Specialised group yoga classes could provide a cost-effective way of treating patients with chronic or recurrent low back pain, according to the UK's largest ever study of the benefits of yoga. Led by the University of York, and funded by Arthritis Research UK, the study provides an evaluation of a specially-developed 12-week group yoga intervention programme compared to conventional general practitioner (GP) care alone. The results published in Spine, show that the yoga intervention programme – 'Yoga for Healthy Lower Backs' - is likely to be cost effective for both ...

The growth of high topography on the Tibetan Plateau in Sichuan, China, began much earlier than previously thought, according to an international team of geologists who looked at mountain ranges along the eastern edge of the plateau. The Indian tectonic plate began its collision with Asia between 55 and 50 million years ago, but "significant topographic relief existed adjacent to the Sichuan Basin prior to the Indo-Asian collision," the researchers report online in Nature Geoscience. "Most researchers have thought that high topography in eastern Tibet developed during ...

Eribulin (trade name: Halaven®) was approved in March 2011 for women with locally advanced or metastasizing breast cancer in whom the disease has progressed despite prior drug therapy. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the "Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products" (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether eribulin offers an added benefit compared with the present standard therapy. According to the results of the assessment, the currently available evidence provides "hints" that eribulin ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Almost 41 percent of Ohioans have visited a lake, pond, river or creek in the state in the past year, and of those, nearly one-half usually spend their water-related recreational time at Lake Erie, according to preliminary findings in a new report. These figures and other findings in the report suggest that Ohio residents value their lakes and rivers, and particularly Lake Erie, as natural resources, but also help to clarify the risk that Ohioans face from contaminants in those same bodies of water, researchers say. Among the risks: Some blue-green ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A Rhode Island Hospital researcher has found that the use of electronic prescription drug monitoring programs (PMPs) may have a significant impact on the demand for drug treatment programs and how prescribers detect and respond to abuse of painkillers. The study by Traci C. Green, Ph.D., MSc, research scientist in Rhode Island Hospital's department of general internal medicine, is published online in advance of print in the journal Pain Medicine. The study surveyed 1,385 providers in Rhode Island and Connecticut on their use of state PMPs, and found ...

Results of a phase III clinical trial of the drug Enzalutamide, published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine, show the drug extends life by an average five months in the most advanced stages of prostate cancer. "This is a major advance. Not only do we see more survival benefit than from traditional chemotherapy, but the side effects of Enzalutamide are much lower. It provides both more benefit and less harm – you get the quantification of more life, but also see quality of life improvements," says study co-author, Thomas Flaig, MD, medical director of the ...

Quantum computers promise to reach computation speeds far beyond that of today's computers. As they would use quantum effects, however, they would also be susceptible to external interferences. Information flow into and out of the system is a critical point. Researchers from KIT with partners from Grenoble and Strasbourg have now read out the quantum state of an atom directly by using electrodes. In the Nature journal, it is reported about the stable interface between classical and quantum world. (DOI: 10.1038/nature11341) "Normally, every contact with the outer world ...

Chapel Hill, NC – Leukemia and lymphoma patients who receive life-saving stem cell or bone marrow transplants often experience chronic side effects that significantly decrease quality of life, can last a lifetime, and ultimately affect their long-term survival. In chronic Graft vs. Host Disease (GVHD), the differences between the donor bone marrow cells and the recipient's body often cause these immune cells to recognize the recipient's body tissues as foreign and the newly transplanted cells attack the transplant recipient's body. Symptoms can range from dry eyes and ...

While your DNA is unique, it also tells the tale of your family line. It carries the genetic history of your ancestors down through the generations. Now, says a Tel Aviv University researcher, it's also possible to use it as a map to your family's past. Prof. Eran Halperin of TAU's Blavatnik School of Computer Science and Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, along with a group of researchers from University of California, Los Angeles, are giving new meaning to the term "genetic mapping." Using a probabilistic model of genetic traits for every coordinate ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Birds of a feather flock together and – according to a new analysis – so do their lice. A study of the genetic heritage of avian feather lice indicates that their louse ancestors first colonized a particular group of birds (ducks or songbirds, for example) and then "radiated" to different habitats on those birds – to the wings or heads, for instance, where they evolved into different species. This finding surprised the researchers because wing lice from many types of birds look more similar to one another than they do to head or body lice living on the ...

New Rochelle, NY, August 16, 2012—Every year tribal gaming generates billions of dollars in revenue, creates tens of thousands of jobs, and boosts the economies of many Native American communities. In the state of California alone, tribal gaming has brought in $7.5 billion annually. However, because of the aggressive movement to legalize Internet gambling, which effectively would give states the power to regulate and tax online gambling even on reservations, the financial success of these communities could change. In "Native American Off-Reservation Gaming," an expert roundtable ...

After a surgeon stitches up a patient's abdomen, costly complications -- some life-threatening -- can occur. To cut down on these postoperative problems, Johns Hopkins undergraduates have invented a disposable suturing tool to guide the placement of stitches and guard against the accidental puncture of internal organs. The student inventors have described their device, called FastStitch, as a cross between a pliers and a hole-puncher. Although the device is still in the prototype stage, the FastStitch team has already received recognition and raised more than $80,000 ...

