When rabbis from the Orthodox Union started finding worms in cans of sardines and capelin eggs, they turned to scientists at the American Museum of Natural History to answer a culturally significant dietary question: could these foods still be considered kosher? Using a technique called "DNA barcoding" at the Museum's Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, researchers identified the species and life cycles of the parasitic worms to determine whether the food's preparation violated Jewish dietary laws. The results, which were recently published online in the Journal ...

Cyclone Giovanna made landfall in eastern Madagascar very early on February 14 and continues tracking in a southwestern direction toward the Mozambique Channel. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image when Giovanna's center was close to the capital city of Antananarivo, and NASA's TRMM satellite saw powerful towering thunderstorms around its center before it made landfall. According to BBC News, Giovanna made landfall near the eastern port city of Toamasina with winds gusting to 120 mph (194km). Giovanna brought heavy rain, and its strong winds flattened trees. Storm ...

We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, absorbing information, weighing it carefully, and making thoughtful decisions. But, as it turns out, we're kidding ourselves. Over the past few decades, scientists have shown there are many different internal and external factors influencing how we think, feel, communicate, and make decisions at any given moment. One particularly powerful influence may be our own bodies, according to new research reviewed in the December issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological ...

Tropical Cyclone Jasmine is still lingering near the island nation of Tonga in the South Pacific and was captured in an infrared image from NASA's Aqua satellite. Jasmine is bringing gusty winds and heavy rainfall to some of Tonga's islands. When Aqua flew over Cyclone Jasmine on February 14, 2012 at 1241 UTC (7:41 a.m.), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured an infrared image of its clouds. The image showed the strongest thunderstorms and heaviest rainfall appear to be on the northeastern quadrant of the storm. A gale warning ...

Known as a leader in the field of allergy bedding, AchooAllergy.com's Allergy Armor bedding line has been featured on the award-winning television show The Doctors and is recommended by over 4000 physicians annually. Extending this innovative line of bedding, AchooAllergy now offers another product aimed at improving the lives of allergy sufferers - the Allergy Armor Organic Cotton Blanket. Specially designed and crafted for individuals with asthma, allergies, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), the Allergy Armor organic cotton blanket is made with un-dyed, organically ...

"The sensor provides opportunities to make specific and detailed diagnostics for a particular patient and to tailor care based on very objective and quantitative measures," said Eric H. Ledet, PhD, Assistant Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "This highly unique sensor is very small (4 mm diameter and 500 microns thick), is wireless, batteryless, and requires no telemetry within the body. Its simplicity makes it less prone to failure and very inexpensive to produce," Dr. Ledet explained. The orthopaedic implant acts as a carrier for the sensor. The wireless ...

Although only 2 percent of the American population that undergo total joint replacement surgery will suffer an infection, half of those infections are from MRSA. The results of a MRSA infection after a total joint replacement can be devastating. Currently, there is no effective treatment for MRSA-infected implants. With the increasing incidence of total joint replacement surgeries, the prevalence of MRSA-infected implants is expected to rise. A team of investigators from the University of Rochester Medical Center has developed a vaccine that can prevent bacterial ...

MATERIALS -- Next-generation electronics . . . Changing the behavior of a material isn't big magic – it's nanoscale chemistry. Alejandro Lopez-Bezanilla used the computing power of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar supercomputer, America's fastest, to study the effects of adding oxygen, sulfur and hydrogen to nanoribbons made of boron nitride. The added elements changed the behavior of boron nitride – a good insulator – into that of a metal. That makes the material promising for faster computer chips and smarter cell phones. Stable, inexpensive boron nitride can ...

According to Timothy E. Hewett, PhD, FACSM, Director of Research, Ohio State University Sports Health and Performance Institute and Cincinnati Children's Sports Medicine Biodynamics Center, that injury occurs due to a tri-planar multi-dimensional combination of factors. "Sometimes in science we have a lot of clinical expertise and a lot of engineering expertise but we don't have much—what I call--'common sense-pertise'." "Is it just anterior translation that strains and tears the ACL? Is it just knee abduction or that inward motion that tears the ACL? Is it just ...

A person has a tumor removed from her femur. A soldier is struck by an improvised explosive device and loses a portion of his tibia. A child undergoes chemotherapy for osteosarcoma but part of the bone dies as a result. Every year, millions of Americans sustain fractures that don't heal or lose bone that isn't successfully grafted. But a study presented at the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) 2012 Annual Meeting in San Francisco offers new hope for those who sustain these traumas. Orthopaedic researchers with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), ...

In a first-of-its-kind study in Canada, Kevin Bainey of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry has discovered that South Asians who live in Alberta with coronary disease experience a lower quality of life. This adds to prior data that this group lives with more severe disease. Using the APPROACH registry, which captures information about all patients who undergo a coronary angiogram in Alberta, the research team analyzed data about quality of life and health status of this population. The validated survey results showed that South Asians' overall quality of life scored ...

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a potent regulator of sensitivity to insulin, the hormone that controls blood sugar levels. The new findings may help scientists find better treatments for type 2 diabetes, obesity and other health problems caused by the body's inability to properly regulate blood sugar. The research is published online Feb. 13 in PLoS ONE. Fat and muscle cells in patients with type 2 diabetes become resistant to insulin, which normally causes them to take in glucose from the blood. The protein studied ...

