Impairment of oral intake occurs in the majority of patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) receiving chemoradiotherapy. Placement of prophylactic percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube in asymptomatic newly diagnosed HNC before chemoradiation is a common practice in some centers. In some studies, PEG has been associated with a decrease in treatment related weight loss in patients with HNC, but no studies have examined the utilization rate. A research article published on February 28, 2011 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The ...

Its head looks like a turkey's, its body resembles a chicken's – now scientists can explain why one of the poultry world's most curious specimens has developed such a distinctive look. The Transylvanian naked neck chicken – once dubbed a Churkey or a Turken because of its hybrid appearance – has developed its defining feature because of a complex genetic mutation. Researchers at The Roslin Institute at The University of Edinburgh found that a vitamin A-derived substance produced around the bird's neck enhanced the effects of the genetic mutation. This causes a protein ...

Traditionally, both air and tap water have been used as oral contrast agents to achieve adequate gastric distension for preoperative computed tomography (CT) imaging in patients with early gastric cancer (EGC). Despite introduction of multi-detector row CT techniques and the use of multiplanar reconstruction (MPR) images, the detection rate of EGC on hydrostomach CT has still been unsatisfactory. A research article published on February 28, 2011 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The authors conducted a comparison study for the detection ...

Colonoscopy is considered a safe procedure, although complications can occur. The most dreaded of these is iatrogenic perforation. The literature reports perforation rates of 0.03%-0.8% for diagnostic procedures, and a rate of 0.15%-3% for therapeutic procedures. Mechanisms of perforation are the result of either mechanical disruption of the colonic wall (e.g. thermal injury, forced push into a diverticulum, or stretching of the bowel with loops or the slide-by technique) or excessive air insufflation. After perforation, prompt abdominal surgery is usually recommended, ...

In a unique collaboration between scientists from the UK, Ecuador and Réunion, a new species of yeast has been discovered growing on the fruit of an unidentified and innocuous bramble collected from the biodiversity-rich Maquipucuna cloud forest nature reserve, near Quito, in Ecuador. "We are actively looking for new yeasts with the ability to ferment plant material to produce bio-energy," said Dr Steve James from the National Collection of Yeast Cultures at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich. The collection of yeasts at the institute is already used for bread ...

University of Manchester scientists have led an international team to discover new treatments for a rare and potentially lethal childhood disease that is the clinical opposite of diabetes mellitus. Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is a condition where the body's pancreas produces too much insulin – rather than too little as in diabetes – so understanding the disease has led to breakthroughs in diabetes treatment. This latest study, published in the journal Diabetes today (Wednesday), was carried out with clinical colleagues at hospitals throughout Europe and at the ...

Recently the West Valley View, the newspaper serving the communities of Avondale, Buckeye, Goodyear, Litchfield Park, and Tolleson ran an article on the tough economic times Arizona as a whole can look forward to over the next few years. Sadly, most Arizona residents had already come to this realization. The combination of the bursting of the massive housing bubble in Arizona and current rock-bottom housing values has left a look of people in a valueless house. Sprinkle in a dose of high unemployment and suddenly you have the making of a housing crisis. A quick search ...

INDIANAPOLIS – Stroke patients who are not successfully treated for depression are at higher risk of losing some of their capability to function normally, according to a study in the March 15, 2011 issue of the journal Neurology. Although as many as a third of those who experience a stroke develop depression, a new study by researchers from the Regenstrief Institute, the schools of health and rehabilitation sciences and of medicine at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center is the first to look whether managing ...

It is difficult to write a letter on a driving bus, or to measure small distances on a vibrating plate – the vibrations simply interfere too much. Any small vibration coming from the floor is already too much if there is an increased requirement with respect to accuracy. They hamper high-resolution measurements of distance or roughness – as in scanning electron microscopy. They are also not desired in production if precision is a requirement. For this reason, the devices must be settled in such a manner that they are stable and quiet. Damping is necessary also when the ...

WASHINGTON — Good travel data are essential to measure and monitor the performance of the U.S. transportation system and to help guide policy choices and investments in transportation infrastructure, says a new report from the National Research Council that calls for the creation of a national travel data program. Current data are inadequate to support decision making in the transportation sector. "Each day our transportation network serves hundreds of millions of travelers and handles millions of tons of freight, yet we are not collecting the data necessary to analyze ...

London, UK (March 15th, 2011) – WikiLeak's disclosures highlight longstanding problems of the overclassification of information and failure of transparency laws, says David L Sobel. When Barack Obama took office as president in January 2009, he identified transparency as one of the highest priorities on his agenda for change. Writing in the current issue of Index on Censorship, David L Sobel, senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the US, suggests that the president's early promises remain unfulfilled. He argues that, with the US government's failure ...

Mohave County and its major areas of Kingman, Bullhead City, and Lake Havasu City are especially vulnerable to the poor economic times facing our country. Recently the Kingman Daily Miner reported that the Kingman and Lake Havasu areas had an unemployment rate of 10.2%, this is higher than the Arizona average of 9.4%. The biggest problem with this statistic is that it does not take in to account all the people that have either stopped looking for work or are underemployed. There is currently an epidemic of of unemployment and underemployment in Kingman, Arizona, as well ...

The massive marketing campaigns launched by publishing houses at the start of the academic year can cause people bound to suffer obsessive-compulsive disorder to develop this pathology before. The fact is that collecting articles without control is a symptom of this serious psychological disorder –one of which most known variants is Diogenes syndrom– and of shopping addiction. These are two mental disorders affecting approximately 12% of the population. Porcelain dolls, precious stones, world thimbles, watches, fans, dinosaurs, language courses, and tanks and ships in ...

