OTTAWA, October 16, 2012 – Few drugs are available to treat muscle injury, muscle wasting and genetic disorders causing muscle degeneration, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. A compelling discovery that may change this was made recently by a research group led by Dr. Robert Korneluk, distinguished professor at University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine and founder of the CHEO Research Institute's Apoptosis Research Centre, was reported today in Science Signaling. "We know of five pharmaceutical companies pursuing phase one clinical trials with specific drugs to treat ...

Research from North Carolina State University on flower production and disease resistance in watermelon varieties should help bolster seedless watermelon harvests for farmers. Seedless watermelons are more popular than seeded watermelons, making them a more profitable crop for farmers. But the flowers of seedless watermelon plants must be fertilized with pollen from the male flowers of seeded watermelon plants, because seedless plants do not produce genetically viable pollen. This is a problem, because seeded watermelon plants take up space, nutrients and water that ...

This press release is available in German. Orangutans are the only large apes in Asia and mainly live in trees. Today, the population only includes two species: While the Borneo orangutan populates large sections of the Southeast Asian island of Borneo, nowadays the Sumatran orangutan is only found at the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. With a current population of only around 6,600 Sumatra orangutans, a figure which is dropping rapidly and constantly, this species is on the Red List of Threatened Species. When large areas of rainforest were cleared in Sumatra ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (October 16, 2012) – Electrical stimulation using extradural electrodes—placed underneath the skull but not implanted in the brain—is a safe approach with meaningful benefits for patients with Parkinson's disease, reports the October issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part ofWolters Kluwer Health. The technique, called extradural motor cortex stimulation (EMCS), may provide a less-invasive alternative to electrical deep brain stimulation (DBS) ...

PHILADELPHIA—Men who had high levels of the activated Stat5 protein in their prostate cancer after a radical prostatectomy were more likely to have a recurrence or die from the disease compared to men who had little to no presence of the growth protein, according to a recent study published in Human Pathology by Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center researchers. This suggests, Stat5, a protein that when activated signals cancer cells to grow and survive, could be an ideal biomarker to help guide patients and physicians for future treatment. The research team, led by ...

Washington, DC (October 16, 2012) Viewer impressions of political candidates are heavily weighted to the content of their speech rather than the body language, a new study published in the Journal of Communication has found. The research, conducted by a trio of German scholars, presents a shift from past research showing that nonverbal communication plays a larger role than verbal in presidential debates. Marcus Maurer (Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet), Friederike Nagel (Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet), and CarstenReinemann (Ludwig Maxillians-Universitaet) conducted ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- People 70 and older who eat food high in carbohydrates have nearly four times the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, and the danger also rises with a diet heavy in sugar, Mayo Clinic researchers have found. Those who consume a lot of protein and fat relative to carbohydrates are less likely to become cognitively impaired, the study found. The findings are published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. The research highlights the importance of a well-rounded diet, says lead author Rosebud Roberts, M.B., Ch.B., a Mayo Clinic epidemiologist. "We ...

DALLAS – Oct. 15, 2012 – A study by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers finds that a starvation hormone markedly extends life span in mice without the need for calorie restriction. "Restricting food intake has been shown to extend lifespan in several different kinds of animals. In our study, we found transgenic mice that produced more of the hormone fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF21) got the benefits of dieting without having to limit their food intake. Male mice that overproduced the hormone had about a 30 percent increase in average life span and female mice ...

ANN ARBOR—American presidential campaigns provide a unique window into our society, according to a University of Michigan anthropologist. "It says a lot about our culture that we pay so much attention to the clothing, gestures and hair styles of presidential candidates and to their performances in highly theatrical situations, like debates," said Michael Lempert, a linguistic anthropologist at the U-M. Lempert is the co-author with University of Chicago anthropologist Michael Silverstein of "Creatures of Politics: Media, Message, and the American Presidency," just ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A few minutes of exercise can help children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder perform better academically, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University researcher. The study, published in the current issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, shows for the first time that kids with ADHD can better drown out distractions and focus on a task after a single bout of exercise. Scientists say such "inhibitory control" is the main challenge faced by people with the disorder. "This provides some very early evidence that exercise might ...

NEW ORLEANS — Trauma in infancy and childhood shapes the brain, learning, and behavior, and fuels changes that can last a lifetime, according to new human and animal research released today. The studies delve into the effects of early physical abuse, socioeconomic status (SES), and maternal treatment. Documenting the impact of early trauma on brain circuitry and volume, the activation of genes, and working memory, researchers suggest it increases the risk of mental disorders, as well as heart disease and stress-related conditions in adulthood. The findings were presented ...

PITTSBURGH—Crude oil extraction could be improved significantly and accessible domestic oil reserves could be expanded with an economical CO2 thickener being developed by University of Pittsburgh engineers, thanks to a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Current oil-extraction methods across the United States involve oil being "pushed" from underground layers of porous sandstone or limestone reservoirs using a first-water-then-CO2 method known as the water-alternating-gas method. CO2—which is obtained from natural CO2 reservoirs and pipelined to oil ...

A computerized checklist system designed to help physicians identify and use the best methods of preventing potentially deadly blood clots in hospitalized trauma patients dramatically reduced the number of these dangerous venous thromboembolisms (VTEs), new Johns Hopkins research suggests. When a doctor enters medical orders for such patients, the automated checklist recommends evidence-based best treatments for each patient's needs, usually the regular administration of low-dose blood thinners or the use of compression devices to keep blood flowing in the legs. The researchers ...

