BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Women under the age of 75 with high vitamin D status were less likely to have early age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in adults, a University at Buffalo study has shown. The disease affects approximately 9 percent of Americans aged 40 and older. The paper is published in the April issue of "Archives of Ophthalmology," one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Vitamin D status was assessed using the blood measure of 25-hydroxyvitamin D or 25 (OH) D. The 25 (OH) D level is generally considered the means by which ...

AMES, Iowa – Solving problems for clients in any field usually requires gathering information and creative thinking that leads to practical and inventive solutions. A new computer interface developed at Iowa State University is helping students use what they've learned in the horticulture classroom and apply it to problems they'll face when they are on the job site. The project, called ThinkSpace, is led by a group of ISU faculty including Ann Marie VanDerZanden, professor of horticulture and associate director of ISU's Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. ThinkSpace ...

What can be more intriguing than a furniture item that seemingly has come straight out of the house of a fashion stylist? If you love the planet, you will want to explore the new modern designs of the collection from Emco, now available at Spacify. Such is the creation of Emco and its Icon Bar/Counter stool is known to be an avant garde design amongst all the modern bar stools and contemporary counter stools. But this is not the only design that is intriguing. You may pick up any designer bar stool from Emco and you will find that all the stools have been created keeping ...

PHILADELPHIA (April 11, 2011) – Swallow the good, spit out the bad. A new study from the Monell Center highlights the vital role taste plays as the body's gatekeeper. The research shows that strong bitter taste in and of itself can cause people to both report the sensation of nausea and display a pattern of stomach activity characteristic of actual nausea. "Nausea is a huge negative modulator of quality of life for many people, including pregnant women, patients undergoing chemotherapy, and virtually all types of GI patients," said senior author Paul A.S. Breslin, Ph.D., ...

A study appearing in the journal Investigational New Drugs and conducted by researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital, discovered that two new small molecule inhibitors are showing promise in blocking STAT3, a protein linked to the most common malignant bone tumor, osteosarcoma. These small molecule inhibitors – one derived from a portion of the turmeric spice – may serve as a new, non-toxic treatment for these deadly tumors. Osteosarcoma is aggressive and its treatment outlook has not changed significantly over the last 20 years. Treatment consists of a combination ...

New research published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) details research in rats and mice that offers hope for stopping the devastating, and often fatal, effects of sepsis in humans. In the study, University of Michigan researchers show how neutralizing the effects of a key protein fragment, called C5a, used by the immune system to attract white blood cells may ultimately prevent heart failure. "During sepsis, heart failure is a common feature of the later stages of the syndrome," said Peter A. Ward, M.D., a senior scientist involved in the work from ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. — In the first clinical trial of gene therapy for treatment of intractable pain, researchers from the University of Michigan Department of Neurology observed that the treatment appears to provide substantial pain relief. In a study published online in the Annals of Neurology last week, the researchers showed that the novel agent NP2 is safe and well-tolerated. In addition, measures of pain in the treated patients suggested that NP2 may provide a substantial analgesic effect. NP2 is a gene transfer vector that expresses the naturally-occurring opioid ...

A new discovery published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) promises to help physicians identify patients most likely to benefit from breast cancer drug therapies. If the compound, called "Nanobody," proves effective in clinical trials, it would represent a significant advance for breast cancer drug therapy because some drugs are effective only in some people. In addition, some drugs have side effects that may cause damage to vital organs, making it more crucial for physicians to get the right treatment to the right patient the first time around. "What ...

Taking a statin before having major elective surgery reduces potentially serious kidney complications, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). Each year, more than 230 million major elective surgeries are performed around the world. Unfortunately, many patients who undergo major operations develop kidney injury soon after surgery, often due to decreased blood flow to the kidneys and/or the effects of inflammation. Animal studies suggest that the cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins protect the ...

Atlanta shredding company Shred-Green is partnering with Atlanta Recycling Solutions for a free shredding and electronics recycling event on April 16 for residents in Gwinnett and neighboring counties. Shred-Green will be on site to shred documents and collect electronics for recycling. Shred-Green and Atlanta Recycling Solutions will be holding their free Atlanta paper shredding day from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on April 16 at Gwinnett Bible Chapel. The chapel is located at 3819 Five Forks Trickum Road in Lilburn. As with all of its free shredding events, Shred-Green ...

Oestrogen treatment for osteoporosis has often been associated with serious side-effects. Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now, in mice, found a way of utilising the positive effects of oestrogen in mice so that only the skeleton is acted on, current research at the Academy shows. The study is presented in the respected journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Many women are affected by osteoporosis after the menopause, when the body's production of oestrogen decreases. Oestrogen is the hormone that ...

Although it has been many years since the human genome was first mapped, there are still many genes whose function we do not understand. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and the University of Toronto, Canada, have teamed up to produce and characterize a collection of nearly 800 strains of yeast cells that make it possible to study even the most complicated of genes. One common way of studying the role of genes in cells is to remove a gene and investigate the effect of the loss. Genes are very similar in both yeast and people, which is one reason ...

Sometimes just when you think you've got it handled, you realize every month you're sinking deeper and deeper. This is how Juan (Freemont, TX) felt when he finally called Blue Tax to assist him with an existing payment plan to the IRS that was proving to be too high for him. When Juan came to Blue Tax, he had an outstanding balance of $3,197 owed to the IRS for his 2007 tax returns. Juan still needed to file his 2008 and 2009 returns, having neglected to do so after being overwhelmed with the debt he still owed. For this 2007 debt, he was on a payment plan of $500 a ...

