New University of Arizona research indicates that leaf vein patterns correlate with functions such as carbon intake and water use – knowledge that could help scientists better understand the complex carbon cycle that is at the heart of global climate warming. "Leaves have very different networks of veins. They have different shapes, different sizes, different thicknesses," said Benjamin Blonder, a doctoral student in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology. "The really interesting question is how a leaf with a certain form produces a certain function." Blonder ...

Orangutans threatened with extinction could be brought back from the brink with help from a Queensland University of Technology (QUT) statistician. Professor Kerrie Mengersen, from the School of Mathematical Sciences, is part of a study to guide efforts for saving the Indonesian primate whose name means "person of the forest". Professor Mengersen said the study had found a quarter of villagers who lived side-by-side with orangutans did not know it was illegal under Indonesian law to kill the primates, and five per cent admitted to killing 1000 orangutans last year. Professor ...

Arlington, Va. — New research being presented at the 2010 FIP Pharmaceutical Sciences World Congress in association with the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists Annual Meeting and Exposition will highlight a targeted inhalable dry powder vaccine that may prove preferable in terms of needle avoidance and expected lower cost than the current commercial human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine used throughout the world. HPV is the number one cause of cervical cancer, which is the second most common cancer in women around the globe. According to the World Health ...

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) more than doubles a veteran's risk of death from any cause and is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. PTSD is more than a psychological disorder, and the study suggests that physicians should provide early and aggressive evaluation and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors in patients with PTSD, said Naser Ahmadi, M.D., M.S., and Ramin Ebrahimi, M.D., co-principal investigators of the study. PTSD is a cluster of symptoms ...

9 a.m. Abstract 20649 – Some ICD recipients may not get optimal medical therapy Guidelines recommending optimal medical therapy are not always followed for patients receiving implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), a new study found. Researchers examined optimal medical therapy — beta blocker and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI)/angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB) at discharge — among ICD patients with ejection fractions below 35 percent. Of the 231,725 patient stays analyzed, 73.1 percent of the patients received optimal medical therapy at ...

Cardiac stem cells — even in elderly and sick patients — could generate new heart muscle and vessel tissue and be used to treat heart failure, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. Scientists surgically removed tissue from the muscular wall of the heart's chambers in 21 patients. They then isolated and multiplied the cardiac stem cells (CSCs) found there. Most of the patients had ischemic cardiomyopathy (enlarged and weakened muscle due to coronary artery disease). Eleven also had diabetes. The average age of patients ...

San Diego -- Researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center's departments of neuroscience, pharmacology, physiology, biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, and the interdisciplinary program of neuroscience will present more than 50 research abstracts at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience Nov. 13th through the 17th in San Diego. Modulation of temporal relationships between default mode and task-positive networks by the dopamine transporter genotype during working memory and the resting state Session: Imaging Human Memory Function Abstract/Poster: ...

Two separate discoveries by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) offer potential for development of a first-ever pharmacological treatment for cocaine addiction. In one study, a common beta blocker, propranolol, currently used to treat hypertension and anxiety, has shown to be effective in preventing the brain from retrieving memories associated with cocaine use in animal-addiction models, according to Devin Mueller, UWM assistant professor of psychology and a co-author with James Otis of the research. The work was presented today at the annual ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Exposure to even dim light at night is enough to cause physical changes in the brains of hamsters that may be associated with depression, a new study shows. Researchers found that female Siberian hamsters exposed to dim light every night for eight weeks showed significant changes in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. This is the first time researchers have found that light at night, by itself, may be linked to changes in the hippocampus. These alterations may be a key reason why the researchers also found that the hamsters exposed to dim ...

Widely prescribed for their cholesterol-lowering properties, recent clinical research indicates that statins can produce a second, significant health benefit: lowering the risk of severe bacterial infections such as pneumonia and sepsis. A new explanation for these findings has been discovered by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, who describe for the first time how statins activate the bacterial killing properties of white blood cells. The research is published in the November ...

Being able to read and understand words like anemia, hormones and seizure means a patient with heart failure may be less likely to be hospitalized, according to a new study from Emory University School of Medicine. Findings will be presented Nov. 17 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions conference in Chicago. The research, led by Emory cardiologist Javed Butler, MD, MPH, professor of medicine, Emory School of Medicine and director of Heart Failure Research at Emory Healthcare, involved the use of a simple test called the Rapid Estimates of Adults Literacy ...

When cardiac or skeletal muscle is not receiving enough oxygen to meet metabolic demands, a person will experience pain, such as angina, chest pain during a heart attack, or leg pain during a vigorous sprint. This type of pain is called "ischemic" pain and is sensed in the body by receptors on sensory neurons. It has been suggested that lactic acid, which increases during muscle exertion under conditions where oxygen is low, is a potential mediator of ischemic pain via action at acid sensing channel #3 (ASIC3). However, the acid signal it generates is quite subtle and is ...

