PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study of nursing home records shows more residents with dementia are seeking a hospice benefit and using it longer. The study also estimates that 40 percent of nursing home residents die with some degree of dementia. Researchers hope the new data will help policymakers preserve the hospice benefit even as they seek to control Medicare costs. In newly published research analyzing data on more than 3.8 million deceased nursing home residents, researchers at Brown University and Hebrew SeniorLife/Deaconess Medical Center in Boston ...

Researchers from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) have been monitoring a cyclone on Saturn for more than five years. This makes it the longest-lasting cyclone detected to date on any of the giant planets of the Solar System. Images from the Cassini probe were used to carry out this study. "Cyclones – where the wind turns in the same direction as the planet – do not usually last for a long time, and so we were interested to discover one that had gone on for several years on Saturn", Teresa del Río-Gaztelurrutia, lead author of the study and a researcher at ...

MANHATTAN, KS – For years, gardeners have claimed that putting Bounce® fabric softener sheets in their pockets is an effective way to repel pests like mosquitoes and gnats. Any Internet search will uncover countless articles about the bug-repelling properties of Bounce®. Are these claims valid or simply folklore? The authors of a new study say that until now, no quantitative data has existed to substantiate these claims, but their latest research has revealed a definitive answer: Bounce® sheets do indeed repel adult gnats. In a report just published in HortScience, Kansas ...

Patients recovering from a right foot injury or surgery should think twice about how soon they want to begin driving again. According to a new study from the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), it takes much longer to brake when the driver is wearing an immobilization device - like a splint or brace, than it does when wearing normal footwear. Driving is important to many people's social and professional lives, so when a person's right ankle or foot must be immobilized after an injury or surgery, one of the first questions an orthopaedic surgeon hears is, "When can ...

Carrageenan, is a polymer derived from red seaweed which helps to create a protective physical barrier in the nasal cavity and has proven to be an effective antiviral in the treatment of the common cold. The present study assessed the efficacy of Carrageenan against influenza viruses, including the pandemic H1N1 influenza strain. Results showed that the polymer directly binds to influenza viruses, effectively blocking the virus from attaching to cells and spreading further. In animal experiments, Carrageenan demonstrated equivalent efficacy when compared to the drug Tamiflu. ...

Humans are consuming an increasing amount of the Earth's total annual land plant production, new NASA research has found. As the human population continues to grow and more societies develop modern economies, this rate of consumption is increasing both as a whole and on a per capita basis globally. In addition to as food, plants are consumed for paper, clothing, livestock feed, firewood, biofuels, building and packaging materials, among other uses. A NASA research group led by Marc Imhoff at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., first quantified this global ...

CHICAGO (December 15, 2010) – Delaying elective surgical procedures after a patient has been admitted to the hospital significantly increases the risk of infectious complications and raises hospital costs, according to the results of a new study in the December issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The occurrence of infection following surgical procedures continues to be a major source of morbidity and expense despite extensive prevention efforts that have been implemented through educational programs, clinical guidelines, and hospital-based policies. ...

University of Guelph researchers have finally figured out why female squirrels are so darn promiscuous. Turns out it has nothing to do with genes and everything to do with how many males are knocking at their door. "Their behaviour is overwhelmingly influenced by opportunity," said graduate student Eryn McFarlane, who, along with integrative biology professor Andrew McAdam and a team of researchers from across Canada, solved a mystery that has baffled biologists for years. Their findings appear in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters. Female squirrels are less ...

An effort to increase biofuel production has led scientists to discover genes in yeast that improve their tolerance to ethanol, allowing them to produce more ethanol from the same amount of nutrients. This study, published in the December 2010 issue of Genetics (http://www.genetics.org), shows how genetically altered yeast cells survive higher ethanol concentrations, addressing a bottleneck in the production of ethanol from cellulosic material (nonfood plant sources) in quantities that could make it economically competitive with fossil fuels. "Our hope is that this ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The northernmost mummified forest ever found in Canada is revealing how plants struggled to endure a long-ago global cooling. Researchers believe the trees -- buried by a landslide and exquisitely preserved 2 to 8 million years ago -- will help them predict how today's Arctic will respond to global warming. They also suspect that many more mummified forests could emerge across North America as Arctic ice continues to melt. As the wood is exposed and begins to rot, it could release significant amounts of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Dec. 15, 2010 – Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., have developed a new skills assessment tool for colonoscopy trainees. A report outlining the development and validation of the Mayo Colonoscopy Skills Assessment Tool (MCSAT), designed for the assessment of cognitive and motor skills during colonoscopy training, appears in the December issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE). Ensuring that gastroenterology fellows and surgery ...

By determining what goes missing in human cells when the gene that is most commonly mutated in pancreatic cancer gets turned on, Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered a potential strategy for therapy. The production of a particular cluster of genetic snippets known as microRNAs is dramatically reduced in human pancreatic tumor cells compared to healthy tissue, the researchers report in a study published Dec. 15 in Genes and Development. When the team restored this tiny regulator, called miR-143/145, back to normal levels in human pancreatic cancer cells, those cells ...

In a proof of principal study in mice, scientists at Johns Hopkins and the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) have shown that a set of genetic instructions encased in a nanoparticle can be used as an "ignition switch" to rev up gene activity that aids cancer detection and treatment. The switch, called a promoter, is a set of chemical letters that interacts with DNA to turn on gene activity. In this case, the scientists used a promoter called PEG-Prom, cloned by VCU researcher Paul Fisher, Ph.D. PEG-Prom is activated only when inside cancer cells, not in normal ones. "With ...

Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia researchers have developed a technique that can diagnose a common type of pneumonia within minutes, potentially replacing existing tests that can take several days for results. The researchers, whose findings are detailed online in the journal PLoS ONE, detected Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which causes atypical or "walking pneumonia," in true clinical samples with over 97 percent accuracy using a recently-developed nanotechnology-based platform. "If you can make a positive identification from a 10-minute test, then appropriate antibiotics ...

People who watch funny videos on the internet at work aren't necessarily wasting time. They may be taking advantage of the latest psychological science—putting themselves in a good mood so they can think more creatively. "Generally, positive mood has been found to enhance creative problem solving and flexible yet careful thinking," says Ruby Nadler, a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario. She and colleagues Rahel Rabi and John Paul Minda carried out a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. ...

HOUSTON - The recently identified TRIM24 protein plays an active role in pushing normal breast cells into rapid cell proliferation and, potentially, into breast cancer. Reporting in the journal Nature, a team led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found that TRIM24 (tripartite motif-containing 24) pushes estrogen-responsive genes toward active expression. This expression, in turn, sets the stage for malignant transformation of breast cells. TRIM24 functions by reading a specific code, or signature, present at estrogen-regulated genes and ...

Rising concentrations of zinc in a waterway on Colorado's Western Slope may be the result of climate change that is affecting the timing of annual snowmelt, says a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. The study focused on the Snake River watershed just west of the Continental Divide near Keystone, Colo., where CU-Boulder researchers have observed a four-fold increase in dissolved zinc over the last 30 years during the lowest water flow months, said Caitlin Crouch. Crouch, a master's degree student who led the study, said the high levels of zinc affect ...

A new study from researchers at North Carolina State University sheds light on how a technique that is commonly used for making single-metal nanoparticles can be extended to create nanoparticles consisting of two metals – and that have tunable properties. The study also provides insight into the optical properties of some of these nanoparticles. Tuning the optical properties of nanoparticles is of interest for applications such as security technology, and for use in making chemical reactions more efficient – which has multiple industrial and environmental applications. ...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2010 — The quest to cure a terrible form of food poisoning caused by population explosions of algae that stain the water red and produce a potent toxin is the topic of a new episode in the American Chemical Society (ACS) Prized Science video series. Entitled "Taming the Red Tides," the high-definition video, released today, focuses on Michael Crimmins, Ph.D., winner of the 2010 Ernest Guenther Award in the Chemistry of Natural Products. Crimmins, a chemist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, studies brevetoxin A, a poison produced ...

Findings from a new study of 141 adults add to an ongoing medical debate over which patients with symptoms of celiac disease should go on a gluten-free diet. Published in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research, the study concludes that people currently diagnosed as "potential" celiac disease patients and not advised to follow a gluten-free diet may not be "potential" patients at all. Rather, the scientists found that these patients have the same distinctive metabolic fingerprint as patients with full-blown disease who do benefit from gluten-free diets. In the study, Ivano ...

In a study that the authors describe as lending credence to the idiom, "by the skin of your teeth," scientists are reporting that the protective shield fluoride forms on teeth is up to 100 times thinner than previously believed. It raises questions about how this renowned cavity-fighter really works and could lead to better ways of protecting teeth from decay, the scientists suggest. Their study appears in ACS' journal Langmuir. Frank Müller and colleagues point out that tooth decay is a major public health problem worldwide. In the United States alone, consumers spend ...

Manufacturer recalls of toys, promotional drinking glasses, and other children's products constitute an ongoing "toxic toys crisis" that requires banning potentially harmful ingredients in these products and other changes in policy and practices. That's the conclusion of a new analysis in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology. Monica Becker, Sally Edwards and Rachel Massey note that in June the United States government recalled 12 million promotional drinking glasses sold at a fast-food restaurant chain because the painted coating contained cadmium, a toxic ...

Montreal, December 15, 2010 – Conduct disorders in preteens are predictive of eventual teenage serious violent and delinquent behavior, according to a new study from the Université de Montréal. The findings, published in this month's issue of Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, have implications for concerned parents. Preteens who steal, destroy property, fight and bully are six times as likely to sell illicit drugs, nine times as likely to join a gang, 11 times as likely to carry a weapon and eight times as likely to be arrested as a future teenager, according ...

With chitlins about to make their annual appearance on Christmas and New Year's Day menus, scientists have good news for millions of people who love that delicacy of down-home southern cooking, but hate the smell. They are reporting the first identification of an ingredient in cilantro that quashes the notoriously foul odor of chitlins — a smell known to drive people from the house when chitlins are cooking. Their report appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Yasuyoshi Hayata and colleagues note that chitlins — hog large intestines — are infamous ...

A mounting tide of scientific evidence suggests that the old adage from Aesop's fables — "You are known by the company you keep" — also applies to the trillions of microscopic bacteria and viruses that live on the human body. Humanity's invisible but constant companions — more bacteria hang out on the palms of your hands than there are people on Earth — is the topic of an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine. C&EN Associate Editor Sarah Everts notes in the article that the astonishing diversity of microbes inhabiting ...