Everyone wonders what bugs might be lurking in public bathrooms. Now researchers are using novel genetic sequencing methods to answer this question, revealing a plethora of bacteria all around, from the doors and the floors to the faucet handles and toilet seats, with potential public health implications, as reported Nov. 23 in the online journal PLoS ONE. Led by Gilberto Flores and Noah Fierer of the University of Colorado, Boulder, the researchers investigated 12 public restrooms, 6 male and 6 female, in Colorado. Using a high-throughput genetic sequencing technique, ...

Some risk factors for obesity become stronger the more overweight a person is, according to a study published Nov. 23 in the online journal PLoS ONE. Paul Williams of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California found that certain risk factors – lower education level, parental obesity, and high meat/low fruit diets – produced a greater risk for excess body weight for subjects with a higher body mass index (BMI) than for those with lower BMI. Based on these results, Williams proposes that environmental factors that result in little to no weight gain ...

We rely on our doctors to make appropriate decisions for our treatment, but this process can be subject to a variety of potentially conflicting influences. To identify what makes a good decision-maker, a team of researchers, led by Read Montague, PhD, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, tested 35 experienced physicians for their ability to make appropriate treatment choices, and found that the doctors who performed best were those who learned from both their successes and failures, rather than focusing just on the ...

A person goes to the hospital after feeling tightness in his chest. There, a physician runs a battery of tests to determine the cause. The tests show that nothing is seriously wrong, even though the patient is sure his pains are abnormal. The physician gives the patient healthy-eating instructions, prescribes an aspirin regimen and may even prescribe anti-anxiety medication for panic attacks. A few days later, the patient dies from cardiac arrest. This is a tragic story that we have heard far too many times as Cleveland medical malpractice lawyers. While diagnostic advancements ...

Dyslexia affects up to 17.5% of the population, but its cause remains somewhat unknown. A report published in the Nov. 23 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE supports the hypothesis that the symptoms of dyslexia, including difficulties in reading, are at least partly due to difficulty excluding excess background information like noise. In the study of 37 undergraduate students, the researchers, led by Rachel Beattie of the University of Southern California, found that the poor readers performed significantly worse than the control group only when there were high levels ...

Increased consumption of ground beef or processed meat is positively associated with aggressive prostate cancer, according to a study published Nov. 23 in the online journal PLoS ONE. The research team, led by John Witte of University of California, San Francisco, also found that the correlation was primarily driven by red meat that was grilled or barbequed, especially when well done. They suggest that this result, which was determined based on the meat consumption habits of about 1,000 male participants, is due to increased levels of carcinogens in meat prepared these ...

When seeking a physician, you should look for one with experience. Right? Maybe not. Research on physicians' decision-making processes has revealed that those who pay attention to failures as well as successes become more adept at selecting the correct treatment. "We found that all the physicians in the study included irrelevant criteria in their decisions," said Read Montague, Ph.D., director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute (http://research.vtc.vt.edu), who led the study. "Notably, however, the most experienced doctors ...

In New York, driving records include a point total. The New York Department of Motor Vehicles (NY DMV) uses this point total to track drivers and provide additional penalties, such as the Driver Responsibility Assessment (DRA), to drivers who have committed numerous traffic violations. In New York, points for various traffic violations can add up rather quickly. A few common traffic violations and their corresponding point totals include: - Improper cell phone use, such as texting while driving: 2 points - Failure to obey a traffic signal: 2 points - Reckless driving: ...

WHAT: HIV is coated in sugars that usually hide the virus from the immune system. Newly published research reveals how one broadly neutralizing HIV antibody actually uses part of the sugary cloak to help bind to the virus. The antibody binding site, called the V1/V2 region, represents a suitable HIV vaccine target, according to the scientists who conducted the study. In addition, their research reveals the detailed structure of the V1/V2 region, the last part of the virus surface to be visualized at the atomic level. The study was led by Peter D. Kwong, Ph.D., chief ...

Article provided by McCann Schaible & Wall, LLC Visit us at www.mswattorneys.com Traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, are some of the most severe traumas people can experience. Often, TBIs leave patients with lifelong side effects that affect their ability to function in their work and personal lives. Unfortunately, one of the most prevalent causes of TBI is also one of the most common American behaviors: driving. Motor vehicle accidents are the second-leading cause of TBIs in the United States, accounting for over 17 percent of brain injuries, and are the leading ...

SAN ANTONIO (Nov. 23, 2011) — Scientists studying longevity thought it might be good to lack a copy of a gene, called IGF1 receptor, that is important in insulin signaling. Previous studies showed invertebrates that lacked the copy lived longer, even if their bodies were less responsive to insulin, the hormone that lowers blood sugar. A new study from The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio challenges this. Knocking out one copy of the gene failed to increase the life span of male mice, and it only modestly increased the life span of female littermates. ...

People with diabetes are known to have an increased risk of heart disease. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine shows that regular consumption of a vitamin D-fortified yoghurt drink improves cholesterol levels and biomarkers of endothelial dysfunction, a precursor of heart disease, in diabetics. Not having enough vitamin D affects the inner lining of blood vessels (endothelial cells) eventually leading to atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Endothelial dysfunction can be measured by the increased levels of a set of biomarkers, ...

