WASHINGTON, DC (September 22, 2010) -- One-year data from the PARTNER clinical trial, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, demonstrate that transcatheter aortic-valve implantation, compared with standard therapy, resulted in significantly lower rates of death among patients who cannot undergo surgery for aortic stenosis. The results will be presented tomorrow as a Late Breaking Trial at the 22nd annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Transcatheter aortic-valve implantation (TAVI) is a new procedure in which a bioprosthetic ...

According to the NOAA Coral Reef Watch monitoring system, coral bleaching is likely in the Caribbean in 2010. With temperatures above-average all year, NOAA's models show a strong potential for bleaching in the southern and southeastern Caribbean through October that could be as severe as in 2005 when over 80 percent of corals bleached and over 40 percent died at many sites across the Caribbean. Scientists are already reporting coral bleaching at several Caribbean sites and severe bleaching has been reported from other parts of the world. The NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) ...

There may be a very good reason that people naturally clutch their hand after receiving an injury. A new report published online on September 23 in Current Biology shows that self-touch offers significant relief for acute pain under experimental conditions. The researchers suggest that the relief comes from a change in the brain's representation of the rest of the body. "Pain is quite an important, but also complicated, experience and can be caused in many different ways," said Patrick Haggard of University College London. "We show that levels of acute pain depend not ...

Scientists have uncovered an alternative source for some of the damage associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), an incurable neuroinflammatory disorder. The research, published online by Cell Press on September 23rd in the journal Immunity, reveals a direct interaction between immune cells and neurons that plays a significant role in neuronal injury and may respond to therapeutic intervention. MS is an autoimmune disease in which a person's own immune system attacks their central nervous system. Symptoms of MS are variable depending on which nerves are affected, but often ...

1. Among HIV-Infected Kidney Disease Patients, African Americans are More Likely to Develop Kidney Failure and Die Prematurely Washington, DC (September 17, 2010) — Because of improved antiretroviral therapies in recent years, HIV-infected individuals are living long enough to develop chronic conditions. Among African Americans, HIV infection is increasingly recognized as an important risk factor for developing chronic kidney disease. African American men and women are more likely to die from the complications of HIV infection compared with Caucasian men and women. To ...

BOULDER, Colo. – Scientists have known for decades that time passes faster at higher elevations—a curious aspect of Einstein's theories of relativity that previously has been measured by comparing clocks on the earth's surface and a high-flying rocket. Now, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have measured this effect at a more down-to-earth scale of 33 centimeters, or about 1 foot, demonstrating, for instance, that you age faster when you stand a couple of steps higher on a staircase. Described in the Sept. 24 issue of Science,* ...

BP’s leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was conclusively sealed this week, but even now, questions remain about the amount of oil that actually came out of it. Initially after the April 20 explosion, officials claimed that the flow could not be measured. Then, as public pressure for information mounted, they looked for ways to measure it, and started producing estimates: at first, 1,000 barrels a day; then 5,000; then 12,000 to 19,000; then upward from there. Now, in the first independent, peer-reviewed paper on the leak’s volume, scientists have affirmed heightened ...

To understand the health effects of high cholesterol levels, doctors first need to assess malnutrition and inflammation status in their chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). Patients with CKD often develop and die from cardiovascular disease (CVD). While it's well known that high cholesterol puts people at risk for CVD in the general population, the relationship is not so clear in CKD patients. In fact, research has shown that dialysis patients with higher cholesterol ...

STANFORD, Calif. - A simple, inexpensive blood test could soon help doctors halt organ rejection before it impairs transplanted hearts and kidneys. "In the past, we couldn't spot rejection episodes until they harmed the organ," said Atul Butte, MD, PhD, who is co-senior author of the new research and an associate professor of medical informatics and of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine, in addition to director of the Center for Pediatric Bioinformatics at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. "Our goal is to develop blood tests that will keep transplanted ...

Researchers have identified a gene that appears to increase a person's risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer disease (AD), the most common type of the disease. Abbreviated MTHFD1L, a gene on chromosome six, was identified in a genome-wide association study by a team of researchers led by Margaret Pericak-Vance, Ph.D., director of the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics (HIHG) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Details appear September 23 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. The World Health Organization estimates that there are currently ...

PRINCETON, N.J. (September 23, 2010) — Increasing the costs to consumers of beer, wine, and hard liquor significantly reduces the rates of a wide range of alcohol-related deaths, diseases, injuries, and other problems, according to a new study published in today's online edition of the American Journal of Public Health and scheduled for inclusion in the November print edition. Researchers at the University of Florida (UF) report that public policies that increase the price of alcoholic beverages, such as increases in alcohol excise taxes, not only reduce drinking but also ...

Engineering researchers from Tufts University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard University have demonstrated the low-temperature efficacy of an atomically dispersed platinum catalyst, which could be suitable for on-board hydrogen production in fuel-cell-powered vehicles of the future. An alternative to copper, which under certain conditions can ignite spontaneously, the platinum-based catalyst is highly active and stable. The researchers' understanding of the structure and function of the new catalyst could help manufacturers design highly effective—but ...