The part of bacterial DNA that often carries antibiotic resistance is a master at moving between different types of bacteria and adapting to widely differing bacterial species, shows a study made by a research team at the University of Gothenburg in cooperation with Chalmers University of Technology. The results are published in an article in the scientific journal Nature Communications. More and more bacteria are becoming resistant to our common antibiotics, and to make matters worse, more and more are becoming resistant to all known antibiotics. The problem is known ...

Archive Systems, Inc., a leading provider of records and document management services, today announced ASPEN Virtual File Room, Release 9.9 and ASPEN Virtual Records Center, Release 6.1 during the company's first annual User Conference in Orlando, Florida. The releases incorporate new features and functionality that dramatically enhance the business intelligence capabilities that records managers have available at their fingertips. ASPEN Virtual File Room, Release 9.9, an on-demand document management solution, significantly improves business processes by allowing documents ...

BOSTON (April 11) --A study from Tufts Medical Center researchers published today finds that a novel drug shows promise for treating leukemia patients who have few other options because their disease has developed resistance to standard treatment. Appearing in the journal Cancer Cell, the study is the first published report showing that the drug, DCC-2036, fights chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in a mouse model of the disease and is effective against human leukemia cells. "These findings demonstrate that DCC-2036 is an excellent candidate for clinical development as a ...

People in different cultures make different assumptions about the people around them, according to an upcoming study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The researchers studied the brain waves of people with Caucasian and Asian backgrounds and found that cultural differences in how we think about other people are embedded deep in our minds. Cultural differences are evident very deep in the brain, challenging a commonsense notion that culture is skin deep. For decades, psychologists believed that it's natural for ...

North Carolina wedding photographer S L Media Productions provided the photography for this two-day wedding event at The Hilton Charlotte University Place, one of the best wedding venues in Charlotte, NC. They were familiar with ways to photograph the event because the North Carolina wedding photographers of S L Media Productions frequently provide wedding photography in Charlotte, North Carolina at The Hilton. Veronica Foster of Behind The Scenes Inc., one of the top wedding planners in North Carolina, and wedding planners in Greensboro, NC put together this wedding event ...

ATLANTA – The effectiveness of a unique two-pronged educational program has shown significant improvements in knowledge of quality principles by leaders as well as the successful design and launch of QI (quality improvement) projects by frontline staff, according to results outlined in an article in the April 2011 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety (http://www.jcrinc.com/The-Joint-Commission-Journal-on-Quality-and-Patient-Safety/Current-Issue/). Lessons learned from the program results, which originated at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, ...

NEW YORK (April 11, 2011) -- Weill Cornell Medical College and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons have announced that The Mortimer D. Sackler, M.D. Prize for Distinguished Achievement in Developmental Psychobiology has been awarded to The Rockefeller University's Dr. Fernando Nottebohm for his seminal work in songbirds that has led to the discovery of neuronal replacement. Dr. Nottebohm is currently the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Professor and head of the Laboratory of Animal Behavior at The Rockefeller University, where his work has offered some of ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Recent radical changes in air quality regulations in Delhi, India, have had a substantial positive effect on the health of city residents, according to new research co-authored by Andrew Foster, professor of economics and community health and an associate at Brown's Population Studies and Training Center. The findings from this first systematic study quantifying the heath effects of Delhi's environmental interventions are published in the online issue of Atmospheric Environment. The research is among the first to use remote sensing ...

A new surgery for cervical disc disease in the neck may restore range of motion and reduce repeat surgeries in some younger patients, according to a team of neurosurgeons from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and several other medical centers that analyzed three large, randomized clinical trials comparing two different surgeries. More than 200,000 Americans undergo surgery every year to alleviate pain and muscle weakness from the debilitating condition caused by herniated discs in the neck. For some, the team found, arthroplasty may work better. The ...

PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon Health & Science University researcher has co-authored an international study that revealed a drug approved to prevent rejection in organ transplant patients helped treat a rare lung disease in women. The life-threatening disease has no cure and, until now, no known treatment. The clinical trial of the drug -- called sirolimus -- was the first randomized, controlled study designed to develop a therapy for the lung disease, lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM. LAM is a progressive, cystic lung disease that occurs almost exclusively in women. ...

When it comes to picking a face out of a police lineup, would you guess that you would use some of the same processes a pigeon might use? If you said "yes," then you're right. A study published by two University of Iowa researchers in the March 31 issue of the Journal of Vision found that pigeons recognize a human face's identity and emotional expression in much the same way as people do. Pigeons were shown photographs of human faces that varied in the identity of the face, as well as in their emotional expression -- such as a frown or a smile. In one experiment, ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Juicy. Extremely Sweet. Visually attractive. Easy to peel. Low seeded. These are the fine qualities that mark 'KinnowLS,' the latest citrus variety released by researchers at the University of California, Riverside. Large-sized for a mandarin, the fruit has an orange rind color. The rind is thin and extremely smooth. The 10-11 segments in each fruit are fleshy and deep orange in color. 'KinnowLS' (the LS is short for low seeded) is a mandarin selection developed by mutation breeding of the mandarin cultivar 'Kinnow,' a mid-to-late season maturing ...