GALVESTON, Texas — When most people in the developed world think of measles, what comes to mind is only a dim memory of a vaccination at a pediatrician's office. But while childhood vaccination has virtually eliminated measles from North America and much of Europe, researchers remain interested in the virus. This fascination persists partly because improving the measles vaccine could help eliminate the more than 10 million measles infections and 150,000 measles-caused deaths that still occur worldwide. But it also has another source: Scientists believe that modified ...

Some disorders of the brain are obvious — the massive death of brain cells after a stroke, the explosion in the growth of cells that marks a tumor. Other disorders, such as autism, schizophrenia and mental retardation show no physical signs of damage and are believed to be caused by problems in how brain cells communicate with one another. To understand the root of the problem of these latter diseases, visualizing brain activity is key. But even the best imaging devices available — fMRIs and PET scans — can only give a "coarse" picture of brain activity. UCLA neuroscientists ...

Morgantown, WV, January 11, 2011 – A Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI) study published today in the Journal of Neuroscience reveals underlying causes for the degeneration of synapses in Alzheimer's Disease and identifies promising pharmaceutical solutions for the devastating condition that affects more than 5 million people in the United States. The BRNI study is the first to achieve fundamental molecular understanding of how synapses are lost in Alzheimer's Disease before the plaques and tangles develop. At the same time, it is the first study to ...

The estimated total cost of cancer care in the United States in 2020 is expected to be $158 billion assuming the most recent observed patterns of incidence, survival, and cost remain the same. This represents a 27% increase from 2010 due only to the projected aging and growth of the US population, according to a study published online January 12th in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. However, the authors also note the cost of cancer care could rise even more quickly under some reasonable assumptions such as a 2% annual increase in costs of the initial and final ...

Washington, DC – Tinnitus appears to be produced by an unfortunate confluence of structural and functional changes in the brain, say neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC). The phantom ringing sounds heard by about 40 million people in the U.S. today are caused by brains that try, but fail to protect their human hosts against overwhelming auditory stimuli, the researchers say in the January 13th issue of Neuron. They add that the same process may be responsible for chronic pain and other perceptual disorders. The researchers say that the absence ...

Based on growth and aging of the U.S. population, medical expenditures for cancer in the year 2020 are projected to reach at least $158 billion (in 2010 dollars) – an increase of 27 percent over 2010, according to a National Institutes of Health analysis. If newly developed tools for cancer diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up continue to be more expensive, medical expenditures for cancer could reach as high as $207 billion, said the researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the NIH. The analysis appears online, Jan. 12, 2011, in the Journal of the National ...

(PHILADELPHIA) –The discovery that high levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good cholesterol") is associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease has fostered intensive research to modify HDL levels for therapeutic gain. However, recent findings have called into question the notion that pharmacologic increases in HDL cholesterol levels are necessarily beneficial to patients. Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine shows that a different metric, a measure of HDL function called cholesterol efflux ...

A new study identifies a molecule that is a critical regulator of neuron survival after ischemic brain injury. The research, published by Cell Press in the January 13 issue of the journal Neuron, may lead to new therapies that reduce damage after a stroke or other injuries that involve an interruption in blood supply to the brain. Ischemic brain injury is damage caused by a restriction in blood supply. Neuronal death after an interruption in the supply of oxygen and glucose involves a complex cascade of pathological events and, although previous research has identified ...

NIH-funded researchers were able to eliminate tinnitus in a group of rats by stimulating a nerve in the neck while simultaneously playing a variety of sound tones over an extended period of time, says a study published today in the advance online publication of the journal Nature. The hallmark of tinnitus is often a persistent ringing in the ears that is annoying for some, debilitating for others, and currently incurable. Similar to pressing a reset button in the brain, this new therapy was found to help retrain the part of the brain that interprets sound so that errant ...

SEATTLE – Astronomers who survey galaxies in the distant universe are getting some unexpected help from gravity, according to a new study. In a presentation at the American Astronomical Society meeting this week and a related paper in the current issue of the journal Nature, researchers say that as many as 20 percent of the most distant galaxies currently detected appear brighter than they actually are, because of an effect called "strong gravitational lensing." The discovery could change astronomers' notions of how galaxies formed in the early universe. Haojing Yan, ...

Teeth and bone are important and complex structures in humans and other animals, but little is actually known about their chemical structure at the atomic scale. What exactly gives them their renowned toughness, hardness and strength? How do organisms control the synthesis of these advanced functional composites? Now, using a highly sophisticated atomic-scale imaging tool on a sea creature's tooth, two Northwestern University researchers have peeled away some of the mystery of organic/inorganic interfaces that are at the heart of tooth and bone structure. They are the ...

New British-led research shows that starting treatment of blood pressure with two medicines rather than the one produces better and faster results and fewer side effects – findings that could change clinical practice world-wide. The study, published in the Lancet, challenges popular medical practice for the treatment of high blood pressure. The research was led by Cambridge in collaboration with the Universities of Dundee, Glasgow and the British Hypertension Society. Doctors usually start treatment with one medicine and then add others over a period of months, if needed, ...

