VIDEO: The movie shows the injector firing into open air without a skin or gel target. The jet, which is approximately the diameter of a human hair, seems dispersed but a... Click here for more information. WASHINGTON, Sept. 13—From annual flu shots to childhood immunizations, needle injections are among the least popular staples of medical care. Though various techniques have been developed in hopes of taking the "ouch" out of injections, hypodermic needles are still the ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- In 2010 malaria caused an estimated 665,000 deaths, mostly among African children. Now, chemists at Indiana University have developed a new synthesis for the world's most useful antimalarial drug, artemisinin, giving hope that fully synthetic artemisinin might help reduce the cost of the live-saving drug in the future. Effective deployment of ACT, or artemisinin-based combination therapy, has been slow due to high production costs of artemisinin. The World Health Organization has set a target "per gram" cost for artemisinin of 25 cents or less, but ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study of giant viruses supports the idea that viruses are ancient living organisms and not inanimate molecular remnants run amok, as some scientists have argued. The study reshapes the universal family tree, adding a fourth major branch to the three that most scientists agree represent the fundamental domains of life. The new findings appear in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. The researchers used a relatively new method to peer into the distant past. Rather than comparing genetic sequences, which are unstable and change rapidly over time, ...

It's not a magic trick and it's not sleight of hand – scientists really are using levitation to improve the drug development process, eventually yielding more effective pharmaceuticals with fewer side effects. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a way to use sound waves to levitate individual droplets of solutions containing different pharmaceuticals. While the connection between levitation and drug development may not be immediately apparent, a special relationship emerges at the molecular level. At the molecular ...

Obese patients with type 2 diabetes who consume higher amounts of fructose display reduced levels of liver adenosine triphosphate (ATP)—a compound involved in the energy transfer between cells. The findings, published in the September issue of Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, indicate that elevated uric acid levels (hyperuricemia) are associated with more severe hepatic ATP depletion in response to fructose intake. This exploratory study, funded in part by grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and ...

Although the federal government's 1996 reform of welfare brought some improvements for the nation's poor, it also may have made extremely poor Americans worse off, new research shows. The reforms radically changed cash assistance—what most Americans think of as 'welfare'— by imposing lifetime limits on the receipt of aid and requiring recipients to work. About the same time, major social policy reforms during the 1990s raised the benefits of work for low-income families. In the wake of these changes, millions of previous welfare recipients, largely single mothers, ...

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can contain dozens of different mutations, called polymorphisms. In a recent study an international team of researchers, including MU scientists, found that one of those mutations, called 172K, made certain forms of the virus more susceptible to treatment. Soon, doctors will be able to use this knowledge to improve the drug regiment they prescribe to HIV-infected individuals. "The 172K polymorphism makes certain forms of HIV less resistant to drugs," said Stefan Sarafianos, corresponding author of the study and researcher at MU's ...

Moderate exercise may help people cope with anxiety and stress for an extended period of time post-workout, according to a study by kinesiology researchers in the University of Maryland School of Public Health published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. "While it is well-known that exercise improves mood, among other benefits, not as much is known about the potency of exercise's impact on emotional state and whether these positive effects endure when we're faced with everyday stressors once we leave the gym," explains J. Carson Smith, assistant ...

HOUSTON -- (Sept. 13, 2012) -- In one of the first studies to examine how the loss of forest birds is effecting Guam's island ecosystem, biologists from Rice University, the University of Washington and the University of Guam found that the Pacific island's jungles have as many as 40 times more spiders than are found on nearby islands like Saipan. "You can't walk through the jungles on Guam without a stick in your hand to knock down the spiderwebs," said Haldre Rogers, a Huxley Fellow in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Rice and the lead author of a new study this ...

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden describe in a new study how so-called DNA origami can enhance the effect of certain cytostatics used in the treatment of cancer. With the aid of modern nanotechnology, scientists can target drugs direct to the tumour while leaving surrounding healthy tissue untouched. The drug doxorubicin has long been used as a cytostatic (toxin) for cancer treatment but can cause serious adverse reactions such as myocardial disease and severe nausea. Because of this, scientists have been trying to find a means of delivering the drug to the ...

CHICAGO (September 13, 2012) – New research demonstrates that daily cleaning of high-touch surfaces in isolation rooms of patients with Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) significantly reduces the rate of the pathogens on the hands of healthcare personnel. The findings underscore the importance of environmental cleaning for reducing the spread of difficult to treat infections. The study is published in the October issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology ...

Researchers at Uppsala University have cloned a T-cell receptor that binds to an antigen associated with prostate cancer and breast cancer. T cells that have been genetically equipped with this T-cell receptor have the ability to specifically kill prostate and breast cancer cells. The study is being published this week in PNAS. Genetically modified T cells (white blood corpuscles) have recently been shown to be extremely effective in treating certain forms of advanced cancer. T cells from the patient's own blood cells are isolated and equipped by genetic means with a ...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Every cook knows that boiling water bubbles, right? New research from Northwestern University turns that notion on its head. "We manipulated what has been known for a long, long time by using the right kind of texture and chemistry to prevent bubbling during boiling," said Neelesh A. Patankar, professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and co-author of the study. This discovery could help reduce damage to surfaces, prevent bubbling explosions and may someday be used to enhance heat transfer ...

