Antwerp, Belgium – October 8, 2010– VIB researchers at the University of Antwerp have identified several mutations that play an important role in the development of Hereditary Sensory and Autonomous Neuropathy Type 1 (HSAN 1). HSAN 1 is a rare genetic disorder of the peripheral nervous system. Identification of the mutations will lead to a more accurate diagnosis of the disease in patients as well as improved genetic counseling and prenatal diagnostic tests for couples who are carriers and planning a pregnancy. HSAN Hereditary Sensory and Autonomous Neuropathy (HSAN) ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Temporary combativeness after surgery—a complication affecting up to half of anesthetized children—may be preventable with drugs that decrease epinephrine production, according to a Medical College of Georgia pediatric anesthesiologist. "Some children wake up after surgery and begin crying and become combative," said Dr. Ivan Florentino, associate professor of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine and pediatrics at MCG. "They are often extremely frightened, disoriented and refuse to be comforted, even after being reunited with their parents. Some even ...

RUSTON, La. – Dr. Long Que, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Louisiana Tech University, has reported success in designing and fabricating a device that allows microscale electronic devices to harvest their own wasted energy. The work was described in a paper published in the September edition of Applied Physics Letters and has also caught the attention of PhysOrg.com, a website that features breakthroughs in science and technology from all over the world. The paper titled, "Light and thermal energy cell based on carbon nanotube films" and co-authored ...

The complication rate during pregnancy with twins is about 40%. Women with multiple pregnancies often develop pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and hemorrhages during the term of their pregnancy. Joachim W Dudenhausen from the Charité Berlin University Medicine and Rolf F Maier from Magdeburg University Medical Center, investigate which risks can be minimized by close monitoring in multiple pregnancies (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2010; 107[38]: 663-8). 14 in 1000 pregnancies will be multiple pregnancies. The average term for multiple pregnancies is notably shorter (for twins, ...

Shift work can cause cancer. In the new issue of the Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2010; 107[38]: 657-62), Thomas C. Erren and colleagues describe the current state of knowledge in this area and point out the challenges lying ahead. Although it is well known that short-term disturbances of circadian rhythms, such as jet lag, can impair a person's sense of well-being, researchers only recently began to ask whether chronic disruption of biological rhythms over the long term might promote cancer. The possibility of financial compensation in such cases ...

Some of America's most popular fish--salmon and albacore tuna, for example--are rich in healthful natural compounds known as omega-3 fatty acids. Ongoing studies by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) chemist Darshan S. Kelley and co-investigators are helping uncover new details about how these fish-oil components help protect us from chronic diseases. Kelley is with the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Western Human Nutrition Research Center at the University of California-Davis. ARS is the USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency. In an early ...

Children with autism will tell white lies to protect other people's feelings and they are not very good at covering up their lies, according to a Queen's University study. The study, conducted by psychology professor Beth Kelley and developmental psychology PhD student Annie Li, is one of the first scientific studies of lying and autism. "The results are surprising because there is a notion that children with autism have difficulty appreciating the thoughts and feelings of other people, so we didn't expect them to lie to avoid saying things that may hurt others," says ...

Nutrition rating systems and their accompanying symbols are intended to help consumers make healthy choices, but shoppers may be confused by the variety of symbols that have proliferated in recent years. Moreover, different rating systems focus on different nutrients, and questions have been raised about the nutritional criteria underlying these systems. Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols: Phase 1 Report presents the preliminary findings of an Institute of Medicine committee's review of these nutrition information tools. and focuses on the criteria behind ...

The study, led by Matthew Niedner, M.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at U-M C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, was conducted by the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Focus Group. It appears in the October issue of the American Journal of Infection Control. "There is an intense amount of attention being placed on measures of quality performance that have significant implications in pay-for-performance, and reimbursement," says Niedner, who led the study. "What you have is a desire ...

A new type of breast cancer treatment has shown encouraging activity as a first-line therapy in HER2-positive metastatic disease, researchers reported at the 35th Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Milan, Italy. Principal investigator Edith Perez, MD, Mayo Clinic in Florida, presented the results of the first ever randomized trial of trastuzumab-DM1 (T-DM1) as a first-line treatment for metastatic breast cancer. T-DM1 is the first of a new type of cancer medicine known as an antibody-drug conjugate. It binds together two existing cancer ...

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—We know that casting a ballot in the voting booth involves politics, values and personalities. But before you ever push the button for your candidate, your brain has already carried out an election of its own to make that action possible. New research from Vanderbilt University reveals that our brain accumulates evidence when faced with a choice and triggers an action once that evidence reaches a tipping point. The research was published in the October issue of Psychological Review. "Psychological models of decision-making explain that humans gradually ...

Saranac Lake, N.Y. – A billion people living in underdeveloped areas around the world are infected with parasitic helminthes, worms that survive by residing in and feeding on their hosts. These infestations can cause chronic intestinal (and occasionally systemic) illnesses leading to long-term disability. Irah King and Markus Mohrs, biomedical researchers at the Trudeau Institute, are investigating illnesses caused by these gut-dwelling worms in an effort to decipher how immune cells send and receive signals that determine the specific immune response to mount. In a study ...

