A slim waist and normal weight are usually associated with better health outcomes, but that's not always the case with heart failure patients, according to a new UCLA study. Researchers found that in both men and women with advanced heart failure, obesity — as indicated by a high body mass index (BMI) — and a higher waist circumference were factors that put them at significantly less risk for adverse outcomes. The study findings are published in the July 1 online issue of the American Journal of Cardiology. Heart failure affects 5.8 million people, including ...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – (July 2, 2012) – Using data from its unique online research platform, 23andMe, a leading personal genetics company, has identified seven single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) significantly associated with breast size, including three SNPs also correlated with breast cancer in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) now published online in BMC Medical Genetics. These findings make the first concrete genetic link between breast size and breast cancer risks. These findings were made analyzing data from 16,175 female 23andMe customers of European ancestry, ...

Mosquitoes are buzzing once again, and with that comes the threat of West Nile virus. Tom Hobman, a researcher with the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, is making every effort to put an end to this potentially serious infection. West Nile virus infections often result in flu-like symptoms that aren't life-threatening, and some in cases, infected people show no symptoms at all. But a significant percentage of patients develop serious neurological disease that includes inflammation in the brain, paralysis and seizures. In his latest ...

TEMPE, Ariz. – Scientists at Arizona State University have discovered that older honey bees effectively reverse brain aging when they take on nest responsibilities typically handled by much younger bees. While current research on human age-related dementia focuses on potential new drug treatments, researchers say these findings suggest that social interventions may be used to slow or treat age-related dementia. In a study published in the scientific journal Experimental Gerontology, a team of scientists from ASU and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, led by Gro ...

It's not just our DNA that makes us susceptible to disease and influences its impact and outcome. Scientists are beginning to realize more and more that important changes in genes that are unrelated to changes in the DNA sequence itself – a field of study known as epigenetics – are equally influential. A research team at the University of California, San Diego – led by Gary S. Firestein, professor in the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology at UC San Diego School of Medicine – investigated a mechanism usually implicated in cancer and in fetal development, ...

In an international scientific breakthrough, a Griffith University research team has been able to photograph the shadow of a single atom for the first time. "We have reached the extreme limit of microscopy; you can not see anything smaller than an atom using visible light," Professor Dave Kielpinski of Griffith University's Centre for Quantum Dynamics in Brisbane, Australia. "We wanted to investigate how few atoms are required to cast a shadow and we proved it takes just one," Professor Kielpinski said. Published this week in Nature Communications, "Absorption imaging ...

It's a challenge that's long been one of the holy grails of quantum computing: How to create quantum bits, or qubits – the key building blocks of quantum computers - that exist in a solid-state system at room temperature. Most current systems, by comparison, rely on complex and expensive equipment designed to trap a single atom or electron in a vacuum then cool the entire system to close to absolute zero. A group of Harvard scientists, led by Professor of Physics Mikhail Lukin and including graduate students Georg Kucsko and Peter Maurer, and post-doctoral researcher ...

BETHESDA, MD – July 3, 2012 – As the Genetics Society of America's Model Organism to Human Biology (MOHB): Cancer Genetics Meeting in Washington, D.C. drew to a close, it was clear that the mantra for drug discovery to treat cancers in the post-genomic era is pathways. Pathways are ordered series of actions that occur as cells move from one state, through a series of intermediate states, to a final action. Because model organisms – fruit flies, roundworms, yeast, zebrafish and others – are related to humans, they share many of the same pathways, but in systems that are ...

Scientists at Texas Biomed have developed the laboratory opossum as a new animal model to study the most common liver disease in the nation – afflicting up to 15 million Americans – and for which there is no cure. The condition, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), resembles alcoholic liver disease, but occurs in people who drink little or no alcohol. The major feature of NASH is accumulation of fat in the liver, along with inflammation and functional damage. Most people with NASH feel well and are not aware that they have a liver problem. Nevertheless, NASH can progress ...

How does the world's smallest mammalian diver survive icy waters to catch its prey? A recent study of American water shrews to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting in Salzburg on 1st July has surprised researchers by showing that the animals rapidly elevate body temperature immediately before diving into cold water. This behaviour is unexpected because lower body temperatures enable diving mammals to stay underwater for longer, so heating up doesn't make sense. This is because animals use up oxygen more quickly when they are warmer. According ...

Using combined data from a trio of orbiting X-ray telescopes, including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Japan-led Suzaku satellite, astronomers have obtained a rare glimpse of the powerful phenomena that accompany a still-forming star. A new study based on these observations indicates that intense magnetic fields drive torrents of gas into the stellar surface, where they heat large areas to millions of degrees. X-rays emitted by these hot spots betray the newborn star's rapid rotation. Astronomers first took notice of the young star, known as V1647 Orionis, in ...

PHILADELPHIA — Finding biocompatible carriers that can get drugs to their targets in the body involves significant challenges. Beyond practical concerns of manufacturing and loading these vehicles, the carriers must work effectively with the drug and be safe to consume. Vesicles, hollow capsules shaped like double-walled bubbles, are ideal candidates, as the body naturally produces similar structures to move chemicals from one place to another. Finding the right molecules to assemble into capsules, however, remains difficult. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania ...

Unfair and exploitative political agreements allow Europeans to eat fish from the plates of developing countries, according to a study led by University of British Columbia researchers. In the case of Madagascar, the European Union pays less than it did two decades ago while catching more fish. Since 1986, the EU's quotas for catching fish in Madagascar's waters have increased by 30 per cent while its access fees have decreased by 20 per cent. As a result, the total annual income for Madagascar decreased by almost 90 per cent between 1986 and 2010. An international ...