Minneapolis, MN —March 15, 2011—A new study from the Journal of Marriage and Family shows that contrary to popular anxieties about slacker young adults who refuse to grow up, or indulgent parents who stifle their adult children's development by continuing to support them, there is evidence that parental assistance in early adulthood promotes progress toward autonomy and self-reliance. Study author Teresa Swartz, "The fact that young people depend so heavily upon their parents well beyond the age when most people from earlier generations had already started families and ...

Leuven - Jean-Christophe Marine (VIB, K.U.Leuven) strongly argues against the use of Cop1-inhibitory drugs. The protein Cop1 has –for a long time - been seen as an attractive drug target for cancer. But Jean-Christophe Marine found out that Cop1 acts as a tumor suppressor, and thus inhibits tumor formation. His new data will have direct implications for the development of cancer drug targets. Tumorigenesis: loss of control Tumors form when control over the cell division is lost; a process that could be compared to losing control over the speed of your car. Two main players ...

It is every patient's worst nightmare: to wake up in the recovery room after surgery to learn that something went wrong. In some cases, the bad outcome is simply a matter of chance: one of the known risks of the surgery happened to occur. But in other cases, the bad outcome is the direct result of the negligence of the physician performing the surgery and was entirely avoidable. Surgical mistakes happen much more often than most Americans realize. Sometimes these mistakes are minor and may never cause any harm to the patients, but this is not always the case. According ...

BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL, March 15, 2011– Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have shown that a significant number of patients with benign prostate enlargement (BPE) may have Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), which may be the reason for their night awakenings and urination. This study compared men between the ages of 55 and 75 who were randomly sampled from primary care clinics, diagnosed with BPE and reported nocturia at least once nightly. The comparison control group had no BPE and one or no nocturia episodes per night. According to the new study published ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- It's a cloak that surpasses all others: a microscopic carbon cloak made of graphene that could change the way bacteria and other cells are imaged. Vikas Berry, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Kansas State University, and his research team are wrapping bacteria with graphene to address current challenges with imaging bacteria under electron microscopes. Berry's method creates a carbon cloak that protects the bacteria, allowing them to be imaged at their natural size and increasing the image's resolution. Graphene is a form of carbon ...

Alexandria, VA - Black carbon - fine particles of soot in the atmosphere produced from the burning of fossil fuels or biomass - a major contributor to the thick hazes of pollution hovering over cities around the world, has been known to be a health hazard for decades. But over the last decade, scientists have been examining in increasing detail the various ways in which these particles contribute to another hazard: heating up the planet. Black carbon's impact on climate is not cut-and-dried, however, as EARTH explores in "Still in a Haze: What We Don't Know About Black ...

TORONTO, On — March 15, 2011 — Minor league hockey players in the Atom division are more than 10 times likely to suffer a brain injury since bodychecking was first allowed among the 9 and 10-year-olds, says a study led by St. Michael's Hospital neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Cusimano. The findings, published online in the journal Open Medicine, add to the growing evidence that bodychecking holds greater risk than benefit for youth and support widespread calls to ban the practice. According to the researchers, led by Cusimano, director of the Injury Prevention Research Centre ...

University Park, Pa. -- Children of immigrants are more likely to live in households headed by two married parents than children of natives in their respective ethnic groups, according to Penn State sociologists. This intact family structure may offer immigrant children economic and social advantages that help them adapt to their new country, according to Nancy Landale, professor, sociology and demography. "An intact family is a positive family arrangement because it maximizes the resources available to children," said Landale. "The family is the main source of children's ...

Car accidents can be very scary and can be disorienting even if you do not appear to be hurt very badly. Even a minor impact can leave you in shock, and feeling bewildered as to what to do. Often, even though you seem not to be injured at the scene of the accident, and decline medical attention, a day or two later you will be feeling really terrible and in increasing pain. This will give you some pointers on dealing with the situation. Stop and Exchange Information Stop at the scene and get the other driver's information even if it appears that there is minor damage ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have shown that an experimental vaccine against the human norovirus – the bug behind about 90 percent of highly contagious nonbacterial illnesses that cause diarrhea and vomiting – can generate a strong immune response in mice without appearing to cause the animals any harm. Using a novel viral vector-based method to grow and deliver the vaccine that has shown promise in other agents designed to fight such infections as HIV and hepatitis C, the researchers are the first to test this vaccine design method's effectiveness against the human norovirus. ...

Hospitals in the high- and low-performing groups differed substantially in five ways: organizational values and goals, senior management involvement, broad staff presence and expertise in AMI care, communication and coordination, and problem solving. "Our research shows that the key facets to safety and quality in hospitals may not be new gadgets," says Elizabeth Bradley, Ph.D., faculty director at the Yale Global Health Leadership Institute, professor of public health and senior author on the paper. "The essential ingredients are not expensive. If we could implement ...

Irrigation is one of the most controversial aspects in the sustainable management of golf courses. Researchers from the Canary Islands have spent 25 years analysing the practices relating to reclaimed water at one of the oldest golf courses in Spain. The results show that plants on the course receive 83% more water than they need. "Excessive amounts of water are used, and this cannot be justified from any perspective", María del Pino Palacios Díaz, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Department of Animal Pathology, Animal Production and Food Science and Technology ...