Gastric bypass surgery decreases the preference for sweet-tasting substances in obese rats, a study finding that could help in developing safer treatments for the morbidly obese, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. "Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery is the most common effective treatment for morbid obesity," said Andras Hajnal, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Neural and Behavioral Science and Surgery. "Many patients report altered taste preferences after having the procedure." This surgery involves the creation of a small gastric ...

This year's Salary Survey saw drops in salaries across the board with almost every speciality suffering a setback, some with dips as large as $20,000 (ecology) and $28,000 (virology). However, a few select fields, namely bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, and neuroscience, bucked the trend and actually posted salary increases this year. Whilst it is not easy to determine why these specialities saw salaries rise and others saw salaries cut, Mark Musen, head of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research at Stanford University commented: "I've noticed ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have learned the structure that results when an antibody binds to the West Nile virus, neutralizing the virus by locking up its infection mechanism. The information could help scientists develop a vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease. The findings show precisely how a key part of the antibody, called the antigen binding fragment, or Fab, attaches to two adjacent protein molecules that make up the virus's outer shell. This "crosslinking" attachment between molecules is repeated over the entire shell, interlocking the 30 molecular ...

Winston-Salem, N.C. – Researchers for the first time have shown that drinking beet juice can increase blood flow to the brain in older adults – a finding that could hold great potential for combating the progression of dementia. The research findings are available online in Nitric Oxide: Biology and Chemistry, the peer-reviewed journal of the Nitric Oxide Society and will be available in print soon. (Read the abstract.) "There have been several very high-profile studies showing that drinking beet juice can lower blood pressure, but we wanted to show that drinking beet ...

TORONTO, Ont., Nov. 2, 2010-Severely injured patients should be transported directly from the scene of an accident to a trauma center, even if it means bypassing a closer hospital, according to new research that shows this results in a nearly 25 per cent lower death rate. However, even though 80 to 85 per cent of people in North America live within a one-hour drive or flight of a trauma center, 30 to 60 per cent of severely injured patients are still taken to the nearest hospital. Researchers led by Dr. Avery Nathens, trauma director at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, ...

A study by the team headed by Lluís Ribas de Pouplana, ICREA professor at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), has been chosen as "Paper of the week" in the December issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, which is already available online. The article describes the discovery of a new protein in the fly Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) that is crucial for mitochondria. The removal of SLIMP in these flies leads to aberrant mitochondria and loss of metabolic capacity, thus causing death. The study, whose first author is Tanit Guitart, a PhD ...

A University of Toronto study shows that visual attention -- the brain's ability to selectively filter unattended or unwanted information from reaching awareness -- diminishes with age, leaving older adults less capable of filtering out distracting or irrelevant information. Further, this age-related "leaky" attentional filter fundamentally impacts the way visual information is encoded into memory. Older adults with impaired visual attention have better memory for "irrelevant" information. The research, conducted by members of U of T's Department of Psychology, will ...

Canadians who work night and rotating shifts are almost twice as likely to be injured on the job than those working regular day shifts, according to a study by researchers at the University of British Columbia. The study, published in the current issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health, examined data on more than 30,000 Canadians collected as part of Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics and compared results between workers involved in different types of shift work from 1996-2006. It shows that while the overall rate of work ...

Every person emits the equivalent of approximately two tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from the time food is produced to when the human body excretes it, representing more than 20% of total yearly emissions. That is what a study by the Universidad de Almería says, confirming for the first time that human excrements contribute to water pollution, primarily with nitrogen and phosphorus. A team of researchers from the Universidad de Almería (UAL) has estimated the environmental impact of the Spanish diet and role that human excrements play in the life cycle of food. It is ...

A new report from the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) in Berkeley projects that development of cost-competitive algae biofuel production will require much more long-term research, development and demonstration. In the meantime, several non-fuel applications of algae could serve to advance the nascent industry. "Even with relatively favorable and forward-looking process assumptions (from cultivation to harvesting to processing), algae oil production with microalgae cultures will be expensive and, at least in the near-to-mid-term, will require additional income streams ...

Amsterdam, 2 November, 2010 - An investigation conducted in the context of the Swiss National Research Programme (NRP50), Endocrine Disrupters: Relevance to Humans, Animals and Ecosystems, demonstrates for the first time that internal exposure of humans to cosmetic UV filters is widespread. In the course of the Summer and Fall 2004, 2005 and 2006 (3 cohorts), human milk was sampled by mothers who had given birth at the University Women's Hospital in Basel. The participants filled out a detailed questionnaire with general questions and, as special feature, in depth questions ...

Over the past decade, the undersea robots known as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have become increasingly important in oceanographic research. Today's AUVs fall into two groups: 1) propeller-driven vehicles that can travel fast and carry lots of instruments, but are limited to expeditions of only a few days; and 2) "gliders," which can stay at sea for weeks or even months at a time, but cannot travel very quickly. MBARI engineers recently demonstrated a new super-efficient AUV that combines the best of these two approaches. This new long-range AUV (LRAUV) can travel ...

