LOS ANGELES – Increasing puromycin-sensitive aminopeptidase, the most abundant brain peptidase in mammals, slowed the damaging accumulation of tau proteins that are toxic to nerve cells and eventually lead to the neurofibrillary tangles, a major pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, according to a study published online in the journal, Human Molecular Genetics. Researchers found they could safely increase the puromycin-sensitive aminopeptidase, PSA/NPEPPS, by two to three times the usual amount in animal models, and it removed the ...

Children with hip and thigh implants designed to help heal a broken bone or correct other bone conditions are at risk for subsequent fractures of the very bones that the implants were intended to treat, according to new research from Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Findings of the Johns Hopkins study, based on an analysis of more than 7,500 pediatric bone implants performed at Hopkins over 15 years, will be presented Feb. 16 at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Although the absolute risk among the patients was relatively small — nine ...

Scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have begun to unravel how blood stem cells regenerate themselves, identifying a key gene required for the process. The discovery that the Erg gene is vitally important to blood stem cells' unique ability to self-renew could give scientists new opportunities to use blood stem cells for tissue repair, transplantation and other therapeutic applications. Professor Doug Hilton, Dr Samir Taoudi and colleagues from the institute's Molecular Medicine and Cancer and Haematology divisions led the study. Dr Taoudi said the research ...

An international team of scientists including Albert Poustka from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin has discovered that Xenoturbellida and the acoelomorph worms, both simple marine worms, are more closely related to complex organisms like humans and sea urchins than was previously assumed. As a result they have made a major revision to the phylogenetic history of animals. Up to now, the acoelomate worms were viewed as the crucial link between simple animals like sponges and jellyfish and more complex organisms. It has now emerged that these animals ...

VIDEO: To test their capacity to learn, the mice are trained to find an underwater platform which is not visible to them from the edge of a water basin. The swimming... Click here for more information. Amyloid-beta and tau protein deposits in the brain are characteristic features of Alzheimer disease. The effect on the hippocampus, the area of the brain that plays a central role in learning and memory, is particularly severe. However, it appears that the toxic effect of tau ...

Scientists have discovered that insects contain atomic clues as to the habitats in which they are most able to survive. The research has important implications for predicting the effects of climate change on the insects, which make up three-quarters of the animal kingdom. Applying a method previously only used to examine the possible effects of climate change on plants, scientists from the University of Cambridge can now determine the climatic tolerances of individual insects. Their research was published today, 16 February, in the scientific journal Biology Letters. Because ...

Ebstein's anomaly is a rare congenital valvular heart disease. Now, in patients with this disease, researchers of the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the University of Newcastle, UK and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch have identified mutations in a gene which plays an important role in the structure of the heart. The researchers hope that these findings will lead to faster diagnosis and novel, more specifically targeted treatment methods (Circulation Cardiovascular Genetics, DOI: 10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.110.957985)*. Ebstein's ...

Researchers at Toshiba are working on a way of finding clusters of like-minded bloggers and others online using "social annotations". Social annotations are the tags and keywords, the comments and feedback that users, both content creators and others associate with their content. Their three-step approach could help you home in on people in a particular area of expertise much more efficiently and reliably than simply following search engine results. The same tools might also be used in targeted marketing. Users of photo gallery sites, such as Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/) ...

The first study of its kind in the world — involving 336 children aged between six months and 16 years old — has shown that installing a water softener for three months brings no additional relief for eczema sufferers. Up to one fifth of all children of school age have eczema, along with about one in 12 of the adult population. Anecdotal reports from patients have suggested that hard water may worsen atopic eczema. Population surveys have also suggested a possible link between atopic eczema prevalence and the degree of water hardness. It had been hoped that water softeners ...

Philadelphia, PA, 16 February 2011 - Lithium, introduced in the late 1940's, was the first "wonder drug" in psychiatry. It was the first medication treatment for the manic and depressive episodes of bipolar disorder and it remains among one of the most effective treatments for this disorder. In the past 15 years, as molecular mechanisms underlying the treatment of bipolar disorder began to emerge, basic research studies conducted in animals began to identify neuroprotective and perhaps neurotrophic effects of this important medication. The identification of these ...

Pioneering Spanish provinces in terms of early prevention of breast cancer, such as Navarre and the Basque Country, record lower death rates, although the trend is towards the figures levelling out all over Spain. These are the results of a study carried out by Spanish researchers, which analyses the number of women who died between 1975 and 2005. "The Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, some parts of Catalonia, Valencia and Murcia, as well as the south west region, have higher breast cancer death rates, although there is a trend towards the geographical differences disappearing", ...

WASHINGTON—February 16, 2011— Research!America's board chair, former Congressman John Edward Porter, and president, Mary Woolley, thanked President Obama for prioritizing medical, health and scientific research in his FY2012 budget proposal. The president's budget includes $31.829 billion for the National Institutes of Health ($745 million increase over 2010); $7.8 billion for the National Science Foundation ($1.2 billion increase over 2010); and $2.747 billion for the Food and Drug Administration ($382 million increase over 2010). The budget proposes $5.8 billion for ...