A study led by Hospital for Special Surgery researchers has demonstrated that women who have a specific type of antibody that interferes with blood vessel function are at risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes and that other antibodies in the same family thought to cause pregnancy complications do not put women at risk. The researchers say that many doctors may be unnecessarily treating some pregnant women who have antiphospholipid antibodies (aPLs) with anticoagulants, such as expensive heparin injections, which can cause bleeding and bone loss. The multicenter study appears ...

PHILADELPHIA— Being the top dog — or, in this case, the top gelada monkey — is even better if the alpha male is willing to concede at times to subordinates, according to a study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan and Duke University. Alpha male geladas who allowed subordinate competitors into their group had a longer tenure as leader, resulting in an average of three more offspring each during their lifetimes. The findings, collected from data during a five-year period ending in January 2011 through the University of Michigan ...

A newly published article in Physical Review Letters eliminates one of the top unsolved theoretical problems in chemical physics as ranked by the National Research Council in 1995. Scientists now can more accurately predict the dynamic behavior of electrons in atoms and molecules in chemical reactions that govern a wide range of phenomena, including the fuel efficiency of combustion engines and the depletion of the atmospheric ozone. The paper by David Mazziotti, professor in chemistry at the University of Chicago, solves what specialists call the "N-representability ...

Istanbul, 4 July 2012: A policy of single embryo transfer (SET) reduces the risk of perinatal mortality in infants born as a result of IVF and ICSI. The conclusion emerged from an analysis of more than 50,000 births recorded in the Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproduction Technology Database between 2004 and 2008, where the introduction of an SET policy has been associated with a reduction in overall perinatal mortality for IVF and ICSI babies. Results of the analysis were presented here today at the annual meeting of ESHRE (European Society of Human Reproduction ...

Istanbul, 4 July 2012: There is growing interest in a "freeze-all" embryo policy in IVF. Such an approach, which cryopreserves all embryos generated in a stimulated IVF cycle for later transfer in a non-stimulated natural cycle, would avoid any of the adverse effects which ovarian stimulation might have on endometrial receptivity during the treatment cycle. Ovarian stimulation has been shown to have adverse effects on endometrial receptivity and the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) is also increased when embryo transfer is performed in the stimulated cycle. Freezing ...

Istanbul, 4 July 2012: Although the first successful preservation of fertility from the freezing, thawing and grafting of ovarian tissue was reported eight years ago,(1) the technique has remained experimental and confined to a few specialist centres. Now, with the announcement of a first pregnancy (and subsequent live birth) in Italy following the transplantation of ovarian tissue, there are indications that fertility preservation is moving into the mainstream of reproductive medicine and into a greater number of centres.(2) "Fertility preservation is now a key component ...

Swaying trees is the way to go, if you are a primate crossing the jungle. Using human street athletes as stand-ins for orangutans, researchers have measured the energy required to navigate a forest using different strategies and found it pays to stay up in the trees. Their work was presented at the Society for Experimental Biology's meeting in Salzburg, Austria on 2 July 2012. The findings help us to understand why orangutans spend most of their lives in trees despite being much larger than other tree-dwelling animals. It also helps to explain how these primates get ...

Plastic pollution off the northwest coast of North America is reaching the level of the notoriously polluted North Sea, according to a new study led by a researcher at the University of British Columbia. The study, published online in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, examined stomach contents of beached northern fulmars on the coasts of British Columbia, Canada, and the states of Washington and Oregon, U.S.A. "Like the canary in the coal mine, northern fulmars are sentinels of plastic pollution in our oceans," says Stephanie Avery-Gomm, the study's lead author ...

The long and complicated journey to detect the Higgs boson, which started with one small step about 25 years ago, might finally have reached its goal. This was reported by LHC particle accelerator scientists today at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CERN, near Geneva. The Higgs boson is the final building block that has been missing from the "Standard Model," which describes the structure of matter in the universe. The Higgs boson combines two forces of nature and shows that they are, in fact, different aspects of a more fundamental force. The particle is ...

As of July 2, 2012, HeadsUp Communications LLC has finalized its partnership with Brendan Tripp and Metaphysical Consulting to support the Chicago-based HeadsUp Communications LLC Event Headquarters. HeadsUp Communications LLC, the Atlanta based consultant negotiations firm, prides itself on being innovative in both its approach to negotiation as well as its marketing of the firm. As such, the company has partnered with social networking and digital guru Brendan Tripp, CEO of Metaphysical Consulting. Metaphysical Consulting is a technology marketing, online branding, and ...

The World of Ink Network will be touring author Sands Hetherington's nighttime adventure for kids, Night Buddies and the Pineapple Cheesecake Scare published by Dune Buggy Press all through July and August 2012. About the Book: Night Buddies and the Pineapple Cheesecake Scare is the first in a series featuring John, a young city kid who isn't ready for bed yet, and Crosley, a bright-red crocodile who shows up in his room to rescue him and take him on an adventure. Night Buddies is an astonishing and inventive adventure with unforgettable cast of characters that will ...

Power Sources Unlimited, Inc. announces the ultimate TSP Series DIN Rail power supply. Output power from 90 to 600 watts, ATEX and IECEx certifications, UL508, NEC Class 2, SEMI F47, Class 1, Zone 2 Control equipment for hazardous locations. Options include wall mounting, redundancy module, buffer module for power back up, battery control module and battery packs. Deliveries range from stock to 8-10 weeks and are competitively priced under $65.00 in OEM quantities for the low end DIN Rail power supplies. For higher power DIN Rail power supplies along with options ...