WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 2012—In the operating room, surgeons can see inside the human body in real time using advanced imaging techniques, but primary care physicians, the people who are on the front lines of diagnosing illnesses, haven't commonly had access to the same technology – until now. Engineers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have created a new imaging tool for primary care physicians: a handheld scanner that would enable them to image all the sites they commonly examine, and more, such as bacterial colonies in the middle ear in 3-D, or monitor ...

(San Diego, California – October 2, 2012) A tall ship owned and operated by Sea Education Association (SEA) will depart port tomorrow on a research expedition dedicated to examining the effects of plastic marine debris, including debris generated by the 2011 Japanese tsunami, in the ocean ecosystem. During their 37-day cruise, the crew of the Woods Hole, Mass.-based sailing oceanographic research vessel Robert C. Seamans will explore a region between San Diego and Honolulu, popularly dubbed the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch", where high concentrations of plastic debris ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Epileptic and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) may look similar, but actually have different causes and treatments. Up to 20 percent of patients diagnosed with epilepsy actually have PNES, which are not treated by antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). According to a new study by Rhode Island Hospital researcher W. Curt LaFrance Jr., M.D., M.P.H., director of neuropsychiatry and behavioral neurology, increasing access to video electroencephalography (video-EEG) may aid in distinguishing between epilepsy and PNES. The study is published online in advance ...

BETHESDA, MD – October 2, 2012 -- Cancerous tumors contain hundreds of mutations, and finding these mutations that result in uncontrollable cell growth is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. As difficult as this task is, it's exactly what a team of scientists from Cornell University, the University of North Carolina, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York have done for one type of breast cancer. In a report appearing in the journal GENETICS, researchers show that mutations in a gene called NF1 are prevalent in more than one-fourth of all noninheritable ...

In the tribal societies of the Amazon forest, violent conflict accounted for 30 percent of all deaths before contact with Europeans, according to a recent study by University of Missouri anthropologist Robert Walker. Understanding the reasons behind those altercations in the Amazon sheds light on the instinctual motivations that continue to drive human groups to violence, as well as the ways culture influences the intensity and frequency of violence. "The same reasons - revenge, honor, territory and jealousy over women - that fueled deadly conflicts in the Amazon continue ...

FAIRFAX, Va., October 1, 2012—A longterm study conducted by researchers at George Mason University may be a benchmark in determining health threats to marine mammals. Over ten years of research in Belize was conducted studying the behavioral ecology, life history and health of manatees in an area relatively undisturbed by humankind. "Manatees are the proverbial 'canaries in the mineshaft,' as they serve as indicators of their environment and may reflect the overall health of marine ecosystems," says Alonso Aguirre, executive director of the Smithsonian-Mason School ...

The team led by Manel Esteller, director of the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program in the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Professor of Genetics at the University of Barcelona and ICREA researcher, has identified epigenetic changes that occur in adult stem cells to generate different body tissues. The finding is published this week in The American Journal of Pathology. The genome of every single cell in the human body is the same, regardless of their appearance and function. Therefore the activity of the tissues and organs and its disorders in complex ...

The advanced neovascular, or "wet," form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), left untreated, is the most common cause of vision loss among the elderly and a leading reason for their loss of driving privileges. But results of a new study, published in the online version of the journal Ophthalmology, suggest that monthly injections of ranibizumab improve eye chart test results required for a driver's license, build driver confidence and keep those with AMD driving longer. The wet form of AMD is marked by the abnormal scarring and leaking of new blood vessels in ...

The sensory cells of the inner ear have tiny hairs called stereocilia that play a critical part in hearing. It has long been known that these stereocilia move sideways back and forth in a wave-like motion when stimulated by a sound wave. After having designed a microscope to observe these movements, a research team at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has discovered that the hairs not only move sideways but also change in length. The discovery, which was made in collaboration with scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, USA provides new fundamental knowledge ...

Extensive environmental regulations have brought cleaner air and health improvements to the United States, but they also have increased the cost of manufacturing and reduced industrial productivity, according to a study by economists at the University of Chicago and MIT. Some economists have suggested that the regulations encouraged companies to become more efficient, thus reducing costs at upgraded plants. But in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, three economists contend that the regulations led to a 4.8 percent decline in productivity and ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Eating an apple a day might in fact help keep the cardiologist away, new research suggests. In a study of healthy, middle-aged adults, consumption of one apple a day for four weeks lowered by 40 percent blood levels of a substance linked to hardening of the arteries. Taking capsules containing polyphenols, a type of antioxidant found in apples, had a similar, but not as large, effect. The study, funded by an apple industry group, found that the apples lowered blood levels of oxidized LDL -- low-density lipoprotein, the "bad" cholesterol. When LDL ...

An online study of eligible voters around the country revealed that the preference for whites over blacks is the strongest in the least politically-partisan voters. Among these voters, race biases against Barack Obama could produce as much as a 20 percent gap in the popular vote in a contest that would otherwise be equal. "Although they may not determine the election outcome, race biases are having a strong anti-Obama effect among the least politically partisan voters," said Anthony Greenwald, a University of Washington psychology professor who conducted the survey. "If ...

