Bethesda, MD, October 18, 2012 The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) published the report of the Whole Genome Analysis (WGA) Working Group of the AMP Clinical Practice Committee in the November 2012 issue of The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics (JMD). Titled "Opportunities and Challenges Associated with Clinical Diagnostic Genome Sequencing," the timely report provides a detailed and compelling overview of the landscape of next generation sequencing (NGS) technology and its clinical relevance and impact on improving patient care. The issues addressed in the ...

Boston, MA— Excitement around the potential for targeted nanoparticles (NPs) that can be controlled by stimulus outside of the body for cancer therapy has been growing over the past few years. More specifically, there has been considerable attention around near-infrared (NIR) light as an ideal method to stimulate nanoparticles from outside the body. NIR is minimally absorbed by skin and tissue, has the ability to penetrate deep tissue in a noninvasive way and the energy from NIR light can be converted to heat by gold nanomaterials for effective thermal ablation of diseased ...

We live in a human-dominated world. For many of our fellow creatures, this means a fragmented world, as human conduits to friends, family, and resources sever corridors that link the natural world. Our expanding web of highways, cities, and intensive agriculture traps many animals and plants in islands and cul-de-sacs of habitat, held back by barriers of geography or architecture from reaching mates, food, and wider resources. A team of researchers, managers, and ecological risk assessors review the current state-of-the-art in landscape connectivity planning, offering ...

People are more likely to install a solar panel on their home if their neighbors have one, according to a Yale and New York University study in the journal Marketing Science. The researchers studied clusters of solar installations throughout California from January 2001 to December 2011 and found that residents of a particular zip code are more likely to install solar panels if they already exist in that zip code and on their street. "We looked at the influence that the number of cumulative adoptions—the number of people who already installed solar panels in a zip ...

It's fall football season, when fight songs and shouted play calls fill stadiums across the country. Another less rousing sound sometimes accompanies football games: the sharp crack of helmet-to-helmet collisions. Hard collisions can lead to player concussions, but the physics of how the impact of a helmet hit transfers to the brain are not well understood. A research team from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., has created a simplified experimental model of the brain and skull inside a helmet during a helmet-to-helmet collision. The model illustrates how the fast ...

Global temperatures directly affect the acidity of the ocean, which in turn changes the acoustical properties of sea water. New research suggests that global warming may give Earth's oceans the same hi-fi sound qualities they had more than 100 million years ago, during the Age of the Dinosaurs. The reason for this surprising communication upgrade is that whales vocalize in the low-frequency sound range, typically less than 200 hertz, and the new research predicts that by the year 2100, global warming will acidify saltwater sufficiently to make low-frequency sound near ...

Noise can be distracting, especially to a person trying to concentrate on a difficult task. Studying annoying noises helps architects design better building environments and policy makers choose effective noise regulations. To better understand how short noise bursts affect humans' mental state, researchers from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln played quarter-second-long white noise clips to test subjects as they worked on arithmetic problems. The researchers noticed a slight general trend toward lower performance when louder noises were played, and also identified ...

Miss hitting the "sweet spot" on a baseball bat and the resulting vibrations can zing your hands. Bat companies have tried for decades to reduce these painful shocks with limited success. But Daniel Russell, a professor in the graduate program in acoustics at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, has figured out that bat vibrations between 600 and 700 hertz (Hz) cause the most pain and that specifically tuned vibration absorbers are the best at combatting the sting. He will present the results of his damping technique comparisons at the 164th meeting of the ...

Earthquakes sway buildings, buckle terrain, and rumble – both audibly and in infrasound, frequencies below the threshold of human hearing. New computer modeling by a team of researchers indicates that most of the low-frequency infrasound comes from an unexpected source: the actual "pumping" of the Earth's surface. The researchers confirmed their models by studying data from an actual earthquake. "It's basically like a loudspeaker," said Stephen Arrowsmith, a researcher with the Geophysics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Santa Fe, N.M., who presents his team's ...

VIDEO: Einstein predicted gravity waves in his general theory of relativity, but to date these ripples in the fabric of space-time have never been observed. Now a scientific research technique called... Click here for more information. A pioneering technology capable of atomic-level precision is now being developed to detect what so far has remained imperceptible: gravitational waves or ripples in space-time caused by cataclysmic events including even the Big Bang itself. A ...

Tropical Storm Maria is moving away from Japan and strong wind shear is pushing its rainfall east of the storm's center, according to NASA satellite imagery. On Oct. 18 at 0845 UTC (4:45 a.m. EDT), NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite saw that rain associated with Tropical Storm Maria was limited to the east of the storm's center. Rainfall was also light to moderate, falling at a rate between .78 to 1.57 inches/20 to 40 mm per hour. There were no areas of heavy rain remaining in the tropical cyclone. The low-level center of the storm is now exposed ...

When the lamp is shattered, The light in the dust lies dead. When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed. These words, which open Shelley's poem "When the Lamp is Shattered," employ visions of nature to symbolize life in decay and rebirth. It's as if he had somehow foreseen the creation of this new Gemini Legacy image, and penned a caption for it. What Gemini has captured is nothing short of poetry in motion: the colorful and dramatic tale of a life-and-death struggle between two galaxies interacting. All the action appears in a single frame, with the ...

Heavy rainfall returned to Typhoon Prapiroon for a brief time on Oct. 18 when NASA's TRMM satellite passed overhead. Prapiroon is battling strong wind shear and is expected to transition into an extra-tropical storm in the next day. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured rainfall data on Prapiroon twice on Oct. 18 when it passed overhead. The first orbit was at 0845UTC and the second at 1019 UTC. TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) data show that rain associated with Prapiroon was falling at a rate of over 75mm/hour ...

