COLUMBUS, Ohio – A hormone-like substance produced by the body to promote inflammation can cause an aggressive form of leukemia when present at high levels, according to a new study by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James). The study shows that high levels of interleukin-15 (IL-15) alone can cause large granular lymphocytic (LGL) leukemia, a rare and usually fatal form of cancer, in an animal model. The researchers also developed a treatment for the ...

Home field advantage: Intravaginal immunization may help protect against infection Sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) enter the body through the mucosal epithelial cells and the ability to direct pathogen-clearing T-cells to points of infection may be the critical element in developing successful vaccines against these infections. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by John Schiller at the National Cancer Institute investigated the immune response to intravaginal immunization in mice infected with a form of the HPV virus carrying ...

Sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) enter the body through the mucosal epithelial cells and the ability to direct pathogen-clearing T-cells to points of infection may be the critical element in developing successful vaccines against these infections. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by John Schiller at the National Cancer Institute investigated the immune response to intravaginal immunization in mice infected with a form of the HPV virus carrying a model antigen. They found that intravaginal immunization significantly increased ...

HIV-1 is a genetically diverse collection of viruses, making it a moving target in vaccine development. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Brad Jones at the University of Toronto in investigated the feasibility of eliminating HIV-infected cells by targeting cellular immune responses against a human endogenous retrovirus (HERV). HERVs are the DNA remnants of ancient infectious retroviruses that became part of the germ line cells of our ancestors. Jones and colleagues found that HIV infection stimulated the expression of HERV ...

CHICAGO – November 12, 2012 – A new study provides the first clear evidence that vision or eye problems are rarely the cause of recurring headaches in children, even if the headaches usually strike while the child is doing schoolwork or other visual tasks. Many parents assume that frequent headaches mean their child needs glasses, so they ask their doctor to refer their child for an eye exam. This study was conducted by pediatric ophthalmologists who wanted to find reliable answers for parents, family doctors and pediatricians facing this common health question. The research ...

CHICAGO – November 12, 2012 – New research shows that the use of an audio therapy known as binaural beats can significantly reduce patients' anxiety during cataract surgery. The 141-patient study, conducted in Thailand, is the first of its kind in cataract surgery, which is one of the most frequently performed procedures worldwide, with more than 3 million performed annually in the United States. The research is being presented today at the 116th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, jointly conducted this year with the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology. ...

Los Angeles, CA (November 12, 2012) Veterans are becoming more geographically isolated as they migrate to smaller, more rural counties surrounding military bases finds a recent article in Armed Forces & Society, a SAGE journal published on behalf of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. Using the 1980, 1990, and 2010 censuses, study author Jay Teachman examined population data from 3131 US counties. He found that the areas to which veterans migrate are becoming more veteran-concentrated which has led to a segregation of Americans between veteran and ...

Heavy ion collisions at CERN should be able to produce the shortest light pulses ever created. This was demonstrated by computer simulations at the Vienna University of Technology. The pulses are so short that they cannot even be measured by today's technological equipment. Now, a method has been proposed to create the world's most precise stopwatch for the world's shortest light pulses, using a detector which is going to be installed at CERN in 2018. Small, Short and Hot Phenomena taking place on very short time scales are often investigated using ultra short laser ...

Human intelligence and behavior require optimal functioning of a large number of genes, which requires enormous evolutionary pressures to maintain. A provocative hypothesis published in a recent set of Science and Society pieces published in the Cell Press journal Trends in Genetics suggests that we are losing our intellectual and emotional capabilities because the intricate web of genes endowing us with our brain power is particularly susceptible to mutations and that these mutations are not being selected against in our modern society. "The development of our intellectual ...

DEVOTES stands for "DEVelopment Of innovative Tools for understanding marine biodiversity and assessing good Environmental Status". DEVOTES is a four year project, which has a total budget of € 12 million, of which €9 million are funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union. DEVOTES is coordinated by Ángel Borja, from AZTI-Tecnalia, a Spanish technological centre, specialized in marine and food research. More than 250 scientists, from 23 research centres of 12 European Union countries, as well as Ukraine, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and USA, will work in DEVOTES ...

Have you ever thought to use a clock to identify mineral deposits or concealed water resources within the Earth? An international team headed by astrophysicists Philippe Jetzer and Ruxandra Bondarescu from the University of Zurich is convinced that ultraprecise portable atomic clocks will make this a reality in the next decade. The scientists argue that these atomic clocks have already reached the necessary degree of precision to be useful for geophysical surveying. They say that such clocks will provide the most direct measurement of the geoid – the Earth's true physical ...

(BALTIMORE, MARYLAND) – Marking the fourth annual World Pneumonia Day, November 12th, world leaders and the Global Coalition Against Child Pneumonia are calling for major efforts in the fight against childhood pneumonia, which remains the number one killer of children under age five. Pneumonia claimed 1.3 million lives in 2011 alone, and was responsible for nearly one in five global child deaths. "Pneumonia can be prevented and cured. Yet, for too long it has been the leading cause of global deaths among children. We know what to do, and we have made great progress ...

