WASHINGTON -- The American Geophysical Union (AGU) today endorses President Barack Obama's 2012 budget request, specifically noting its recognition of the critical impact scientific research has on economic competitiveness, national security and public health. AGU is the world's largest organization of Earth and space scientists. "While the need to reduce the national debt is real, support for scientific research and engineering is absolutely critical to U.S. innovation and job creation," said Michael J. McPhaden, AGU's President. "As we search for the solutions ...

BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL, February 15, 2011 – Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researchers have developed techniques to manipulate root development functionality that can help plants better adapt to hostile growing environments. In a recent paper published in the prestigious journal The Plant Cell, BGU researchers were able show that by manipulating a specific gene they could impact lateral root growth. Lateral root (LR) development is a highly regulated process that determines a plant's growth and ability to adapt to life in different environmental conditions. The researchers ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Physical Society (APS) agrees with President Obama's emphasis on science in his proposed Fiscal Year 2012 budget. His priorities keep the nation on a path of scientific advancement, technological innovation and economic growth. APS is pleased that the President's budget maintains a doubling path for the three scientific agencies that are crucial to our nation's future competitiveness – the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Scientists, who receive ...

More than a third of coral reef fish species are in jeopardy of local extinction from the impacts of climate change on coral reefs, a new scientific study has found. (Local extinction refers to the loss of species from individual locations, while they continue to persist elsewhere across their range.) A new predictive method developed by an international team of marine scientists has found that a third of reef fishes studied across the Indian Ocean are potentially vulnerable to increasing stresses on the reefs due to climate change. The method also gives coral reef ...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children's Hospital have defined the cell of origin for a kind of cancer called sarcoma. In a study published today as the Featured Article in the journal Cancer Cell, they report that childhood and adult sarcomas are linked in their biology, mutations and the cells from which these tumors first start. These findings may lead to non-chemotherapy medicines that can inhibit "molecular targets" such as growth factor receptors, thereby stopping or eradicating the disease. Childhood muscle cancer, ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders may be at higher risk for hemorrhagic stroke at a younger age and more likely to have diabetes compared to other ethnicities, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 63rd Annual Meeting in Honolulu April 9 to April 16, 2011. "Racial differences in stroke risk factors have been well-studied in Hispanic and African-American populations, but this is the first study to address people of Native Hawaiian ethnicity," said study author Kazuma Nakagawa, MD, with ...

Contact: Jonathan Covault, M.D., Ph.D. jocovault@uchc.edu 860-679-7560 University of Connecticut School of Medicine A. Leslie Morrow, Ph.D. morrow@med.unc.edu 919-966-7682 University of North Carolina School of Medicine Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research How genetic variations in neuroactive steroid-producing enzymes may influence drinking habits Alcohol dependence (AD) may develop through alcohol's effects on neural signaling. Researchers have found that neuroactive steroids may mediate some of the effects of alcohol on γ-aminobutyric ...

Contact: Richard J. Rose, Ph.D. rose@indiana.edu 812-855-8770 Indiana University Matt McGue, Ph.D. mmcgue@tfs.psych.umn.edu 612-625-8305 University of Minnesota Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Why problem drinking during adolescence is never a 'phase' The Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index (RAPI) is widely used to assess adolescent drinking-related problems. Researchers used adolescent RAPI scores to
examine diagnoses of alcohol dependence during young adulthood. More drinking-related problems experienced at age 18 were associated ...

Contact: Katherine P. Theall, Ph.D. ktheall@tulane.edu 504-988-4535 Tulane University School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Density of neighborhood liquor stores is especially risky for African-Americans who drink Previous studies have shown a strong link between neighborhood alcohol environments and outcomes such as drunk driving and violence. This study investigated linkages between neighborhood liquor stores, on-premise outlets, convenience stores, and supermarket densities and at-risk drinking among African ...

Contact: Ian Demsky idemsky@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Alcohol's disruptive effects on sleep may be more pronounced among women Researchers have known for decades that alcohol can initially deepen sleep during the early part of the night but then disrupt sleep during the latter part of the night; this is called a "rebound effect." A new study of the influence of gender and family history of alcoholism on sleep has found that intoxication can increase feelings of sleepiness while at the same time ...

A paper published in this week's issue of PLoS Medicine provides the most detailed assessment thus far of civilian deaths in the course of the recent Iraq war. Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks from King's College London, UK and colleagues analyzed data from Iraq Body Count (IBC), a nongovernmental project that collates media reports of deaths of individual Iraqi civilians and cross-checks these reports with data from hospitals, morgues, nongovernmental organizations, and official figures. The authors studied 92,614 Iraqi civilian direct deaths from the IBC database that occurred ...

Although there is no evidence to suggest a direct causal pathway, some intravaginal practices used by women in sub-Saharan Africa (such as washing the vagina with soap) may increase the acquisition of HIV infection and so should be avoided. Encouraging women to use less harmful intravaginal practices (for example, washing with water alone) should therefore be included in female-initiated HIV prevention research strategies in sub-Saharan Africa. These are the key findings from a study by Nicola Low, from the University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, and colleagues and published ...

