WASHINGTON — A new finding in basic science should trigger a "change in thinking" about how cancer drugs might be developed and tested for maximum effectiveness, says Louis M. Weiner, M.D., director of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, in a "Clinical Implications of Basic Research" article titled Tumor-Cell Death, Autophagy, and Immunity published in the March 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). An internationally known expert in immunotherapy research, Weiner was invited, along with Michael T. Lotze, M.D. from the University of ...

A Carbondale woman, who charged a Carbondale police officer with unlawfully using his police cruiser to ram the all terrain vehicle (ATV) in which she was riding, has settled her Federal Civil Rights lawsuit against the officer and the City of Carbondale for $105,000. In May 2009, Chelsea Rocuba, 17 years-old at the time, was a passenger in a legally registered and operated ATV when it was rammed by Carbondale Police Officer Timothy Mackrell using a "pit maneuver," a move commonly used by police forces. The pit maneuver involves the law enforcement vehicle ...

Two breakthrough studies may explain why we see distinct patterns of brain damage associated with dementias, such as Alzheimer's disease, and could be useful for predicting future cognitive decline in patients. These independent studies published by Cell Press in the March 22 issue of the journal Neuron, one studying how brain circuits wire up structurally and the other studying their functional connections, converged on a remarkably similar model that predicted the landscape of degeneration in various forms of dementia. This is particularly significant because, until now, ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – What characterizes many people with depression, schizophrenia and some other mental illnesses is anhedonia: an inability to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences. Exactly why this happens is unclear. But new research led by neuroscientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine may have literally shined a light on the answer, one that could lead to the discovery of new mental health therapies. A report of the study appears March 22 in the journal Neuron. The study used a combination of genetic engineering ...

In a medical malpractice case, an Ontario appeals court recently affirmed a lower court's award of $8.5 million to the family of a severely brain-damaged woman. Born with cerebral palsy, the woman nearly died at birth due to a nurse's failure to properly monitor her heartbeat during labor. Lawyers for the family said that the nurse didn't measure her heartbeat often enough to detect oxygen deprivation over a period of one to three hours. The woman, now grown, lives in an assisted care facility and depends on her family for care and financial support. Family members said ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that removing a matched set of molecules that typically help to regulate the brain's capacity for forming and eliminating connections between nerve cells could substantially aid recovery from stroke even days after the event. In experiments with mice, the scientists demonstrated that when these molecules are not present, the mice's ability to recover from induced strokes improved significantly. Importantly, these beneficial effects grew over the course of a full week post-stroke, ...

VIDEO: George Cotsarelis, MD, explains that an abnormal amount a protein called Prostaglandin D2 inhibits hair growth in the bald scalp of men, a discovery that may lead directly to new... Click here for more information. PHILADELPHIA - Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have identified an abnormal amount a protein called Prostaglandin D2 in the bald scalp of men with male pattern baldness, a discovery that may lead directly to new ...

Public scrutiny and the threat of government regulation are leading to a decline in industry-sponsored funding of accredited continuing medical education (CME) for physicians, and this decline represents an opportunity to make CME more relevant, cost-effective and less open to bias, wrote a group of physicians from the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco. In a "Perspective" in the March 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the authors predicted the decline will continue, with a "sea change toward greater restriction" ...

When it next meets, the governing board of the National Basketball Association will consider allowing corporate advertising on players' official game jerseys. According to the Sporting News, the NBA is the last major American sport to have no logos other than the team name on its official game uniforms -- Adidas currently has logos only on NBA warm-ups. Sports such as soccer, NASCAR and even the Women's National Basketball Association have no qualms about giving corporate sponsors prominent placement on vehicles, equipment and jerseys. For example, in 2009 the WNBA's ...

SAN DIEGO (Embargoed until 2 pm (ET), March 21, 2012) – New findings from a landmark research study led by Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) – a collaborative program between Scripps Health and The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) – shows a promising new blood test may be useful in helping doctors predict who is at risk for an imminent heart attack. Results of the study titled, "Characterization of Circulating Endothelial Cells in Acute Myocardial Infarction," were published this week in Science Translational Medicine. The study concludes that circulating ...

The physical phenomenon of plasmon resonances in small metal particles has been used for centuries. They are visible in the vibrant hues of the great stained-glass windows of the world. More recently, plasmon resonances have been used by engineers to develop new, light-activated cancer treatments and to enhance light absorption in photovoltaics and photocatalysis. "The stained-glass windows of Notre Dame Cathedral and Stanford Chapel derive their color from metal nanoparticles embedded in the glass. When the windows are illuminated, the nanoparticles scatter specific ...

ESO's VISTA telescope has been trained on the same patch of sky repeatedly to slowly accumulate the very dim light of the most distant galaxies. In total more than six thousand separate exposures with a total effective exposure time of 55 hours, taken through five different coloured filters, have been combined to create this picture. This image from the UltraVISTA survey is the deepest [1] infrared view of the sky of its size ever taken. The VISTA telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile is the world's largest survey telescope and the most powerful infrared survey ...