University of Melbourne researchers have found Wikipedia is the most highly rated website for accessing information on mental-health related topics. The researchers assessed a range of on-line and print material on mental health-related topics and found that in the majority of cases, Wikipedia was the most highly rated in most domains. Content about mental health was extracted from 14 frequently accessed websites, including Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica and a psychiatry textbook. Text providing information about depression and schizophrenia was assessed. The ...

NEW ORLEANS – Simple tests such as walking speed and hand grip strength may help doctors determine how likely it is a middle-aged person will develop dementia or stroke. That's according to new research that was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 21 to April 28, 2012. "These are basic office tests which can provide insight into risk of dementia and stroke and can be easily performed by a neurologist or general practitioner," said Erica C. Camargo, MD, MSc, PhD, with Boston Medical Center. More ...

A new study has examined how smoking-cessation aide varenicline may reduce drinking. Results indicate that varenicline may reduce drinking by increasing alcohol's aversive effects. Specifically, varenicline may increase blood pressure, heart rate, as well as ratings of dysphoria and nausea. Varenicline is an effective smoking-cessation medication that may also reduce drinking. However, the means by which it might reduce drinking is unclear. A study of the effects of varenicline on subjective, physiological, and objective responses to low and moderate doses of alcohol ...

Alcohol abuse and dependence are common problems in the United States due to a number of factors, two of which may be social drinking by college students and young adults, and risk taking that may lead to heavier drinking later in life. A study of the neural underpinnings of risk-taking in young, non-dependent social drinkers has found that the caudate nucleus and frontal cortex regions of the brain show less activation in people who drink more heavily. Results will be published in the May 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently ...

Frequent drinking can establish changes in the processing of alcohol cues that can, in turn, facilitate renewed drinking unless the resulting impulse to drink is inhibited. A new study has looked at the interaction between automatically activated approach tendencies and adolescent ability and motivation to inhibit and reflect upon drinking behaviors. Results show that stricter parental rules about drinking are highly protective, especially for males. Frequent drinking can lead to changes in the processing of alcohol cues that can, in turn, facilitate renewed drinking ...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to heavy drinking, and alcohol outlet density to violence. A new study looks at links between alcohol outlet densities and IPV-related Emergency Department (ED) visits. Findings showed that bars are positively related to IPV-related ED visits, while there is no relationship between restaurant density and IPV-related ED visits. Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to heavy drinking, substance use by one or both partners, and living in a neighborhood characterized by poverty and social disadvantage. Alcohol ...

Women with peripheral artery disease, or PAD, are two to three times more likely to have a stroke or heart attack than those without it ― yet it's often unrecognized and untreated, especially in women, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement. The statement is published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The American Heart Association, in collaboration with the Vascular Disease Foundation and its Peripheral Artery Disease Coalition, recommends healthcare providers proactively increase awareness of and test women ...

Hamilton, ON - For decades, the blood thinner heparin has been used to prevent and treat blood clots. Could it be just as effective in treating cancer? In an editorial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from McMaster University and the University at Buffalo suggest conclusive answers to key questions on the benefits of low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) for cancer patients remain elusive - despite promising results from large studies. Co-authors of the editorial are Dr. Elie Akl, associate professor in the Department of Medicine in ...

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one-third of the world's population is currently infected with tuberculosis bacteria. The bacteria is incredibly resistant to treatment, and despite its prevalence, very little is known about why it is so stress tolerant. But, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have been developing a new way of culturing tuberculosis bacteria, which could lead to new insights and treatments. "This is a significant step forward in TB research," said paper-author Dr. Anil Ojha, "because it shows in a very reproducible way how to ...

The Taurus Molecular Cloud, in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull), lies about 450 light-years from Earth. This image shows two parts of a long, filamentary structure in this cloud, which are known as Barnard 211 and Barnard 213. Their names come from Edward Emerson Barnard's photographic atlas of the "dark markings of the sky", compiled in the early 20th century. In visible light, these regions appear as dark lanes, lacking in stars. Barnard correctly argued that this appearance was due to "obscuring matter in space". We know today that these dark markings are actually ...

UPTON, NY - Brain scans of two strains of mice imbibing significant quantities of alcohol reveal serious shrinkage in some brain regions - but only in mice lacking a particular type of receptor for dopamine, the brain's "reward" chemical. The study, conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and published in the May 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, now online, provides new evidence that these dopamine receptors, known as DRD2, may play a protective role against alcohol-induced brain damage. "This study clearly ...

Drug delivery into muscle using an autoinjector, akin to the EpiPen used to treat serious allergic reactions, is faster and may be a more effective way to stop status epilepticus, a prolonged seizure lasting longer than five minutes, according to a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Status epilepticus is a potentially life-threatening emergency that causes 55,000 deaths each year. Anticonvulsant drugs are typically delivered intravenously (IV) as a first-line treatment. Starting an IV in a patient experiencing seizures can pose a challenge for paramedics ...

Oral nutritional interventions help increase nutritional intake and improve some aspects of quality of life (QOL) in malnourished cancer patients or those who are at nutritional risk, but do not effect mortality, according to a study published February 15 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The American Cancer Society estimated 12 million new cancer diagnoses worldwide in 2007, expecting this to more than double in the next 50 years. While international guidelines have suggested a nutritional intervention with dietary advice and/or oral nutritional supplements ...