PHILADELPHIA - Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have devised a totally new and far more efficient way of generating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), immature cells that are able to develop into several different types of cells or tissues in the body. The researchers used fibroblast cells, which are easily obtained from skin biopsies, and could be used to generate patient-specific iPSCs for drug screening and tissue regeneration. iPSCs are typically generated from adult non-reproductive cells by expressing four different genes called ...

Dr. Grant Stevens of Marina Plastic Surgery (www.marinaplasticsurgery.com) is seeing a rise in the popularity of facial plastic surgery procedures such as eyelid surgery and facelift in Los Angeles, but his practice is also seeing a dramatic jump in the number of nonsurgical facial rejuvenation procedures being performed. These nonsurgical procedures meet the demands of patients' busy schedules while helping them look their best and allowing them to remain on-the-go. "My Los Angeles plastic surgery patients choose from a wide range of procedures," says Dr. Stevens, "and ...

We all know that people at opposite ends of the political spectrum often really can't see eye to eye. Now, a new report published online on April 7th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveals that those differences in political orientation are tied to differences in the very structures of our brains. Individuals who call themselves liberal tend to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes, while those who call themselves conservative have larger amygdalas. Based on what is known about the functions of those two brain regions, the structural differences are consistent ...

Cave life is known to favor the evolution of a variety of traits, including blindness and loss of eyes, loss of pigmentation, and changes in metabolism and feeding behavior. Now researchers reporting online on April 7 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have added sleeplessness to that list. "Cave-adapted fish sleep less—much less—than closely related surface fish," said Richard Borowsky of New York University. "In some ways, their sleep phenotypes are similar to those of humans with sleep disorders." The fish do sleep, but only for relatively short periods, ...

Cellomobile.com recently introduced a short-term Blackberry rental with an unlimited data plan designed to meet the needs of international travelers. Cellomobile.com is currently offering an unprecedented data plan of international cell phone rental for world travelers. The plan allows world travelers to rent a late model Blackberry that works wherever they want to go. The Blackberry works as both a communication device and a modem, offering unlimited depth of coverage that includes talk, text, and web in any corner of the world. The data plan truly is unlimited, ...

Monkeys infected with an emerging malaria strain are providing a reservoir for human disease in Southeast Asia, according to research published today. The Wellcome Trust funded study confirms that the species has not yet adapted to humans and that monkeys are the main source of infection. Malaria is a potentially deadly disease that kills over a million people each year. The disease is caused by malaria parasites, which are transmitted by infected mosquitoes and injected into the bloodstream. There are five species of malaria parasite that are known to cause disease ...

LA JOLLA, CA – April 7, 2011 – Slight oscillations lasting just milliseconds have a huge impact on an enzyme's function, according to a new study by Scripps Research Institute scientists. Blocking these movements, without changing the enzyme's overall structure or any of its other properties, renders the enzyme defective in carrying out chemical reactions. The study, published in April 8, 2011 issue of the journal Science, adds to a growing body of evidence pointing to the importance of movement in the ability of enzymes and other types of proteins to do their job. The ...

Just a month after a $145K jackpot win, the Slotland.com progressive jackpot has already been hit again. Marianne M., a toy company project manager known as WYNDSTAR on the site, won $83,979 playing the Striking 7s video poker game last Friday. "Of course the jackpot can be won anytime but we usually go six to eight weeks between wins," said Slotland Manager Michael Hilary. "It didn't have time to get up to $100K or $150K this time, like it usually does, but I'm sure the winner is happy just the same!" Marianne M. has been playing at Slotland since March 2009. She ...

Chevy Chase, MD—Today, The Endocrine Society released a new Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for the evaluation and treatment of pituitary incidentalomas. The CPG is published in the April 2011 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of The Endocrine Society. A pituitary incidentaloma is a tumor or lesion on or near the pituitary gland. It is found when a person has an imaging test for an unrelated reason. Doctors call this an "incidental" finding, meaning by chance—thus, the name incidentaloma. This surprise finding is not uncommon. ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Fetuses with defects in a molecular machine that edits information cells use to make proteins can develop a rare form of dwarfism, according to a new study led by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James). The defect, triggered by a tiny gene mutation, causes microcephalic osteodysplastic primoridal dwarfism type 1 (MOPD1), a rare developmental disorder that greatly slows growth in the uterus and causes severe brain and organ abnormalities, ...

Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, but a new study reveals that the reverse is also true; unattractiveness is in the eye of the beheld. Research published in Ethology finds that people with bloodshot eyes are considered sadder, unhealthier and less attractive than people whose eye whites are untinted, a cue which is uniquely human. "Red, 'bloodshot' eyes are prominent in medical diagnoses and in folk culture", said lead author Dr. Robert R. Provine from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "We wanted to know if they influence the everyday behaviour ...

One of the web's leading companies providing low-cost color copies and digital printing just announced a special promotion in celebration of the opening of the 2011 baseball season. Docucopies.com is offering 15 percent off books and booklets through Friday, April 15, with the coupon code "baseball15." Included in this discount are books of all binding types (spiral, comb, and perfect-bound) as well as color and B&W saddle-stitched booklets. Customers can also order loose color copies as book orders, then choose three-hole punching instead of binding if they plan to ...

