MADISON - The continued growth of cropland and loss of natural habitat have increasingly simplified agricultural landscapes in the Midwest. A Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) study concluded that this simplification is associated with increased crop pest abundance and insecticide use, consequences that could be tempered by perennial bioenergy crops. While the relationship between landscape simplification, crop pest pressure, and insecticide use has been suggested before, it has not been well supported by empirical evidence. This study, published online in ...

A broad, regional system to lower the temperature of resuscitated cardiac arrest patients at a centrally-located hospital improved outcomes, according to a study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Cooling treatment, or therapeutic hypothermia, is effective yet underused, researchers said. A network of first responders, EMS departments and more than 30 independent hospitals within 200 miles of Minneapolis, Minn., and Abbott Northwestern Hospital collaborated to implement the protocol. "We've shown that a fully integrated system of care, from ...

Obstructive sleep apnea may cause changes in blood vessel function that reduces blood supply to the heart in people who are otherwise healthy, according to new research reported in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association. However, treatment with 26 weeks of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) improved study participants' blood supply and function. Obstructive sleep apnea, which causes periodic pauses in breathing during sleep, affects about 15 million adults in the United States, according to the American Heart Association. The sleep disorder ...

A study at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found that nearly all patients with high-grade, non-invasive bladder cancer are not receiving the guideline-recommended care that would best protect them from recurrence, a finding that researchers characterized as alarming. In fact, out of the 4,545 bladder cancer patients included in the study, only one received the comprehensive care recommended by the American Urology Association and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Receiving the recommended comprehensive care for high-grade bladder cancer is critical ...

Stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability and death in the United States. A team of researchers — led by Gregory Bix, at Texas A&M College of Medicine, College Station — has identified a way to exploit one of the brain's self-repair mechanisms to protect nerve cells and enhance brain repair in rodent models of stroke. The authors suggest that this approach could provide a nontoxic treatment for stroke. The most common form of stroke (ischemic stroke) occurs when a blood vessel that brings oxygen and nutrients to the brain becomes clogged, for example with a blood ...

Several chemicals that can accumulate to high levels in our body (for example BPA and some pesticides) have been recently linked to an increased risk of cancer and/or impaired responsiveness to anticancer drugs. A team of researchers, led by Sridhar Mani, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, has now identified a potential mechanistic link between environmental exposure to these foreign chemicals (xenogens) and cancer drug therapy response and survival. PXR is one protein by which cells (including tumor cells) can sense xenogens. In their study, Mani and colleagues ...

EDITOR'S PICK: Do-it-yourself brain repair following stroke Stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability and death in the United States. A team of researchers — led by Gregory Bix, at Texas A&M College of Medicine, College Station — has identified a way to exploit one of the brain's self-repair mechanisms to protect nerve cells and enhance brain repair in rodent models of stroke. The authors suggest that this approach could provide a nontoxic treatment for stroke. The most common form of stroke (ischemic stroke) occurs when a blood vessel that brings oxygen and ...

New research reports a high prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency among patients with psoriatic arthritis. Seasonal variation in vitamin D levels was not observed in patients in southern or northern locations. The findings published today in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), also show no association between disease activity and vitamin D level. Psoriasis is a common chronic skin disorder, likely caused by an autoimmune response, and is characterized by red scaly patches on the surface of the skin. When ...

A small protein called SUMO might prevent the protein aggregations that typify Parkinson's disease (PD), according to a new study in the July 11, 2011, issue of The Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org). Insoluble protein clusters are the hallmarks of several neurodegenerative diseases. In PD, neurons harbor insoluble clumps of the protein alpha-synuclein. What triggers these protein pileups remains obscure. A possible clue for PD came when researchers overexpressed alpha-synuclein in human kidney cells and found that the protein was modified by the addition of the small, ...

Social mobility - upwards - seems to curb the risk of developing high blood pressure among those born on the lower rungs of the ladder, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Being born into poor or disadvantaged backgrounds has been linked with an increased risk of high blood pressure, which is a known contributory factor to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. The authors wanted to see if that risk was affected by climbing up the social ladder across generations. They used data from the Swedish Twin Registry ...

Contact allergies (reactions caused by direct contact with substances like common metals and chemicals) may help prime the immune system to ward off certain types of cancer, suggests research published today in the online only title BMJ Open. Previous research has indicated that people with type 1 allergies, which include pollen and house dust mites, may be more or less likely to develop cancer. But it is not known if those with contact allergies to common metals such as nickel, and chemicals, might also be afforded protection against the disease. The authors base ...

BOSTON ––– Although it sounds like a case of gender confusion on a molecular scale, the male hormone androgen spurs the growth of some breast tumors in women. In a new study, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute provide the first details of the cancer cell machinery that carries out the hormone's relentless growth orders. The study, published the journal Cancer Cell on July 12, provides scientists with several inviting targets – cell proteins that snap into action in response to androgen – for future therapies. Drugs that block those proteins could slow or stifle ...

Despite changes in standard treatment practice guidelines issued by the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and the European Society of Cardiology several years ago, there has been no meaningful change in the nation's practice of opening completely blocked coronary arteries with balloons and stents in the days after a heart attack, according to a new study published in the July 11, 2011, issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. The new study concludes that cardiologists in the United States are still performing this procedure late after a heart attack. ...

