Researchers at the University of Palermo in Italy provide the evidence that a higher visceral adiposity index score—a new index of adipose dysfunction—has a direct correlation with viral load and is independently associated with both steatosis and necroinflammatory activity in patients with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C (G1 CHC). Details of this study are available in the November issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). According to public health surveillance data gathered ...

Washington, DC (Oct. 19, 2010) The latest research into the health effects and safety of a soy-based compound called S-equol was described in talks and presentations by experts at a special session on Tuesday, Oct. 19 during the Ninth International Symposium on the Role of Soy in Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention and Treatment, held Oct. 16 to 19 in Washington, D.C. S-equol is a compound resulting -- when certain bacteria are present in the digestive track -- from the natural metabolism, or conversion, of daidzein, an isoflavone found in whole soybeans. ...

Analysts examining a firm and the qualifications of its top management team discount the educational background of African American managers who graduated from prestigious universities while accepting the qualifications of white managers with the same college credentials, according to two experiments reported in the current issue of Organization Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®). "We found that possessing high educational prestige was less beneficial for firms led by African Americans than for firms with ...

CINCINNATI - A newly identified regulatory process affecting the biology of immune system T cells should give scientists new approaches to explore the causes of autoimmunity and immune deficiency diseases. In findings posted online ahead of publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report a novel process of coordinated cellular communications vital to the maintenance of T cells. If the process breaks down, T cells proliferate rapidly and die off. This could disrupt the immune system's ...

In the United States, friends often share intimate details of their lives and problems. However, such self-disclosure is much less common in Japan. A new study by an American researcher living in Japan finds that this may be because of the different social systems in the two countries, and in particular the extent to which there are opportunities to make new friends. "At first, it seemed strange that in Japan, people didn't open up and share a lot about themselves with each other," says Joanna Schug of Hokkaido University. "But Japanese often look at Americans and think, ...

TORONTO, October 19, 2010 – Pharmaceutical promotion may cause doctors to prescribe more expensively, less appropriately and more often, according to a new study co-authored by York University professor Joel Lexchin. The findings, published today in the journal, PLoS Medicine, offer a broad look at the relationship between doctors' prescribing habits and their exposure to information provided by drug companies. Researchers analyzed 58 separate studies of this phenomenon from Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia, dating from the 1960s. "Many doctors claim ...

An international collaboration led by academics at the University of Sheffield, has shed new light into Parkinson's disease, which could help with the development of cures or treatments in the future. The collaboration, which was led by Professor Peter Redgrave from the University's Department of Psychology, suggests that many of the problems suffered by patients with Parkinson's disease - difficulties in initiating actions, slow laboured movements and tremors – can be understood in terms of damage to control circuits in the brain responsible for habits. The analysis, ...

Mobile phone-based games could provide a new way to teach basic knowledge of Chinese language characters that might be particularly helpful in underdeveloped rural areas of China, say researchers in Carnegie Mellon University's Mobile & Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies (MILLEE) Project. Earlier this year, researchers reported that two mobile learning games, inspired by traditional Chinese games, showed promise during preliminary tests with children in Xin'an, an underdeveloped region in Henan Province, China. The researchers from Carnegie Mellon, ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Inhaling nitric oxide appears to safely and effectively reduce pain crises in adults with sickle cell disease, researchers report. A study of 18 patients in Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit showed that the nine inhaling nitric oxide for four hours had better pain control than those receiving only the standard self-administered morphine, said Dr. C. Alvin Head, chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine. "This study shows that you can breathe the gas and have less pain, which is the major reason sickle cell ...

Scientists at the University of Adelaide have discovered new cases of herbicide resistance in annual ryegrass, one of the world's most serious and costly weeds. For the first time, researchers have found that annual ryegrass has developed resistance to paraquat, the second most important "knockdown" herbicide used by cropping farmers. Weed management experts Dr Peter Boutsalis and Associate Professor Christopher Preston, from the University's Waite Research Institute, made the discovery in samples taken from two separate farming properties near the South Australian ...

Williamsburg, VA —October 19, 2010— Corporations and individuals alike are increasingly focused on "going green," in an attempt to reduce their carbon footprint and impact on the environment. It is questionable whether higher education institutions are adopting sustainable practices at the same rate, despite large consumption rates of energy and water, among other resources. In the first study of its kind, Contemporary Economic Policy presents an article which compares the factors that drive colleges to adopt sustainable practices to the factors that motivate for-profit ...

ATLANTA—October 19, 2010—A rare and deadly form of breast cancer that often goes unrecognized by clinicians and patients alike is the focus of a new report from leading researchers. Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) has made headlines as an unrecognized and misunderstood form of breast cancer. It has a younger age of onset, progresses rapidly, and has lower overall survival compared to other breast cancers. For the new report, leading researchers led by Massimo Cristofanilli, M.D., of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia outline IBC's unique clinical presentation, pathology, ...

Montreal, October 19, 2010 – Dogs may not only be man's best friend, they may also have a special role in the lives of children with special needs. According to a new Université de Montreal study, specifically trained service dogs can help reduce the anxiety and enhance the socialization skills of children with Autism Syndrome Disorders (ASDs). The findings published this year in Psychoneuroendocrinology may be a relatively simple solution to help affected children and their families cope with these challenging disorders. "Our findings showed that the dogs had a clear ...

