WASHINGTON, D.C., March 10, 2011—For physicians within several medical specialties, including dermatology, cardiology and orthopedics, personal usage of and patient recommendations for dietary supplements are quite common¹, according to a study published in Nutrition Journal, a peer-reviewed, on-line journal that focuses on the field of human nutrition. The 2008 "Life…supplemented" Healthcare Professionals (HCP) Impact Study found that 75 percent of dermatologists personally use dietary supplements and 66 percent recommend supplements to their patients; 57 percent of ...

Montreal, QC —March 10, 2011 —In childhood, boys and girls tend to form friendships almost exclusively with same-sex peers. Around early adolescence, they gradually begin to include other-sex friends in their network. A new study published in Journal of Research on Adolescence suggests that girls and boys experience this transition very differently. The findings show that girls tend to initiate the transition to a mixed-gender friendship network earlier than boys, and continue this transition at a faster pace during adolescence. As a result girls who experienced this transition ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Circulating through the bloodstream of every human being is a rare and powerful type of cell, one that can actually create new blood vessels to bypass blockages that cause heart attacks and peripheral artery disease. Though everyone has these cells – called endothelial progenitor cells – they are often dysfunctional in people prone to vascular disease. Now researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that a molecule – called Wnt1 – can improve the function of endothelial progenitor cells, increasing the blood flow ...

Referring patients to hospitals that have the largest volume of surgical procedures does not necessarily lead to improved outcomes for the overall population, according to the results of a new study in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The findings of studies that suggest the higher the volume of specialty surgical procedures performed at any given hospital, the better that hospital's outcomes will be, has resulted in calls for volume-based referrals. Most notably leading that call has been the Leapfrog Group's Evidence-Based Hospital ...

A team led by James Henderson, assistant professor of biomedical and chemical engineering in Syracuse University's L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science (LCS) and researcher in the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute, has used shape memory polymers to provide greater insight into how cells sense and respond to their physical environment. Most cell biomechanics research has examined cell behavior on unchanging, flat surfaces. "Living cells are remarkably complex, dynamic and versatile systems, but the material substrates currently used to culture them are ...

Unconsciously, right-handers associate good with the right side of space and bad with the left. But this association can be rapidly changed, according to a study published online March 9, 2011 in Psychological Science, by Daniel Casasanto (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics) and Evangelia Chrysikou (University of Pennsylvania). Even a few minutes of using the left hand more fluently than the right can reverse right-handers' judgments of good and bad, making them think that the left is the 'right side' of space. Conceptions of good and bad are rooted in people's ...

NEW YORK (March 9, 2011) – A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society reveals the critical importance of western Arctic Alaska's Teshekpuk Lake region to tens of thousands of birds that breed in the area during the brief, but productive arctic summers, and makes clearer the case for permanent protection of the area. Results of the four-year study—the first to look at the full suite of bird species from around the world that descend on the Teshekpuk Lake region—showed that the region contains some of the highest nesting bird densities and nest productivity across ...

Patients who have had a gastric bypass operation take longer to process alcohol, potentially leading some of them to overindulge when drinking, according to the results of a new study in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Previous studies have shown that gastric bypass patients often find it difficult adjusting to physical and psychological changes after the procedure. An increased risk of depression, alcoholism, and other substance abuse issues for this patient population led researchers to take a more in-depth look at how these patients ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers are using a new model to learn more about how toe strength can determine how far people can lean while keeping their balance. The results could help in building robotic body parts that will closely imitate human movement, and might lead to a new generation of advanced prosthetics. Hooshang Hemami, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State University built a complex computational model of the human foot to look at the role of the feet and toes in determining the body's movement and balance. Many studies concerning ...

Sildenafil, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension, has another possible use—helping children and young adults with congenital heart disease to better tolerate exercise. Sildenafil significantly improved measures of exercise performance during stress testing in patients with single-ventricle heart disease, according to researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. This study was published online on March 7 in the journal Circulation. It is the first randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial to evaluate the ...

Vanderbilt researchers are studying heavy users of marijuana to help understand what exercise does for the brain, contributing to a field of research that uses exercise as a modality for prevention and treatment. Participants saw a significant decrease in their cravings and daily use after just a few sessions of running on the treadmill, according to a Vanderbilt study published today in the journal PLoS ONE. It is the first study to demonstrate that exercise can reduce cannabis use in persons who don't want to stop. Twelve study participants — eight female and four ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Technophiles who have been dreaming of mobile devices that run longer on lighter, slimmer batteries may soon find their wish has been granted. University of Illinois engineers have developed a form of ultra-low-power digital memory that is faster and uses 100 times less energy than similar available memory. The technology could give future portable devices much longer battery life between charges. Led by electrical and computer engineering professor Eric Pop, the team will publish its results in an upcoming issue of Science magazine and online in the ...

Northwestern University researchers have developed a new switching device that takes quantum communication to a new level. The device is a practical step toward creating a network that takes advantage of the mysterious and powerful world of quantum mechanics. The researchers can route quantum bits, or entangled particles of light, at very high speeds along a shared network of fiber-optic cable without losing the entanglement information embedded in the quantum bits. The switch could be used toward achieving two goals of the information technology world: a quantum Internet, ...

