SAN FRANCISCO – June 7, 2012 – A simple eye test may someday offer an effective way to identify patients who are at high risk for stroke, say researchers at the University of Zurich. They showed that a test called ocular pulse amplitude (OPA) can reliably detect carotid artery stenosis (CAS), a condition that clogs or blocks the arteries that feed the front part of the brain. It's a known risk factor for stroke. The OPA test could be performed by ophthalmologists – physicians who treat eye diseases – during routine exams. The study, which is published in the June issue ...

NEWPORT, Ore. – When debris from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan began making its way toward the West Coast of the United States, there were fears of possible radiation and chemical contamination as well as costly cleanup. But a floating dock that unexpectedly washed ashore in Newport this week and has been traced back to the Japanese disaster has brought with it a completely different threat – invasive species. Scientists at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center said the cement float contains about 13 pounds of organisms per square foot, ...

Do rebelliousness, emotional control, toughness and thrill-seeking still make up the essence of coolness? Can performers James Dean and Miles Davis still be considered the models of cool? Research led by a University of Rochester Medical Center psychologist and published by the Journal of Individual Differences has found the characteristics associated with coolness today are markedly different than those that generated the concept of cool. "When I set out to find what people mean by coolness, I wanted to find corroboration of what I thought coolness was," said Ilan ...

7 June 2012: Element Six, the world leader in synthetic diamond supermaterials, working in partnership with academics in Harvard University, California Institute of Technology and Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, has used its Element Six single crystal synthetic diamond grown by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) to demonstrate the capability of quantum bit memory to exceed one second at room temperature. This study demonstrated the ability of synthetic diamond to provide the read-out of a quantum bit which had preserved its spin polarisation for several minutes and ...

Find Me Gluten Free, the most downloaded gluten-free restaurant and business finder app for iPhone and Android announces partnership with Brandy Wendler, Mrs. Alaska International 2012 to create awareness for the Celiac Disease and Gluten Free Community. Find Me Gluten Free rates businesses on how gluten-free friendly they are, making it easier to find a restaurant which users can be confident will take preparing a gluten-free meal seriously, along with serving as a brand-finder at stores nationwide. Brandy Wendler was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in 2008. It was ...

The NationaLease Spring Maintenance Managers Meeting in Greenville, SC, in May provided attendees with a stimulating mix of technology, product, and professional education, as well as a strong measure of motivation and inspiration provided by its keynote speaker, Jay Blake, racing's only blind race crew chief. The four-day event also included a ceremony announcing NationaLease's Exceptional Service Award winners, which are NationaLease member companies that provided particularly outstanding reciprocal road service to fellow members throughout the year. "This year's ...

University of Notre Dame network physicists Mária Ercsey-Ravasz and Zoltán Toroczkai of the Interdisciplinary Center for Network Science and Applications, in collaboration with food science experts, have recently published a rigorous analysis of the international food-trade network that shows the network's vulnerability to the fast spread of contaminants as well as the correlation between known food poisoning outbreaks and the centrality of countries on the network. Together with food science experts József Baranyi, from the Institute of Food Research in the U.K., and ...

RICHMOND, Va. (June 7, 2012) – A new study from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine has identified molecular changes responsible for abnormal cholesterol production and metabolism in the livers of patients with a common liver condition, and these changes may explain the severity of a patient's liver disease and risks to their heart health. It is estimated that a third of Americans have a fatty liver. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is a very common liver condition. Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, the more aggressive form of nonalcoholic fatty ...

Earlier in the week the US government confirmed economic growth in America had stalled during the first-quarter of the year, as gross domestic product (GDP) rose by just 1.9% from January through to May, reports currency exchange experts, Currencies Direct. Initially the department of commerce expected GDP to be around the 2.2% mark. However, cuts in private sector jobs were said to have stained prior optimism. According to figures published by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, US employers cut 61,887 jobs in May, the most since September 2011. ...

Prenatal screening for Down syndrome (DS) is still in need of improvement. Perinatal medicine experts have worked hard to find new biomarkers for screening of DS. Dr. Shi he Shao and his co-investigators, from Jiangsu University and Changzhou Woman and Children Health Hospital, report in the May 2012 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine that they have successfully identified twenty-nine differentially expressed proteins in maternal serum from pregnancies carrying DS fetuses with proteomic approaches. These differential proteins offer the possibility of improving the ...

Tim Hanni's New Wine Fundamentals Webinars, held for the first time in May, attracted international attendance and will be repeated June 19 and 23. The webinar offers an introduction to taste and other sensations, improved wine communications, and a new paradigm for understanding the physical and psychological factors in wine preferences and consumer behavior. One attendee wrote, "It altered the way I work...(Tim) is challenging us to align the 'rules' to the reality of our customers." The Webinar is a two-hour "learn and train the trainer" session ...

VIDEO: A cold front approaching from the west spawned severe storms along the East Coast, on June 1, 2012, including nine weak tornadoes in Maryland around sunset. From the GOES satellite... Click here for more information. On Friday, June 1, 2012 severe weather generated 9 weak tornadoes across Maryland, according to the National Weather Service. As the system that generated them approached, NASA's Aqua satellite gathered information about power behind it. NASA also created ...

