In recent human trials for a promising new class of drug designed to target the hepatitis C virus (HCV) without shutting down the immune system, some of the HCV strains being treated exhibited signs of drug resistance. In response, an interdisciplinary team of Florida State University biologists, chemists and biomedical researchers devised a novel genetic screening method that can identify the drug-resistant HCV strains and the molecular-level mechanisms that make them that way –– helping drug developers to tailor specific therapies to circumvent them. The potentially ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- In the largest, most modern, single-institution study of its kind, Mayo Clinic urologists mined a long-term data registry for survival rates of patients who underwent radical prostatectomy (http://www.mayoclinic.org/radical-prostatectomy/) for localized prostate cancer. The findings are being presented at the North Central Section of the American Urological Association's 84th Annual Meeting in Chicago. A radical prostatectomy is an operation to remove the prostate gland and some of the tissue around it. In this study, Mayo Clinic researchers discovered ...

Results from a 12-month multi-center clinical trial did not show therapeutic benefit of abatacept over placebo in patients with non-life threatening systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Abatacept failed to prevent new disease flares in SLE patients tapered from corticosteroids in an analysis where mild, moderate and severe disease flares were evaluated together. Full details of the phase IIb clinical trial are published in the October issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). The ACR estimates that 161,000 to 322,000 adults ...

NASA is providing data from three satellites to give forecasters valuable information on newly strengthened Tropical Storm Nicole. Nicole was Tropical Depression 16 until 11 a.m. EDT, Sept. 29 and NASA data helped confirm her new designation. Satellite data from NASA showed frigid thunderstorm cloud top temperatures, heavy rainfall, and extensive cloud cover as Nicole strengthened. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument uses infrared technology to take a tropical cyclone's temperature. AIRS sits on NASA's Aqua satellite and captured an image of those cloud ...

PHILADELPHIA –- Computational biologists at the University of Pennsylvania say that species are still accumulating on Earth but at a slower rate than in the past. In the study, published in the journal PLoS Biology, Penn researchers developed a novel computational approach to infer the dynamics of species diversification using the family trees of present-day species. Using nine patterns of diversification as alternative models, they examined 289 phylogenies, or evolutionary trees, representing amphibians, arthropods, birds, mammals, mollusks and flowering plants. The ...

The Department of the Interior, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the co-trustees for natural resources affected by the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill announced today they have started the injury assessment and restoration planning phase of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment, a legal process to determine the type and amount of restoration needed to compensate the public for harm to natural resources and their human uses as a result of the spill. This is the second phase of the NRDA process. Much of the initial "preassessment" phase has already ...

A study led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego shows that California's 40 year-long tobacco control program has resulted in lung cancer rates that are nearly 25 percent lower than other states. "The consistency in the trends from cigarette sales and population surveys was reassuring" said John P. Pierce, PhD, Sam M. Walton Professor of Cancer Research in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at UCSD School of Medicine and director of the Population Sciences Division at Moores UCSD Cancer Center. "What is really important is that the widening ...

September 28, 2010 – Although first responders willingly put themselves in harm's way during disasters, new research indicates that they may not be as willing— if the disaster is a potentially lethal pandemic. In a recent study, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that more than 50% of the first responders and other essential workers they surveyed might be absent from work during a serious pandemic, even if they were healthy. The study, reported online in the October issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Apparently your mom had it right when she threatened to wash your mouth out with soap if you talked dirty. Lying really does create a desire to clean the "dirty" body part, according to a University of Michigan study. "The references to 'dirty hands' or 'dirty mouths' in everyday language suggest that people think about abstract issues of moral purity in terms of more concrete experiences with physical purity," said Spike W.S. Lee, a U-M doctoral candidate in psychology, who conducted the study with Norbert Schwarz, a psychologist at the U-M Institute ...

Social promotions such as those offered by deal-of-the-day website Groupon are wildly popular with shoppers, but they might not be as big a hit for businesses, according to a recent study by Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. Groupon promotions were profitable for 66 percent of the businesses surveyed for the study, but they were unprofitable for 32 percent. More than 40 percent of the respondents indicated they would not run such a promotion again. Groupon is a social promotion site that features a daily deal for each city in which it operates ...

Administering a new form of immunotherapy to children with neuroblastoma, a nervous system cancer, increased the percentage of those who were alive and free of disease progression after two years, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and fellow institutions. The percentage rose from 46 percent for children receiving a standard therapy to 66 percent for children receiving immunotherapy plus standard therapy, according to the study published in the Sept. 30, 2010 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "This is the ...

A research and development effort by the University of Notre Dame, the University of Wyoming, and Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. has succeeded in producing transgenic silkworms capable of spinning artificial spider silks. "This research represents a significant breakthrough in the development of superior silk fibers for both medical and non-medical applications," said Malcolm J. Fraser Jr., a Notre Dame professor of biological sciences. "The generation of silk fibers having the properties of spider silks has been one of the important goals in materials science." Natural ...