Ancient pollen and charcoal preserved in deeply buried sediments in Egypt's Nile Delta document the region's ancient droughts and fires, including a huge drought 4,200 years ago associated with the demise of Egypt's Old Kingdom, the era known as the pyramid-building time. "Humans have a long history of having to deal with climate change," said Christopher Bernhardt, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey. "Along with other research, this study geologically reveals that the evolution of societies is sometimes tied to climate variability at all scales – whether decadal ...

Lounging on a sofa while watching a 3D movie is an exquisite pleasure for many film fans. Be that as it may, those nettlesome 3D glasses might diminish the fun somewhat. That's why television manufacturers are working on displays that can recreate the spellbinding magic of three-dimensional television images – without the glasses. Though prototypes of these TV screens already exist, consumers will not have to wait much longer for the market introduction of these autostereoscopic displays. Neverthe-less, the content might be a bit problematic: The 3D movies currently available ...

Fairfax, Va.--The popular spice turmeric packs more than just flavor — it shows promise in fighting devastating viruses, Mason researchers recently discovered. Curcumin, found in turmeric, stopped the potentially deadly Rift Valley Fever virus from multiplying in infected cells, says Aarthi Narayanan, lead investigator on the new study and a research assistant professor with Mason's National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases. Mosquito-borne Rift Valley Fever virus (RVF) is an acute, fever-causing virus that affects domestic animals such as cattle, sheep ...

Everyone knows the adage: "If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is." Why, then, do some people fall for scams and why are older folks especially prone to being duped? An answer, it seems, is because a specific area of the brain has deteriorated or is damaged, according to researchers at the University of Iowa. By examining patients with various forms of brain damage, the researchers report they've pinpointed the precise location in the human brain, called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, that controls belief and doubt, and which explains why some ...

Ramadan dinners in the Danish Parliament, staff parties without either pork or alcohol and prayer rooms at the airport are all examples of how religion is becoming more visible in public spaces. "Prior to the mass migration of the '60s, '70s and '80s, almost all Danes shared similar values and were members of the national Christian church, so religion was not an issue in everyday life. There was no need to discuss neither one's own nor another person's religious viewpoint, and secularisation was a matter of course. Today, it is difficult to be in a public place, read ...

VIDEO: An animation of satellite observations from Aug. 13-16, 2012 shows the birth of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season's eighth tropical depression that strengthens into Tropical Storm Gordon. This visualization was... Click here for more information. NASA has been watching the low pressure system called System 93L for the last week, and late on August 15 it organized into Tropical Depression 8, then Tropical Storm Gordon. NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured a visible ...

Astronomers using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have caught two clusters full of massive stars that may be in the early stages of merging. The clusters are 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. What at first was thought to be only one cluster in the core of the massive star-forming region 30 Doradus (also known as the Tarantula Nebula) has been found to be a composite of two clusters that differ in age by about one million years. The entire 30 Doradus complex has been an active star-forming region ...

In the quest to understand how the world's weather moves around the globe, scientists have had to tease apart different kinds of atmospheric movement, such as the great jet streams that can move across a whole hemisphere versus more intricate, localized flows. Much the same must currently be done to understand the various motions at work in the great space weather system that links the sun and Earth as the sun shoots material out in all directions, creating its own version of a particle sea to fill up the solar system. "People think of the sun as giving out light and ...

HOUSTON - A metabolic protein that nourishes cancer cells also activates tumor-promoting genes by loosening part of the packaging that entwines DNA to make up chromosomes, a team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports in the Aug. 16 issue of Cell. Working in cell lines and mouse models of glioblastoma multiforme, the most lethal form of brain tumor, senior author Zhimin Lu, Ph.D., associate professor of Neuro-Oncology at MD Anderson, and colleagues show that pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) fuels tumor growth by influencing a histone protein. DNA ...

PHILADELPHIA, August 16, 2012 – Without other risk factors, all Americans born between 1945 and 1965 should have a one-time screening for the hepatitis C virus (HCV) according to new recommendations being published early online today in Annals of Internal Medicine, the flagship journal of the American College of Physicians. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recommends that all persons identified with HCV should receive a brief alcohol screening and intervention and be referred to appropriate care and treatment services for HCV and related conditions. Up ...

Thermafiber has officially announced the release of a new continuous insulation product. RainBarrier HD (Heavy Density) is a rigid insulation board with a consistent 6.0pcf density throughout the entire thickness. The consistent density from top to bottom simplifies installation by eliminating the need to orient the insulation in a certain direction like other mixed-density products. The increased density enhances the rigidity and ease of fabrication. The mineral wool board is non-combustible and provides exceptional R-values of 4.2 per inch of thickness. In addition to ...

MINNEAPOLIS – People who are free of dementia and have high levels of a protein that indicates the presence of inflammation have relatives who are more likely to avoid the disease as well, according to a new study published in the August 15, 2012, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "In very elderly people with good cognition, higher levels of C-reactive protein, which is related to inflammation, are associated with better memory," said study author Jeremy M. Silverman, PhD, with Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New ...

An early age at first drink (AFD) has been linked to later alcohol-related problems, which is one of the reasons behind the legal drinking age of 21 in the U.S. It is unclear, however, if increased risk is primarily due to initiation of any drinking, or initiation of heavier drinking. A comparison of the influence of these potential risk factors among college undergraduates found that both an early AFD as well as a quick progression from the first drink to drinking to intoxication independently predicted later problems. Results will be published in the November 2012 ...