TEMPE, Az. - An international team of scientists, exploiting pioneering techniques at Arizona State University, has taken a significant step toward unlocking the secrets of oxygenation of the Earth's oceans and atmosphere. Evolution of the Earth's multitude of organisms is intimately linked to the rise of oxygen in the oceans and atmosphere. The new research indicates that the appearance of large predatory fish as well as vascular plants approximately 400 million years ago coincided with an increase in oxygen, to levels comparable to those we experience today. If so, ...

Educational policy is controversial: positions on achievement gaps, troubled schools and class size are emotionally charged, and research studies often come to very different conclusions. But what if there was a new way of looking at the problem -- a way that treats education as a complex system (taking into account all interactions) and uses computer modeling and network analysis to provide a comprehensive look at the outcomes of policy choices? Researchers at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and School of Education and ...

The sudden death of bee colonies since late 2006 across North America has stumped scientists. But today, researchers may have a greater understanding of the mysterious colony collapse disorder, said a Texas Tech University biologist. Shan Bilimoria, a professor and molecular virologist, said the bees may be taking a one-two punch from both an insect virus and a fungus, which may be causing bees to die off by the billions. Bilimoria is part of a team of researchers searching for the cause of the collapse. Led by research professor Jerry Bromenshenk from the University ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Diagnostic ultrasounds are the most widely used medical tests in the world. Though the technology is more than 50 years old, scientists continue to discover new uses for it, ranging from more targeted cancer treatments to liposuction. As the technology becomes more complex, a sonographer's skill level is even more important. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri may have found one of the keys to becoming a successful sonographer: spatial ability. Doug Clem, clinical assistant professor of MU's diagnostic ultrasound program in the MU School ...

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope continues to make significant progress, successfully completing a series of sunshield vent tests that validate the telescope's sunshield design. "While adequate venting is a design consideration for all spaceflight hardware, this was a particularly unique challenge for the sunshield given the large volume of trapped air in the membrane system at launch," said Keith Parrish, Webb telescope sunshield manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "From the beginning of its development venting features have been a critical ...

A woman's race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status impact whether health care providers recommend one of the most highly effective forms of contraception, a UCSF study confirms. The results also indicate that the interaction of both factors plays a role in clinicians' decisions. Recommendations by health care providers previously have been found to vary by patients' race and socioeconomic status, contributing to health disparities, according to the researchers. The team investigated the effect of these factors on recommendations for contraception. Study results appear ...

When people are rejected by peers, they often lash out. In children, that aggression occasionally takes horrifying directions, leading to school shootings or other deadly acts. Researchers in the Netherlands found that some children are more likely than others to lash out in response to acute peer rejection: children who already feel like outcasts. "It was inspired by the fact that we had these school shootings and wondered what the most important feature of these kids could be," says Albert Reijntjes of Utrecht University, who cowrote the study with five other psychological ...

RICHMOND, Va. (Oct. 8, 2010) – An international team of researchers has discovered a new class of highly electronegative chemical species called hyperhalogens, which use superhalogens as building blocks around a metal atom. The new chemical species may have application in many industries. Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, McNeese State University in Lake Charles, La., and the University of Konstanz in Germany report their discovery in the Oct. 6 international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. The journal designated the paper as ...

At 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 8, Otto strengthened into a hurricane, becoming the eighth hurricane of the Atlantic Ocean season. NASA's Aqua satellite and the NOAA GOES-13 satellite captured images of Otto as he intensified. Otto had maximum sustained winds near 75 mph, and the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla. noted that some strengthening is possible before it weakens on Saturday, Oct. 9. Otto was located about 445 miles south of Bermuda near 25.9 North and 64.0 West. It was moving east-northeast near 17 mph, and had a minimum central pressure of 979 millibars. On ...

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite has completed assembly at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and is nearly ready for a December delivery to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., where it will be joined to the Curiosity rover. SAM and Curiosity are set to fly on the on the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover mission scheduled for launch in the fall of 2011. SAM will become an automated, mobile laboratory as it is carried across Mars by the rover when the mission arrives at the Red Planet in 2012. Together ...

DALLAS – Oct. 12, 2010 – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have created an experimental vaccine against beta-amyloid, the small protein that forms plaques in the brain and is believed to contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease. Compared with similar so-called DNA vaccines that the UT Southwestern researchers tested in an animal study, the new experimental vaccine stimulated more than 10 times as many antibodies that bind to and eliminate beta-amyloid. The results appeared in the journal Vaccine. Future studies will focus on determining the ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have found how gene expression that may contribute to drug resistance is ramped up in unusual types of breast tumors. Their findings may offer new therapy targets. The study is published in the Oct. 8 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, where it is designated a paper of the week. Approximately 70 percent of breast cancers express the estrogen receptor. These "ER-positive" tumors usually respond to hormone-related therapies, such as tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors. But not always. "We ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9, 2010 — Help may be on the way for millions of people on the East Coast bugged out about the invasion of stink bugs. Scientists have reported a key advance in efforts to develop the first commercial repellent for stinkbugs, which are emerging as a major nuisance to homeowners and a devastating pest to some farm crops. They identified a natural substance in a fungus that infects a common weed and found that it shows potential as the first stinkbug repellent. Their study appeared in ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Hiromitsu ...