Neuroscientists from New York University and the University of California, Irvine have isolated the "when" and "where" of molecular activity that occurs in the formation of short-, intermediate-, and long-term memories. Their findings, which appear in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer new insights into the molecular architecture of memory formation and, with it, a better roadmap for developing therapeutic interventions for related afflictions. "Our findings provide a deeper understanding of how memories are created," explained the ...

CHICAGO – Men who were diagnosed as children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) appeared to have significantly worse educational, occupational, economic and social outcomes in a 33-year, follow-up study that compared them with men without childhood ADHD, according to a report published Online First by Archives of General Psychiatry, a JAMA Network publication. ADHD has an estimated worldwide prevalence of 5 percent, so the long-term outcome of children with ADHD is a major concern, according to the study background. Rachel G. Klein, Ph.D., of the ...

CHICAGO – Patients who undergo bariatric weight loss surgery may be at increased risk for substance use (drug use, alcohol use and cigarette smoking) following surgery, particularly among patients who undergo laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery who appear to be at increased risk for alcohol use following surgery, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Surgery, a JAMA Network publication. "Studies have shown that drugs, alcohol, and food trigger similar responses in the brain and that bariatric surgery candidates whose condition has been ...

CHICAGO – A telephone survey of 4,851 individuals in Germany suggests the overall prevalence of sunbed use was nearly 40 percent for participants who had ever used one and 14.6 percent had used a tanning bed within the last 12 months, according to a study published Online First by Archives of Dermatology, a JAMA Network publication. Exposure to UV radiation (UVR) is one of the main risk factors for developing skin cancer and tanning beds are a common source of UVR. There also is evidence that the use of sunbeds significantly increases the risk of skin cancer, according ...

The most common measure of intelligence in animals, brain size relative to body size, may not be as dependent on evolutionary selection on the brain as previously thought, according to a new analysis by scientists. Brain size relative to body size has been used by generations of scientists to predict an animal's intelligence. For example, although the human brain is not the largest in the animal kingdom in terms of volume or mass, it is exceptionally large considering our moderate body mass. Now, a study by a team of scientists at UCL, the University of Konstanz, ...

[Second hand smoke in cars: assessing children's potential exposure during typical journey conditions 2012; 578-83; doi 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2011-050197] Smoking during car journeys pumps harmful particulate matter into the indoor air space at levels that far exceed World Health Organization guidance—even when the windows are open or air conditioning is switched on—finds the largest study of its kind, in Tobacco Control. Such levels of exposure are likely to affect the health of any child passengers, say the authors. Levels of fine particulate matter were measured ...

[Shame! Self-stigmatisation as an obstacle to sick doctors returning to work: a qualitative study doi 10.1136/bmjopen-2012-001776] Doctors who have been on long term sick leave find it hard to return to work because they are overwhelmed with feelings of shame and failure, and fear the disapproval of colleagues, finds research published in the online journal BMJ Open. The authors call for cultural change, starting in medical school, to allow doctors to recognise their own vulnerabilities and cope better with both their own and their colleagues' ill health. The authors ...

TORONTO– Worker bees have become a highly skilled and specialized work force because the genes that determine their behaviour are shuffled frequently, helping natural selection to build a better bee, research from York University suggests. The embargoed study, to be published October 15 at 3pm EST in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), sheds light on how worker bees – who are sterile – evolved charismatic and cooperative behaviours such as nursing young bees, collecting food for the colony, defending it against intruders, and dancing to communicate ...

A brain pathway that is stimulated by traumatic or fearful experiences can be disrupted by two compounds that show promise for preventing post-traumatic stress disorder, Indiana University researchers reported. In a presentation prepared for the Neuroscience 2012 scientific conference in New Orleans Oct. 13 to 17, Anantha Shekhar and colleagues from IU reported the results of experiments with rats using a standard methodology called a conditioned fear test. The neural signaling activated by fearful experiences -- a process that also is involved in learning and in ...

NEW ORLEANS — Mother rats respond much differently to cocaine than female rats that have never given birth, according to new University of Michigan research that looks at both behavior and brain chemistry. The findings may help lay the groundwork for more tailored human addiction treatment, based on scientific understanding of how gender, hormones and life experience impact drug use. In an oral presentation at the Society for Neuroscience meeting, U-M researcher Jennifer Cummings, Ph.D., summarized findings from experiments with rats at the Molecular and Behavioral ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- An analysis of 27 studies linking psoriasis in 314,000 individuals with diabetes has found strong correlation between the scaly skin rash and the blood sugar disorder that predisposes patients to heart disease, say UC Davis researchers who led the review. The findings appear in an article titled "Psoriasis and the risk of diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis," which is now online in the Archives of Dermatology. "Our investigation found a clear association between psoriasis and diabetes," said April Armstrong, assistant professor ...

LA JOLLA, CA – A study of binge-drinking rodents suggests that knocking back a few drinks every few days may swiftly reduce one's capacity to control alcohol intake. Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) found signs of cognitive impairment in rats similar to that seen in established alcoholism after the animals had only a few months of intermittent access to alcohol. The researchers linked the rats' impairment to a small group of neurons that inhibit "executive control" functions in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. These neurons were unusually active ...