'High-dose vitamin D3 during intensive treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis: a double-blind randomised control trial' is published in The Lancet on 6 January 2011. Dr Adrian Martineau is available for interview, to arrange please contact: Alex Fernandes Communications Office Queen Mary, University of London Tel: 020 7882 7910 Mobile: 07528 711332 a.fernandes@qmul.ac.uk END ...

[EMBARGOED FOR JAN. 5, 2011] For those infected with the 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus, extreme obesity was a powerful risk factor for death, according to an analysis of a public health surveillance database. In a study to be published in the February 1, 2011, issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, researchers associated extreme obesity with a nearly three-fold increased odds of death from 2009 H1N1 influenza. Half of Californians greater than 20 years of age hospitalized with 2009 H1N1 were obese. (Please see below for a link to the study online.) Data from ...

Artistry from science: Cornell University researchers have unveiled striking, atomic-resolution details of what graphene "quilts" look like at the boundaries between patches, and have uncovered key insights into graphene's electrical and mechanical properties. (Nature, Jan. 5, 2010.) Researchers focused on graphene – a one atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms bonded in a crystal lattice like a honeycomb or chicken wire – because of its electrical properties and potential to improve everything from solar cells to cell phone screens. But graphene doesn't grow in perfect ...

When vaccinating children against varicella (chicken pox), researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found, two doses are better than one. In fact, the odds of developing chicken pox were 95 percent lower in children who had received two doses of the vaccine compared with those who had received only one dose. Published in the February 1 issue of Journal of Infectious Diseases, the study was led by Eugene D. Shapiro, M.D., professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Yale and his colleagues at Yale and Columbia universities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...

The University of Minnesota's Water Resources Center has authored a first-ever, comprehensive report designed to protect and preserve Minnesota's lakes, rivers and groundwater for the 21st century and beyond. The report is being formally presented to the Minnesota House of Representative's Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee today at 8:15 a.m., Wednesday, Jan. 5 in Room 5 of the State Office Building, St. Paul. The Minnesota Water Sustainability Framework, commissioned by the 2009 Minnesota Legislature, is intended to serve as a legislative ...

Boulder, CO, USA - The Jan.-Feb. 2011 GSA Bulletin focuses on river geomorphology; submarine landslides and submarine uplift; the Sangamon paleosol in the Lower Mississippi Valley; the nature and formation of basins, plateaus, cratons, and mountains around the world, including continent building, plate tectonics, and subduction zones, and magmatism; charcoal accumulation rates and teleconnections among regional climates; zircon dating of Amazon River sand; the Messinian salinity crisis; and characteristics of the Sierra Madera impact structure. Keywords: Sandy River, ...

Fewer children who attend regular formal centre- and family-based child care at 1.5 years and 3 years of age were late talkers compared with children who are looked after at home by a parent, child-carer or in an outdoor nursery. This is shown in a new study by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health of nearly 20,000 children. The study found no relation between the type of child care at the age of 1 year and subsequent language competence, which may indicate that the positive effect of centre-based child care first occurs between the ages of 1 to 1.5 years. Furthermore, ...

Enrique García Artero, the principal author of the study and researcher at the University of Granada pointed out that, "Our objective was to analyse the relationship between the duration of breastfeeding babies and their physical condition in adolescence". "The results suggest further beneficial effects and provide support to breast feeding as superior to any other type of feeding". The authors asked the parents of 2,567 adolescents about the type of feeding their children received at birth and the time this lasted. The adolescents also carried out physical tests in order ...

Medical experts have issued a warning about the common practice of tablet splitting, after a study found that nearly a third of the split fragments deviated from recommended dosages by 15 per cent or more. Their study, published in the January issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing, points out that the practice could have serious clinical consequences for tablets that have a narrow margin between therapeutic and toxic doses. And they are calling on manufacturers to produce greater dose options and liquid alternatives to make the practice unnecessary. Researchers ...

Treating fractures in children requires special knowledge of growth physiology. Incorrect treatment of bone fractures in child and adolescent patients is less often caused by technical deficiencies than by a misjudgment of the special conditions in this age group. Using the example of treating fractures of the upper limb, Ralf Kraus from the Marburg-Gießen University Medical Center, and Lucas Wessel, University Medical Center Mannheim, report in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International what should be borne in mind when diagnosing and treating fractures in ...

Brain scans of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have shown for the first time why people affected by the condition sometimes have such difficulty in concentrating. The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, may explain why parents often say that their child can maintain concentration when they are doing something that interests them, but struggles with boring tasks. Using a 'Whac-a-Mole' style game, researchers from the Motivation, Inhibition and Development in ADHD Study (MIDAS) group at the University of Nottingham found evidence that children ...

Water is a precious commodity, so finding ways to re-use waste water, especially in arid regions is essential to sustainability. Researchers in India have now carried out a study of various waste water filtration systems for kitchen waste water and found that even the most poorly performing can produce water clean enough for horticultural or agricultural use. They report details in the International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management. Recycling domestic wastewater is becoming an important part of water management and emerging technology and a shift in ...

