuller, a UCLA postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability's Center ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A University of Florida researcher has described a new genus and species of extinct saber-toothed cat from Polk County, Fla., based on additional fossil acquisitions of the animal over the last 25 years. The 5-million-year-old fossils belong to the same lineage as the famous Smilodon fatalis from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, a large, carnivorous apex predator with elongated upper canine teeth. Previous research suggested the group of saber-toothed cats known as Smilodontini originated in the Old World and then migrated to North America, but ...

New York, N.Y. (March 14, 2013) – Autism Speaks, the world's leading autism science and advocacy organization, today announced a study supported by one of Autism Speaks' first Suzanne and Bob Wright Trailblazer Awards, presents a new theory that autism may result from chronic danger signaling by mitochondria, cell structures that supply our cells with energy. This study by Trailblazer researcher and mitochondrial medicine specialist Robert Naviaux, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego published in the journal PLOS-ONE supports a novel theory about the ...

Researchers at the University of Toronto have shown that playing shooting or driving videogames, even for a relatively short time, improves the ability to search for a target hidden among irrelevant distractions in complex scenes. "Recent studies in different labs, including here at the University of Toronto, have shown that playing first-person shooter videogames can enhance other aspects of visual attention," says psychology professor Ian Spence. "But no one has previously demonstrated that visual search is also improved." Searching efficiently and accurately is ...

MINNEAPOLIS – The American Academy of Neurology (AAN), the world's largest professional association of neurologists, is releasing a position paper on how the practice of prescribing drugs to boost cognitive function, or memory and thinking abilities, in healthy children and teens is misguided. The statement is published in the March 13, 2013, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. This growing trend, in which teens use "study drugs" before tests and parents request ADHD drugs for kids who don't meet the criteria for the disorder, ...

Diving and plunging through the waves to feed, some whales throw their jaws wide and engulf colossal mouthfuls of fish-laden water while other species simply coast along with their mouths agape (ram or skim feeding), yet both feeding styles rely on a remarkable substance in the whales' mouths to filter nutrition from the ocean: baleen. Alexander Werth from Hampden-Sydney College, USA, explains that no one knew how the hairy substance actually traps morsels of food. 'The standard view was that baleen is just a static material and people had never thought of it moving or ...

Milk from goats that were genetically modified to produce higher levels of a human antimicrobial protein has proved effective in treating diarrhea in young pigs, demonstrating the potential for food products from transgenic animals to one day also benefit human health, report researchers at the University of California, Davis. The study is the first on record to show that goats' milk carrying elevated levels of the antimicrobial lysozyme, a protein found in human breast milk, can successfully treat diarrhea caused by bacterial infection in the gastrointestinal tract. The ...

A one-sided cellphone conversation in the background is likely to be much more distracting than overhearing a conversation between two people, according to research published March 13 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Veronica Galván and colleagues from the University of San Diego. The authors studied the effects of overhearing either one side of a cell phone call or a chat between two people on the attention and memory of people who overheard these conversations. Participants in the study were asked to complete a task involving anagrams. As they performed the task, ...

Traveling into uncharted territory in search of food can be a dangerous undertaking, but some bottlenose dolphins may benefit by moving through their habitat with relatives who may be more experienced or knowledgeable. It turns out that leaders in bottlenose dolphin groups in the Florida Keys are more likely to be related to the dolphins that follow them, according to research published March 13 by Jennifer Lewis and colleagues from Florida International University. In complex habitats like the shallow waters of the Florida Keys, individuals who follow may benefit from ...

DETROIT – Treating varicose veins with vein-stripping surgery is associated with higher costs than closing the veins with heat, according to a study at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. "Cost-effectiveness is an important factor to consider when comparing different treatments for varicose vein disease," says Judith C. Lin, M.D., vascular surgeon and lead author of the study. "And these two types of treatment have similar effectiveness." The study will be presented March 13 at the 41st Annual Symposium of the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery in Miami. The current ...

Initial vaccinations for human papillomavirus (HPV) at a young age is important for maximizing quadrivalent HPV vaccine effectiveness according to a Swedish study published March 13 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. HPV vaccination programs have been launched around the world in hopes of preventing cervical cancer and other HPV-related cancers. While incidence of genital warts is the earliest possible disease outcome to measure the efficacy of the HPV vaccine, the results of such efficacy trials may not be fully generalizable to real-life HPV vaccination ...

HOUSTON -- (March 13, 2013) – Few things in life are inevitable – death, taxes, and, if you live long enough, osteoarthritis. No treatment will stop or significantly slow the disease, and joint replacement is the only definitive treatment. That may change, however, as researchers such as Dr. Brendan Lee (http://www.bcm.edu/genetics/index.cfm?pmid=10940), professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine (http://www.bcm.edu), and his colleagues unravel the effects of a naturally occurring protein called lubricin or Proteoglycans 4 that appears to ...

