Tel Aviv — Because half of all instances of hearing loss are linked to genetic mutations, advanced gene research is an invaluable tool for uncovering causes of deafness — and one of the biggest hopes for the development of new therapies. Now Prof. Karen Avraham of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University has discovered a significant mutation in a LINC family protein — part of the cells of the inner ear — that could lead to new treatments for hearing disorders. Her team of researchers, including Dr. Henning Horn and Profs. Colin Stewart and Brian Burke of ...

This press release is available in Spanish.Poultry producers can reduce bacterial cross-contamination in poultry cages by treating the cages with forced air that's been heated to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a study by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists. While being transported in coops on trucks, poultry that have bacteria such as Campylobacter can contaminate, through their feces, other poultry that are free of pathogens. Those disease-causing bacteria can then be passed on to the next group of birds during the next trip, and so forth, unless ...

Minimally invasive islet transplantation for patients with type 1 diabetes achieves insulin independence and reverses the progression of atherosclerosis in the first few years after transplant, according to a University of Illinois at Chicago study. The research is published in the February issue of the journal Diabetes Care and is available online. Patients with diabetes, particularly women, have a substantial increased risk of dying from ischemic heart disease, according to previous research. However, future cardiac events may be prevented with intensive glycemic ...

Irvine, Calif., Jan. 28, 2013 – Agricultural irrigation in California's Central Valley doubles the amount of water vapor pumped into the atmosphere, ratcheting up rainfall and powerful monsoons across the interior Southwest, according to a new study by UC Irvine scientists. Moisture on the vast farm fields evaporates, is blown over the Sierra Nevada and dumps 15 percent more than average summer rain in numerous other states. Runoff to the Colorado River increases by 28 percent, and the Four Corners region experiences a 56 percent boost in runoff. While the additional ...

Donors to biobanks – vast collections of human tissue samples that scientists hope will lead to new treatments for diseases – have a right to basic information about how their donations may be used, a Michigan State University ethicist argues in a new paper. The idea behind biobanks is that a repository with hundreds of thousands of samples, each linked to medical records and other health information, can yield discoveries smaller data sets can't match. Once samples are collected, researchers in many fields can use the data repeatedly. "More and larger biobanks are ...

New Rochelle, NY, January 28, 2013—Over 4 million adults in the United States identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual and approximately 700,000 identify as transgender. An NIH-sponsored investigation by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that the health status and healthcare needs of this sizable population are poorly understood and likely inadequately met. A journal is urgently needed to support, promote, and address the unique healthcare needs of each population that comprises the LGBT community, in the United States and worldwide. LGBT Health, a new peer-reviewed ...

Chances are the only thing you remember about your first swig of alcohol is how bad the stuff tasted. What you didn't know is the person who gave you that first drink and when you had it says a lot about your predisposition to imbibe later in life. A national study by a University of Iowa-led team has found that adolescents who get their first drink from a friend are more likely to drink sooner in life, which past studies show makes them more prone to abusing alcohol when they get older. The finding is designed to help specialists predict when adolescents are likely to ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., January 27, 2013 – Most patients with an inherited heart condition known as arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy (ARVD/C) don't know they have a problem until they're in their early 20s. The lack of symptoms at younger ages makes it very difficult for researchers to study how ARVD/C evolves or to develop treatments. A new stem cell-based technology created by 2012 Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka, M.D., Ph.D., helps solve this problem. With this technology, researchers can generate heart muscle cells from a patient's own skin cells. ...

For purposes of their research, the scientists irradiated two separate layered systems with ultrashort laser pulses on the order of just one hundred femtoseconds (10-15 s). One sample consisted essentially of a single thin layer of ferromagnetic nickel. By contrast, a second sample of this same nickel material was coated with a non-magnetic layer of gold. Only a mere 30 nanometers (10-9 m) thick, the gold layer swallowed up the lion's share of the laser light so that barely any light ended up reaching the nickel layer. In spite of this, the nickel layer's magnetization ...

Charged particle accelerators have become crucially important to modern day life, be it in health care for cancer treatment or for answering important fundamental scientific questions like the existence of the HIGGS boson, the so called 'God particle'. In a simple picture, charged particles like electrons and protons are accelerated between two end plates across which an electrical voltage is applied. High energies need high voltages (millions and billions of volts) and long acceleration paths in giant sized machines – for instance the trillion volt machine called the 'large ...

HOUSTON – (Jan. 28, 2013) – Rice University scientists have taken an important step toward the creation of two-dimensional electronics with a process to make patterns in atom-thick layers that combine a conductor and an insulator. The materials at play – graphene and hexagonal boron nitride – have been merged into sheets and built into a variety of patterns at nanoscale dimensions. Rice introduced a technique to stitch the identically structured materials together nearly three years ago. Since then, the idea has received a lot of attention from researchers interested ...

BOULDER – Even if you live more than 1,000 miles from the nearest large city, it could be affecting your weather. In a new study that shows the extent to which human activities are influencing the atmosphere, scientists have concluded that the heat generated by everyday activities in metropolitan areas alters the character of the jet stream and other major atmospheric systems. This affects temperatures across thousands of miles, significantly warming some areas and cooling others, according to the study in Nature Climate Change. The extra "waste heat" generated from ...

Stem cells from bone marrow or fat improve recovery after stroke in rats, finds a study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Stem Cell Research & Therapy. Treatment with stem cells improved the amount of brain and nerve repair and the ability of the animals to complete behavioural tasks. Stem cell therapy holds promise for patients but there are many questions which need to be answered, regarding treatment protocols and which cell types to use. This research attempts to address some of these questions. Rats were treated intravenously with stem cells or ...