Water softeners provide no additional clinical benefit to usual care in children with eczema, so the use of ion-exchange water softeners for the treatment of moderate to severe eczema in children should not be recommended. However, it is up to each family to decide whether or not the wider benefits of installing a water softener in their home are sufficient to consider buying one. These are the findings of a study by Kim Thomas from the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, and colleagues and published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The authors conducted their randomised ...

New research sheds light on the interaction between the semi-flexible protein tropomyosin and actin thin filaments. The study, published by Cell Press on February 15th in the Biophysical Journal, provides the first detailed atomic model of tropomyosin bound to actin and significantly advances the understanding of the dynamic relationship between these key cellular proteins. Tropomyosin is a long protein that associates with actin, a highly conserved thin filament protein found in organisms from yeast to humans. Actin, a major part of the cell's cytoskeleton, drives shape ...

VIDEO: This movie shows a typical (wild type) mouse as it spends much more time exploring an object it has never seen before and little time with the object it has... Click here for more information. DURHAM, N.C. – Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have uncovered clues to memory and learning by exploring the function of a single gene that governs how neurons form new connections. The finding may also provide insights into a form of human mental retardation. In a ...

PHILADELPHIA—Researchers from Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center have genetic evidence suggesting the antioxidant drugs currently used to treat lung disease, malaria and even the common cold can also help prevent and treat cancers because they fight against mitochondrial oxidative stress—a culprit in driving tumor growth. For the first time, the researchers show that loss of the tumor suppressor protein Caveolin-1 (Cav-1) induces mitochondrial oxidative stress in the stromal micro-environment, a process that fuels cancer cells in most common types of breast cancer. "Now ...

Elderly Medicare black patients have a higher 30-day hospital readmission rate for several conditions including congestive heart failure and pneumonia compared to white patients, that is related in part to higher readmission rates among hospitals that disproportionately care for black patients, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA. "Racial disparities in health care are well documented, and eliminating them remains a national priority. Reducing readmissions has become a policy focus because it represents an opportunity to simultaneously improve quality ...

An analysis of data including more than 500,000 adults indicates that levels in the blood of bilirubin (a compound produced by the breakdown of hemoglobin from red blood cells) in the normal range but relatively higher were associated with a reduced risk of lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and all-cause death, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA. Serum total bilirubin is routinely measured in the primary care setting to identify hepatobiliary (liver, gall bladder and bile ducts) and blood diseases. Bilirubin may have cytoprotective ...

Among a group of children's hospitals, nearly 20 percent of admissions and one-quarter of inpatient expenditures were accounted for by a small percentage of patients who have frequent recurrent admissions, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA. Hospital readmission is increasingly considered an indicator of quality of care. Some children with chronic illnesses may be readmitted on a recurrent basis, but there are limited data regarding the impact of their rehospitalizations, according to background information in the article. "Children with chronic conditions ...

Accurate transmission of genetic information requires the precise replication of DNA. Errors in DNA replication are common and nature has developed several cellular mechanisms for repairing these mistakes. Mutations, which can be deleterious (development of cancerous cells), or beneficial (evolutionary adaption), arise from uncorrected errors. Researchers from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (U.S.A) and Umea° University (Sweden) report that a method by which cells repair breaks in their DNA, known as Break-induced Replication (BIR), is up to 2,800 times ...

Zinc supplements reduce the severity and duration of illness caused by the common cold, according to a systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. The findings could help reduce the amount of time lost from work and school due to colds. The common cold places a heavy burden on society, accounting for approximately 40% of time taken off work and millions of days of school missed by children each year. The idea that zinc might be effective against the common cold came from a study carried out in 1984, which showed that zinc lozenges could reduce how long symptoms ...

Some biologic drugs may be safer than others according to a new systematic review by Cochrane researchers. Biologics are a broad class of drugs based on biological molecules. The drugs are used to reduce inflammation in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. Although the effectiveness of biologics is now well established, it is thought that some may have rare but serious side effects related to their immune-suppressing activities. Links have been made to increased risk of infections, reactivation of tuberculosis (TB), cancer and congestive ...

Berkeley — The Western fence lizard's reputation for helping to reduce the threat of Lyme disease is in jeopardy. A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that areas where the lizard had been removed saw a subsequent drop in the population of the ticks that transmit Lyme disease. "Our expectation going into this study was that removing the lizards would increase the risk of Lyme disease, so we were surprised by these findings," said study lead author Andrea Swei, who conducted the study while she was a Ph.D. student in integrative ...

Boston, MA – Elderly black patients were more likely to be readmitted to the hospital after a prior hospital stay for a heart attack, heart failure, or pneumonia, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. They found that the higher readmission rates were due to disparities related to both race and the hospitals where patients were treated. "Disparities in health and health care are well-documented in this country, but little was previously known about whether there were disparities in hospital readmissions at the national level," ...

(New York, NY) February 15, 2011 – A new study led by an NYU School of Medicine investigator and published in the February 15, 2011, Advance Online Publication, International Journal of Obesity, challenges the idea that calorie labeling has an effect on the purchasing behavior of teenagers or what parents purchase for their children. Teens appear to notice the calorie information at the same rate as adults, however they respond at a lower rate. The conclusions are similar to a previous study about adult eating behavior by Dr. Brian Elbel, assistant professor and colleagues, ...