Breast cancer incidence declined among postmenopausal women in Canada as their use of hormone therapy declined, according to a study published online September 23 in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trial of more than 16,000 postmenopausal women in the United States reported in 2002 that the risks of combined estrogen and progestin hormone replacement therapy outweighed the benefits. As a result, prescriptions for hormone therapy fell dramatically in several countries around the world and so did the incidence of breast ...

Researchers in Germany have gained new insight into how the immune system causes damage associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), an incurable neuroinflammatory disorder. Using imaging tools which enable investigation of processes in living organisms, they were able to show a direct interaction between immune cells and neurons which plays a significant role in neuronal injury. However, this direct interaction may respond to therapeutic intervention. The study by Dr. Volker Siffrin and Professor Dr. Frauke Zipp (formerly Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, MDC, Berlin-Buch, ...

Los Angeles, CA (Sept 23, 2010) Divisive primaries may waste precious campaign resources and damage the primary winner's reputation and chances to win the general election, according to a study in the current American Politics Research (published by SAGE). The timing of the primary in proximity to the general election can also play a role in the results. To test the effects of divisive primary battles on general election outcomes, researchers gathered primary and general election vote data for all incumbent House races between 1972 and 1998 in which both parties held ...

Researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered a new cell signaling pathway that controls cell growth and development, a pathway that, when defective, helps promote the formation of several major forms of human cancer, including lymphoma and leukemia. The new pathway, part of a global DNA damage response, turns off 136 genes, including some that have are known to cause cancer because, unchecked, they can promote aberrant cell division. "It's important to make sure this pathway works correctly, because it prevents cells from dividing excessively" ...

The Office of Naval Research Global (ONR Global) continues to pursue aggressive energy goals established by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, with the design of a system that controls electrical flow for lighting, a highly efficient platform that may spark a new era of power savings. Designed by the Tokyo Institute of Technology and fine-tuned by researchers at MERSTech in partnership with the ONR Global's office in Tokyo, the Magnetic Energy Recovery Switch (MERS) harnesses and recycles residual magnetic power that is produced by electrical current. By using a device ...

Scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) headed by the coordinator of the Structural and Computational Biology Programme, Miquel Coll, have published a new study that demonstrates that raltegravir, the drug approved in 2007 for the treatment of AIDS that is sold by Merck under the name Isentress, cancels the function of an essential protein for the replication of one kind of herpes virus. This study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), is the first step towards the development of a drug against ...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that high levels of a stress hormone in recovering alcoholics could increase the risk of relapse. The study showed that cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal gland in response to stress, is found in high levels in chronic alcoholics, as well as those recovering from the condition. Researchers found that this could result in impaired memory, attention and decision-making functions, which could decrease the patient's ability to engage with treatment. Chronic alcoholism is a disabling addictive disorder, characterised ...

Boston, MA - The Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) today issued a landmark report from a multi-state study on psychotropic medication oversight in foster care. Led by Laurel K. Leslie, MD, MPH at Tufts CTSI, Christopher Bellonci, MD at Tufts Medical Center and Justeen Hyde, PhD at Cambridge Health Alliance, the study examined state policies and practices in 47 states, including Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia regarding the use of medication for treating behavioral and mental health problems in foster care children and adolescents ages ...

Researchers from Utrecht University who studied the effect of negative emotions on pain perception in women with and without fibromyalgia found that anger and sadness amplified pain equally in both groups. Full findings are now online and will publish in the October print issue of Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology. Fibromyalgia (FM), a chronic pain condition, has among the largest impact of all rheumatic and chronic pain conditions. In addition to chronic, widespread pain, patients report accompanying symptoms such as fatigue, ...

New research has found that a genetic variant which reduces the chance of contracting diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy is more prevalent in populations with long histories of urban living. The research, published in the journal Evolution, shows that in areas with a long history of urban settlements, today's inhabitants are more likely to possess the genetic variant which provides resistance to infection. In ancient cities, poor sanitation and high population densities would have provided an ideal breeding ground for the spread of disease. Natural selection ...

In many developing countries, the absence of surface-based air pollution sensors makes it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to get even a rough estimate of the abundance of a subcategory of airborne particles that epidemiologists suspect contributes to millions of premature deaths each year. The problematic particles, called fine particulate matter (PM2.5), are 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, about a tenth the fraction of human hair. These small particles can get past the body's normal defenses and penetrate deep into the lungs. To fill in these gaps in surface-based ...

AMARILLO - Wheat streak mosaic virus is the most prevalent disease in the southwestern wheat producing region of the U.S., according to a Texas AgriLife Research scientist. Dr. Charlie Rush, AgriLife Research plant pathologist in Amarillo, is assembling several teams of scientists to work on the disease from every aspect: vector to diagnosis and mapping to control. "There are other diseases of concern, but wheat streak mosaic is always found somewhere in this wheat growing region, and every couple of years, we have an epidemic of it," Rush said. Several issues cause ...

DURHAM, N.C. – While scientists have spent the past 40 years describing the intricate series of events that occur when one mammalian cell divides into two, they still haven't agreed on how the process begins. There are two seemingly contradictory theories, which now may be reconciled by a third theory being proposed by Duke University bioengineer Lingchong You. These findings could provide insights into the initiation of disease, such as cancer, which is marked by uncontrolled cell proliferation. During proliferation, the DNA within the nucleus of a cell makes a copy ...