Cold Spring Harbor, NY and Washington, DC – An international research team involving 17 institutions including Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has published the most comprehensive analysis to date of the maize genome. It is an achievement that substantially increases scientists' understanding of differences across related but different species of the plant, which most North Americans call corn, as well as the nature of differences found within individual maize species. The research is expected to speed development of improved varieties of corn, which is one of the ...

New hope has arrived for migraine sufferers following a Griffith University study with the people of Norfolk Island. Led by Professor Lyn Griffiths from the University's Griffith Health Institute, the team has identified a new region on the X chromosome as playing a role in migraine. The research provides compelling evidence for a new migraine susceptibility gene involved in migraine. The study also indicated that there may be more than one X chromosomal gene involved and implicated a gene involved in iron regulation in the brain. All females have two X chromosomes ...

Efforts to "green" operating rooms can result in cost savings for hospitals and reduce the environmental impact without compromising patient care, argues an analysis published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "The operating room is a disproportionate contributor to health care waste and represents a high-yield target for change," writes Dr. Yoan Kagoma, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London, Ontario, with coauthors. Operating rooms produce approximately 20%-33% of all waste in hospitals, and much of this waste is subjected ...

Acetaminophen, a widely available over-the-counter medication, can cause liver toxicity in children if doses are exceeded, and more public education is needed to warn of potential adverse effects, states an article published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "Acetaminophen overdose is a major cause of acute liver failure and is the most common identifiable cause of acute liver failure in children," writes Dr. Rod Lim, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, with coauthors. "Repeated supratherapeutic ...

Canada should ban off-label use of antibiotics in farm animals because it contributes significantly to antibiotic resistance in humans, states an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Off-label use means using antibiotics for purposes other than those indicated on the label. "Of greatest concern is the promotion of resistance to antibiotics that may currently represent the last resort for treating some highly resistant infections in humans," writes Barbara Sibbald, Deputy Editor, CMAJ. Other countries and regions are far ahead of Canada in limiting ...

MINNEAPOLIS – Contrary to earlier reports, a new study suggests that soy protein may not preserve overall thinking abilities in women over the age of 45, but may improve memory related to facial recognition. The study is published in the June 5, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "Soy is a staple of many traditional Asian diets and has been thought possibly to improve cognition in postmenopausal women," said study author Victor W. Henderson, MD, MS, with Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., and a Fellow with ...

Roughly 100,000 years ago, human evolution reached a mysterious bottleneck: Our ancestors had been reduced to perhaps five to ten thousand individuals living in Africa. In time, "behaviorally modern" humans would emerge from this population, expanding dramatically in both number and range, and replacing all other co-existing evolutionary cousins, such as the Neanderthals. The cause of the bottleneck remains unsolved, with proposed answers ranging from gene mutations to cultural developments like language to climate-altering events, among them a massive volcanic eruption. ...

UPTON, NY - Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified key elements in the biochemical mechanism plants use to limit the production of fatty acids. The results suggest ways scientists might target those biochemical pathways to increase the production of plant oils as a renewable resource for biofuels and industrial processes. "Now that we understand how this system operates - how plants 'know' when they've made enough oil and how they slow down production - we can look for ways to break the feedback loop so they keep making ...

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Giant insects ruled the prehistoric skies during periods when Earth's atmosphere was rich in oxygen. Then came the birds. After the evolution of birds about 150 million years ago, insects got smaller despite rising oxygen levels, according to a new study by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Insects reached their biggest sizes about 300 million years ago during the late Carboniferous and early Permian periods. This was the reign of the predatory griffinflies, giant dragonfly-like insects with wingspans of up to 28 inches (70 centimeters). ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have identified an immune system deficiency whose presence shows someone is up to four times likelier to die than a person without it. The glitch involves an antibody molecule called a free light chain; people whose immune systems produce too much of the molecule are far more likely to die of a life-threatening illness such as cancer, diabetes and cardiac and respiratory disease than those whose bodies make normal levels. The study is published in the June issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Researchers studied blood samples ...

Rochester, MN, June 4, 2012 – Micah True, legendary ultra-marathoner, died suddenly while on a routine 12-mile training run March 27, 2012. The mythic Caballo Blanco in the best-selling book, Born to Run, True would run as far as 100 miles in a day. On autopsy his heart was enlarged and scarred; he died of a lethal arrhythmia (irregularity of the heart rhythm). Although speculative, the pathologic changes in the heart of this 58 year-old veteran extreme endurance athlete may have been manifestations of "Phidippides cardiomyopathy," a condition caused by chronic excessive ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Nobody wins when patients stay in the hospital unnecessarily, so the federal government in recent years has pushed hospitals to be careful about admitting Medicare recipients as inpatients. The apparent result is that more patients are being "held for observation" instead, according to a new study by Brown University gerontologists. While the shift in how hospitals care for elderly patients in the emergency department may reduce costs to Medicare, it can also increase out-of-pocket expenditures for patients. "The dual trends of increasing ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The antidepressant drug duloxetine, known commercially as Cymbalta, helped relieve painful tingling feelings caused by chemotherapy in 59 percent of patients, a new study finds. This is the first clinical trial to find an effective treatment for this pain. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a common side effect of certain chemotherapy drugs. The tingling feeling -- usually felt in the toes, feet, fingers and hands -- can be uncomfortable for many patients, but for about 30 percent of patients, it's a painful sensation. Previous studies have ...