Targeted nerve stimulation could yield a long-term reversal of tinnitus, a debilitating hearing impairment affecting at least 10 percent of senior citizens and up to 40 percent of military veterans, according to an article posted in the Jan. 12 online edition of Nature. Researchers Dr. Michael Kilgard and Dr. Navzer Engineer from The University of Texas at Dallas and University-affiliated biotechnology firm MicroTransponder report that stimulation of the vagus nerve paired with sounds eliminated tinnitus in rats. A clinical trial in humans is due to begin in the next ...

WHAT: Adding new evidence to the debate on the best treatment for middle-ear infections, or acute otitis media, in young children, clinical researchers at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have found antibiotics to be more effective than a placebo in relieving symptoms. These findings appear in the January 13th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. Most American children with middle-ear ...

PASADENA, Calif.—Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and University of Hawaii (UH) have discovered 16 close-knit pairs of supermassive black holes in merging galaxies. The discovery, based on observations done at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea, is being presented in Seattle on January 12 at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society, and has been submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. These black-hole pairs, also called binaries, are about a hundred ...

In the late 1950s, Richard Feynman famously imagined a science where researchers and engineers could achieve remarkable feats by manipulating matter and creating structures all the way down to the level of individual atoms. Now, over fifty years after "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," four prominent researchers -– David Awschalom, Angela Belcher, Donald Eigler, and Michael Roukes -– are sharing their thoughts about the future of nanoscience and nanotechnology. In a special dialogue ahead of a Kavli Futures Symposium on the same topic, the scientists focused on ...

Most babies can reach out for and eat finger food by six to eight months, according to a study in the January issue of Maternal and Child Nutrition. However baby-led weaning - which advocates babies feeding themselves solid foods, rather than being spoon fed purees - could lead to nutritional problems for the small number of children who develop later than average. That is why UK researchers - led by child health specialist Professor Charlotte M Wright from the University of Glasgow, Scotland - recommend combining self-feeding with solid finger food with traditional ...

The team found that a bacterium inside the worm acts as a 'disguise' for the parasite, resulting in the immune system reacting to it in an ineffective way. The bacteria protect the worm from the body's natural defences, but once the bacteria are removed with antibiotics, the immune system responds appropriately, releasing cells, called eosinophils, that kill the worm. Antibiotics are successful against the parasite, but the long treatment regime means that it has limited use across whole communities. These new findings suggest that if medics could prime the immune ...

The findings show that missing a night of sleep burns roughly 135 calories, the equivalent of two slices of bread or a 225 ml glass of semi-skimmed milk. In terms of physical exertion, this amounts to walking just under two miles. On the flip side, eight hours of sleep saved the same approximate amount of energy. 'While the amount of energy saved during sleep may seem small, it was actually more than we expected,' says Professor Kenneth Wright, lead author of the study and Director of Colorado University's Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory. 'If one considers the amount ...

Lasers have revolutionized the communications and medical industries. They focus light to zap tumors and send digital TV signals and telephone communications around the world. But the physical length of an ordinary laser cannot be less than one half of the wavelength of its light, which limits its application in many industries. Now the Spaser, a new invention developed in part by Tel Aviv University, can be as small as needed to fuel nano-technologies of the future. Prof. David Bergman of Tel Aviv University's Department of Physics and Astronomy developed and patented ...

Brussels - Adrenaline, the hormone that prepares our body to fight or flight, acts on a hyperdynamic receptor. This molecule switches so fast between several positions, that it was impossible to image it. Until now. Scientists, including Jan Steyaert of VIB and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, and colleagues from Stanford University in the US, have "frozen the molecule in action" using Xaperones™, tiny, stable antibodies developed by the Brussels scientists. The Xaperones™ bind like a key to a lock, holding the adrenaline receptor in one position -- the on position. ...

As H1N1 'Swine Flu' returns to the national headlines a new research paper reveals the key lessons about the origins of the 2009 pandemic. The paper, published today in BioEssays, reveals how the pandemic challenges the traditional understanding of 'antigenic shift' , given that the virus emerged from an existing influenza subtype. "H1N1 emerged in February 2009 in Mexico and swept around the globe within 6 months." said Professor Hans Dieter Klenk from Philipps-Universität Marburg. "The conventional ideal is that pandemics are fuelled by new strands which emerge in the ...

Major power outages are fairly infrequent, but when they happen they can result in billions of dollars in costs – and even contribute to fatalities. Now research from North Carolina State University has led to the development of an approach by which high-resolution power-system measurements, also referred to as Synchrophasors, can be efficiently used to develop reliable models of large power systems, which would help us keep an eye on their health. Synchrophasors are real-time measurements of voltages and currents that provide a very high-resolution view of various complex ...

Humans are notoriously bad at predicting their future happiness. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that part of the reason for these mispredictions lies in failing to recognize the key role played by one's own personality when determining future emotional reactions. The new evidence comes from Jordi Quoidbach, a psychological scientist at the University of Liege, Belgium. Quoidbach and Elizabeth Dunn, his collaborator at the University of British Columbia, found that our natural sunny or negative ...

When we catch a cold, the immune system steps in to defend us. This is a well-known biological fact, but is difficult to observe directly. Processes at a molecular level are not only miniscule, they are often extremely fast, and therefore difficult to capture in action. Scientists at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB) and the Technische Uni-versität Berlin (TUB) now present a method that takes us a good step towards producing a "molecular movie". They can record two pictures at such a short time interval that it will soon be possible to observe molecules ...