STANFORD, Calif. -- North American babies who acquire toxoplasmosis infections in the womb show much higher rates of brain and eye damage than European infants with the same infection, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine. Eighty-four percent of the North American infants studied had serious complications of the parasitic infection, including calcium deposits in the brain, water on the brain and eye disease that caused visual impairment or blindness. By contrast, few European infants had these problems -- for instance, about 17 percent ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists call it LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor, but they don't know much about this great-grandparent of all living things. Many believe LUCA was little more than a crude assemblage of molecular parts, a chemical soup out of which evolution gradually constructed more complex forms. Some scientists still debate whether it was even a cell. New evidence suggests that LUCA was a sophisticated organism after all, with a complex structure recognizable as a cell, researchers report. Their study appears in the journal Biology Direct. The study ...

(Deerfield, Ill., USA – October 5, 2011) Indoor spraying with the insecticide bendiocarb has dramatically decreased malaria transmission in many parts of Benin, new evidence that insecticides remain a potent weapon for fighting malaria in Africa despite the rapid rise of resistance to an entire class of mosquito-killing compounds, according to a study published today in the October edition of The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Scientists with Benin's Entomologic Research Center in Cotonou evaluated the effects of two applications of bendiocarb in ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a novel protocol that allows kidney-transplant recipients to jettison their indispensable immune-suppressing drugs. The protocol could also spell substantial savings to the health-care system. The researchers have reported their progress in a letter that will be published Oct. 6 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Eight of the 12 patients discussed in the small study have now been off of immunosuppressant drugs for at least one year, and in some cases for longer than three ...

New research suggests that small "seed" amounts of diseased brain proteins can be taken up by healthy neurons and propagated within them to cause neurodegeneration. The research, published by Cell Press in the October 6 issue of the journal Neuron, sheds light on the mechanisms associated with Parkinson's disease (PD) and provides a model for discovering early intervention therapeutics that can prevent or slow the devastating loss of neurons that underlies PD. Alpha-synuclein (α-syn) is a brain protein that forms abnormal, neuron-damaging intracellular clumps called ...

Our behavior is often guided by the desire to obtain positive outcomes and avoid negative consequences, and neuroscientists have put a great deal of effort into looking for reward and punishment "centers" in the brain. Now, new research published by Cell Press in the October 6 issue of the journal Neuron reveals that neural signals related to reinforcement and punishment are far more broadly distributed throughout the entire human brain than was previously thought. Understanding the neural basis of reinforcement and punishment processing is of paramount importance to ...

BOSTON –Over the past decade, new technologies have revealed that autism spectrum disorder has a substantial genetic component. But determining exactly which genes are involved has been like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. Now a research team from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has created a genetically engineered mouse with increased dosages of the Ube3 gene. And, like the patients who also harbor increased dosages of this single gene, the genetically engineered mice exhibit robust examples of all three traits considered hallmarks of autism: ...

CHICAGO – In contrast to findings of previous studies, patients who experienced an acute lung injury, such as from pneumonia or sepsis, and received dietary supplements including omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants had more days on a ventilator, more days in the intensive care unit (ICU), and a non-statistically significant increase in the rate of death, according to a study appearing in JAMA. The study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine meeting in Berlin. "Patients at risk of developing ...

CHICAGO – Patients with severe 2009 H1N1 influenza who developed respiratory failure and were treated with a system that adds oxygen to the patient's blood had a lower rate of in-hospital death than similar patients who did not receive this treatment, according to a study appearing in JAMA. The study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine meeting in Berlin. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a type of life support that circulates blood through a system that adds oxygen. "ECMO may ...

Winning may not be the only thing, but the human brain devotes a lot of resources to the outcome of games, a new study by Yale researchers suggest. The study published in the Oct. 6 issue of the journal Neuron shows that when participants play games, such as rock-paper-scissors, almost the entire brain is engaged, not just the reward centers of the brain, which have been assigned the central role for shaping adaptive human behavior. "Our brain functions to maximize the chance of survival and reproduction, so reward should be important for all cognitive functions, and ...

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – A new study from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) reports surprising results that suggest that the devastating neuromuscular disease, spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), might not exclusively affect the motor neurons in the spinal cord as has long been thought. The new findings suggest that defects in peripheral tissues such as liver, muscle, heart, etc., might also contribute to the pathology of the disease in severely affected patients. The study, which also paves the way for a potential SMA drug to enter human trials by the end of the year, ...

Many different types of animals come together to form vast groups – insect swarms, mammal herds, or bird flocks, for example. Researchers in France added another example to the list, reported today in the online journal PLoS ONE: the huge Wels catfish, the world's third largest and Europe's largest fresh-water fish. Researchers observed these fish in the Rhone River from May 2009 to Feb. 2011 and found that they formed dense groups of 15 to 44 individuals, corresponding to an estimated total biomass of up to 1132 kilograms with a biomass density of 14 to 40 kilograms per ...

When an athlete is doing well, commentators may describe him as being "hot" or "on fire," but scientists have generally thought that such streaks were primarily in the eye of the beholder -- until now. Today in the online journal PLoS ONE, researchers report an analysis of five years of NBA free-throws that supports what is called the "hot hand" phenomenon: that a streak of positive outcomes is likely to continue. This phenomenon had largely been considered a product of human perception since its coining in 1985, but in this case the researchers were able to use a very ...