Pittsburgh, PA…An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of Afrasia djijidae, a new fossil primate from Myanmar that illuminates a critical step in the evolution of early anthropoids—the group that includes humans, apes, and monkeys. The 37-million-year-old Afrasia closely resembles another early anthropoid, Afrotarsius libycus, recently discovered at a site of similar age in the Sahara Desert of Libya. The close similarity between Afrasia and Afrotarsius indicates that early anthropoids colonized Africa only shortly before the time when these animals ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Skin cancer patients whose childhood included periods of neglect or maltreatment are at a much greater risk for their cancers to return when they face a major stressful event, based on a new study. The research suggests that such experiences during a person's youth can set a lower level of immune response for life, which in turn might make them more susceptible to the kind of cancers that are often successfully fought by the immune system, so-called immunogenic tumors. While the research focused on patients with a fairly benign form of skin cancer -- ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- High doses of the herb American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) over two months reduced cancer-related fatigue in patients more effectively than a placebo, a Mayo Clinic-led study found. Sixty percent of patients studied had breast cancer. The findings are being presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting. Researchers studied 340 patients who had completed cancer treatment or were being treated for cancer at one of 40 community medical centers. Each day, participants received a placebo or 2,000 milligrams of ginseng administered ...

STANFORD, Calif. — In a new study of the effects of soy supplements for postmenopausal women, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the USC Keck School of Medicine found no significant differences — positive or negative — in overall mental abilities between those who took supplements and those who didn't. While questions have swirled for years around a possible link between soy consumption and changes in cognition, this research offers no evidence to support such claims. "There were no large effects on overall cognition one way or another," said ...

North Carolina's coordinated, regional systems for rapid care improved survival rates of patients suffering from the most severe heart attack, according to research in the American Heart Association's journal, Circulation. Fewer ST -segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients died when paramedics diagnosed them en route to hospitals and hospitals followed well-defined guidelines to quickly treat or transfer patients to facilities that performed artery-opening procedures, if needed. Death rates were 2.2 percent for patients treated to guideline standards and ...

San Antonio, Texas, June 4, 2012 – Prisoners need education on the appropriate use of topical antibiotic products, according to a study released today at the 39th Annual Educational Conference and International Meeting of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). The first study to report on the widespread misuse of topical antibiotics among inmates entering prisons from other correctional facilities found that, among inmates who reported having used topical antibiotics during the previous six months, 59 percent of male and 40 percent ...

CHICAGO – A 38-year longitudinal study of New Zealanders suggests that individuals with higher genetic risk scores were more likely to be chronically obese in adulthood, according to a report published in the June issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Obesity is capable of being inherited and genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have started to uncover the molecular roots of heritability by identifying multiple single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with higher adult body mass index (BMI), the authors write in ...

San Antonio, Texas, June 4, 2012 – Preventing further complications in patients who develop infections after surgery to replace a knee or hip could save the U.S. healthcare system as much as $65 million annually, according to an analysis presented today at the 39th Annual Educational Conference and International Meeting of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). The research team, led by Keith Kaye, MD, MPH, corporate director of Infection Prevention, Hospital Epidemiology and Antimicrobial Stewardship at Detroit Medical Center/Wayne ...

Scientists have shown that the brains of people with depression respond differently to feelings of guilt – even after their symptoms have subsided. University of Manchester researchers found that the brain scans of people with a history of depression differed in the regions associated with guilt and knowledge of socially acceptable behaviour from individuals who never get depressed. The study – published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry – provides the first evidence of brain mechanisms to explain Freud's classical observation that exaggerated guilt and ...

DURHAM, N.C.— An ambitious effort to coordinate heart attack care among every hospital and emergency service in North Carolina improved patient survival rates and reduced the time from diagnosis to treatment, according to Duke University Medical Center researchers who spearheaded the program. "When treating heart attacks, the most important care decisions need to take place before the patient is brought to the hospital," says James Jollis, M.D., a Duke cardiologist and first author of the findings published today in the journal Circulation. "These procedures should be ...

CHICAGO – An observational study that examined the comparative effectiveness of rhythm control vs. rate control drug treatment on mortality in patients with atrial fibrillation (a rapid, irregular heart beat) suggests there was little difference in mortality within four years of treatment, but rhythm control may be associated with more effective long-term outcomes, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. AF affects approximately 2.3 million Americans and 250,000 Canadians, and the condition has a complex ...

Family members of children with a staph infection often harbor a drug-resistant form of the germ, although they don't show symptoms, a team of researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found. The results are published in the June issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The investigators focused on family members of nearly 200 children who had Staphylococcus aureus infections in the skin and soft tissue, in areas such as the nose, armpits and/or groin. They found that of the more than 600 household members who lived with ...