Traditional Swedish bonad paintings can contain toxic substances such as arsenic, reveals new research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, in which painting conservator and conservation scientist Ingalill Nyström analysed the paint and techniques used in the traditional painted wall hangings from southern Sweden. Previous research into bonad painting has always originated in the humanities, from an art/cultural history perspective. Bonad paintings are painted wall hangings that tell a story, often with a biblical theme, and were put up in farmhouses on special ...

Couples who adopt after unsuccessful IVF treatment have a better quality of life than both childless couples and couples without fertility problems, reveals a study from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. A research group comprising midwives and doctors at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, studied quality of life five years after IVF treatment in 979 men and women in the Västra Götaland region. The study compared couples whose IVF treatment had failed with those whose treatment had resulted in children, those who did not have ...

Scientists have developed a statistical image analysis method which can assist in the grading of breast cancer by automatically segmenting tumour regions and detecting dividing cells in tissue samples. The system, developed at the University of Warwick, promises to bring objectivity and automation to the cancer grading process which is used to determine the aggressiveness of the treatment offered to the patient. Number of mitotic cells, cells which are dividing to create new cells, is a key indicator used by histopathologists for diagnosing and grading cancer. At present ...

A team of 17 researchers, led by scientists Eduard Batlle and Elena Sancho in the Colorectal Cancer Laboratory at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), have determined that the ability of colon cancer to metastasize lies in the healthy cells, called stroma, that surround the tumour. Although the stroma has long been hypothesized to be complicit in this process, this study marks the first time that healthy cells in the microenvironment have been observed to play a fundamental role in allowing metastasis to occur in a specific tumour type. The discovery, ...

In late October, Italian scientists have been sentenced for supposedly not having warned sufficiently against the severe earthquake of L'Aquila 2009. On occasion of this verdict, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the French Académie des sciences publish a statement concerning the handling of risks situations by scientists. We forward the statement in the exact wording. Joint Statement of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the French Académie des sciences, 12 November 2012 On the science-based communication of risks following ...

A group of researchers led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) has discovered the first scientific evidence of genetic blending between Europeans and Asians in the remains of ancient Scythian warriors living over 2,000 years ago in the Altai region of Mongolia. Contrary to what was believed until now, the results published in PLoS ONE indicate that this blending was not due to an eastward migration of Europeans, but to a demographic expansion of local Central Asian populations, thanks to the technological improvements the Scythian culture brought with them. The ...

New York, November 12, 2012 – Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, is pleased to announce the launch of Health Care: The Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation. Health Care provides a vehicle for communicating important advances in the study of cutting edge research on innovation in health care delivery, including improvements in systems, processes, management, payment, and applied information technology. The United States health care system is undergoing unprecedented reform; Health Care builds ...

Most emerging infectious diseases of humans come from animals. International health agencies monitor these diseases, but they do so only for humans and livestock, not for companion dogs and cats. A new study recommends a global system is needed to monitor infectious diseases of companion dogs and cats. The study, led by Michael Day, Professor of Veterinary Pathology in the School of Veterinary Sciences at the University of Bristol and published online in Emerging Infectious Diseases, lists key infectious diseases that may be transmitted between dogs and cats and man ...

Enjoying Spanish participation, an international group of researchers have analysed the most recent history of the Alhama de Murcia fault. They discovered that it has experienced six major earthquakes above 7 on the Richter scale. According to the scientists, this provides "convincing evidence" that the maximum earthquake magnitudes in the area are higher than originally thought. Since 2001, researchers from the Universities of Barcelona, Leon, Complutense de Madrid (UCM), Coimbra (Portugal), Aahus (Denmark) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico have been working ...

This press release is available in German. Microbiologists and geochemists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, along with their colleagues from Vienna and Mainz, show that marine methane oxidation coupled to sulfate respiration can be performed by a single microorganism, a member of the ancient kingdom of the Archaea, and does not need to be carried out in collaboration with a bacterium, as previously thought. They published their discovery as an article in the renowned scientific journal Nature. Vast amounts of methane are stored under the ocean ...

It is often assumed that those on low incomes and with low levels of education are overly represented in the major increase in obesity of recent decades. A new thesis from the Lund University School of Economics and Management, Sweden, shows that obesity is increasing across all social groups and that we need to look at factors other than socioeconomic status to understand and solve one of the major public health concerns of the Western world. Åsa Ljungvall, a researcher in economics at the Lund University School of Economics and Management, has studied the increase ...

A new study has found Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) patients given a new type of 'smart drug' in addition to chemotherapy treatment are 22 per cent less likely to relapse and around 13 per cent less likely to die from their disease. The results are from a major phase III Cancer Research UK-funded trial led by Cardiff University. Of the 1,115 patients who took part in the trial, 68 per cent relapsed on the new treatment within three years, compared with 76 per cent of those who had the standard treatment. And 25 per cent were still alive after three years, compared with ...

Those individuals who work outdoors with resultant sun exposure are at increased risk for non-melanoma skin cancers, such as squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma. Manigé Fartasch shows that the connection between occupational UV exposure and squamous cell carcinoma is now well-established in her review article in issue 43 of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109(43): 715−20). The results are less clear for basal cell carcinoma, another form of non-melanoma skin cancer. Skin cancers caused by UV light have not yet been considered ...