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Embargoed for 2 p.m. EST, November 17, 2010 – Global ophthalmic device company OptiMedica Corp. has announced that results from a clinical study of its Catalys Precision Laser System were published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Translational Medicine ("Femtosecond Laser-Assisted Cataract Surgery with Integrated Optical Coherence Tomography," Volume 2, Issue 58, November 17, 2010). The data showed that, when compared to manual techniques, the Catalys Precision Laser System helped surgeons achieve significant improvement in precision during several ...

They are often accused of being distracting, but recent research has found that action packed video games like Halo and Call of Duty can enhance visual attention, the ability that allows us to focus on relevant visual information. This growing body of research, reviewed in WIREs Cognitive Science, suggests that action based games could be used to improve military training, educational approaches, and certain visual deficits. The review, authored by a group led by Dr Daphne Bavelier from the University of Rochester, focused on the impact video games have on visual attention, ...

WHAT: Researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have determined a key mechanism by which Bacillus anthracis bacteria initiate anthrax infection despite being greatly outnumbered by immune system scavenger cells. The finding, made by studying genetically modified mice, adds new detail to the picture of early-stage anthrax infection and supports efforts to develop vaccines and drugs that would block this part of the cycle. To start an infection, anthrax bacteria release a toxin that binds ...

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) refers to a group of disorders associated with degeneration of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. Symptoms include dementia, aphasia, and semantic disorders. Mutation of the gene for PGRN is associated with the most common form of FTLD, which is also characterized by inclusions of TDP-43 protein in the brain. Abnormal accumulation of TDP-43 has also been linked with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). While it is clear that a reduction in PGRN is causative for FTLD-TDP, the underlying mechanism is unknown. "Elucidation ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Imagine trying to cut by hand a perfect circle roughly one-third the size of a penny. Then consider that instead of a sheet of paper, you're working with a scalpel and a thin, elastic, transparent layer of tissue, which both offers resistance and tears easily. And, by the way, you're doing it inside someone's eye, and a slip could result in a serious impairment to vision. This standard step in cataract surgery — the removal of a disc from the capsule surrounding the eye's lens, a procedure known as capsulorhexis — is one of the few aspects of the operation ...

The most widely adopted measure for assessing the state of the world's oceans and fisheries led to inaccurate conclusions in nearly half the ecosystems where it was applied according to new analysis by an international team led by a University of Washington fisheries scientist. "Applied to individual ecosystems it's like flipping a coin, half the time you get the right answer and half the time you get the wrong answer," said Trevor Branch, a UW assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. In 1998, the journal Science published a groundbreaking paper that was ...

LA JOLLA, CA-With few exceptions, jumping genes-restless bits of DNA that can move freely about the genome-are forced to stay put. In patients with Rett syndrome, however, a mutation in the MeCP2 gene mobilizes so-called L1 retrotransposons in brain cells, reshuffling their genomes and possibly contributing to the symptoms of the disease when they find their way into active genes, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Their findings, published in the November 18, 2010 issue of the journal Nature, could not only explain how a single mutation ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, applying a state-of-the-art imaging system to brain-tissue samples from mice, have been able to quickly and accurately locate and count the myriad connections between nerve cells in unprecedented detail, as well as to capture and catalog those connections' surprising variety. A typical healthy human brain contains about 200 billion nerve cells, or neurons, linked to one another via hundreds of trillions of tiny contacts called synapses. It is at these synapses that an electrical impulse traveling ...

Physicists working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, have succeeded in trapping antihydrogen – the antimatter equivalent of the hydrogen atom – a milestone that could soon lead to experiments on a form of matter that disappeared mysteriously shortly after the birth of the universe 14 billion years ago. The first artificially produced low energy antihydrogen atoms – consisting of a positron, or antimatter electron, orbiting an antiproton nucleus – were created at CERN in 2002, but until now the atoms have struck normal matter ...

LA JOLLA, CA – November 15, 2010 –– A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has developed a powerful new method for detecting functional sites on proteins. The technique may have broad applications in basic research and drug development. Described in an advance, online publication of Nature on November 17, 2010, the method enables scientists to take a sample of cells, locate the sites on their proteins that have a certain kind of biochemical reactivity, and measure the degree of that reactivity. "It lets us find functional sites on proteins more ...

CHICAGO --- Estrogen is an elixir for the brain, sharpening mental performance in humans and animals and showing promise as a treatment for disorders of the brain such as Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. But long-term estrogen therapy, once prescribed routinely for menopausal women, now is quite controversial because of research showing it increases the risk of cancer, heart disease and stroke. Northwestern Medicine researchers have discovered how to reap the benefits of estrogen without the risk. Using a special compound, they flipped a switch that mimics the effect ...

Viruses have led scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to the discovery of a security system in host cells. Viruses that cause disease in animals beat the security system millennia ago. But now that researchers are aware of it, they can explore the possibility of bringing the system back into play in the fight against diseases such as sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus, dengue and yellow fever. The findings, published in Nature, solve a 35-year-old mystery that began when National Institutes of Health researcher Bernard ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Like all organisms, bacteria must compete for resources to survive, even if it means a fight to the death. New research led by scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and the University of California, Santa Barbara, describes new complexities in the close chemical combat waged among bacteria. And the findings from this microscopic war zone may have implications for human health and survival. "It has been known for a long time that bacteria can produce toxins that they release into their surroundings ...