The November issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings includes three articles with leading research, highlighted below. Khat Chewing Increases Risk of Stroke and Death in Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers found that people who chew khat and present with acute coronary syndrome had significantly higher rates of death, cardiogenic stroke, and stroke complications, despite having lower cardiovascular risk profiles. "The leaves of khat, a leafy green shrub, are chewed habitually for euphoric and stimulating effects. The main ingredients, ...

Note to journalists: Please credit the journal or the American Chemical Society as publisher of this report. WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2010 — For the first time in the United States, researchers are reporting in a peer-reviewed scientific journal today detection of Bisphenol A (BPA) in fresh and canned food as well as food wrapped in plastic packaging. The amounts in the limited sample, however, were almost 1,000 times lower than the "tolerable daily intake" levels set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Their report ...

A team of scientists from Japan and the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have created a new mouse model that confirms that mutations of a protein called beta-synuclein promote neurodegeneration. The discovery creates a potential new target for developing treatments of diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The work is published in today's issue of Nature Communications. Lead author is Makoto Hashimoto of the Division of Chemistry and Metabolism, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience, with colleagues including Eliezer Masliah, MD, professor ...

A Spontaneous Self-Reference Effect in Memory: Why Some Birthdays Are Harder to Remember Than Others (http://pss.sagepub.com/content/21/10/1525.abstract) Selin Kesebir and Shigehiro Oishi People may have a better memory for birthdays that are closer to their own: Volunteers recalling their friends' birthdays tended to remember birthdays that were closer to their own than birthdays that were farther away from their own birthday. In a separate experiment, after reading brief biographies of people they did not know, volunteers correctly remembered the birthdays of the ...

In an article published in November 3 edition of Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Chad Boult, MD, MPH, MBA, professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, calls for key improvements to primary care in order to improve the health of the nation's most costly patients—older adults with multiple chronic conditions. Boult and his co-author, G. Darryl Wieland, PhD, MPH, research director of Geriatrics Services at Palmetto Health Richland Hospital, Columbia, South Carolina, evaluated studies of new primary care ...

WORCESTER, Mass. – A potentially life-threatening challenge characterized by pauses in breathing that can last for more than 20 seconds, apnea of prematurity (AOP) affects more than 50 percent of premature infants and is almost universal in the smallest of preemies. Caused in part by an underdeveloped central nervous system that can't adequately regulate breathing outside of the womb, especially during sleep, AOP is not yet fully understood by scientists and remains a grave concern among neonatologists and parents alike. New research published in the October issue of Pediatrics ...

A new material with a split personality -- part superconductor, part metal -- has been observed by a Princeton University-led research team. The discovery may have implications for the development of next-generation electronics that could transform the way information is stored and processed. The new material -- a crystal called a topological superconductor -- has two electronic identities at once. At very low temperatures, the interior of the crystal behaves like a normal superconductor, able to conduct electricity with zero resistance. At the same time, the surface ...

NEW YORK (November 2, 2010) -- For patients with the most common form of hepatitis C being treated for the first time, the addition of an investigational hepatitis C–specific protease inhibitor called telaprevir to the current standard therapy markedly improved their sustained viral response (SVR or viral cure) rate. The lead investigator reporting the results of the ADVANCE trial is Dr. Ira M. Jacobson, chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and the Vincent Astor Distinguished Professor ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Water Resources Research (WRR), and Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres (JGR-D). 1. Toxic levels of chemicals found kilometers from Gulf spill site Oil contains compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which can be toxic. These compounds were released into the water during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which was larger than any previously studied release of oil. The impacts of the oil spill on marine life are not ...

Turns out the high school guidance counselor was right. Students who have high aspirations and put thought into their futures during their high school years tend to reach higher levels of educational attainment, according to a recent study. And what's a significant factor in those goals and expectations taking shape in the first place? It matters if teens are involved in extracurricular activities -- whether it's football, fine arts or French club. The research, by Sarah Beal and Lisa Crockett of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, surveyed hundreds of high school students ...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have developed two strategies to ward off cattle fever ticks that are crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. These ticks transmit bovine babesiosis, commonly known as Texas cattle fever, a deadly disease of cattle that's caused by singled-celled organisms. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Kerrville, Texas, are developing and testing new interventions to eliminate cattle fever ticks within U.S. borders and mitigate the impact on the livestock industry. ARS is USDA's principal ...

Women now dominate the field of veterinary medicine — the result of a nearly 40-year trend that is likely to repeat itself in the fields of medicine and law. That's the conclusion of a new study that found three factors that appear to be driving the change: the 1972 federal amendment that outlaws discrimination against female students; male applicants to graduate schools who may be deterred by a growing number of women enrolling; and the increasing number of women earning Bachelor's degrees in numbers that far exceed those of male graduates, says sociologist Anne E. Lincoln. An ...

SANTA MONICA, CA—Humans have walked on the Moon, and inevitably, according to NASA, humans will tread the Red Planet as well, possibly by 2037. An ergonomist and an industrial designer pondered the challenges of the Martian environment and developed an award-winning concept rover that could someday transport and house astronauts on the surface of Mars. The rover is described in an article to be published in Ergonomics in Design: The Quarterly of Human Factors Applications. Using a human factors/ergonomics method called function analysis, part of a larger systems approach, ...