Selective schools closures has been considered as a means of reducing transmission between children and hence reducing the number of cases at the peak of an epidemic but new research led by researchers at the University of Warwick shows that limited school closures are ineffective and that only significant widespread school closures would have real effect on the spread of a epidemic and the strain placed on hospital intensive care units. Dr Thomas House from the University of Warwick's Mathematics Institute, and the University's Complexity Science research group said: "Influenza ...

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Calling this "our generation's Sputnik moment," President Obama emphasized the national need for continued robust support of research and development in his State of the Union address last week: "We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology—an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people." President Obama specifically cited the need for research and incentives as a way to "break our dependence on oil with biofuels." Members of the ...

The adaptor protein thought to be active in killing cells also promotes cellular survival through a dual function Findings indicate that the presence of RIP1 is actually necessary for survival of septic injury Future research will focus on identifying survival trigger, and the potential for developing new treatments for sepsis PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Researchers from Rhode Island Hospital have identified a protein that plays a dual role in the liver during sepsis. The protein, known as RIP1, acts both as a "death switch" and as a pro-survival mechanism. The ability to identify ...

When delivered intranasally, vaccine was found to be more effective Funding will support future clinical trials to test effectiveness in humans PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A new study led by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital in collaboration with the University of Rhode Island (URI) and EpiVax. Inc, a privately owned vaccine development company in Providence, RI, has identified a potential vaccine capable of reducing colonization of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) -- a known cause of gastritis, ulcer disease and cancer. Their findings appear online in advance of print in ...

Ritalin may help improve brain function in adolescent rats that were iron deficient during infancy, according to a team of Penn State neuroscientists. This may have implications for iron-deficient human infants as well. The researchers found that low doses of Ritalin can help improve the focus of iron-deficient rats. Higher doses proved to hurt rather than help the control animals' focus, making them hyperactive. The control rats that were not iron deficient but received low doses of Ritalin showed no positive or negative change in performance. When children are deprived ...

Children who grow up in poverty have health problems as adults. But a new study finds that poor adolescents who live in communities with more social cohesiveness and control get some measure of protection; they're less likely to smoke and be obese as adolescents. The new study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, is part of a long-term examination of children growing up poor in rural upstate New York. The study was designed to discover, "What is it about poverty that leads to these negative outcomes?" says lead author ...

An exercise program designed by researchers at the University of Louisville for patients with severe knee arthritis improves leg strength and patients' functional ability before knee replacement surgery, according to recent report in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. The study, led by UofL's Ann Swank, Ph.D., CSCS, and Robert Topp, Ph.D., R.N., says gains from exercise before knee replacement or prehabilitation may translate into improved recovery after surgery. "We designed this program to be easily transferred to a home environment," Swank said. ...

BATON ROUGE – Inflammation is a healthy response in reaction to potentially harmful presences in the body. But when it starts in the lungs and builds up to a full-fledged asthma attack, it can be downright deadly. Chronic inflammation has been directly associated with heart disease and other physical ailments. But LSU graduate student Nathanial Gilbert and Professor of Biological Sciences Marcia Newcomer, together with Associate Professor Sue Bartlett, have developed the first 3-D model of Human 5-Lipoxygenase, or 5-LOX, the molecule responsible for creating inflammatory ...

Australian clinical researchers have noted an extraordinary and unexpected benefit of osteoporosis treatment – that people taking bisphosphonates are not only surviving well, better than people without osteoporosis, they appear to be gaining an extra five years of life. These findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, now online. Associate Professor Jacqueline Center and Professor John Eisman, from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, based their findings on data from the long running Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study. Out ...

On Friday, Jan. 28 in Antarctica, a research team investigating the last 100,000 years of Earth's climate history reached an important milestone completing the main ice core to a depth of 3,331 meters (10,928 feet) at West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS). The project will be completed over the next two years with some additional coring and borehole logging to obtain additional information and samples of the ice for the study of the climate record contained in the core. As part of the project, begun six years ago, the team, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), ...

It's a quick process, generates almost no waste and is extremely precise: within a few seconds, a laser beam has welded the casing and speedometer cover together – without any screws, clamps or glues whatsoever. The result is a perfect weld seam scarcely visible to the naked eye. There are no sparks or particles flying through the air during welding. What's more: the resulting heat is confined to a minimal area. This protects the material. Many industries have now turned to welding plastics with a laser. Still, the technology has its limits; when it comes to fusing two ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - University of Maryland researchers have made a breakthrough in the use of visible light for making tiny integrated circuits. Though their advance is probably at least a decade from commercial use, they say it could one day make it possible for companies like Intel to continue their decades long tread of making ever smaller, faster, and cheaper computer chips. For some 50 years, the integrated circuits, or chips, that are at the heart of computers, smart phones, and other high-tech devices have been created through a technique known as photolithography, ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- When you sit down to watch a new flick, whether you enjoy the movie may depend on the person sitting next to you, according to research from a Kansas State University professor. It's especially true if you are awkwardly watching a movie's steamy love scene with your parents. "We know that most of the time people enjoy watching movies -- that's why they do it," said Richard Harris, K-State professor of psychology. "But sometimes we watch a movie that isn't what we describe as 'enjoyable.' For whatever reason, the experience is uncomfortable emotionally ...