Tomatoes spend so much time on shelves and in refrigerators that an estimated 20 percent are lost to spoilage, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). But scientists with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are working with colleagues at Purdue University to extend the shelf life of tomatoes. The research also may lead to tomatoes that taste better and are more nutritious. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency, and the research results support the USDA priority of promoting international food security. Autar Mattoo, a ...

What matters for commuters is not just if the train will be on time, but how long the journey will take. It's an important factor in public transportation and can make the difference in helping commuters choose mass transit over more polluting and costly transport like cars or airplanes. Dr. Tal Raviv and his graduate student Mor Kaspi of Tel Aviv University's Department of Industrial Engineering in the Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering have developed a tool that makes passenger train journeys shorter, especially when transfers are involved — a computer-based ...

Smokers who continue to smoke while undergoing radiation treatments for head and neck cancer fare significantly worse than those who quit smoking before therapy, according to a study in the February issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, an official journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). Although the association between tobacco smoking and head and neck cancers has long been established, there had been little data until now showing whether continued smoking during treatment affects prognosis. "I've always ...

TACOMA, WA —February 16, 2011— An article published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress is one of the first to provide evidence of the effectiveness of exposure therapy with active duty military service members suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study shows that virtual reality exposure therapy resulted in significant reductions in PTSD symptoms after an average of seven treatment sessions. Additionally, 62 % of patients reported clinically meaningful, reliable change in PTSD symptoms. During the treatment the soldier repeatedly ...

A psychological scientist in Germany has found a way that cell phones, and specifically texting, have hacked into our brains. Just by typing the numbers that correspond to the letters in a word like "love," we can activate the meaning of that word in our minds. The results are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. For the study, Sascha Topolinski and his students at the University of Würzburg in Germany created a list of German words that can be typed on a cell phone keypad without typing the same digit twice in a ...

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Latino siblings of children developmental disabilities such as Down syndrome and autism may face their own challenges, including anxiety and lower school performance, according to a new study led by researchers with the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center. "When a child has a disability, all members of the family are affected, including siblings," said lead author Debra Lobato, Ph.D., of the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center. "However, little attention has been paid to the influence of cultural factors on the functioning of siblings. ...

Ottawa – Patients who participate in clinical trials expect that their personal information will remain confidential, but a recent study led by Dr. Khaled El-Emam, Canada Research Chair in Electronic Health Information at the CHEO Research Institute, found that the security practices used to transfer and share sensitive files were inadequate. The two-part study, entitled "How Strong Are Passwords Used to Protect Personal Health Information in Clinical Trials?", published today in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, showed that the majority of passwords used to ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Geologists drilling an exploratory geothermal well in 2009 in the Krafla volcano in Iceland encountered a problem they were simply unprepared for: magma (molten rock or lava underground) which flowed unexpectedly into the well at 2.1 kilometers (6,900 ft) depth, forcing the researchers to terminate the drilling. "To the best of our knowledge, only one previous instance of magma flowing into a geothermal well while drilling has been documented," said Wilfred Elders, a professor emeritus of geology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University ...

Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have discovered a novel function of brain insulin, indicating that impaired brain insulin action may be the cause of the unrestrained lipolysis that initiates and worsens type 2 diabetes in humans. The research is published this month in the journal Cell Metabolism. Led by Christoph Buettner, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the research team first infused a tiny amount of insulin into the brains of rats and then assessed glucose ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Children as young as 5 years old can learn how to use a computer mouse, new research suggests. While age is an important component in determining how well a child controls a mouse, the study also found that how frequently a child practices may be even more important. "Learning how to use a computer has become as important as writing and reading in the classroom," says Alison Lane, an assistant professor of occupational therapy at Ohio State University. "Since the frequency of computer mouse use is as important as age, it might be beneficial to introduce ...

Frogs appear to be very sensitive to progestogens, a kind of pharmaceutical that is released into the environment. Female tadpoles that swim in water containing a specific progestogen, levonorgestrel, are subject to abnormal ovarian and oviduct development, resulting in adult sterility. This is shown by a new study conducted at Uppsala University and published today in the scientific journal Aquatic Toxicology. Many of the medicines that people consume are released into the environment via sewage systems. Progestogens are hormone preparations used in contraceptives, cancer ...

TORONTO, February 16, 2011 − One of the tough challenges a parent faces when a child dies is to learn how to parent the surviving children, and the task begins immediately, according to York University psychology professor Stephen Fleming. From the moment their child dies, parents are faced with the two extremes of loss and life – the suffocating loss of a child and the ongoing, daily demands from their surviving children, says Fleming, co-author of the recently-published book, Parenting After the Death of a Child: A Practitioner's Guide. "The challenge that parents ...

Proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget for 2011 will limit the nation's ability to advance patient care and public health. The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) strongly opposes the proposed $1.6 billion reduction to the NIH budget included in the continuing resolution (fiscal year 2011) being debated in the House of Representatives. The nation's longstanding commitment to better health has established the United States as a world leader in medical research and innovation. This leading position will be endangered should the 5.2 percent decrease ...