ST. LOUIS, MO, March 21, 2012—Twenty million Americans get sick from norovirus each year according to data released last week by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Often called vomiting illness, it can spread rapidly on cruise ships, and in dormitories and hospitals. Recent data from the CDC shows deaths from gastrointestinal infections have more than doubled and have become a particular threat to the elderly. The virus is shed in the stool of the infected individual, has a short incubation period and can spread quickly if proper hand washing and other measures ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The percentage of electronic waste occupying our landfills has grown at an alarming rate over the last decade, giving rise to concerns about the toxicity of components used in consumer electronics. Researchers at the University of Florida are looking for ways to minimize environmental hazards associated with a material likely to play an increasingly important role in the manufacture of these goods in the future. The results of their most recent studies are published in the March 2012 issue of Nanotoxicology. Carbon nanotubes are already being used ...

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- When the intestines are not able to properly process our diet, a variety of disorders can develop, with chronic diarrhea as a common symptom. Chronic diarrhea can also be inherited, most commonly through conditions with genetic components such as irritable bowel syndrome. Researchers in Norway, India, and at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology have identified one heritable DNA mutation that leads to chronic diarrhea and bowel inflammation. Shawn Levy, Ph.D., faculty investigator at HudsonAlpha said, "Based on the effects seen from this one ...

SEATTLE – March 21, 2012: Anxiety, depression, stress and social support can predict early alcohol and illicit drug use in youth, according to a study from Carolyn McCarty, PhD, of Seattle Children's Research Institute, and researchers from the University of Washington and Seattle University. Middle school students from the sixth to the eighth grade who felt more emotional support from teachers reported a delay in alcohol and other illicit substance initiation. Those who reported higher levels of separation anxiety from their parents were also at decreased risk for early ...

COLLEGE STATION, March 21, 2012 – Unlike their colorful wings, the future of Monarch butterflies may not be too bright and their numbers are expected to be alarmingly down again this year, says a Texas A&M University researcher. Craig Wilson, a senior research associate in the Center for Mathematics and Science Education and a long-time butterfly enthusiast, says reports by the World Wildlife Fund, private donors and Mexico's Michoacan state show that Monarch numbers will be down almost 30 percent in 2012 as they make their annual trek from their breeding grounds in ...

International Logistics Solutions (ILS) has recently been certified as a partner in The Customs-Trade Partnership against Terrorism (C-TPAT) program. By participating in this important Customs and Border Protection Agency initiative, ILS will be making a vital contribution towards helping to secure the nation's borders, as well as ensuring the continued flow of international free trade. As a C-TPAT partner, the role of International Logistics Solutions (ILS) is to make certain that appropriate security measures, based upon risk analysis and consistent with C-TPAT ...

Poverty is bad for your health. Poor people are much more likely to have heart disease, stroke, and cancer than wealthy people, and have a lower life expectancy, too. Children who grow up poor are more likely to have health problems as adults. But despite these depressing statistics, many children who grow up poor have good health. In a new article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Edith Chen and Gregory E. Miller of the University of British Columbia suggest a possible reason: some children have ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Parents and adult caregivers of pediatric cancer patients prefer personal consultations with trusted health care providers over online sources for information about their child's illness, according to a University at Buffalo research study. Despite the accessibility of online medical information, the UB study found that parents not only distrusted information found through the Internet, they often feared what types of information they might encounter. "Respondents were telling us they were uncertain of the information online and that they were afraid ...

Hunting in the ocean's murky depths, vision is of little use, so toothed whales and dolphins (odontocetes) rely on echolocation to locate tasty morsels with incredible precision. Laura Kloepper from the University of Hawaii, USA, explains that odontocetes produce their distinctive echolocation clicks in nasal structures in the forehead and broadcast them through a fat-filled acoustic lens, called the melon. 'Studies by other people showed odontocetes have the ability to control the shape of the echolocation beam and it has always been assumed that they are using the melon ...

Tapping out a beat may help children learn difficult fraction concepts, according to new findings due to be published in the journal Educational Studies in Mathematics. An innovative curriculum uses rhythm to teach fractions at a California school where students in a music-based program scored significantly higher on math tests than their peers who received regular instruction. "Academic Music" is a hands-on curriculum that uses music notation, clapping, drumming and chanting to introduce third-grade students to fractions. The program, co-designed by San Francisco State ...

NEW YORK ( March 22, 2012) - Mothers' exposure during pregnancy to a class of air pollutants called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) can lead to behavioral problems in their children. PAH are released to air during incomplete combustion of fossil fuel such as diesel, gasoline, coal, and other organic material. The study is the first report of associations between child attentional and behavioral problems among school‐age children and two complementary measures of prenatal PAH exposure: monitored air concentrations of PAH and a PAH-specific biomarker of exposure ...

March 22, 2012, New York, NY—As the second anniversary of the Affordable Care Act approaches, a new Commonwealth Fund report finds that 49 states and the District of Columbia have already taken action supporting the law's implementation, such as passing legislation, issuing regulations or other guidance, or actively reviewing insurer filings. Early insurance market reforms in the law include new rules for insurers such as bans on lifetime limits on benefits and dependent coverage for young adults up to age 26. The report, Implementing the Affordable Care Act: State Action ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – More than 75 percent of fourth-graders in urban and rural settings have measurable levels of a nicotine breakdown product in their saliva that documents their second-hand smoke exposure, researchers report. A study of 428 fourth graders and 453 parents in seven rural and seven urban Georgia schools also showed that the urban children were more likely to be smokers – 14.9 percent versus 6.6 percent. Additionally urban children have the most exposure to smokers: 79.6 percent versus 75.3 percent, according to findings presented to the 15th World Conference ...

