MIAMI, FL – OCTOBER 24, 2012 – A study found that transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) yielded lower mortality rates after three years compared with medical therapy in patients deemed to be ineligible for conventional aortic valve surgery. Results of the PARTNER Cohort B trial were presented today at the 24th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. TAVR is the recommended ...

MIAMI, FL – OCTOBER 24, 2012 – A study found that second-generation drug-eluting stents are safe and effective in the treatment of left main coronary artery lesions. Results of the ISAR-LEFT MAIN 2 trial were presented at the 24th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. Patients undergoing invasive treatment of unprotected left main coronary artery (uLMCA) lesions are often ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae – which can cause pneumonia, meningitis, bacteremia and sepsis – likes to share its antibiotic-defeating weaponry with its neighbors. Individual cells can pass resistance genes to one another through a process called horizontal gene transfer, or by "transformation," the uptake of DNA from the environment. Now researchers report that they can interrupt the cascade of cellular events that allows S. pneumoniae to swap or suck up DNA. The new findings, reported in the journal PLoS ONE, advance the effort to develop ...

TORONTO, Oct. 24, 2012--It turns out the muscle cells on the outside of blood vessels have been wrongly accused for instigating lung disease. New research shows that while these muscle cells are responsible for constricting or dilating the blood vessels, they are not responsible for sensing the amount of oxygen that gets to the lungs. That message comes from the endothelial cells – special cells that line the blood vessels – along a "signalling pathway." When a person is low on oxygen, blood vessels throughout the body expand to improve the delivery of this vital molecule ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Joint research between the University of Michigan and the Argentina-based National Council of Science and Technology (CONICET) has shed light on one of the most frustrating mysteries of weight loss – why the weight inevitably comes back. A novel animal model showed that the longer mice remained overweight, the more "irreversible" obesity became, according to the new study that appeared online ahead of print Oct.24 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Over time, the static, obese state of the mice reset the "normal," body weight set point to ...

MIAMI, FL – OCTOBER 24, 2012 – A clinical trial found that the use of a next generation, micronet, mesh-covered stent demonstrated improved restoration of blood flow to heart tissue, compared to the use of either bare-metal or drug-eluting stents in heart attack patients undergoing angioplasty. Results of the MASTER trial were presented today at the 24th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium and will appear in the November 6th issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, ...

ROSEMONT, IL–Obese patients have a greater risk of complications following total knee replacement surgery, including post-surgical infections, according to a new literature review recently published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS). Because of complications, obese patients are more likely to require follow-up surgery (revision). Obesity is reaching epidemic proportions, particularly in the United States, and is a well-documented risk factor for the development of osteoarthritis. Arthritis is initially treated nonsurgically, but total joint replacement often ...

The fourth installment of the Paranormal Activity films topped the box office last week. Television channel SyFy's hit show Ghost Hunters scares up big ratings, and has spawned copycat series on networks ranging from Biography to Animal Planet. The omnipresence of paranormal entertainment piqued the interest of Paul Brewer, professor of communication, who wondered what makes viewers believe—or disbelieve— what they see on the screen. His resulting study, recently published in the journal Science Communication, examines the influence of media messages about paranormal ...

Part Two: Slicing through the electron beam Wim Leemans of Berkeley Lab's Accelerator and Fusion Research Division heads LOASIS, the Laser and Optical Accelerator Systems Integrated Studies, an oasis indeed for students pursuing graduate studies in laser plasma acceleration (LPA). Among the most promising applications of future table-top accelerators are new kinds of light sources, in which their electron beams power free electron lasers. "If our LPA electron bunches had good enough quality for free electron lasers – and were really only femtoseconds long – we should ...

NASA satellites are closely monitoring Tropical Storm Sandy in visible and infrared light as it approaches Jamaica. Sandy is now responsible for hurricane and tropical storm warnings and watches from Jamaica to Cuba, the Bahamas and southern Florida. Sandy is expected to become a hurricane before it reaches Jamaica and Cuba. On Oct. 23, 2012 at 1545 UTC (11:45 a.m. EDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Sandy when its center was a couple of hundred miles south of Jamaica. Sandy's clouds filled ...

Scientists may have discovered why the standard treatment for Parkinson's disease is often effective for only a limited period of time. Their research could lead to a better understanding of many brain disorders, from drug addiction to depression, that share certain signaling molecules involved in modulating brain activity. A team led by Bernardo Sabatini, Takeda Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, used mouse models to study dopamine neurons in the striatum, a region of the brain involved in both movement and learning. In people, these neurons release ...

Life is about failure as much as it is about success. From the mistakes we make at work or school to our blunders in romantic relationships, we are constantly reminded of how we could be better. By focusing on the important qualities that make us who we are – a process called self-affirmation – we preserve our self-worth in the face of our shortcomings. Self-affirmation has been shown to have powerful effects – research suggests that it can minimize the anxiety, stress, and defensiveness associated with threats to our sense of self while keeping us open to the idea that ...

Satellite imagery indicated that Tropical Storm Tony is a small, compact storm, traveling through the central Atlantic Ocean. On Oct 23, Tropical Depression 19 strengthened into Tropical Storm Tony in the central Atlantic Ocean. NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured an image of Tony on Oct. 24 at 7:45 a.m. EDT that revealed that Tony is relatively small as it moves through the central Atlantic. Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 70 miles (110 km) from the center. Tony is just over 140 miles in diameter as seen on the GOES-13 image. The GOES-13 satellite image ...