The launch of the 5000 LA might seem a bit in conflict with the ZEV image of high performance. ZEV is mostly known for its high tech, 100 mile (160 km) range / 75 - 80 mph (120 - 130 kmh) speed lithium battery powered bikes. Equally, the public has seemed to keep its focus on new and exotic battery technology. But for the vast majority of the population, their needs and use patterns could best be served by a new approach, rather than a new technology. The vast majority of the public needs a vehicle to commute to work less than 20 miles. The achieved goal of the new 5000 ...

Scientists from the Smithsonian and colleagues have found that waterbird communities can be the "canary in the coal mine" when it comes to detecting the health of urban estuary ecosystems. Their research revealed that the types of waterbirds that inhabit urban estuaries are influenced not only by urban development, but also by a far more natural process―rain. The team's findings are published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE. The scientists compared waterbird communities in estuaries of the Chesapeake Bay during 2002, a year of severe drought, to 2003, a year ...

PHILADELPHIA — For nearly 50 years, the American Heart Association, with the help of researchers and physicians from across the nation, has developed and disseminated guidelines on how best to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on patients experiencing cardiac arrest. But no such evidence-based guidelines existed in the veterinary world. Perhaps as a result, while more than 20 percent of human patients who suffer cardiac arrests in the hospital survive to go home to their families, the equivalent figure for dogs and cats is less than 6 percent. Now the Reassessment ...

Berlin, Germany, June 8 2012: Data from a Phase IIb study presented today at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism, show that 76% of patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) receiving either 4mg or 8mg of baricitinib, an oral JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor, plus stable methotrexate (MTX) achieved ACR20* response compared with 41% of placebo-treated patients (p≤0.001) at 12 weeks. The 4mg and 8mg doses of baricitinib demonstrated statistical superiority to placebo in all clinical outcomes measured, including ACR20/50/70*, DAS28**-CRP ...

June 8, 2012 — (Bronx, NY) — Patients vary widely in their response to concussion, but scientists haven't understood why. Now, using a new technique for analyzing data from brain imaging studies, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center have found that concussion victims have unique spatial patterns of brain abnormalities that change over time. The new technique could eventually help in assessing concussion patients, predicting which head injuries are likely to have long-lasting neurological consequences, ...

Berlin, Germany, June 8 2012: A new study presented today at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism, reinforces current thinking that smoking negatively affects treatment response in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients treated with anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) drugs. This American study, the largest of its kind, followed 2,811 treatment naïve patients initiated onto anti-TNF therapy. Of the study group, 19% (n=521) were smokers and 81% (n=2,290) were non-smokers. Smokers had significantly higher scores on the Clinical Disease ...

Berlin, Germany, June 8 2012: A new study presented today at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism, shows that lung changes in association with anti-citrullinated protein autoantibody (ACPA) status are a primary manifestation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Study findings show that 51% of RA patients (n=105) had identifiable lung changes (as measured by high resolution computer tomography [HRCT]) as compared to 28% of healthy controls (n=43). In addition, ACPA presence – but not smoking status – was associated with HRCT changes. This ...

Berlin, Germany, June 8 2012: According to a study presented today at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism, patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) who are starting anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) treatment and adhere to a hypocaloric diet have a significantly greater chance of achieving minimal disease activity (MDA, an important measure of disease activity) at six months compared to those on a standard diet. The results of an Italian study of 138 obese PsA patients demonstrated that those who achieved a ≥10% weight ...

Berlin, Germany, June 8 2012: A new Phase III study presented today at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism, shows that patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) treated with Ustekinumab (UST) 90mg were more than twice as likely to achieve the study's primary endpoint, ACR20* at 24 weeks, than those treated with placebo (49.5% vs 22.8%). 42.4% of patients treated with UST 45mg were also more likely to achieve ACR20 at 24 weeks compared to placebo. Significant improvements were also seen with UST 45mg and 90mg in ACR50* (24.9% ...

Berlin, Germany, June 8 2012 : A new study presented today at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism, shows that early menopause predicts a milder form of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). New insights on factors influencing RA are good news for sufferers of the chronic inflammatory disease that currently affects over 2 million women in Europe. 1,2 The study, based on 134 incident RA cases, found that patients aged over 45 years with a history of early menopause were 50% less likely to develop severe RA (16% versus 35%) and more likely to develop ...

Berlin, Germany, June 8 2012: Results of a study presented today at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism, suggest that the newly developed RABBIT Risk Score, which calculates the risk of serious infections in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who are treated with anti-tumour necrosis factor drugs (anti-TNFs) or conventional disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) is a valid and effective tool for rheumatologists to predict risk of serious infection. The German study used data from 2,603 patients enrolled in the RABBIT ...

June 8, 2012, New York, NY—In 2011, 13.7 million young adults ages 19 to 25 stayed on or joined their parents' health plans, including 6.6 million who would likely not have been able to do so before passage of the Affordable Care Act, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. However, not all young adults have parents with health plans they can join, and many still experience gaps in coverage and face medical bill problems and medical debt. Nearly two of five (39%) young adults ages 19 to 29 went without health insurance at some time in 2011, and more than one-third ...

Small firms feeling the squeeze following the Royal Mail's decision to increase the price of first and second class stamps at the end of last month are being offered a helping hand by Bolton-based online parcel delivery firm Parcel2Go. The company says businesses and individuals can try to beat the Royal Mail price increase by becoming Parcel2Go users and benefiting from the vast range of reliable and cost-effective UK express delivery solutions available through the website. With just a few clicks of a mouse, customers can order delivery services from some of the ...