BOSTON--Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists report they have shrunk or slowed the growth of notoriously resistant pancreatic tumors in mice, using a drug routinely prescribed for malaria and rheumatoid arthritis. The pre-clinical results, which will appear in the April issue of the journal Genes & Development and is currently published on its web site, have already prompted the opening of a small clinical trial in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest and hardest-to-treat forms of cancer, said the investigators, led by Alec Kimmelman, MD, ...

Misfold an origami swan and the worst that happens is you wind up with an ugly paper duckling. Misfold one of the vital proteins in your body – each of which must be folded in a particular way to perform its function – and the result can be a debilitating neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer's or Huntington's. There are no cures for such brain-wasting diseases, but now Stanford researchers have taken an important step that may one day aid in developing therapies for them. They have literally popped the lid off one of the microscopic chambers in which many of life's ...

NwPlaza.com today announced the national availability of NwPlaza Cashback Rewards, an online comparison shopping platform designed to give back to shoppers for purchases on over 50 well-known and trusted merchants. The NwPlaza Cashback Rewards Program, which can be found at http://www.nwplaza.com, helps consumers save money on these shopping categories: - Books - Electronics - Nutrition - Travel - Office supplies - Gift baskets - Clothing - Pet supplies "When I received my Cashback Reward for travel booked through NwPlaza.com, I couldn't believe the amount ...

TEMPE, Ariz – People with diabetes could be helped by a new type of self-monitoring blood glucose sensor being developed by Arizona State University engineers and clinicians at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. More than 23 million people in the United States have diabetes. The disease is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. It contributes to a higher risk for heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, lower extremity amputations and other chronic conditions. Many people with diabetes suffer due to the difficulty of managing their blood glucose levels. It's recommended ...

NASA's Aqua satellite spotted some strong convection in a recently formed low pressure area that strengthened into Sub-Tropical Storm Arani in the South Atlantic. Arani formed near the coast of Brazil and is now moving away from it. Tropical cyclones in the Atlantic are a rare occurrence and since 2004 there have only been three of them, Arani being the third. On March 14, 2011 at 1553 UTC (11:53 a.m. EST) the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Sub-Tropical Storm Arani moving away from the ...

If the latest theory of Tom Weiler and Chui Man Ho is right, the Large Hadron Collider – the world's largest atom smasher that started regular operation last year – could be the first machine capable causing matter to travel backwards in time. "Our theory is a long shot," admitted Weiler, who is a physics professor at Vanderbilt University, "but it doesn't violate any laws of physics or experimental constraints." One of the major goals of the collider is to find the elusive Higgs boson: the particle that physicists invoke to explain why particles like protons, neutrons ...

Toygaroo.com, an innovative new toy rental company, has launched its online service, which will help families save money and go green by not having to throw out their old toys. Toygaroo, which has a similar format to Netflix, allows families to rent toys for their children and provide a steady rotation of high-quality toys that can grow along with them. In addition, Toygaroo will be featured on the March 25 season premiere of ABC's "Shark Tank," a show that allows entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to successful investors. "Any family with children understands ...

Johns Hopkins researchers believe they have uncovered the molecular switch for the secretion of insulin — the hormone that regulates blood sugar — providing for the first time an explanation of this process. In a report published online March 1 in Cell Metabolism, the researchers say the work solves a longtime mystery and may lead to better treatments for type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. "Before our discovery, the mechanism behind how exactly the insulin-producing beta cells in the islet of Langerhans of the pancreas fail in type 2 diabetes was incompletely ...

Choosing the appropriate way to present risk statistics is key to helping people make well-informed decisions. A new Cochrane Systematic Review found that health professionals and consumers may change their perceptions when the same risks and risk reductions are presented using alternative statistical formats. Risk statistics can be used persuasively to present health interventions in different lights. The different ways of expressing risk can prove confusing and there has been much debate about how to improve the communication of health statistics. For example, you ...

Experts in the travel industry are progressively turning towards Experiential Travel and Transformational Travel to stand out in a much too undifferentiated, fusional and standardised world. A recent survey created by PURE confirms this trend: travel experts provided insightful information on the new challenges that operators in the industry will soon be facing and on how it is going to be all about the "experience". For the complete report, visit http://ww.purelifeexperiences.com/pureinsights.pdf. According to the survey, 96.5% of Experiential suppliers agree that authentic ...

Quinine should no longer be the drug of choice for treating severe malaria, according to an updated systematic review by Cochrane researchers. It is now evident that the antimalarial drug artesunate, which is derived from herbs used in Chinese medicine, is more effective at preventing death in patients with severe malaria. Severe malaria occurs when the disease affects the function of vital organs. It is associated with rarer cerebral malaria, which affects the brain and can lead to long-term disability. More than a million people die each year from severe malaria, the ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Researchers recently tested first-generation x-ray equipment from 1896 and found that it produced radiation doses and exposure times that were vastly higher than those of today's systems, according a study published online and in the May print edition of Radiology. "To my knowledge, nobody had ever done systematic measurements on this equipment, since by the time one had the tools, these systems had been replaced by more sophisticated ones," said the study's lead author, Gerrit J. Kemerink, Ph.D., from Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Wilhelm ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Older adults may put themselves at risk by talking on cell phones while crossing the street, researchers report in a new study. The researchers found that adults aged 59 to 81 took significantly longer than college students to cross a simulated street while talking on a mobile phone, and their heightened cautiousness in initiating crossing did nothing to improve their safety. Older adults on cell phones also were more likely to fail to cross in the time allotted for the task. The findings, from researchers at the University of Illinois, appear in the ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has begun to use whole-body imaging scanners as a primary screening measure on travelers passing through airport security checkpoints. One type of scanner employs millimeter wave technology, which delivers no ionizing radiation. However, the second type of scanner currently deployed at airports uses backscatter X-rays that expose the individual being screened to very low levels of ionizing radiation. In the April issue of Radiology, two articles address the question of what potential long-term public health ...