Flexible circuits can be found in many devices where space and weight considerations are dominant in the design of electronics: in cars, in cameras and video equipment, in mini-computers for athletes or in inkjet printers. And the market continues to grow: according to the business consultancy Frost & Sullivan, sales in this area will grow to more than $16 billion by the year 2014. At K 2010, the trade fair for plastics in Düsseldorf, Germany, scientists from the IST in Braunschweig will unveil a new reel-to-reel technology for the production of flexible circuits and ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – In the battle of egos, Donald Trump vs. Hugo Chavez might be a draw. But as symbols of power, each resonates differently with different cultures, as cultures nurture different views of what is desirable and meaningful to do with power, according to new research by a University of Illinois marketing expert. Sharon Shavitt says the relation between culture and one's concepts of power emerge from one's cultural orientation, and how that culture shapes one's beliefs, attitudes and goals. "People's views of powerful people and what powerful people are supposed ...

HOUSTON -- (Oct. 19, 2010) -- Some bacteria react to the cold by subtly changing the chemistry of their outer wall so that it remains pliable as temperatures drop. Scientists identified a key protein in this response mechanism a few years ago, but the question of how bacteria sense cold in the first place remained a mystery. Based on a study by scientists at Rice University and Argentina's National University of Rosario, the answer is: They use a measuring stick. The study, published in the September issue of Current Biology, involved a series of intricate experiments ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A drug marketed to grow bone in osteoporosis patients also works to heal bone wounds in gum disease patients, a University of Michigan study suggests. "This new approach for the treatment of periodontal disease could allow us to rebuild some of the bone that is lost due to periodontal disease, which until this point has been very difficult to achieve," said Jill Bashutski, clinical assistant professor at the U-M School of Dentistry and first author on the study. "Current treatments to re-grow bone around teeth affected with gum disease have limited ...

Conventional wisdom holds that people try to mimic the behavior of the next social class above their own. Except when it comes to shopping at secondhand stores and yard sales, concludes a new study by Brigham Young University sociology students and faculty. The study found that high-income shoppers scour the secondhand market for antiques, but everyone else is trying to stretch the family dollar. "Middle-class shoppers were looking for furniture, some appliances, clothes, things that you could argue are necessities," said BYU sociology professor Ralph Brown. "There's ...

Seeing a child or a dog play is not a foreign sight. But what about a turtle or even a wasp? Apparently, they play, too. In fact, according to Gordon Burghardt, a psychology professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, many animals -- not just dogs, cats, and monkeys -- need a little play time. "I studied the behavior of baby and juvenile reptiles for many years and never saw anything that I thought was play. Then I had an epiphany when I saw Pigface, a Nile softshell turtle, batting around a basketball at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. I realized ...

CLEVELAND – In a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, physicians at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center who are Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine researchers are exploring the role of Vitamin D in preventing esophageal cancer. Principal Investigator Linda Cummings, MD, along with Amitabh Chak, MD, and Gregory Cooper, MD, from the UH Digestive Health Institute, is recruiting patients with Barrett's esophagus to measure the effects of Vitamin D on protein levels that may influence the risk of developing esophageal cancer. "Vitamin D is being studied ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Twisting spires, concentric rings, and gracefully bending petals are a few of the new three-dimensional shapes that University of Michigan engineers can make from carbon nanotubes using a new manufacturing process. The process is called "capillary forming," and it takes advantage of capillary action, the phenomenon at work when liquids seem to defy gravity and travel up a drinking straw of their own accord. The new miniature shapes, which are difficult if not impossible to build using any material, have the potential to harness the exceptional mechanical, ...

SEATTLE, Wash.—October 18, 2010—Researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have found that the same genes have different activity patterns in the brain in individuals with different genetic backgrounds. These findings may help to explain individual differences in the effectiveness and side-effect profiles of therapeutic drugs and thus have implications for personalized medicine. The study is available in this week's online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (www.pnas.org). In this study, the authors compared where in the brain ...

Scientists at The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital – The Neuro, McGill University have discovered that our brains have the ability to determine the shape of an object simply by processing specially-coded sounds, without any visual or tactile input. Not only does this new research tell us about the plasticity of the brain and how it perceives the world around us, it also provides important new possibilities for aiding those who are blind or with impaired vision. Shape is an inherent property of objects existing in both vision and touch but not sound. Researchers ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Illinois chemists have developed a simple sensor to detect an explosive used in shoe bombs. It could lead to inexpensive, easy-to-use devices for luggage and passenger screening at airports and elsewhere. Triacetone triperoxide (TATP) is a high-powered explosive that in recent years has been used in several bombing attempts. TATP is easy to prepare from readily available components and has been difficult to detect. It defies most standard methods of chemical sensing: It doesn't fluoresce, absorb ultraviolet light or readily ionize. The ...

A study published Oct. 19 in the open access journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE, shows that not just human memories fade. Scientists from Arizona State University and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences examined how aging impacts the ability of honey bees to find their way home. While bees are typically impressive navigators, able to wend their way home through complex landscapes after visits to flowers far removed from their nests, the study reveals that aging impairs the bees' ability to extinguish the memory of an unsuitable nest site even after the ...