DENVER – A study, published in the November 2012 issue of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's (IASLC) Journal of Thoracic Oncology, showed the plasma test VeriStrat can predict response but not survival benefit from erlotinib. The study was conducted on a subset of patients enrolled in the NCIC Clinical Trials Group, BR.21 phase III trial of erlotinib versus placebo in previously treated advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients. VeriStrat is a commercially available serum-based or plasma-based test using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization ...

DENVER – The International Mesothelioma Interest Group (IMIG) staging system has been widely used, however, widespread concerns exist about the validity of the current malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) staging system. Concerns include that the system is derived from analysis of small, retrospective surgical series; it can be difficult to apply to clinical staging; and uses descriptors for lymph node involvement, which may not be relevant to MPM. Therefore, in collaboration with IMIG, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) has decided to update ...

DENVER – Until there are more validated biomarkers to direct treatment decisions, many physicians use patient age to decide what therapy to give their patients. Literature data report that older patients often go undertreated because of concerns for limited tolerance to toxic therapies. A study, published in the November 2012 issue of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's (IASLC) Journal of Thoracic Oncology, says that fit elderly non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients should be considered for salvage targeted therapy. The study looked at ...

As the implementation of green roofs increase, a University of Cincinnati pilot study examined which plants best thrive on the Southwest Ohio region's roofs during the dry, hot conditions of summer. That research, by UC biology student Jill Bader and Ishi Buffam, assistant professor of biology, identified a North American (and Ohio) native plant – nodding wild onion (Allium cernuum) and a European sedum (Sedum acre, also known as goldmoss sedum) as suited to survive and thrive on the region's green roofs. Their research will be presented in a paper titled "Ohio Native ...

NEW ORLEANS — Research released today helps reveal how human and primate brains process and interpret facial expressions, and the role of facial mimicry in everything from deciphering an unclear smile to establishing relationships of power and status. The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2012, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health. Facial mimicry — a social behavior in which the observer automatically activates the same facial muscles as the person she is imitating — plays ...

A bacterial protein in common house dust may worsen allergic responses to indoor allergens, according to research conducted by the National Institutes of Health and Duke University. The finding is the first to document the presence of the protein flagellin in house dust, bolstering the link between allergic asthma and the environment. Scientists from the NIH's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and Duke University Medical Center published their findings in people and mice online Oct. 14 in the journal Nature Medicine. "Most people with asthma ...

PHILADELPHIA — The colors of a butterfly's wings are unusually bright and beautiful and are the result of an unusual trait; the way they reflect light is fundamentally different from how color works most of the time. A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania has found a way to generate this kind of "structural color" that has the added benefit of another trait of butterfly wings: super-hydrophobicity, or the ability to strongly repel water. The research was led by Shu Yang, associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn's ...

DETROIT – Wayne State University School of Medicine researchers may have discovered why people exposed to war are at increased risk to develop chronic problems like heart disease years later. And the culprit that links the two is surprising. Beginning in the mid-2000s, WSU researchers interviewed a random sample of 145 American immigrants who left Iraq before the 1991 Gulf War, and 205 who fled Iraq after the Gulf War began. All were residing in metropolitan Detroit at the time of the study. Study subjects were asked about socio-demographics, pre-migration trauma, how ...

An analysis of a school behavior strategy—known as School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS)—found that these types of programs significantly reduced children's aggressive behaviors and office discipline referrals, as well as improved problems with concentration and emotional regulation. The study, conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is the first randomized control trial to examine the impact of SWPBIS programs over multiple school years. The results were published October 15 in the journal Pediatrics ...

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 15, 2012 -- In today's tough job market, more job-seekers could be facing interview questions like this: Why are manholes round? Or how many barbershops are there in San Francisco? New job-hunters need to be prepared for these "puzzle interview" questions, says SF State researcher Chris Wright, even though they may consider them to be unfair or irrelevant. "I always give graduating students two primary suggestions. Expect the unexpected and be aware that you might get an off-the-wall question like this," said Wright, associate professor of psychology ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Nearly half of patients taking medications for chronic conditions do not strictly follow their prescribed medication regimens. Failure to use medications as directed increases patients' risk for side effects, hospitalizations, reduced quality of life and shortened lifespans. Now, a University of Missouri gerontological nursing expert says patients' poor adherence to prescribed medication regimens is connected to their beliefs about the necessity of prescriptions and concerns about long-term effects and dependency. MU Assistant Professor Todd Ruppar found ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A comprehensive new review on how to treat high cholesterol and other blood lipid problems suggests that intensive treatment with high doses of statin drugs is usually the best approach. But some statins work much better for this than others, the review concluded, and additional lipid-lowering medications added to a statin have far less value. And medications, of course, should be considered after first trying diet, weight loss and exercise. The review, published in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy, examined the range of treatment options for "dyslipidemia," ...

The identified critical threshold for dangerous climate change saying that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius seems not to have helped the climate negotiations so far. New research from the University of Gothenburg and Columbia University shows that negotiations based on such a threshold fail because its value is determined by Nature and is inherently uncertain. Climate negotiators should therefore focus on other collective strategies. Presenting their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Astrid Dannenberg, ...