Hurricane Rafael is no longer a tropical cyclone. The storm merged with a cold front on Oct. 18, but not before NASA's Terra satellite captured an image of the storm when it was in its last day as a hurricane. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Terra captured a visible image of Hurricane Rafael in the North Atlantic on Oct. 17 at 1440 UTC (10:40 a.m. EDT). Although Rafael was far from land, its northwestern fringe clouds were brushing Nova Scotia, Canada. By 5 p.m. EDT on Oct. 17, Rafael had become extra-tropical, meaning that ...

In a new perspective piece being published Online First tonight in Annals of Internal Medicine, a physician recalls lessons learned from treating patients affected by the 2002 outbreak of Exophiala (Wangiella) dermatitidis meningitis or arthritis related to contaminated, injectable coticosteroids prepared from a compounding pharmacy. According to the author, the lessons he learned in 2002 are applicable to the current outbreak. He warns that compounding of preservative-free corticosteroids requires meticulous sterility to ensure lack of fungal contamination. Without ...

NEW ORLEANS – Ashley Thomas was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair. She also holds a position on the U.S. national para-kayak team, and founded and runs a successful nonprofit organization called "Bridge II Sports." The North Carolina-based organization develops programs that provide opportunities for children and adults with physical disabilities to play team and individual sports. Ms. Thomas will be speaking about her experiences at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference & Exhibition (NCE) in New Orleans at 11:15 a.m., Friday, Oct. 19 in ...

NEW ORLEANS – An abstract presented Friday, Oct. 19, at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans highlights the risky behavior of child pedestrians who are struck by cars – including darting into the street, crossing in the middle of the block, and crossing while using an electronic device. For the abstract, "Risky Behaviors of Pediatric Pedestrians Who are Struck by Motor Vehicles," researchers collected data on all pedestrians who were injured by a motor vehicle and presented to a Level I trauma center in New York City ...

NEW ORLEANS – Collective violence attributed to organized crime and poverty are adversely affecting the mental health of children living near the Texas-Mexico border, according to a poster presented Oct. 19 at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans. In the study, "Children's Mental Health and Collective Violence: A Bi-National Study on the United States/Mexican Border," researchers compared psychosocial and behavior scores among children and adolescents living in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico in ...

NEW ORLEANS – Few adolescent females undergo pregnancy testing in the hospital emergency department (ED), even when they complain of lower abdominal pain, or before they are exposed to radiation for tests or examinations, according to an abstract presented Friday, Oct. 19, at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans. In the abstract, "Pregnancy Testing Rates Among Adolescent Emergency Department Patients," researchers reviewed National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey data from 2000 to 2009 on female patients aged ...

Claudio Anasetti, M.D., chair of the Department of Blood & Marrow Transplant at Moffitt Cancer Center, and colleagues from 47 research sites in the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network conducted a two-year clinical trial comparing two-year survival probabilities for patients transplanted with peripheral blood stem cells or bone marrow stem cells from unrelated donors. The goal was to determine whether graft source, peripheral blood stem cells or bone marrow, affects outcomes in unrelated donor transplants for patients with leukemia or other hematologic malignancies. ...

Bankruptcy May Help Save a House from Foreclosure Plenty of homeowners in California have felt the downward pressure of the economy over the last few years, and many have unfortunately received notices regarding foreclosure. When a homeowner receives a notice of default followed by a notice of sale, an overwhelming feeling of dread and confusion may arise when deciding how to address the circumstances. For some distressed homeowners facing foreclosure in California, bankruptcy may be the most viable option to buy time and perhaps even save the home. Non-Judicial Foreclosure ...

Smart Financial Moves to Make After Divorce When people go through the emotional upheaval that often accompanies divorce, it is easy for them to put financial considerations off to the side while they try to process all of the changes that are occurring. However, people cannot completely ignore money matters during divorce. Divorce requires making several important financial decisions, and people also need to learn how to manage finances as a single person after divorce. There are some important steps people should take after divorce to make themselves more financially ...

Opposing Verdicts on Medical Malpractice Damages Cap in Missouri The Missouri Supreme Court issued a pair of rulings recently that will affect the compensation available to some medical malpractice victims and their families. While both cases centered on Missouri's cap on damages in medical malpractice cases, their outcomes were very different. At issue in both cases was a $350,000 cap on non-economic damages for medical malpractice lawsuits in Missouri. Non-economic damages are awarded for non-monetary harms such as pain and suffering, emotional distress or loss ...

Why Consider Mediation for a New Jersey Divorce? When people think of the word "divorce," it may conjure up images of couples bitterly quarreling over every last item the family owned, protracted court battles and huge attorney fees. Many New Jersey couples are seeing the problems that litigating divorce can lead to, which is contributing to the rise in the popularity of divorce mediation as an alternative to litigation. New Jersey residents should understand the divorce mediation process and potential benefits of mediation. Mediation Process When a couple ...

Trusts and Divorce: The Potential Protection of Separate Property Even though trusts are normally associated with estate planning, a trust can also have role in safeguarding assets during divorce. This article will provide an overview of separate and marital property in Colorado and explain how a trust can be used to protect assets from a former spouse. Colorado Property Division If a couple going through divorcecannot agree on how to divide their assets, a judge will do it for them in court through an asset division process. Colorado is an equitable division state, ...