HOUSTON - An oral medication produces significant and lasting relief for patients with myelofibrosis, a debilitating and lethal bone marrow disorder, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center report in the Sept. 16 New England Journal of Medicine. Myelofibrosis is caused by the accumulation of malignant bone marrow cells that trigger an inflammatory response, scarring the bone marrow and limiting its ability to produce blood, causing anemia. "The problem with myelofibrosis is the lack of available therapies for patients - there are none approved ...

Tackling today's complex scientific questions often requires work from interdisciplinary collaborative research teams – and working in those teams can create its own problems. Now a group of researchers from around the country, including North Carolina State University, has published a commentary in the journal Science Translational Medicine outlining a new field of study that will help resolve problems facing interdisciplinary research teams. The new area of study, called the "science of team science," or SciTS (rhymes with sights), focuses on what works and what doesn't ...

Johns Hopkins scientists who specialize in unconventional hunts for genetic information outside nuclear DNA sequences have bagged a weighty quarry — 13 genes linked to human body mass. The experiments screened the so-called epigenome for key information that cells remember other than the DNA code itself and may have serious implications for preventing and treating obesity, the investigators say. "Some of the genes we found are in regions of the genome previously suspected but not confirmed for a link to body mass index and obesity," says co-lead investigator Andrew Feinberg, ...

Your friends are probably more popular than you are. And this "friendship paradox" may help predict the spread of infectious disease. Nicholas Christakis, professor of medicine, medical sociology and sociology at Harvard University, and James Fowler, professor of medical genetics and political science at the University of California, San Diego, used the paradox to study the 2009 flu epidemic among 744 students. The findings, the researchers say, point to a novel method for early detection of contagious outbreaks. Analyzing a social network and monitoring the health ...

The traditional practice of using night dreams to make major life decisions is in widespread use among modern Muslims, reveals a new study whose author is speaking at the British Science Festival on Thursday September 16*. Interviews with 60 Muslims in the UK, North America, Europe and Pakistan have revealed that night dreams are being used to make choices on issues like marriage, business, career development and politics. Research leader, Durham University anthropologist Dr Iain Edgar focused on the centuries-old practice of Istikhara, or Islamic 'dream incubation'. ...

NEW YORK, N.Y. (September 15, 2010) – Autism Speaks, the world's largest autism science and advocacy organization, and an international consortium of researchers, along with participating families, joined together to announce additional new autism genetic discoveries. The results were published today in Science Translational Medicine. Based on analysis of genomes collected from almost 2,250 individuals, including almost 2,000 with ASD and 246 with intellectual disabilities, and more than 10,000 controls, the researchers found PTCHD1 mutations or copy number variant (CNV) ...

The combination of depression and heart disease seems to be far more lethal than having either one of these conditions in isolation, suggests research published online in Heart. Previous research has indicated that people who are depressed, but otherwise healthy, are more likely to develop coronary heart disease, irrespective of what other risk factors they might have. And people who are depressed are more likely to die from all causes, but it still remains unclear as to whether depression is more fatal for those with heart disease than it is for those without. The ...

Even the lowest possible dose of aspirin (75 mg) can ward off bowel cancer, if taken regularly, finds research published online in the journal Gut. This protective effect is apparent after just one year and in the general population, not just those considered to be at risk of developing the disease, which is the second most common cause of cancer death in the world, killing almost half a million people every year. Although previous research has shown that aspirin protects against bowel cancer, it is not known what the most effective dose is and how long it needs to ...

A study published in the international scientific journal Addiction reveals that restrictions on pub closing times imposed in 2008 within the Australian city of Newcastle have reduced the assault rate by 37 per cent. The study, conducted at the University of Newcastle, shows the number of assaults in the Central Business District (CBD) fell from 33 per month before the restrictions were put in place, to 22 afterwards. The team of researchers, led by Associate Professor Kypros Kypri, compared the Newcastle CBD assault rates with those in the nearby suburb of Hamilton, ...

Policymakers should increase their sense of urgency to stop the global spread of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes that threaten the health and economies of industrialized and developing nations alike, Emory University global health researchers say. Writing in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, authors K. M. Venkat Narayan, MD, Mohammed Ali, MBChB, MSc, and Jeffrey Koplan, MD, MPH, assert that the worldwide spread of chronic conditions, also known as noncommunicable diseases, offers a unique opportunity for low-, middle- ...

Rosemont, Ill. – Several health plans have introduced physician rating systems to offer consumers more information when choosing their doctors. However, a recent study presented in the September issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) reveals that physician-tiering guidelines and results are not consistent across insurance companies, do not fully define quality; and could confuse consumers. Since affordable and more accessible health care is a critical national challenge, the use of rating systems will increase as one response to rising costs. Doctors ...

Simply getting older is not the cause of mild memory lapses often called senior moments, according to a new study by researchers at the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center. The study, published in the September 15, 2010, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that even the very early mild changes in memory that are much more common in old age than dementia are caused by the same brain lesions associated with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. "The very early mild cognitive changes once thought to be normal aging ...