The number of people smoking water pipes is rising dramatically throughout the world. A large proportion of new users are young, and many believe – contrary to facts – that water pipe smoking is less dangerous than cigarettes. Research into why people start smoking water pipes is under way at Uppsala University. Use of water pipes (also called "hookah" and "narghile") is on the rise, according to a number of studies conducted in Europe and North America. Anti-smoking campaigns typically focus on cigarettes and even, to some extent, snuff but rarely provide information ...

Tampa, FL (April 7, 2011) -- Deep brain stimulation, a surgical procedure to suppress faulty nerve signals, allowed 77 percent of patients to stop the medications used to treat their essential tremors within one year following the surgery, University of South Florida researchers report. "It's a significant finding demonstrating that patients see a lot of symptom improvement with this treatment option," said Andrew Resnick, a research assistant in the USF Health Department of Neurology. Resnick will present results of the limited retrospective study April 12, 2011, at ...

Paul Martin's American Bistro is now bringing their back-to-the-farm catering services to events at the City of Rocklin Sunset Center, a fantastic Placer County venue for weddings or special events of any size. The Sunset Center offers space from meeting rooms up through the Sunset Room which seats 96, and the Main Hall which can accommodate 320 for seated events. The Main Hall also features a stage for your ceremony, entertainment or head table. The Sunset Center offers neutral-colored cushioned chairs as well as banquet tables and 40-60" round tables to plan your event ...

A three-year follow-up study of patients in the Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-term Treatment against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) trial revealed that increased mortality among patients with advanced chronic hepatitis C who received long-term peginterferon therapy was attributed to non-liver related causes and occurred primarily in patients with bridging fibrosis. No pattern to this excess mortality was evident to researchers, but deaths were unrelated to the peginterferon treatment. Full findings are published in the April issue of Hepatology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American ...

Scientists from The University of Manchester are among a group of researchers investigating how genetic differences among individuals contribute to the way ecological communities form, interact and change over time. They say that understanding how individuals interact and form sustainable communities can help society to address issues including food security, prevention of disease and the coexistence between humans and nature in a crowded world. Biologists from the Universities of Manchester, York, and St Andrews have edited a special issue of Philosophical Transactions ...

WASHINGTON – Men who are abused by their female partners can suffer significant psychological trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal thoughts, according to two new papers published by the American Psychological Association. Although most reported domestic abuse is committed by men against women, a growing body of research has picked up on the prevalence and significance of domestic violence perpetrated against men, says research published in the April issue of Psychology of Men & Masculinity. "Given the stigma surrounding this issue and ...

Menlo Park, Calif.—April 7, 2011—BioParadox, Inc., a regenerative medicine company pioneering point-of-care biologic treatments for cardiovascular disease, today announced data supporting the use of VitaKine® Platelet Cell Therapy (PCT) as a promising treatment for heart attack patients. The results of a preclinical cardiac study were presented at the 2nd Annual Translational Regenerative Medicine Forum in Washington, D.C. Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP), a component of whole blood, has been shown to effectively treat sports-related injuries such as chronic tennis elbow in ...

Researchers in countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland study sand drift, but most of them are focusing on sand dunes along the coastline, not on the plains further inland. "Sand dunes are dynamic. For all we know, they may have been formed last year. But sand plaines are much older and in periods more stable. Thin organic layers present in sands are interesting, when trying to understand sand drift in pre-historic times," says botanist Lisbeth Prøsch-Danielsen at the University of Stavanger's Museum of Archaeology. Together with her colleague, geologist ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As recently as the 1990s, the Veterans Affairs health care system had a subpar reputation for quality, but two new studies of standard quality metrics, both led by Amal Trivedi, assistant professor of community health at Brown University and a physician at the Providence VA Medical Center, show that the system that cares for more than 5 million patients has improved markedly in the last decade. In one study, published online March 18 in the journal Medical Care, Trivedi found that the VA's care for seniors is consistently better than ...

Astronauts anticipate more trips to the moon and manned missions to Mars. But exposure to cosmic radiation outside the Earth's magnetic field could be detrimental to their arteries, according to a study by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers published April 6, 2011, online in the journal Radiation Research. Using an animal model, researchers assessed the affect of iron ion radiation commonly found in outer space to see if exposures promoted the development of atherosclerosis, as terrestrial sources of radiation are known to do. They observed that cosmic radiation ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. -- In a paper published today in the professional health care journal, Health Affairs, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and the University of Michigan Health System report that their model for collaborative health care quality improvement has measurably improved safety and quality in several clinical areas, and has saved millions in health care costs. Collaborative quality initiatives, the term given to the payer-hospital initiatives aimed at improving safety and quality of specific surgical procedures and clinical practices, have been shown to outpace ...

A new index has been developed to help conservationists better understand how close species are to extinction. The index, developed by a team of Australian researchers from the University of Adelaide and James Cook University, is called SAFE (Species Ability to Forestall Extinction). The SAFE index builds on previous studies into the minimum population sizes needed by species to survive in the wild. It measures how close species are to their minimum viable population size. "SAFE is a leap forward in how we measure relative threat risk among species," says co-author ...

A research team, led by the University of Extremadura, has for the first time analysed the frequency of rainfall over the whole of the Iberian Peninsula from 1903 to 2003. The results show that the number of rainy days increased over the 20th Century, except in the area of the Gulf of Cádiz and in western Portugal. However, rainfall has become less and less intense, except in these two regions. The study, which used daily precipitation data from 27 stations in Spain and Portugal, provides the first long-term evaluation of changes to rainfall over the Iberian Peninsula. ...