Irvine, Calif., Oct. 2, 2012 — Efforts to treat disorders like Lou Gehrig's disease, Paget's disease, inclusion body myopathy and dementia will receive a considerable boost from a new research model created by UC Irvine scientists. The team, led by pediatrician Dr. Virginia Kimonis, has developed a genetically modified mouse that exhibits many of the clinical features of human diseases largely triggered by mutations in the valosin-containing protein. The mouse model will let researchers study how these now-incurable, degenerative disorders progress in vivo and will ...

This press release is available in German. One of the most deeply rooted concepts in science and in our everyday life is causality; the idea that events in the present are caused by events in the past and, in turn, act as causes for what happens in the future. If an event A is a cause of an effect B, then B cannot be a cause of A. Now theoretical physicists from the University of Vienna and the Université Libre de Bruxelles have shown that in quantum mechanics it is possible to conceive situations in which a single event can be both, a cause and an effect of another one. ...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have discovered the underlying order in metallic glasses, which may hold the key to the ability to create new high-tech alloys with specific properties. Glass materials may have a far less randomly arranged structure than formerly thought. Over the years, the ideas of how metallic glasses form have been evolving, from just a random packing, to very small ordered clusters, to realizing that longer range chemical and topological order exists. But by studying the structure of a metallic glass alloy formed ...

OAKLAND, Calif., October 1, 2012 — Use of electronic health records was associated with improved drug-treatment intensification, monitoring, and risk-factor control among patients with diabetes, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study. In the study, which appears in the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers also noted greater improvements among patients with poorer control of their diabetes and lipids. The findings provide an important contribution to the evidence base by demonstrating that, for the first time in a large population, EHRs help clinicians ...

CHICAGO – A study of girls and young women in California suggests that the quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV4) appeared to be associated with syncope (fainting) on the day of vaccination and skin infections in the two weeks after vaccination, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a family of small DNA viruses and infections with this viral family are the most commonly detected sexually transmitted infections in women. While most of these infections ...

CHICAGO --- It was a study everyone thought couldn't be done -- tracking, locating and interviewing nearly 2,000 youths up to five years after they were released from juvenile detention in Chicago to assess their mental health. But a team of intrepid Northwestern Medicine researchers found the young men and women and traveled anywhere necessary to interview them. Many were interviewed after they returned home. Others, however, were interviewed in less conventional locations -- a dancer on a break from her job in a nightclub, a woman in her boyfriend's garbage truck or ...

CHICAGO – Almost one-third of older adults received care in a skilled nursing facility in the last six months of life under the Medicare posthospitalization benefit, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. While most Medicare beneficiaries enroll in skilled nursing facility (SNF) care for rehabilitation or life-prolonging care, experience suggests that some dying patients are discharged to a SNF for end-of-life care. Switching patients from Medicare coverage under the SNF benefit to the hospice benefit ...

CHICAGO – A study of juveniles detained in Chicago suggests that more than 45 percent of males and nearly 30 percent of females had one or more psychiatric disorders with associated impairment five years after detention, according to a report published in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, a JAMA Network publication. Psychiatric disorders are prevalent among incarcerated juveniles. The disorders are likely to persist as the juveniles grow to be young adults because risk factors for psychiatric disorders are common among delinquent youth, including maltreatment, ...

When people – and monkeys – look at faces, a special part of their brain that is about the size of a blueberry "lights up." Now, the most detailed brain-mapping study of the area yet conducted has confirmed that it isn't limited to processing faces, as some experts have maintained, but instead serves as a general center of expertise for visual recognition. Neuroscientists previously established that this region, which is called the fusiform face area (FFA) and is located in the temporal lobe, is responsible for a particularly effective form of visual recognition. But ...

OAKLAND, Calif. — A study of almost 200,000 young females who received the quadrivalent human papilloma virus (HPV4) vaccine found that immunization was associated only with same-day syncope (fainting) and skin infections in the two weeks after vaccination. These findings support the general safety of routine vaccination with HPV4 in a clinical care setting to prevent cervical and other genital and reproductive cancers. The association between HPV4 and syncope was not unexpected, the researchers noted, because injections in general are known to have a correlation to fainting, ...

"Questions have been raised if restricting nuclear energy – an option considered by some countries after the accident in Fukushima, Japan – combined with climate policies might get extremely expensive. Our study is a first assessment of the consequences of a broad range of combinations of climate and nuclear policies," lead author Nico Bauer says. Restrictions on nuclear power could be political decisions, but also regulations imposed by safety authorities. Power generation capacities would have to be replaced, but fossil fuels would become costly due to a price on CO2 ...

The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral cover in the last 27 years. The loss was due to storm damage (48%), crown of thorns starfish (42%), and bleaching (10%) according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today by researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) in Townsville. "We can't stop the storms but, perhaps we can stop the starfish. If we can, then the Reef will have more opportunity to adapt to the challenges of rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification, says John Gunn, CEO of AIMS. ...

University of Leeds-led research has used tree rings from eight cedar trees in Bolivia to unlock a 100-year history of rainfall across the Amazon basin, which contains the world's largest river system. The new study shows that the rings in lowland tropical cedar trees provide a natural archive of data closely related to historic rainfall. Researchers measured the amounts of two different oxygen isotopes trapped in the wood's rings: oxygen-16 and the heavier oxygen-18. By looking at the varying amounts of the two isotopes, they could see how the pattern of rainfall ...