Canada Pharmacy Directory is announcing for a limited time a free 6-month feature listing in their online search directory. The feature listings are available for an annual rate of $2499 per year. With a purchase of a 1 year plan, the feature listing is extended at no charge to 18 months. "Our feature listing is the most sought after plan because it provides front page exposure that generates the most visibility for our online pharmacy operators, " says Andy Chandler of CanadaPharmacyDirectory.com. "With any search directory, the higher position you are ...

A common bacteria ever-present on the human skin and previously considered harmless, may, in fact, be the culprit behind chronic sinusitis, a painful, recurring swelling of the sinuses that strikes more than one in ten Americans each year, according to a study by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco. The team reports this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine that sinusitis may be linked to the loss of normal microbial diversity within the sinuses following an infection and the subsequent colonization of the sinuses by the culprit bacterium, ...

Menachem Shoham, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, has discovered novel antivirulence drugs that, without killing the bacteria, render Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and Streptococcus pyogenes, commonly referred to as strep, harmless by preventing the production of toxins that cause disease. The promising discovery was presented this week at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Francisco. MRSA infections are a growing public health concern, causing ...

Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau today show that, after increasing since 2008, the poverty rate for the U.S. remained stable at 15 percent between 2010 and 2011. Poverty is greatest among children (21.9 percent), compared with seniors (8.7 percent) and working-age adults (13.7 percent). While poverty remained unchanged, the median annual household income declined for the second year in a row, to $50,054, down 1.5 percent from 2010. In Washington state, the estimated poverty rate increased from 11.5 percent (774,000 residents) to 12.5 percent (854,000 residents) ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Around the world, more than 850 million people use Facebook regularly to communicate. More and more employers also are using Facebook as a way to examine potential employees before making hires. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that comments left by users on Facebook profile pictures strongly affect the level of perceived attractiveness of the profile owner physically, socially, and professionally. Facebook profile photos are the first photos visible on a user's profile. Other Facebook users are able to post comments about each ...

Baltimore, MD – September 12, 2012 – In the largest study of its kind, living donors who had a kidney removed through a single port in the navel report higher satisfaction in several key categories, compared to donors who underwent traditional multiple-port laparoscopic removal. The new technique has been described as virtually scarless, because nearly the entire incision, once healed, is hidden within the belly button. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore found the belly button group had significantly improved satisfaction with the ...

With homeland security on high alert, screening systems to search for concealed weapons are crucial pieces of equipment. But these systems are often prohibitively expensive, putting them out of reach for public spaces such as train and bus stations, stadiums, or malls, where they could be beneficial. Now Dr. Eran Socher of Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Engineering is reconfiguring existing complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) chips designed for computers and turning them into high frequency circuits. The ultimate goal is to produce chips with radiation capabilities, ...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- When mercury is dumped into rivers and lakes, the toxic heavy metal can end up in the fish we eat and the water we drink. To help protect consumers from the diseases and conditions associated with mercury, researchers at Northwestern University in collaboration with colleagues at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, have developed a nanoparticle system that is sensitive enough to detect even the smallest levels of heavy metals in our water and fish. The research was published September 9 in the journal Nature Materials. "The ...

Most older adults prefer to maintain their independence and remain in their own homes as they age, and robotic technology can help make this a reality. Robots can assist with a variety of everyday living tasks, but limited research exists on seniors' attitudes toward and acceptance of robots as caregivers and aides. Human factors/ergonomics researchers investigated older adults' willingness to receive robot assistance that allows them to age in place, and will present their findings at the upcoming HFES 56th Annual Meeting in Boston. Changes that occur with aging can ...

It is commonly assumed that you can "work up an appetite" with a vigorous workout. Turns out that theory may not be completely accurate – at least immediately following exercise. New research out of BYU shows that 45 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise in the morning actually reduces a person's motivation for food. Professors James LeCheminant and Michael Larson measured the neural activity of 35 women while they viewed food images, both following a morning of exercise and a morning without exercise. They found their attentional response to the food pictures decreased ...

A paper recently published in the Journal of Animal Science helps researchers further understand how microbials and probiotics affect poultry health. Researchers at the North Carolina State University and Chung Jen College of Nursing, Health Sciences and Management (Taiwan) conducted a study to investigate the effects of direct fed microbials on energy metabolism in different tissues of broiler chickens. The researchers wanted to learn how consuming microbials and probiotics could change energy use and immune function. Typically, direct fed microbials and probiotics are ...

A new Johns Hopkins study has unraveled the changes in a key cardiac protein that can lead to heart muscle malfunction and precipitate heart failure. Troponin I, found exclusively in heart muscle, is already used as the gold-standard marker in blood tests to diagnose heart attacks, but the new findings reveal why and how the same protein is also altered in heart failure. Scientists have known for a while that several heart proteins — troponin I is one of them — get "out of tune" in patients with heart failure, but up until now, the precise origin of the "bad notes" remained ...