In the Life After Cancer Epidemiology (LACE) study, 1,897 participants diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer between 1997 and 2000 and recruited on average 2 years post-breast cancer diagnosis were evaluated for the association between alcohol intake and breast cancer recurrence and death. The women, who were generally light drinkers, were followed for an average of 7.4 years. The study reported an increase in risk of breast cancer recurrence and breast cancer death, but no effect on total mortality, to be associated with consumption of 3 to 4 or more drinks per week ...

AUDIO: When men outnumber women, the women tend to marry younger and men engage in riskier, more aggressive behavior. Click here for more information. ANN ARBOR, Mich..---When men outnumber women, females marry younger and the age gap between spouses grows, a University of Michigan study shows. "Women don't stay on the market long because men are more motivated to commit," said Daniel Kruger, research assistant professor in the U-M School of Public Health. "They want to secure ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sept. 15, 2010 -- New insight into the structure of switchgrass and poplars is fueling discussions that could result in more efficient methods to turn biomass into biofuel. Researchers from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Georgia Tech used small-angle neutron scattering to probe the structural impact of an acid pretreatment of lignocellulose from switchgrass. Pretreatment is an essential step to extract cellulose, which can through a series of enzymatic procedures be converted into sugars and then ethanol. The findings, published ...

Air Force Office of Scientific Research-sponsored researcher, Dr. Robert Wood of Harvard University is leading the way in what could become the next phase of high-performance micro air vehicles for the Air Force. His basic research is on track to evolve into robotic, insect-scale devices for monitoring and exploration of hazardous environments, such as collapsed structures, caves and chemical spills. "We are developing a suite of capabilities which we hope will lead to MAVs that exceed the capabilities of existing small aircraft. The level of autonomy and mobility ...

(PHILADELPHIA) A molecule known to be involved in progressive heart failure has now been shown to also lead to permanent damage after a heart attack, according to researchers at Thomas Jefferson University. To prove this novel conclusion, the research team used gene therapy to inhibit the small protein, kinase known as G protein-coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2), and found heart muscles cells in mice were substantially protected against destruction that would otherwise occur after an induced myocardial infarction (MI), or heart attack. Conversely, mice engineered to ...

Hurricane Julia intensified rapidly overnight and is now a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale and NASA's Aqua, Terra and TRMM satellites captured clues as they passed over her from space. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed over intensifying hurricane Julia during the afternoon of Sept. 14 and captured very heavy rain falling at 1807 UTC (2:07 p.m. EDT). That heavy rainfall was a clue that she would intensify overnight, and today, Sept. 15, she has become a Category Four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. TRMM's Precipitation ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Studies show that nearly half of all Americans have difficulty understanding health information. Confusing medical directions, such as dosage and timing of prescription medicine, can lead to serious consequences including health setbacks, inappropriate hospital admissions and, sometimes, death. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri School of Health Professions are examining what health care facilities can do to increase patient understanding and positive outcomes. Diane Smith, an assistant professor in MU's Department of Occupational Therapy ...

Now there's a new reason to grab a glass of milk when you're on diet, suggests a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In a 2-year weight loss study, milk drinkers had an advantage over those who skipped the milk. Israeli researchers found that adults who drank the most milk (nearly 2 glasses per day) and had the highest vitamin D levels at 6 months, lost more weight after 2 years than those who had little or no milk or milk products -- nearly 12 pounds weight loss, on average. Researchers also found that each additional 6-ounce serving of ...

VIDEO: This animation shows the development of the soliton over the course of about 2.7 nanoseconds. Current begins passing through the channel in the center, causing the magnetization to oscillate.... Click here for more information. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have found theoretical evidence* of a new way to generate the high-frequency waves used in modern communication devices such as cell phones. Their analysis, if supported ...

HOUSTON -- (Sept. 15, 2010) -- In a new study this week, Rice University scientists bring the latest tools of computational biology to bear in examining how the processes of natural selection and evolution influence the way bacteria acquire immunity from disease. The study is available online from Physical Review Letters. It builds upon one of the major discoveries made possible by molecular genetics in the past decade -- the revelation that bacteria and similar single-celled organisms have an acquired immune system. "From a purely scientific perspective, this research ...

Recent puzzling observations of tiny variations in nuclear decay rates have led some to question the science of using decay rates to determine the relative ages of rocks and organic materials. Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), working with researchers from Purdue University, the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Wabash College, tested the hypothesis that solar radiation might affect the rate at which radioactive elements decay and found no detectable effect. Atoms of radioactive isotopes are unstable and ...

CHAMPAIGN, lll. – Researchers have found an association between physical fitness and the brain in 9- and 10-year-old children: Those who are more fit tend to have a bigger hippocampus and perform better on a test of memory than their less-fit peers. The new study, which used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the relative size of specific structures in the brains of 49 child subjects, appears in the journal Brain Research. "This is the first study I know of that has used MRI measures to look at differences in brain between kids who are fit and kids who aren't fit," ...

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are stepping up the pace for designing safer building evacuations by releasing large, numerical data sets that track the movement of people on stairs during high-rise building evacuation drills. The data sets will ensure that architects, engineers, emergency planners and others involved in building design have a strong technical basis for safer, more cost-effective building evacuations. "While stairs have been used in buildings for ages, there is little scientific understanding of how people use ...