Workplace safety is a major problem in the United States. Every year, approximately 6,000 workers are killed, and millions more are injured, in on-the-job accidents. Safety is everyone's responsibility. Management, however, often tries to place the burden on workers alone. A new study from the University of Georgia shows that this emphasis might be misplaced. It found that high-level decisions about workplace safety and work-life balance can greatly reduce workplace accident rates. The study examined employees' perceptions of workplace climates across a wide variety ...

Use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants during pregnancy appears to be linked with increased risk of pregnancy induced high blood pressure ("hypertension"), but a causal link has not been established. Pregnancy hypertension is sometimes linked with pre-eclampsia, a serious condition that can harm pregnant women and their unborn babies. But the authors stress that pregnant women should not stop taking their prescribed medication; instead they should seek a consultation with their doctor if they are concerned. Out of 1,216 women, the overall ...

Both human infants and baboons have a stronger preference for using their right hand to gesture than for a simple grasping task, supporting the hypothesis that language development, which is lateralized in the left part of the human brain, is based on a common gestural communication system. The results are reported in the Mar. 21 issue of the open access journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, led by Helene Meunier of the University of Strasbourg in France, found that hand preference of both infants and baboons for grasping tasks depended on the location of the object, but ...

People born without a sense of smell experience higher social insecurity and increased risk for depression, according to a study published Mar. 21 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The authors of the study, led by Ilona Croy of the University of Dresden Medical School in Germany, investigated 32 individuals born without a sense of smell, known as isolated congenital anosmia. They found that the non-smellers did not have significant deviations from the norm in terms of many daily smell-related functions, such as food preferences and eating behaviors, but they did ...

Fifteen percent of the American active physician workforce was trained in lower income countries, which is beneficial for the United States both clinically and economically but may have negative impacts on the countries of origin that are losing their educational investment, according to a report published in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, led by Fuller Torrey of the Stanley Medical Research Institute in Maryland, identified 265,851 physicians currently practicing in the United States who completed their medical education in other countries, and determined ...

Sex offender registration has been a prominent, national issue since the 1990's. Amid public pressure after the brutal rape and murder of a young boy in Florida, Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Act. This act, named after the boy, was designed to provide states with guidelines for creating their own sex-offender registration laws. States based many of their provisions on the federal law, which was designed to target those who were likely to reoffend. In 2006, Congress passed The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (AWCPSA), which strengthened many of the requirements ...

Amateurs have a new tool for conducting simple neuroscience experiments in their own garage: the SpikerBox. As reported in the Mar. 21 issue of the open access journal PLoS ONE, the SpikerBox lets users amplify and listen to neurons' electrical activity – like those in a cockroach leg or cricket torso – and is appropriate for use in middle or high school educational programs, or by amateurs. The work was a project from Backyard Brains, a start-up company focused on developing neuroscience educational resources. In the paper, the authors, Timothy Marzullo and Gregory Gage, ...

The parasite Toxoplasma gondii has some favorable effects on the pathogenesis and progression of a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, reports a Mar. 21 study in the open access journal PLoS ONE. Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite commonly hosted in cats and generally known for the potential complications it can cause for human pregnancies, suppressed the immune system. The researchers behind today's study, led by Eun-Hee Shin of the Seoul National University College of Medicine, found that this immune system suppression had positive effects on Alzheimer's disease mouse models, ...

Experienced ballet spectators with no physical expertise in ballet showed enhanced muscle-specific motor responses when watching live ballet, according to a Mar. 21 report in the open access journal PLoS ONE. This result when watching such a formal dance as ballet is striking in comparison to the similar enhanced response the authors found in empathic observers when watching an Indian dance rich in hand gestures. This is important because it shows that motor expertise in the movements observed is not required to have enhanced neural motor responses when just watching ...

In only a few weeks, taxes are due. Which begs the question: if you are going through Chapter 7 bankruptcy or are considering filing for bankruptcy, what tax rules apply to you? Can you spend your tax refund if you are in the midst of bankruptcy? If you haven't filed for bankruptcy yet, should you use your tax refund to pay back some of your debts? The first thing to note is that a tax refund is included as an asset for bankruptcy estate purposes. In other words, if your tax refund is not exempt, the bankruptcy trustee will collect your refund as part of your bankruptcy ...

The third most deadly disease in the U.S., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), appears to be partly driven by the action of immune cells circulating in the blood entering into the tissues of the lungs. UC Davis scientists have discovered that this key process begins in the blood vessels around the large airways in the center of the lung. The discovery helps clarify how smoking can bring about this severe respiratory condition. The research also identifies a potential new target for directed drug therapy to counter the disease, which kills about three million ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – At the molecular level, drugs like salvinorin A (the active ingredient of the hallucinogenic plant Salvia divinorum) work by activating specific proteins, known as receptors, in the brain and body. Salvinorin A, the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen, is unusual in that it interacts with only one receptor in the human brain — the kappa opioid receptor (KOR). Scientists know of four distinct types of opioid receptors, but until now the structure of the 'salvia receptor', and the details about how salvinorin A and other drugs interact with ...

Last year, the Texas legislature made changes to the law governing protective orders obtained to protect women from domestic violence. One significant change was the creation of a civil protective order with potentially unlimited duration. New Durations Previously, a two-year limit was imposed on any protective order (unless the offender was in prison), which could be extended by requesting a new protective order after the previous one had expired. However, this would mean the women would have to return to court and relive the violent experience. The new law permits ...