A multinational research team has discovered filamentous bacteria that function as living power cables in order to transmit electrons thousands of cell lengths away. The Desulfobulbus bacterial cells, which are only a few thousandths of a millimeter long each, are so tiny that they are invisible to the naked eye. And yet, under the right circumstances, they form a multicellular filament that can transmit electrons across a distance as large as 1 centimeter as part of the filament's respiration and ingestion processes. The discovery by scientists at Aarhus University ...

Americans used less energy in 2011 than in the previous year due mainly to a shift to higher-efficiency energy technologies in the transportation and residential sectors. Meanwhile, less coal was used but more natural gas was consumed according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Wind power saw the biggest jump from .92 quadrillion BTU, or quads, in 2010 up to 1.17 quads in 2011. (BTU or British Thermal Unit is a unit of measurement for energy and is equivalent to about 1.055 kilojoules). "Wind energy jumped significantly ...

Older patients who visited local ERs for chest pain or breathing problems and had chest x-rays reveal unknown spinal fractures, were more apt to receive osteoporosis treatment afterward if a simple intervention was used, recently published medical research from the University of Alberta has found. Treatment rates for the bone-thinning condition substantially improved when patients and their family doctors received follow-up information about the warning signs and risk factors. It is the first and only trial in the world that looked at spinal osteoporosis. Of those ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – More than 80 percent of pigs that tested positive for influenza A virus at Ohio county fairs between 2009 and 2011 showed no signs of illness, according to a new study. Ohio State University researchers tested 20 pigs each at 53 fair events over those three summers and found at least one flu-positive pig at 12 fairs – almost a quarter of fairs tested. The influenza strains identified in pigs in this study include H1N2 and H3N2 viruses – strains that have been circulating in pigs since 1998. In 2011, all of the H3N2 and H1N2 isolates found in pigs ...

DeKALB, Ill. -- With Election Day less than a month away, television is filled with talking heads spreading the conventional wisdom of what a Republican or Democratic president might mean for the economy. However, a group of researchers says, when it comes to the relationship between presidential politics and the behavior of the financial markets, conventional wisdom may not be so wise. The researchers reviewed more than 40 years of data (1965-2008) in studying the relationship between security returns and four variables: the political affiliation of the president; ...

In a new paper released today in Nature, BioFrontiers Institute scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder, Tom Cech and Leslie Leinwand, detailed a new target for anti-cancer drug development that is sitting at the ends of our DNA. Researchers in the two scientists' laboratories collaborated to find a patch of amino acids that, if blocked by a drug docked onto the chromosome end at this location, may prevent cancerous cells from reproducing. The amino acids at this site are called the "TEL patch" and once modified, the end of the chromosome is unable to recruit ...

WASHINGTON -- The average area covered by the Antarctic ozone hole this year was the second smallest in the last 20 years, according to data from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites. Scientists attribute the change to warmer temperatures in the Antarctic lower stratosphere. The ozone hole reached its maximum size Sept. 22, covering 8.2 million square miles (21.2 million square kilometers), or the area of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined. The average size of the 2012 ozone hole was 6.9 million square miles (17.9 ...

While the United States has largely been spared the scourge of mosquito-borne diseases endemic to the developing world—including yellow fever, malaria and dengue fever—mosquito-related illnesses in the US are on the rise. One pathogen of increasing concern in the U.S. is an arbovirus known as West Nile. Now Qiang "Shawn" Chen, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute and a professor in the College of Technology and Innovation has developed a new method of testing for West Nile, using plants to produce biological reagents for detection and diagnosis. ...

A new study based on data from European Space Agency's Cluster mission shows that it is easier for the solar wind to penetrate Earth's magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, than had previously been thought. Scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. have, for the first time, directly observed the presence of certain waves in the solar wind—called Kelvin-Helmholtz waves that can help transfer energy into near-Earth space—under circumstances when previous theories predicted they were not expected. The recent paper, published on Aug 29, 2012, ...

Irvine, Calif., Oct. 24, 2012 – Isolated stars kicked to the edges of space by violent galaxy mergers may be the cause of mysterious infrared light halos observed across the sky, according to UC Irvine and other astronomers. "Background glow in our sky has been a huge unanswered question," said UCI physics & astronomy professor Asantha Cooray, lead author of a paper about the discovery in the Oct. 25 issue of the journal Nature. "We have new evidence that this light is from stars that linger between galaxies. Individually, they're too dim to be seen, but we think we're ...

Boston, Mass. , Oct. 24, 2012—Children with serious anger problems can be helped by a simple video game that hones their ability to regulate their emotions, finds a pilot study at Boston Children's Hospital. Results were published online October 24 in the journal Adolescent Psychiatry. Noticing that children with anger control problems are often uninterested in psychotherapy, but very eager to play video games, Jason Kahn, PhD, and Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich, MD, at Boston Children's Hospital developed "RAGE Control" to motivate children to practice emotional control skills ...

The latest tropical storm in the western North Pacific Ocean has already spread its clouds and showers over the Philippines, as seen in NASA satellite imagery. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image as it flew over Tropical Storm Son-tinh today, Oct. 24. On Oct. 24, 2012 at 0445 UTC (12:45 a.m. EDT) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Son-tinh. At the time of the image, Son-tinh's center was moving through the central Philippines, but its cloud cover extended ...