Researchers have discovered that obese adults undergoing surgery are less frequently developing respiratory insufficiency (RI) and adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and that when they do, they are less likely to have fatal outcomes. The researchers say they have several theories of how obesity protects patients from mortality associated with RI/ARDS, and pinpointing the protective mechanism could help them develop interventions to help non-obese patients avoid adverse outcomes. The finding comes from a study published online ahead of print in the Journal of Intensive ...

Park Ridge, Ill. (July 11, 2011) – A new study demonstrates that higher-protein meals improve perceived appetite and satiety in overweight and obese men during weight loss.(1) According to the research, published in Obesity, higher-protein intake led to greater satiety throughout the day as well as reductions in both late-night and morning appetite compared to a normal protein diet. "Research has shown that higher-protein diets, those containing 18 to 35 percent of daily calorie intake from dietary protein, are associated with reductions in hunger and increased fullness ...

July 11, 2011, Shenzhen, China – BGI (previously known as the Beijing Genomics Institute), the largest genomic organization in the world, announced today that it was among the research organizations comprising the Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium (PGSC) that completed the genome sequence and analysis of the tuber crop potato, published as an Advance Online Publication in Nature. This study marks an important milestone in Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) genome research, revealing new insights into the evolutionary history of the potato genome, causes of inbreeding depression, ...

One in 10 species could face extinction by the year 2100 if current climate change impacts continue. This is the result of University of Exeter research, examining studies on the effects of recent climate change on plant and animal species and comparing this with predictions of future declines. Published in leading journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the study uses the well-established IUCN Red List for linking population declines to extinction risk. The research examines nearly 200 predictions of the future effects of climate change from studies ...

Vegetation in towns and cities can make a significant contribution to carbon storage and, ecologists say, could lock away even more carbon if local authorities and gardeners planted and maintained more trees. The study, published this week in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, is the first to quantify how much carbon is stored in vegetation within an urban area of Europe. Using satellite data and information gathered by visiting local parks and gardens, the researchers surveyed vegetation across Leicester, including domestic gardens and council-owned ...

Rapidly, but expressively and with amazing ease, the guitarist's fingers move over the strings on the neck of the instrument. His fingertips move up and down and a vibrato resonates. From the guitar a cable leads to a laptop, which records the virtuoso performance in minute detail. The computer registers each vibrato, each bend precisely and almost instantaneously. Afterwards the guitarist can play back the digital recording and process it on a computer. The guitar incorporates a piece of Fraunhofer technology. Engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering ...

Missing or deformed limbs, clubfoot, facial disorders and gastrointestinal problems are some of the most common birth defects found to be associated with smoking during pregnancy, according to a major new report led by scientists at UCL. The study, published today in Human Reproduction Update, is the first comprehensive review to identify the specific birth defects (malformations) most associated with smoking. Despite public health advice which warns of the harms of maternal smoking, such as miscarriage and premature birth, in the UK 45% of women under 20 and 17% overall ...

Source Outdoor will be attending Outdoor Show 2011. The Show takes place this week in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Source will be located at Hall B1 - Booth 206. The show is an exhibition dedicated to all things outdoor and is an appropriate venue for Source Outdoor to launch the new Spresh Bottle. The Spresh Bottle brings modern technology to the bottle, the end result of which is a design that is sleek and fresh. The squeezable bottle allows users to drink all in one hand motion. No longer does one have to sip or tilt one's head. It is also durable and leakage safe. ...

Milan, Italy, 11 July 2011 – Although out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are typically associated with migraine, epilepsy and psychopathology, they are quite common in healthy and psychologically normal individuals as well. However, they are poorly understood. A new study, published in the July 2011 issue of Elsevier's Cortex, has linked these experiences to neural instabilities in the brain's temporal lobes and to errors in the body's sense of itself – even in non clinical populations. Dr Jason Braithwaite from the Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, School of Psychology, ...

Machines stretch from one end of the production hall to another, each of them an important part of the manufacturing process. When one of these complex pieces of machinery stops working, the on-site technicians grab their tools and the manual and try to fix it – but sometimes the only solution is to call the manufacturer for tips on how to get it working again. The problem is that giving advice over the telephone is never easy: Do they mean the screw on the right or the screw on the left? Well, that depends on which side of the machine you are standing on! Even putting ...

On June 29th, 2011 the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. issued a memorandum to local federal prosecutors clarifying that medical marijuana dispensaries are not off-limits when it comes to federal prosecutions. This memorandum was somewhat contradictory of an earlier Justice Department memorandum by Attorney General Eric Holder implying that federal prosecutors would not pursue criminal charges against medical marijuana dispensaries. The policy change has many dispensary owners nervous, particularly in Washington State, where medical marijuana has been legal for over ...

Scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered previously unknown volcanoes in the ocean waters around the remote South Sandwich Islands. Using ship-borne sea-floor mapping technology during research cruises onboard the RRS James Clark Ross, the scientists found 12 volcanoes beneath the sea surface – some up to 3km high. They found 5km diameter craters left by collapsing volcanoes and 7 active volcanoes visible above the sea as a chain of islands. The research is important also for understanding what happens when volcanoes erupt or collapse underwater ...