A CEO's fate might be in the hands of external constituents, according to a new study from Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business. The study found that investment analysts and their negative stock ratings can sway a board to dismiss its CEO. Conventional research has focused on internal factors that contribute to CEO dismissal -- poor firm performance and organization power and politics. But the new study, published by the Strategic Management Journal, turned its attention outward to discover the significant influence investment analysts have on a board ...

NASA has chosen the Naval Research Laboratory's (NRL's) Wide-field Imager to be part of the Solar Probe Plus mission slated for launch no later than 2018. The Solar Probe Plus, a small car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the sun's atmosphere approximately four million miles from our star's surface. It will explore a region no other spacecraft ever has encountered in an effort to unlock the sun's biggest mysteries. For decades, scientists have known that the corona, or the outer atmosphere, is several hundreds of times hotter than the visible solar surface ...

Cigarettes are the most frequent cause of fatalities from residential fires in the United States. So, it might seem surprising to learn that a cigarette that burns stronger than others has been used for decades by manufacturers of home furnishings to test the fire resistance of their products. Making certain that they can continue this life- and property-saving effort is the job of a new standard reference material (SRM) from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST SRM 1196, "Standard Cigarette for Ignition Resistance Testing," consists of 10 packs ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – September 29, 2010 – The October issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), features the results of two randomized controlled trials of unsedated colonoscopy comparing water infusion versus air insufflation to distend the colon. Both studies showed that patient tolerance with the water method during unsedated colonoscopy was greater than with air insufflation and enhanced patient willingness to undergo a repeat unsedated exam; however, the cecal intubation ...

While refining their novel method for making nanoscale wires, chemists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) discovered an unexpected bonus—a new way to create nanowires that produce light similar to that from light-emitting diodes (LEDs). These "nano-LEDs" may one day have their light-emission abilities put to work serving miniature devices such as nanogenerators or lab-on-a-chip systems. Nanowires typically are "grown" by the controlled deposition of molecules—zinc oxide, for example—from a gas onto a base material, a process called chemical vapor ...

Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, have become popular with backpackers and cyclists who mount them on headbands for a reliable, hands-free source of illumination. Now, a new lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is helping to bring these tiny but brilliant devices into your home, to help save both energy costs and the environment. "LEDs can be very energy efficient, and they are a lot smaller and last a lot longer than light bulbs," says NIST vision scientist Wendy Davis. "They're what we'll likely use in the future to light our houses and public ...

Bowling Green, OH—September 29, 2010— A forthcoming issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family states that children today are less likely to be born into a "traditional" family structure, defined as two biological married parents. Growing numbers of children in the United States experience multiple family living arrangements during childhood. How these transitions affect the individual child's well-being needs to be fully addressed by researchers and policymakers alike. This article fully reviews the existing research from the past ten years on these topics in an effort ...

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the International Association of Fire Fighters have prepared an educational resource for fire chiefs, firefighters, and public officials to summarize and explain the key results of a landmark study on the effect of the size of firefighting crews on the ability of the fire service to protect lives and property in residential fires. The study, Report on Residential Fireground Field Experiments, was published by NIST last April. The study is the first to quantify the effects of crew sizes and ...

VIDEO: This study finds higher survival rate at every stage of breast cancer. Click here for more information. HOUSTON - Advances in screening for disease detection, better surgical techniques available to more women, and an increased number of therapies that reduce the risk of relapse in patients with both locally advanced and early stage disease, have collectively contributed to dramatic improvements in breast cancer's survival rates, according to a review of 60 years ...

New research challenges the controversial theory that an ancient comet impact devastated the Clovis people, one of the earliest known cultures to inhabit North America. Writing in the October issue of Current Anthropology, archaeologists Vance Holliday (University of Arizona) and David Meltzer (Southern Methodist University) argue that there is nothing in the archaeological record to suggest an abrupt collapse of Clovis populations. "Whether or not the proposed extraterrestrial impact occurred is a matter for empirical testing in the geological record," the researchers ...

TORONTO, ON – Is there a downside to schedule control at work? According to new research out of the University of Toronto, people who have more schedule control at work tend to report more blurring of the boundaries between work and the other parts of their lives, especially family-related roles. Researchers measured the extent of schedule control and its impact on work-family processes using data from a national survey of more than 1,200 American workers. Sociology professor Scott Schieman (U of T) and PhD student Marisa Young (U of T) asked study participants: "Who ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Ghanaian Obstetrics and Gynecology residents say in-country training programs contributed to their decision to remain in their home country to practice medicine, new University of Michigan research shows. The retention of trained health care providers in developing countries is a key component to improving health and achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, which aim to decrease maternal and child mortality. But the migration of health workers from developing to developed countries has resulted in a health care workforce crisis that ...

HOUSTON - Patients with triple negative breast cancer that also have mutations in the BRCA gene appear to have a lower risk of recurrence, compared to those with the same disease without the deleterious genetic mutation, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The findings may offer a direction for study of personalized therapy in this select group of triple negative breast cancer patients, as well as highlight the unique need for genetic testing in a patient population. Ana M. Gonzalez-Angulo, M.D., associate professor in MD Anderson's ...