A new study highlights inconsistencies in black box warnings - medication-related safety warnings on a drug's label - and argues for a more transparent and systematic approach to ensure these warnings are consistent across all drugs within a same category, and any additions to warnings, on the back of a drug withdrawal for example, are done within a reasonable and uniform time period. The work by Orestis Panagiotou and John Ioannidis and colleagues from the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Stanford University School of Medicine in the USA is published ...

Low doses of an inexpensive, FDA-approved hypertension medication may improve the results of nanotherapeutic approaches to cancer treatment. In a report in the early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators describe experiments showing that the generic drug losartan, by modifying the network of collagen fibers that characterizes most solid tumors, improved the effectiveness of two nanotherapeutics against several types of cancer. "By 'normalizing' the abnormal extracellular matrix of tumors, which ...

Biologists have discovered that primitive, predatory lampreys have structures within their gills that play the same role as the thymus, the organ where immune cells called T cells develop in mammals, birds and fish. The finding suggests that in vertebrate evolution, having two separate organs for immune cell development -- the bone marrow for B cells and the thymus for T cells -- may have preceded the appearance of the particular features that mark those cells, such as antibodies and T cell receptors. The results will be published Feb. 3 by the journal Nature. The ...

They are entirely too small to be seen even with the most powerful microscope. But now an international research team has managed to capture an image of an intact virus and a membrane structure from a photosynthetic bacterium with the aid of extremely intensive and ultra-short x-ray pulses from the world's first free electron laser. This new advance in structural biology is being published today in two articles in the journal Nature. The findings for the two studies pave the way for studies of biological structures at the molecular level, including viruses, individual ...

– Early, correct diagnosis is the best way to prevent the development of Lyme arthritis in individuals with the tick-borne illness, according to a paper published in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS). In patients who do develop the condition, most cases can be treated successfully with antibiotics, the review found. "Lyme arthritis occurs commonly in patients with Lyme disease and should be considered when evaluating patients with joint complaints and who live in areas where the disease occurs," said study author Aristides Cruz, MD, ...

Fifteen members of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) gave presentations at the "Second Annual National Bed Bug Summit: Advancing Towards Solutions to the Bed Bug Problem," held by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, DC, February 2, 2011. The meeting focused on what is being done to combat bed bugs, the importance of educating consumers, improvements in prevention and control techniques, controlling bed bugs in schools and public housing, and on the state of bed bug knowledge and futue research needs. "Many health departments are overwhelmed ...

PHILADELPHIA – A simple test performed at the sideline of sporting events can accurately detect concussions in athletes, according to study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Current sideline tests can leave a wide amount a brain function untested following concussion. Penn researchers showed that this simple test was superior to current methods and accurately and reliably identified athletes with head trauma. The study appears online now in Neurology. The one-minute test involves the athlete reading single digit numbers displayed on index-sized ...

Food scientists at the University of British Columbia have been able to pinpoint more of the complex chemistry behind coffee's much touted antioxidant benefits, tracing valuable compounds to the roasting process. Lead author Yazheng Liu and co-author Prof. David Kitts found that the prevailing antioxidants present in dark roasted coffee brew extracts result from the green beans being browned under high temperatures. Their findings will appear in a forthcoming issue of Food Research International and can be previewed at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2010.12.037 Liu ...

TORONTO, ON – Anthropologists at the University of Toronto and the University of Cambridge have discovered the oldest cemetery in the Middle East at a site in northern Jordan. The cemetery includes graves containing human remains buried alongside those of a red fox, suggesting that the animal was possibly kept as a pet by humans long before dogs ever were. The 16,500-year-old site at 'Uyun al-Hammam was discovered in 2000 by an expedition led by University of Toronto professor Edward (Ted) Banning and Lisa Maher, an assistant professor of anthropology at U of T and research ...

HOUSTON (Feb. 2, 2011) -- For women seeking pregnancy by assisted reproductive technologies, such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a new study shows that the health of the uterus is more relevant than egg quality for a newborn to achieve normal birth weight and full gestation. This study, published in Fertility and Sterility, an international journal for obstetricians, offers new information for women with infertility diagnoses considering options for conceiving. The study was conducted by Dr. William Gibbons, director of The Family Fertility Program at Texas Children's ...

The same properties that make engineered nanoparticles attractive for numerous applications—small as a virus, biologically and environmentally stabile, and water-soluble—also cause concern about their long-term impacts on environmental health and safety (EHS). One particular characteristic, the tendency for nanoparticles to clump together in solution, is of great interest because the size of these clusters may be key to whether or not they are toxic to human cells. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated for the first time ...

Pasadena, Calif.—The brain—awake and sleeping—is awash in electrical activity, and not just from the individual pings of single neurons communicating with each other. In fact, the brain is enveloped in countless overlapping electric fields, generated by the neural circuits of scores of communicating neurons. The fields were once thought to be an "epiphenomenon, a 'bug' of sorts, occurring during neural communication," says neuroscientist Costas Anastassiou, a postdoctoral scholar in biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). New work by Anastassiou ...