At the beginning of the 2011-12 flu season, a new study finds that the proportion of nursing home patients who get a shot remains lower than a national public health goal and that the rate is lower for blacks than for whites. The disparity persists even within individual nursing homes, said researchers at Brown University, who investigated the disparity and some of the reasons behind it. "One reason you would potentially see a difference is that blacks and whites are by and large served by different nursing homes and there's lots of evidence to suggest that blacks are ...

Large, persistent populations of genetically engineered canola 1 have been found outside of cultivation in North Dakota. As genetically engineered crops become increasingly prevalent in the United States, concerns remain about potential ecological side effects. A study published today by the online journal PLoS ONE reports that genetically engineered canola endowed with herbicide resistance have been found growing outside of established cultivation regions along roadsides across North Dakota. These "escaped" plants were found state-wide and accounted for 45% of the total ...

DURHAM, N.C.-- In a first ever demonstration of a two-way interaction between a primate brain and a virtual body, two monkeys trained at the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering learned to employ brain activity alone to move an avatar hand and identify the texture of virtual objects. "Someday in the near future, quadriplegic patients will take advantage of this technology not only to move their arms and hands and to walk again, but also to sense the texture of objects placed in their hands, or experience the nuances of the terrain on which they stroll with the ...

Ross-Simons is excited to announce an online jewelry sweepstakes, co-sponsored by More, the magazine for women of style and substance. The "Gotta Have Bling Sweepstakes" will give away $10,000 worth of fine jewelry to three very lucky winners. Contestants are invited to enter online at www.ross-simons.com/sweeps to win the following prizes: - One Grand Prize: $5,000 Ross-Simons jewelry shopping spree - One First Prize: $3,000 Ross-Simons jewelry shopping spree - One Second Prize: $2,000 Ross-Simons jewelry shopping spree An Unprecedented Jewelry Extravaganza Darrell ...

Women donating their eggs for use in fertility clinics are typically financially compensated for the time and discomfort involved in the procedure. However, guidelines established by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2005 state that women who donate their eggs for use in stem cell research should not be compensated, although the procedures they undergo are the same. In the October 7th issue of Cell Stem Cell, researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and the Department of Bioethics at Case Western Reserve University argue that this lack of compensation ...

Two decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act went into effect, people with disabilities continue to face difficulties meeting major social needs, including obtaining appropriate access to health care facilities and services. In an article in the October issue of Health Affairs, Lisa Iezzoni, MD, director of the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital, analyzes available information on disparities affecting people with disabilities and highlights barriers that continue to restrict their access to health services. "A lot of attention ...

A study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine may lead to a way to prevent the progression, or induce the regression, of lung injury that results from use of the anti-cancer chemotherapy drug Bleomycin. Pulmonary fibrosis caused by this drug, as well as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) from unknown causes, affect nearly five million people worldwide. No therapy is known to improve the health or survival of patients. Their research shows that the RSK-C/EBP-Beta phosphorylation pathway may contribute to the development of lung injury ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Carefully tracking the rate of response of human lung tumors during the first weeks of treatment can predict which cancers will undergo sustained regression, suggests a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding was made after scientists gained a new insight into therapies that target cancer-causing genes: They are successful not because they cause cell death directly, but instead because they slow the rate of tumor cell division. In other words, squelching messages promoting rampant cell growth allows already ...

Halle/Saale and Berlin. Scientists present the largest distribution data compilation ever on butterflies of an entire continent. The Germany based Society for the Conservation of Butterflies and Moths GfS ("Gesellschaft für Schmetterlingsschutz"), the German Nature Conservation Association NABU ("Naturschutzbund Deutschland") and the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) are delighted to announce the publication of the „Distribution Atlas of Butterflies in Europe". The atlas was initiated by Otakar Kudrna and is a result of the joint efforts of a team of authors, ...

Conditions like atherosclerosis and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) -- the most common cause of blindness among the elderly in western societies -- are strongly linked to increased oxidative stress, the process in which proteins, lipids and DNA damaged by oxygen free radicals and related cellular waste accumulate, prompting an inflammatory response from the body's innate immune system that results in chronic disease. In the October 6, 2011 issue of Nature, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, as part of an international collaborative ...

Treating women with early stage breast cancer with a combination of chemotherapy and the molecularly targeted drug Herceptin significantly increases survival in patients with a specific genetic mutation that results in very aggressive disease, a researcher with UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center reported Wednesday. The study also found that a regimen without the drug Adriamycin, an anthracycline commonly used as a mainstay to treat breast cancer but one that, especially when paired with Herceptin, can cause permanent heart damage, was comparable to a regimen ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- New evidence supports the theory that comets delivered a significant portion of Earth's oceans, which scientists believe formed about 8 million years after the planet itself. The findings, which involve a University of Michigan astronomer, are published Oct. 5 online in Nature. "Life would not exist on Earth without liquid water, and so the questions of how and when the oceans got here is a fundamental one," said U-M astronomy professor Ted Bergin, "It's a big puzzle and these new findings are an important piece." Bergin is a co-investigator on ...