COLUMBUS, Ohio – The language that doctors use with low-income, rural patients can help determine whether these patients agree to participate in clinical trials testing new cancer treatments, a new study found. Researchers found that the metaphors doctors used to help explain what happens in such trials played a big role in whether patients would agree to participate. "Physicians have to communicate about medicine and science to people who often don't have the education and experience to easily understand what they're being told," said Janice Krieger, lead author of ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Nearly one in five whites could carry a genetic variant that substantially increases their odds of being susceptible to severe cocaine abuse, according to new research. This genetic variant, characterized by one or both of two tiny gene mutations, alters the brain's response to specific chemical signals. In the study, led by Ohio State University researchers, the variant was associated with a more than threefold increase in the odds that carriers will be susceptible to severe cocaine abuse leading to fatal overdosing, compared to non-carriers. Among ...

Contrary to the belief of many scientists (as well as many members of the public), new research confirms that Africa has two—not one—species of elephant. Scientists from Harvard Medical School, the University of Illinois, and the University of York in the United Kingdom used genetic analysis to prove that the African savanna elephant and the smaller African forest elephant have been largely separated for several million years. The researchers, whose findings appear online in PLoS Biology, compared the DNA of modern elephants from Africa and Asia to DNA that they extracted ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Leukemia patients whose cancers express higher levels of genes associated with cancer stem cells have a significantly poorer prognosis than patients with lower levels of the genes, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding is among the first to show that the cancer stem cell hypothesis — which posits that some cancers spring from and are replenished by a small, hardy population of self-renewing cells — can be used to predict outcomes in a large group of patients and one day to tailor treatments in the clinic. "The clinical ...

Researchers have identified a new genetic alteration that predisposes individuals to Cowden syndrome, a rare disorder that is characterized by high risks of breast, thyroid and other cancers, according to preliminary research published in the December 22/29 issue of JAMA. A majority of patients with Cowden syndrome, which occurs in approximately 1 in 200,000 live births, and a small minority of patients with Cowden-like syndrome, have mutations in the tumor suppressor PTEN gene. These mutations are associated with increased risk of various malignancies, approximately ...

In an area where iron deficiency is prevalent, children of mothers in rural Nepal who received prenatal iron, folic acid and vitamin A supplementation performed better on measures of intellectual and motor functioning compared to offspring of mothers who received vitamin A alone, according to a study in the December 22/29 issue of JAMA. "Micronutrient inadequacy is a critical concern among pregnant women and young children throughout the world. Gestation and the early postnatal period are considered sensitive periods for brain development, and nutritional deprivation ...

In an examination of leukemic stem cells (LSC), researchers have found that patients with acute myeloid leukemia who had higher activity of certain LSC genes had worse overall, event-free and relapse-free survival, according to a study in the December 22/29 issue of JAMA. "In many cancers, specific subpopulations of cells appear to be uniquely capable of initiating and maintaining tumors. The strongest support for this cancer stem cell model comes from transplantation assays in immunodeficient mice, which indicate that human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is driven by ...

Stress can enhance ordinary, unrelated memories, a team of neuroscientists has found in a study of laboratory rats. Their results, which appear in the journal PLoS Biology, may bolster our understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and could offer a pathway for addressing PTSD and related afflictions. The study was conducted by researchers at the Czech Republic's Academy of Sciences, the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center, and Rockefeller University. "Our results show that stress can activate memory, even if that memory is unrelated ...

CHICAGO --- Busy doctors can miss important details about a patient's care during an office examination. To prevent that, Northwestern Medicine researchers have created a whip-smart assistant for physicians – a new system using electronic health records that alerts doctors during an exam when a patient's care is amiss. After one year, the software program significantly improved primary care physicians' performance and the health care of patients with such chronic conditions as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The program, a new comprehensive approach tied to a doctor's ...

The risk of tuberculosis (TB) and latent TB (in which the bacteria that cause TB lie dormant but can reactivate later to cause active TB disease) is higher in the prison population than in the general population. And importantly, the spread of TB and latent TB within prisons can substantially increase their incidence in the general population. These key findings from a systematic review by Iacopo Baussano from the University "Amedeo Avogadro", Italy, and the Imperial College, London, UK, and colleagues and published in this week's PLoS Medicine, suggest that improvements ...

Earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy should be the highest priority for global expansion of HIV patient care. This finding, from a paper published in this week's PLoS Medicine, should help resource-limited nations to phase in the implementation of the new 2010 WHO recommendations for HIV treatment. "Immediate scale-up of the entire WHO guideline package may be prohibitively expensive in some settings," said lead author Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA. "In many resource-limited settings, the relevant policy question ...

A study in this week's PLoS Medicine suggests that AIDS patients with cryptococcal meningitis who start HIV therapy are predisposed to immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) — an exaggerated inflammatory immune response that kills up to one-third of affected people — if they have biomarkers (biochemicals) in their blood showing evidence of a damaged immune system that is not capable of clearing the fungal infection. David Boulware and Paul Bohjanen from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA, and their colleagues, David Meya and Andrew Kambugu, at ...