The star-forming region NGC 6729 is part of one of the closest stellar nurseries to the Earth and hence one of the best studied. This new image from ESO's Very Large Telescope gives a close-up view of a section of this strange and fascinating region (a wide-field view is available here: eso1027). The data were selected from the ESO archive by Sergey Stepanenko as part of the Hidden Treasures competition [1]. Sergey's picture of NGC 6729 was ranked third in the competition. Stars form deep within molecular clouds and the earliest stages of their development cannot be seen ...

New York, NY, March 16, 2011—An estimated nine million working-age adults—57 percent of people who had health insurance through a job that was lost—became uninsured in the last two years, according to the Commonwealth Fund 2010 Biennial Health Insurance Survey, released today. The survey paints a bleak picture for the 43 million adults under age 65 who reported that they or their spouse lost a job in the past two years, finding that job losses are often compounded by the loss of health insurance, leaving families vulnerable to catastrophic financial losses and bankruptcy ...

This release is available in French. Soon, drug delivery that precisely targets cancerous cells without exposing the healthy surrounding tissue to the medication's toxic effects will no longer be an oncologist's dream but a medical reality, thanks to the work of Professor Sylvain Martel, Director of the Nanorobotics Laboratory at Polytechnique Montréal. Known for being the world's first researcher to have guided a magnetic sphere through a living artery, Professor Martel is announcing a spectacular new breakthrough in the field of nanomedicine. Using a magnetic resonance ...

The Air Charter Association of North America (ACANA), announced today that Joel Thomas, President and founder of Stratos Jet Charters, Inc., was appointed President of ACANA. ACANA, an invite-only, non-profit organization, is comprised of the finest and most well-respected air charter service providers in North America. According to Thomas, the mission of ACANA is "to enhance and foster the air charter industry by promoting best practices and professionalism, representing members" collective regulatory interests, and educating consumers about the benefits of private ...

Last week saw the launch of another electric city car, the Citreon C-Zero this type of vehicle is starting to prove popular with buyers in urban areas. The take-up of these new cars is expected to increase, with the current record highs in fuel prices. The trend towards hybrid and all electric vehicles provides challenges across the motor trade for car servicing, repair and MOT stations. Business that are slower to adopt with equipment and servicing plans for these greener vehicles will lose business to other better equipped centres. Whilst the numbers of these cars ...

TalentRooster (www.talentrooster.com), the world's leading video resume service, today announced a revolutionary video resume kiosk solution for employers nationwide. TalentRooster connects employers and job seekers through powerful, searchable video resumes and digital video profiles, making it simple for employers and job seekers to connect. "Everyone is familiar with application kiosks in retailers like Target and Walmart," said David DeCapua, CEO and President of TalentRooster. "We're taking that idea and pushing it to the next level -- adding the power of video ...

While Japan's 8.9-magnitude earthquake and accompanying tsunami represent a devastating natural disaster for the country's residents, scientists should also seize upon the massive temblor as an important learning tool for future quakes around the world, including the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States, according to experts from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). WHOI geophysicist Jeff McGuire said such lessons may be particularly germane to residents of Northern California, Oregon, Washington and Vancouver--a region he said, could be subject to ...

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- A study featured on the cover of the March 15 Journal of Immunology is providing insight into why the elderly are so vulnerable to pneumonia and other bacterial infections. The study has been published online in advance of print. Compared with younger adults, the elderly are at higher risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from pneumonia. Moreover, vaccines against the disease are less effective in the elderly. To help understand why, Loyola researchers examined two types of immune system cells, macrophages and B cells, located in specialized areas ...

Providence, RI---Did you know that heart attacks can give you mathematics? That statement appears on the web site of James Keener, who works in the mathematics of cardiology. This area has many problems that are ripe for unified attack by mathematicians, clinicians, and biomedical engineers. In an article to appear in the April 2011 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, John W. Cain, a mathematician at Virginia Commonwealth University, presents a survey of six ongoing Challenge Problems in mathematical cardiology. Cain's article emphasizes ...

North America's Largest Example of a Patient-Centered Medical Home Popular with Patients and Physicians Rosser and colleagues detail the implementation of Ontario's Family Health Team Model, which serves nearly 2 million Ontarians, making it North America's largest example of a patient-centered medical home. Implemented in 2005, the Family Health Team model is based on multidisciplinary teams and an innovative incentive-based funding system. Preliminary observations suggest high satisfaction among patients, higher income and more gratification for primary care physicians, ...

In the next 20 years in large parts of China and India, there will be a 10% to 20% excess of young men because of sex selection and this imbalance will have societal repercussions, states an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj.101368.pdf A preference for sons in China, India and South Korea combined with easy access to sex-selective abortions has led to a significant imbalance between the number of males and females born in these countries. The sex ratio at birth (SRB) – the number of boys born ...