University of Montreal researchers found that changes in gravity affect the reproductive process in plants. Gravity modulates traffic on the intracellular "highways" that ensure the growth and functionality of the male reproductive organ in plants, the pollen tube. "Just like during human reproduction, the sperm cells in plants are delivered to the egg by a cylindrical tool. Unlike the delivery tool in animals, the device used during plant sex consists of a single cell, and only two sperm cells are discharged during each delivery event," explained Professor Anja Geitmann ...

Vitamin D supplements significantly reduced blood pressure in the first large controlled study of African-Americans, researchers report in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension. In the prospective trial, a three-month regimen of daily vitamin D increased circulating blood levels of vitamin D and resulted in a decrease in systolic blood pressure ranging from .7 to four mmHg (depending upon the dose given), compared with no change in participants who received a placebo. Systolic blood pressure, the top and highest number in a reading, is pressure in the arteries ...

The precise methodology of Richard Feynman's famous double-slit thought-experiment – a cornerstone of quantum mechanics that showed how electrons behave as both a particle and a wave – has been followed in full for the very first time. Although the particle-wave duality of electrons has been demonstrated in a number of different ways since Feynman popularised the idea in 1965, none of the experiments have managed to fully replicate the methodology set out in Volume 3 of Feynman's famous Lectures on Physics. "The technology to do this experiment has been around for about ...

Doctors at Yale School of Medicine and the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) have called upon their fellow physicians to limit or end the practice of prescribing memory-enhancing drugs to healthy children whose brains are still developing. Their position statement is published in the March 13 online issue of the journal Neurology, the medical journal of the AAN. The statement was written to address the growing trend in which teens use "study drugs" before tests and parents request attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs for children who don't meet the ...

This press release is available in French. Christopher Cameron of the University of Montreal's Department of Biological Sciences and his colleagues have unearthed a major scientific discovery - a strange phallus-shaped creature they found in Canada's Burgess Shale fossil beds, located in Yoho National Park. The fossils were found in an area of shale beds that are 505 million years old. Their study, to be published online in the journal Nature on March 13, 2013, confirms Spartobranchus tenuis is a member of the acorn worms group which are seldom-seen animals that thrive ...

Canada's 505 million year-old Burgess Shale fossil beds, located in Yoho National Park, have yielded yet another major scientific discovery – this time with the unearthing of a strange phallus-shaped creature. A study to be published online in the journal Nature on March 13 confirms Spartobranchus tenuis is a member of the acorn worms group which are seldom-seen animals that thrive today in the fine sands and mud of shallow and deeper waters. Acorn worms are themselves part of the hemichordates, a group of marine animals closely related to today's sea stars and sea ...

BOULDER, Colo.— One of the oldest forms of computer memory is back again—but in a 21st century microscopic device designed by physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for possible use in a quantum computer. The NIST team has demonstrated that information encoded as a specific point in a traveling microwave signal—the vertical and horizontal positions of a wave pattern at a certain time—can be transferred to the mechanical beat of a micro-drum and later retrieved with 65 percent efficiency, a good figure for experimental systems like this. ...

Observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) show that the most vigorous bursts of star birth in the cosmos took place much earlier than previously thought. The results are published in a set of papers to appear in the journal Nature and in the Astrophysical Journal. The research is the most recent example of the discoveries coming from the new international ALMA observatory, which celebrates its inauguration today. The most intense bursts of star birth are thought to have occurred in the early Universe, in massive, bright galaxies. These ...

A new method of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could routinely spot specific cancers, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and other maladies early, when they're most treatable, researchers at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center suggest in the journal Nature. Each body tissue and disease has a unique fingerprint that can be used to quickly diagnose problems, the scientists say. By using new MRI technologies to scan for different physical properties simultaneously, the team differentiated white matter from gray matter from ...

BOSTON – March 13, 2013 – Joslin scientists have discovered a mechanism that regulates the production of brown fat, a type of fat which plays an important role in heat production and energy metabolism. The findings, which appear in the upcoming issue of Nature, may lead to new therapies that increase BAT formation to treat obesity. Two types of fat tissue are present in humans and other mammals: white adipose tissue (WAT) or white fat, which stores fat; and brown adipose tissue (BAT) or brown fat, which burns fat to produce heat. Brown fat also metabolizes glucose and ...

Boston, MA – New research from Harvard School of Public Health (HPSH) shows that one year after the federal government passed a law banning word descriptors such as "light," "mild," and "low" on cigarette packages, smokers can still easily identify their brands because of color-coding that tobacco companies added to "light" packs after the ban. These findings suggest that the companies have, in effect, been able to evade the ban on misleading wording—thus still conveying the false and deceptive message that lights are safer than "regular" cigarettes. In addition, the ...

Pasadena, CA — Using information gathered from several telescopes, a team of astronomers, including Carnegie's Eric Murphy, searched the sky for very rarely seen dusty starburst galaxies, formed soon after the Big Bang. These galaxies are characterized by an unusually high rate of star formation. They are much more abundant in the early Universe than previously thought. Two of those identified are among the oldest ever found, indicating that these dusty starbursts likely evolve into the most massive galaxies ever observed in the local Universe. The results are published ...