The new PIE-1 Alarm IP Encoder from Optex provides the dual functions of PoE power delivery to remote Optex devices and conversion of alarm signals to an IP protocol for delivery to video management systems or network video recorders. The PIE-1 provides support for Optex sensors in security systems using VMS and NVRs through vendor- unique API. The device can be used in a number of ways: - PoE (Power over Ethernet) only: to power remotely the Optex Redscan laser scanner provides IP alarm signals natively and requires no conversion encoding. The PIE-1 supports both ...

"Erik Orsenna, dictator of grammar! Look, you're killing the French language!" the rapidly-becoming viral video went (OK, viral by French not American standards). Then the number 2 magazine group of France called "Le Nouvel Obs" picked up the story as did many literary websites (see attachments on right-hand side of this text.) Some of these press releases start with those very same angry words, the aggressive words pronounced by the author on the video against French grammar. The problem is that the author on the video is in fact an American ...

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (March 18, 2012)—People are living longer with and after a cancer diagnosis, making survivorship clinics and programs—as well as official guidelines and practices governing the care of survivors—an important emerging component of modern cancer care. Many institutions are looking to gather these resources into an easily understandable plan for their survivors. "Cancer survivors face a lot of unique and very specific challenges," says Crystal S. Denlinger, M.D., a medical oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center who will present on best practices in cancer ...

A research team led by the University of Melbourne, Australia, has developed a novel technique that tracks diseased proteins behaving badly by forming clusters in brain diseases such as Huntington's and Alzheimer's. The technique published in Nature Methods today is the first of its kind to rapidly identify and track the location of diseased proteins inside cells and could provide insights into improved treatments for brain diseases and others such as cancer. Developed by Dr Danny Hatters and his team of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the ...

Statins may prevent pneumonia, according to a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Researchers from Israel and the United States analyzed data from the JUPITER trial, a randomized, double-blind trial with placebo control groups conducted at 1315 sites in 26 countries to look at the use of the statin rosuvastatin in disease prevention. The trial involved 17 802 men aged 50 years or older and women aged 60 years or older without a history of heart disease or diabetes. Patients were randomized to receive either a placebo or rosuvastatin, a statin used ...

Blood testing to determine a link between food and illness is increasingly common, but some tests are not considered diagnostic and can lead to confusion, according to a primer in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Both traditional physicians and holistic medicine practitioners may offer blood testing to diagnose adverse reactions to food. A food allergy is a specific immunologic reaction to a food that can be reproduced with exposure to the food in question. An intolerance is an adverse reaction without an immunologic response, such as lactose intolerance. However, ...

1. Dapagliflozin Effective Add-on for Patients with Inadequately Controlled Blood Glucose Experts caution that long-term safety data is still lacking Even on high doses of insulin, some patients with type 2 diabetes still have poorly controlled blood glucose levels. Increasing doses of insulin raises the risks for weight gain, hypoglycemia, fluid retention, and congestive heart failure, so physicians may choose to add additional medications rather than increase the insulin dose. Dapagliflozin, the first in the class of selective renal sodium glucose contransporter (SGLT) ...

Computer simulations have revealed a plausible explanation for a phenomenon that has puzzled astronomers: Rather than occupying orbits at regular distances from a star, giant gas planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn appear to prefer to occupy certain regions in mature solar systems while staying clear of others. "Our results show that the final distribution of planets does not vary smoothly with distance from the star, but instead has clear 'deserts' – deficits of planets – and 'pile-ups' of planets at particular locations," said Ilaria Pascucci, an assistant professor ...

SEATTLE – Pancreas cancer tumors spread quickly and are notoriously resistant to treatment, making them among the deadliest of malignancies. Their resistance to chemotherapy stems in part from a unique biological barrier the tumor builds around itself. Now scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have found a way to break through that defense, and their research represents a potential breakthrough in the treatment of pancreas cancer. In a paper to be published in the March 20 issue of Cancer Cell, senior author Sunil Hingorani, M.D., Ph.D., an associate member ...

Putting the brakes on an abundant growth-promoting protein causes breast tumors to regress, according to a study published on March 19th in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Triple-negative breast tumors lack all of the known growth receptors that serve as treatment targets in other types of breast cancer, making this the most clinically challenging subtype of the disease. Patients with these tumors tend to relapse earlier and have shorter disease-free survival. Andrei Goga and colleagues now show that triple-negative breast tumors express elevated levels of the ...

People whose blood pressure drops rapidly when they move from lying down to standing, known as orthostatic hypotension, may have a higher risk of developing heart failure, according to research published in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. The link between orthostatic hypotension and heart failure was stronger in people 45-55 years old compared to those 56-64, researchers said. High blood pressure, which was present in over half of people who developed heart failure, may be partially responsible for the association. Over an average 17.5 years of follow-up, ...

EDITOR'S PICK A clearer understanding of glaucoma | Back to top Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of vision loss and blindness worldwide. In glaucoma patients, the optic nerve, which relays information from the eye to the brain, is damaged, though the molecular cause of nerve damage is unclear. Dr. Simon John, from Tufts University in Boston, and colleagues specifically wanted to understand the earliest events that lead to optic nerve damage in glaucoma. Using a mouse model of the disease, the researchers showed that inflammatory immune cells called monocytes cross ...