The Everglades National Park in Florida is home to hundreds of species of native wildlife. It has also become the well-established home of the non-native Burmese python—known to be a predator of native species. Now scientists, for the first time, have conducted a detailed analysis of the avian component of the python's diet and the negative impact the snakes may have on Florida's native birds, including some endangered species. The Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus), native to Southeast Asia, was first recorded in the Everglades in 1979—thought to be escaped or ...

During spring training, you will find Major League pitchers practicing their pitches, perfecting their technique and strengthening their muscles to endure the grueling 162 game season. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that hurlers might also consider the effect these sweltering months could have on their brains. The study, led by researchers from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, has found pitchers whose teammates get hit by a pitch are more likely to strike back and peg an opposing ...

As evidence regarding the health benefits of consuming dark chocolate and cocoa mounts, there has been an increasing debate about which cocoa and chocolate products deliver the most beneficial compounds, known as flavanols, and if steps in cocoa and chocolate production diminish the levels of cocoa flavanols. In a recently published paper, scientists reported on the effect of conventional production methods of cocoa beans on the levels of flavanols, natural antioxidants. The study, conducted by researchers at the Hershey Center for Health & Nutrition®, investigated ...

A team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has developed a new model for how inherited genes contribute to a common but untreatable and incurable neurodegenerative disease. The disease, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, is the second most common cause of dementia before age 65, after Alzheimer's disease. Based on experiments in worms and mice, the UCSF team's work explains in part why the brain deteriorates in frontotemporal lobar degeneration, which may have implications for the understanding of several neurodegenerative disorders, including ...

CHICAGO— When Patricia Manrique was told she needed her gallbladder removed she immediately thought about the classroom full of children who rely on her to teach them tap and ballet each day. The Chicago Park District physical instructor needed a way to get the surgery performed without being laid up for weeks so she opted for an innovative minimally invasive procedure called Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES) that would allow surgeons to perform organ removal surgery without any visible incisions and have her back on her feet the same day. Northwestern ...

Good chemists are passive-aggressive — they manipulate molecules without actually touching them. In a feat of manipulating substances at the nanoscale, UCLA researchers and colleagues demonstrated a method for isolating two molecules together on a substrate and controlling how those two molecules react when excited with ultraviolet light, making detailed observations both before and after the reaction. Their research is published today in the journal Science. "This is one step in measuring and understanding the interactions between light and molecules, which ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Man's best friend may provide more than just faithful companionship: A new study led by a Michigan State University researcher shows people who owned and walked their dogs were 34 percent more likely to meet federal benchmarks on physical activity. The results, said epidemiologist Mathew Reeves, show that promoting dog ownership and dog walking could help many Americans – of which fewer than half meet recommended levels of leisure-time physical activity – become healthier. "Walking is the most accessible form of physical activity available to people," ...

A new study says chimps, gorillas and other primates grow old gracefully much like humans. The findings come from the first-ever multi-species comparison of primate aging patterns reported in the March 11 issue of Science. It was long thought that humans, who have relatively long life spans, age more slowly than other animals. But new research funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology suggests the pace of human aging may not be so unique after all. We had good reason to think human aging was unique, said co-author Anne Bronikowski ...

LA JOLLA, CA – March 10, 2011 – Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have determined a new structure from a medically important superfamily of proteins. The structure should help instruct the design of a new kind of therapeutics for conditions ranging from Parkinson's disease to inflammation. The study, published on March 10, 2011, in Science Express, an advance, online publication of selected research from the journal Science, provides important insights into how this large family of proteins, called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), can recognize and respond ...

A University of Alberta researcher says grocery retailers need to take heed that a jump at the pumps will be a blow to their bottom line. Alberta School of Business professor Yu Ma notes that if stores want to survive, they'll have to change their tactics in the face of rising gas prices in order to attract shoppers "hungry" for better deals. Ma and his colleagues say that when the price of gas rises, the monthly grocery bill is the prime target for cuts. The researchers noted that there are two sets of decisions made in the gas versus grub dilemma. The first choice deals ...

The basketball is in your hands. The score is tied and there are only a few seconds left on the clock. You have the ball about 10 feet away from the basket on the right side of the court, just outside the free-throw lane. It's decision time: Is it best to try a direct shot to win the game on a swish? Or do you use the backboard and bank home the winning basket? Time's up; the buzzer sounds. Were you a hero or a goat? New research by engineers at North Carolina State University show that you had a better chance of scoring that particular game-winning bucket ...

New Orleans, LA – LSU oncologist Vince D. Cataldo, MD, is the lead author of a review article reporting two chemotherapy drugs now indicated for second and third-line therapy in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer are remarkably effective in treating a certain subset of these patients. Dr. Cataldo, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine, practicing at LSU's Earl K. Long Medical Center and Hematology-Oncology Clinic in Baton Rouge, and his colleagues say these drugs should be considered as a first-line ...