Two ESA observatories have combined forces to show the Andromeda Galaxy in a new light. Herschel sees rings of star formation in this, the most detailed image of the Andromeda Galaxy ever taken at infrared wavelengths, and XMM-Newton shows dying stars shining X-rays into space. During Christmas 2010, ESA's Herschel and XMM-Newton space observatories targeted the nearest large spiral galaxy M31. This is a galaxy similar to our own Milky Way – both contain several hundred billion stars. This is the most detailed far-infrared image of the Andromeda Galaxy ever taken and ...

A study by Canadian researchers examined the prevalence of maternal depression and its impact on children newly diagnosed with epilepsy. Prevalence of depression in mothers ranged from 30%-38% within the first 24 months following a child's epilepsy diagnosis. The mother's depressive symptoms negatively impacted the child's health-related quality of life, but the effects were moderated by the amount of family resources and mediated by how well the family functions and the extent of family demands. Details of this novel study appear online in Epilepsia, a journal published ...

How to look younger without plastic surgery? Psychologists of the Jena University (Germany) have a simple solution to this question: Those who want to look younger should surround themselves with older people. Because when viewing a 30-year-old we estimate his age to be much younger if we have previously been perceiving faces of older people. "People are actually quite good at guessing the age of the person next to them," Dr. Holger Wiese says. The psychologist of the Jena University is responsible for one of six research projects in the DFG-sponsored research unit "Person ...

Scientists at Inserm and Institut Pasteur have performed biomarker discovery on patients being treated for chronic hepatitis C infection. Their work, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, demonstrates that the plasma levels of the protein IP-10 predict, prior to treatment initiation, the efficacy of treatment with pegylated-interferon and ribavirin. Based on these results, the scientists have developed a prognostic test. Commercialization is anticipated in 2011, and will help inform physicians of the chances that patients will respond to standard treatment ...

Severely injured patients transported by helicopter from the scene of an accident are more likely to survive than patients brought to trauma centers by ground ambulance, according to a new study published in The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care. The study is the first to examine the role of helicopter transport on a national level and includes the largest number of helicopter-transport patients in a single analysis. The finding that helicopter transport positively impacts patient survival comes amid an ongoing debate surrounding the role of helicopter ...

As every middle-school child knows, in the process of photosynthesis, plants take the sun's energy and convert it to electrical energy. Now a Tel Aviv University team has demonstrated how a member of the animal kingdom, the Oriental hornet, takes the sun's energy and converts it into electric power -- in the brown and yellow parts of its body -- as well. "The interesting thing here is that a living biological creature does a thing like that," says physicist Prof. David Bergman of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy, who was part of the team that made ...

Boston, MA – A new study of men with prostate cancer finds that physical activity is associated with a lower risk of overall mortality and of death due to prostate cancer. The Harvard School of Public Health and University of California, San Francisco researchers also found that men who did more vigorous activity had the lowest risk of dying from the disease. It is the first study in men with prostate cancer to evaluate physical activity after diagnosis in relation to prostate cancer-specific mortality and overall mortality. The study appears in an advance online edition ...

PROVIDENCE, RI – When methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) is carried in the nose (nares), it is a risk factor for an invasive infection, including a surgical site infection. Some studies have found that the heavier the carriage of MRSA in the nose, the greater the risk of transmission to others and the greater risk of infection to the patient. Few studies to date have assessed the differences in quantity of MRSA at different body sites. A new study from Rhode Island Hospital now sheds light on both the quantity of MRSA at different body sites and the relationship between ...

Using a thermostatic mixer valve to control the maximum temperature of children's bath water can significantly reduce the temperature of hot bath water and should reduce the risk of scalding, according to researchers at The University of Nottingham. The study, carried out in partnership with Glasgow Housing Association, found that families with a thermostatic mixing valve (TMV) fitted to the hot and cold water pipes in their bathroom had bath water temperatures that were up to 11˚C cooler than those without and their baths were within the recommended temperature ...

Numerous patients suffering from chronic liver diseases are currently receiving inadequate treatment due to the lack of organs donated for transplantation. However, hepatocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) could offer an alternative for the future. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin compared hepatocytes from embryonic stem cells with hepatocytes from iPS cells and found that their gene expression is very similar. Nevertheless, in comparison to "real" hepatocytes, just under half of the genes exhibited a different ...

Regularly drinking green tea could protect the brain against developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, according to latest research by scientists at Newcastle University. The study, published in the academic journal Phytomedicine, also suggests this ancient Chinese remedy could play a vital role in protecting the body against cancer. Led by Dr Ed Okello, the Newcastle team wanted to know if the protective properties of green tea – which have previously been shown to be present in the undigested, freshly brewed form of the drink – were still active once the tea ...

While a much hailed communication intervention works for families making decisions for chronically-ill loved ones in medical intensive care units, Case Western Reserve University researchers found the intervention was less effective for surgical and neurological ICU patients. Barbara Daly and Sara Douglas, the study's lead researchers from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve, attribute the varied results to different types of patients served by the three types of ICUs and differences among ICU cultures. "We found the same approach is ...

The use of environmental DNA (eDNA) by scientists from the University of Notre Dame and The Nature Conservancy to detect invasive Asian carp in the Chicago-area waterway has been validated in Conservation Letters, a new flagship peer-reviewed journal published by the Society for Conservation Biology. "When you are dealing with cutting-edge research like eDNA, a very important part of the process is getting your science peer-reviewed and published in a well-respected journal," said Professor David Lodge, director of the University of Notre Dame's Environmental Change Initiative. ...