They say time heals all wounds, and new research from the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that time spent in dream sleep can help. UC Berkeley researchers have found that during the dream phase of sleep, also known as REM sleep, our stress chemistry shuts down and the brain processes emotional experiences and takes the painful edge off difficult memories. The findings offer a compelling explanation for why people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as war veterans, have a hard time recovering from painful experiences and suffer reoccurring ...

In today's marketplace, employees change jobs frequently as certain skill sets are in high demand. Many Utah businesses do not adequately protect themselves for the potential departures of these special high performing employees. Recently, Ford Motor Company filed suit against a past marketing executive who, after leaving Ford, took a job as President of a large Toyota distributor. Ford's concerns included the possibility of its former employee taking valuable business knowledge and giving that to a direct competitor. The former Ford employee had signed a non-compete ...

A simple device that filters out airborne asthma triggers during sleep can ease persistent symptoms of the condition during the day and improve quality of life, suggests research published online in Thorax. Temperature controlled laminar airflow treatment, or TLA for short, delivers a constant, slightly cooled airflow in the patient's breathing area, which displaces warmer air containing irritants and allergens, such as house dust mite and pet hairs. The aim is to stave off the abnormal immune response that triggers a systemic allergic reaction, including the airway ...

Shakespeare was a master at portraying profound emotional upset in the physical symptoms of his characters, and many modern day doctors would do well to study the Bard to better understand the mind-body connection, concludes an analysis of his works, published in Medical Humanities. Kenneth Heaton, a medical doctor and extensively published author on William Shakespeare's oeuvre, systematically analysed 42 of the author's major works and 46 of those of his contemporaries, looking for evidence of psychosomatic symptoms. He focused on sensory symptoms other than those ...

Firefighters are more likely to be injured while exercising than while putting out fires, suggests research published online in Injury Prevention. But carrying patients is the task most likely to require time off work, the study shows. Combined firefighting and emergency medical services have one of the highest workplace injury and death rates in the US. The authors looked at data for injuries sustained while at work for 21 fire stations serving the metropolitan area of Tucson, Arizona between 2004 and 2009. The 650 employees included firefighters, paramedics, ...

Increased participation on social networking sites has resulted in law enforcement officers in New York and across the nation to turn to sites such as Facebook for information and evidence. Officers can use information found on individual users' pages to track their location, view photos and other personal information shared on their profiles. And it is not just information made public by the users' privacy settings. Facebook's privacy agreement allows Facebook to share information posted on the website with law enforcement officials if there is a good faith belief that ...

RICHMOND, Va. (Nov. 23, 2011) – Researchers interested in the treatment of schizophrenia and dementia have clarified how antipsychotic drugs that target a complex of two receptors at the surface of cells in the brain work, according to a new study published online Nov. 23 in the journal Cell. The multidisciplinary team included researchers from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, together with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore. In an earlier, but related study, the Mount Sinai ...

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -- For a pest that isn't quite the size of a comma on a keyboard, the two-spotted spider mite can do a disproportionate amount of damage. These web-spinners extract the nutrients they need from leaves of more than a thousand different plant species, including bioenergy feedstocks and food staples. The cost of chemically controlling spider mites to counteract reduced harvest yields hovers around $1 billion annually, reflecting their significant economic impact. With a 90-million nucleotide genome, the smallest of those that belong to the group of animals ...

PASADENA, Calif. -- Although many mental illnesses are uniquely human, animals sometimes exhibit abnormal behaviors similar to those seen in humans with psychological disorders. Such behaviors are called endophenotypes. Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have found that mice lacking a gene that encodes a particular protein found in the synapses of the brain display a number of endophenotypes associated with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders. The new findings appear in a recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, with Mary ...

The elusive culprits that are killing countless coral reefs around the world can now be nabbed with technology normally used to diagnose human diseases, marine researchers say. Coral researchers and reef managers will be able to identify coral infections using a new method that allows them to classify specific diseases based on the presence of microbes. This could lead to more effective action to reduce the impact of disease on the world's imperilled coral reefs. "Current classification of coral diseases is mostly based on a description of how the coral has deteriorated, ...

The Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act gives injured workers valuable rights. They include payment of medical bills, wage loss compensation, disfigurement awards for work-related facial and neck scars and awards for specific loss of use of a body part (ex. - leg, hand, finger, etc). The following are key points that workers should know about workers' compensation in Pennsylvania. Workers' Compensation Benefits for Work-Related Injuries According to the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act, employers must give their full-time, part-time and seasonal employees ...

Blossom end rot on tomatoes and cucumbers, bitter-pit in apples – these unpleasant blemishes on fruits and vegetables not only compromises the flavor but also causes significant harvest losses every year. The characteristic blotches and spotting can be traced back to insufficient calcium uptake or faulty calcium transport within the plant. Consequently, the damage can occur even if the soil provides sufficient calcium. A team under the leadership of scientists from the University of Zurich and Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea, has for the first time identified ...

The tiny two-spotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae) causes much anxiety for farmers, and has been, to date, a scientific mystery. It feeds on over 1,100 species of plants, including 150 greenhouse plants and crops, such as maize, soy, tomatoes and citrus. The cost of chemically controlling damage caused by the spider mite exceeds USD 1 billion per year. In the latest issue of the journal Nature, a multinational consortium of scientists publish the sequenced genome of the spider mite, revealing how it is capable of such feeding frenzy, as well as other secrets of this ...