Pollution from forest fires is impacting the health of people with asthma and other chronic obstructive lung diseases, finds a study in Biomed Central's open access journal Environmental Health. This study uses data from pharmacies and dispensaries to measure the increase in drugs needed to alleviate symptoms associated with pollution. Forest fires burn nearly 1000 km2 of trees in British Columbia every year. The Ministry of Environment keeps a close watch on levels of particulate matter in the air caused by these fires but it is harder to measure the impact of this ...

The connection between poor sleep, memory loss and brain deterioration as we grow older has been elusive. But for the first time, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a link between these hallmark maladies of old age. Their discovery opens the door to boosting the quality of sleep in elderly people to improve memory. UC Berkeley neuroscientists have found that the slow brain waves generated during the deep, restorative sleep we typically experience in youth play a key role in transporting memories from the hippocampus – which provides short-term ...

The spread of breast cancer to distant organs within the body, an event that often leads to death, appears in many cases to involve the loss of a key protein, according to UC San Francisco researchers, whose new discoveries point to possible targets for therapy. In the January 27, 2013 online edition of Nature Cell Biology, UCSF scientists describe for the first time how the protein, known as GATA3 — which is abnormal or absent in many cases of human breast cancer — normally acts downstream in biochemical pathways to prevent the distant spread of cancer, an event called ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Patients with early stage breast cancer who are treated with lumpectomy plus radiation have a better chance of survival compared with those who undergo mastectomy, according to Duke Medicine research. The study, which appears online Jan. 28, 2013, in the journal CANCER, demonstrates the effectiveness of breast-conserving therapies such as lumpectomy, where only the tumor and surrounding tissue are surgically removed. "Our findings support the notion that less invasive treatment can provide superior survival to mastectomy in stage I or stage II breast ...

A new analysis has found that lumpectomy plus radiation for early breast cancer may provide patients with a better chance of survival than mastectomy. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the results provide confidence in the efficacy of breast-conserving treatments even among patients with aggressive, early disease. Lumpectomy combined with radiation is a good treatment choice for women with early breast cancer; however, over the past 10 years, a growing number of women have been choosing mastectomy even for very small ...

CHICAGO, January 28, 2013 – Only recently has it become possible to create high-quality images of the brain plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's disease in living people through positron emission tomography (PET). Even so, questions remain about what can be learned from these PET images and which people should have this test. To provide guidance for physicians, individuals and families affected by Alzheimer's, and the public, the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and the Alzheimer's Association have jointly published the first criteria for the ...

PThe rise in risky, non-traditional sexual relations that marked the swinging '60s actually began as much as a decade earlier, during the conformist '50s, suggests an analysis recently published by the Archives of Sexual Behavior. "It's a common assumption that the sexual revolution began with the permissive attitudes of the 1960s and the development of contraceptives like the birth control pill," notes Emory University economist Andrew Francis, who conducted the analysis. "The evidence, however, strongly indicates that the widespread use of penicillin, leading to a rapid ...

"I'm always harping on boat safety," says Coles, "and as we age it becomes more important to know CPR, First Aid, and AED (Automatic Electronic Defibrillators). Further concerns are people's food allergies and the medications they take. It's important for boaters to know what can or can't be used in their first aid kit should a problem arise." Right now these courses are only mandatory if you're getting a captain's license or for anyone who wants to teach on water boat safety; like the Power Squadron. Boating needs to be about safety, first. Not just ...

Horrorshow, Inc. and Shooting Creek Films are announcing completion of the long-awaited feature film, "House of Good and Evil." Now picture-locked with post-production visual effects finalized at Baltimore's Suited Four Productions, "House of Good and Evil" has collected foreign distribution offers and generated viral social media hype through its Facebook fan page. Using a 1914 Presbyterian boarding school, "House of Good and Evil" was shot on location in beautiful Floyd County, Va. As a special thanks to the community of Floyd, the ...

Streaming live on the Co-Creator Radio Network (www.co-creatornetwork.com) on Tuesday, January 29, at 11 a.m. Pacific time/2 p.m. Eastern time, on her show "Why Shamanism Now?: A Practical Path to Authenticity," shaman and founder of the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt asks the questions: Who will guide us as we stand together with new allies -- The Unknown, The Wild Heart, and The Tao -- at the dawning of the New World crafting the new Story of the People? What lights the way? "In the end, the light of the Old World was the harsh light ...

Folsom fitness expert and owner of Superwomen Boot Camp (SWBC), Val Fujii, is proud to announce the introduction of Supermen Boot Camp. The boot camp will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30-6:30am and will be co-ed. This time period works great for working men and women to start their days with an energetic workout before heading to the office. "We've had pent up demand for a Supermen Boot Camp," says Fujii. "Many of these men have been seeing the results of the women in our Superwomen boot camps and want the same thing." Phil Massa, husband ...

LEADSExplorer proposes a website gutter to capture the visitors on the website in order to be able contacting them after the visit. When rain pours down on a house without a gutter the water is lost. Similar when visitors land on a website they are lost as leads as only 2% will ever contact the company. Instead of wasting the potential leads, LEADSExplorer: - Reveals the companies visiting - Indicates their interest in products or services - Shows the level of interest - Allows contacting people in these interested companies by email - Following-up these website ...