Despite the growing recognition of the importance of strengthening health systems around the world, there is a considerable lack of shared definitions and guiding principles that are threatening the ability to form strategic policy, practice and evaluations. In this week's PLoS Medicine, Robert Chad Swanson from Brigham Young University, USA and colleagues present a set of 10 guiding principles for health systems strengthening to address this problem, developed from a comprehensive review of the literature and consultation with experts. "We invite global health leaders ...

In developing countries where iron deficiency is prevalent, prenatal iron-folic acid supplementation increased offspring intellectual and motor functioning during school age, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They examined the intellectual and motor functioning of children whose mothers received micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy and found that aspects of intellectual functioning including working memory, inhibitory control, and fine motor functioning were positively associated with prenatal iron and folic acid ...

A new University of British Columbia study has found that people identify the personality traits of people who are physically attractive more accurately than others during short encounters. The study, published in the December edition of Psychological Science, suggests people pay closer attention to people they find attractive, and is the latest scientific evidence of the advantages of perceived beauty. Previous research has shown that individuals tend to find attractive people more intelligent, friendly and competent than others. The goal of the study was to determine ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (December 21, 2010) -- A researcher known widely for his groundbreaking work on the design, manufacture and use of minimally toxic, environmentally friendly chemicals will speak to sustainability practitioners on Jan. 12. Dr. Paul Anastas, science advisor to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD), is speaking at the International Congress on Sustainability Science and Engineering, ICOSSE '11, in Tucson, Ariz. This is only the second meeting of ICOSSE and this conference ...

Researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) have analysed levels of radon, a natural radioactive gas, in 58 secondary schools in Galicia. The results show that 34% of these schools exceed the limit of 400 Bequerels/m3 recommended by the European Union. Excessive inhalation of radon is associated with lung cancer. "Out of all the secondary schools where samples were taken, 34% had radon levels in excess of 400 Bequerels/m3 in some of their classrooms or offices", Juan José Llerena, co-author of the study and a member of the USC's Radiation Analysis ...

Nutritional supplementation with Spirulina, a nutrient-rich, blue-green algae, appeared to provide neuroprotective support for dying motor neurons in a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, University of South Florida neuroscientists have found. Although more research is needed, they suggest that a spirulina-supplemented diet may provide clinical benefits for ALS patients. A spirulina dietary supplement was shown to delay the onset of motor symptoms and disease progression, reducing inflammatory markers and motor neuron ...

The number of workplace accidents in Spain will fall progressively over 2011 and 2012, according to the predictions made by a mathematical model developed by researchers from the University of Castilla-La Mancha. The biggest drop will be in the number of accidents that take place during travel between people's homes and places of work. Two researchers from the University of Castilla-La Mancha have combined mathematical models (univariate and multivariate) to generate a new one that makes it possible to predict the evolution of workplace accidents at varying levels of ...

CINCINNATI – Using fruit flies as a model to study embryo formation, scientists report in Nature Cell Biology that molecular breakdown of a protein called Bicoid is vital to normal head-to-tail patterning of the insect's offspring. Published online by the journal Dec. 19, the study shows how Bicoid is targeted for molecular degradation by a newly identified protein the researchers named Fates-shifted (Fsd). Without the interaction between Bicoid and Fsd, fruit fly embryos are improperly formed and misshaped, according to scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical ...

Tel Aviv -- You know when you're watching a pirated film downloaded from the Internet -- there's no mistaking the fuzzy footage, or the guy in the front row getting up for popcorn. Despite the poor quality, pirated video is a serious problem around the world. Criminal copyright infringement occurs on a massive scale over the Internet, costing the film industry -- and the U.S. economy -- billions of dollars annually. Now Dr. Alex Bronstein of Tel Aviv University's Department of Electrical Engineering has a new way to stop video pirates. With his twin brother Michael and ...

The Whitworth Meteorological Observatory is a fully-automated, state of the art meteorological facility, replacing the original observatory set up and located in Whitworth Park in August 1892. The new site, funded by the legacy of Sir Joseph Whitworth, will fulfil his wish to maintain the original observatory as a source of data for scientific, education and popular interest following the demise of the original in 1958. Data from the new observatory will be used in support of scientific research projects focusing on urban climatology. They will also be used to support ...

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have demonstrated that certain T cells require input from monocytes in order to maintain their pro-inflammatory response in people with type 2 diabetes (T2D). The study also showed, for the first time, how a loss in homeostasis in this group of T cells most likely promotes chronic inflammation associated with T2D. Barbara Nikolajczyk, PhD, an associate professor of microbiology and medicine at BUSM, is the senior author of the study, which is currently featured in an online edition of the Journal ...

In the minds of many, Miscanthus x giganteus is the forerunner in the race of viable feedstock options for lignocellulosic bioenergy production. But researchers believe "putting all their eggs in one basket" could be a big mistake. Scientists at the University of Illinois recently reported the first natural occurrence in several decades of Miscanthus hybrid plants in Japan. "If M. x giganteus is the only variety available, there are certainly risks involved such as diseases or pests causing widespread establishment problems or yield losses," said Ryan Stewart, assistant ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study suggests that the presence of tumor cells in the circulating blood of patients with squamous cell cancer of the head and neck may predict disease recurrence and reduced survival. An increased number of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) also correlates with a worse outcome. Those are the early findings from an ongoing, prospective study of the prognostic importance of CTCs by a team of researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. The study is ...