A new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers and their colleagues finds that adolescents commonly take more risks than younger children and adults because they are more willing to accept risks when consequences are unknown, rather than because they are attracted to danger, as often assumed. Adolescents have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases and criminal behaviors of any age group, and even drive faster than adults. The death and injury rate of adolescents is 200% greater than for their younger peers, according to research cited in the study. Ifat ...

NEW ORLEANS, La. —New research links motor skills and perception, specifically as it relates to a second finding—a new understanding of what the left and right brain hemispheres "hear." Georgetown University Medical Center researchers say these findings may eventually point to strategies to help stroke patients recover their language abilities, and to improve speech recognition in children with dyslexia. The study, presented at Neuroscience 2012, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, is the first to match human behavior with left brain/right brain auditory ...

A new study led by the University of Leicester, in association with colleagues at Loughborough University, has discovered that sitting for long periods increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease and death. The study, which combined the results of 18 studies and included a total of 794,577 participants, was led by Dr. Emma Wilmot, a research fellow in the Diabetes Research Group at the University of Leicester. It was done in collaboration with colleagues from the newly established National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester-Loughborough Diet, Lifestyle ...

Researchers at Penn State University have developed a chemical model that mimics a possible step in the formation of cellular life on Earth four-billion years ago. Using large "macromolecules" called polymers, the scientists created primitive cell-like structures that they infused with RNA -- the genetic coding material that is thought to precede the appearance of DNA on Earth -- and demonstrated how the molecules would react chemically under conditions that might have been present on the early Earth. The journal Nature Chemistry will post the research as an Advance Online ...

DURHAM, NC -- Reproducing a rare type of B cell in the laboratory and infusing it back into the body may provide an effective treatment for severe autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center. The findings, which were demonstrated in mice, highlight the unique properties of a subset of B cells that normally controls immune responses and limits autoimmunity, in which an organism mistakenly attacks its own healthy tissue. The work appears Oct. 14, 2012, in the journal Nature. B cells ...

Michelle Geis mgeis@burnesscommunications.com 301-280-5712 Burness Communications Wambui Kamiru w.kamiru@cgiar.org 254-724-623-016 CGIAR Research shows legume trees can fertilize and stabilize maize fields, generate higher yields Africa's first long-term study finds legume trees planted alongside maize, combined with less fertilizer, is best solution for Africa's most important food crop NAIROBI, KENYA (15 October 2012)—Inserting rows of "fertilizer trees" into maize fields, known as agroforestry, can help farmers across sub-Saharan Africa cope with ...

One in six people in England aged over 50 are socially isolated. They have few socially orientated hobbies, little civic or cultural engagement with society, and may have very limited social networks. This was a key finding from the most recent report of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a comprehensive study that aims to understand the economic, social, psychological and health concerns of an ageing society. The multidisciplinary ELSA research team showed that the least wealthy over-fifties suffer the most social isolation, with the wealthier over 50's half ...

The causes of autism and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are complex, and contain elements of both nature (genes) and the environment. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Molecular Autism shows that common genetic polymorphisms (genetic variation) can add up to an increased risk of ASD. The contribution of inheritance and genetic mutation versus environmental factors to the risk of ASD is hotly debated. Most twin studies show the contribution heavily tilted toward inheritance, but the exact amount of involvement of genes in ASD risk is less apparent. ...

In a report published in Nature Physics, a group led Dr Leonid Ponomarenko and Nobel prize-winner Professor Andre Geim has assembled individual atomic layers on top of each other in a desired sequence. The team used individual one-atom-thick crystals to construct a multilayer cake that works as a nanoscale electric transformer. Graphene, isolated for the first time at The University of Manchester in 2004, has the potential to revolutionise diverse applications from smartphones and ultrafast broadband to drug delivery and computer chips. It has the potential to replace ...

Pioneering research conducted by the University of Sheffield is paving the way for new treatments which could benefit patients suffering from the fatal lung disease pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). For the first time scientists have found an antibody treatment that not only stops PAH getting worse, but also reverses the condition in mice and rats. The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation and the Medical Research Council (MRC) and is published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. PAH – high pressure in the blood vessels supplying the lungs – ...

Cambridge, Mass. – October 14, 2012 – In Harvard's Pierce Hall, the surface of a small germanium-coated gold sheet shines vividly in crimson. A centimeter to the right, where the same metallic coating is literally only about 20 atoms thicker, the surface is a dark blue, almost black. The colors form the logo of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), where researchers have demonstrated a new way to customize the color of metal surfaces by exploiting a completely overlooked optical phenomenon. For centuries it was thought that thin-film interference ...

MIAMI -- A new study by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science shows that corals may be more severely impacted by climate warming when they contain too many symbiotic algae. The single-celled algae living inside corals are usually the key to coral success, providing the energy needed to build massive reef frameworks. However, when temperatures become too warm, these algae are expelled from corals during episodes of coral 'bleaching' that can lead to widespread death of corals. Until now, it was thought that corals with ...