NewsRx Health & Science back issues from November 2008:
Children with cystic fibrosis not well covered by guidelines for vitamin D needs.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Existing recommendations for treating vitamin D deficiency in children with cystic fibrosis (CF) are too low to cover the serious need, leaving most at high risk for bone loss and rickets, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. In results of their ...
UCLA issues new report on Prop. 36.
Nov 02, 2008 ... The effectiveness of Proposition 36, a ballot measure approved by California voters in 2000 that offers treatment instead of incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders is being undermined by inadequate funding, participants dropping out of treatment, and increased arrests for drug and ...
Body's anti-HIV drug explained.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Humans have a built-in weapon against HIV, but until recently no one knew how to unlock its potential. A study published online by the journal Nature reveals the atomic structure of this weapon u an enzyme known as APOBEC-3G u and suggests new directions for drug development. ...
Insomnia in women with breast cancer linked to heart rate dysregulation.(Report)
Nov 02, 2008 ... A study in the October 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows that respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a significant predictor of insomnia in women with breast cancer and confirmed that longer nocturnal wake episodes were associated with a flatter diurnal cortisol ...
AAT protein restores blood glucose in type 1 diabetes model.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A protein made by the liver in response to inflammation and used to treat patients suffering from a genetic form of emphysema has been shown to restore blood glucose levels in a mouse model of Type 1 diabetes mellitus, according to a new study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess ...
Small intestine can sense and react to bitter toxins in food.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Toxins in food often have a bad, bitter taste that makes people want to spit them out. New UC Irvine research finds that bitterness also slows the digestive process, keeping bad food in the stomach longer and increasing the chances that it will be expelled. This second line of ...
Scientists discover quantum mechanical 'hurricanes' form spontaneously.
Nov 02, 2008 ... University of Arizona scientists experimenting with some of the coldest gases in the universe have discovered that when atoms in the gas get cold enough, they can spontaneously spin up into what might be described as quantum mechanical twisters or hurricanes. The surprising ...
Before the big bang?
Nov 02, 2008 ... Sir Roger Penrose, prominent lecturer and author, as well as highly distinguished mathematician and theoretical physicist, will give Perimeter Institute's next public lecture on Wednesday, October 1. There is now a great deal of evidence confirming the existence of a very hot ...
Topsoil's limited turnover: A crisis in time.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Boulder, CO and Madison, WI -- 1 OCTOBER 2008 -- Topsoil does not last forever. Records show that topsoil erosion, accelerated by human civilization and conventional agricultural practices, has outpaced long-term soil production. Earth's continents are losing prime agricultural soils even ...
New fossil reveals primates lingered in Texas.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Austin, TX-More than 40 million years ago, primates preferred Texas to northern climates that were significantly cooling, according to new fossil evidence discovered by Chris Kirk, physical anthropologist at The University of Texas at Austin. Kirk and Blythe Williams from Duke ...
JCI online early table of contents: Oct. 9, 2008.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A low-cholesterol diet leaves a bitter taste in the gut One role for the proteins on the tongue that sense bitter tasting substances, type 2 taste receptors (T2Rs), is to limit ingestion of these substances, as a large number of natural bitter compounds are known to be toxic ....
A link between mitochondria and tumor formation in stem cells.(Report)
Nov 02, 2008 ... Researchers report on a previously unknown relationship between stem cell potency and the metabolic rate of their mitochondria ua cell's energy makers. Stem cells with more active mitochondria also have a greater capacity to differentiate and are more likely to form tumors. ...
Kidney donation Web sites raise ethical concerns.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Living donor kidney transplantation is the preferred treatment option for patients with end stage renal disease. The outcomes of this type of transplant are superior to waiting for several years on the deceased donor transplant list while on dialysis. 38 percent of all kidney transplants ...
MU expert looks back to debate 1 and forward to the vice presidential debate.
Nov 02, 2008 ... The 2008 presidential campaign has been running for a very long time, but we have now entered another phase with the commencement of the debates. Friday night saw the first presidential debate of 2008, between John McCain and Barack Obama. Content analysis, by a University of Missouri ...
How to diagnose and treat spontaneous colonic perforation?
Nov 02, 2008 ... Spontaneous perforation of the colon is defined as a sudden perforation of the normal colon without any diseases such as tumor external injury. It is rare, often misdiagnosed and has a high mortality rate. A group led by Huai-Kun Ni from Fuding City Hospital of China investigated the ...
Deep magma matters in volcanic eruption cycle.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Although the Soufriere Hills volcano on Montserrat exhibits cycles of eruption and quiet, an international team of researchers found that magma is continuously supplied from deep in the crust but that a valve acts below a shallower magma chamber, releasing lava to the surface periodically ....
Experiment demonstrates 110 years of sustainable agriculture.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A plot of land on the campus of Auburn University shows that 110 years of sustainable farming practices can produce similar cotton crops to those using other methods. In 1896, Professor J.F. Duggar at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn University) ...
Cancer screening rates among older Medicaid patients fall short of national objectives.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Only about half of Medicaid recipients age 50 and older appear to receive recommended screening tests for colorectal, breast and cervical cancer, according to a report in the October 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. These three types ...
Only some Web sites provide patients with reliable information before having an operation.(Report)
Nov 02, 2008 ... New research published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows unsponsored and professional society Web sites provide significantly higher quality information about common elective surgical procedures compared with commercially sponsored Web sites. In addition, the study ...
Drug-eluting stents more effective, equally as safe as bare metal stents in clinical trial.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Late-breaking data from the HORIZONS AMI (Harmonizing Outcomes with RevascularIZatiON and Stents in Acute Myocardial Infarction) trial reveal that after one year, use of a drug-eluting (paclitaxel) stent demonstrated significantly reduced rates of target lesion revascularization (TLR) and ...
Is CT-colonoscopy a valuable tool to detect colorectal cancer?
Nov 02, 2008 ... CTC (virtual colonoscopy) is a thin slice CT scan of the abdomen after adequate bowel preparation and colon insufflation in which data are reconstructed providing axial, multiplanar, and endoluminal views, in order to visualize internal colonic wall. Several studies have shown that CTC is ...
Does hypertriglyceridemia aggravate the episodes of severe acute pancreatitis?(Report)
Nov 02, 2008 ... HTG is a common clinical problem but rare cause of pancreatitis. It was reported that HTG is independently associated with the severity of AP and plays a role in the aggravation of acute necrotizing pancreatitis patients. However, the role of HTG in modulating disease course of ...
Polio could be wiped out in Nigeria thanks to improved vaccine, says study.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A recently introduced polio vaccine is four times more effective at protecting children than previous vaccines and has the potential to eradicate type 1 polio in Nigeria if it reaches enough children, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Nigeria ...
Mass extinctions and the evolution of dinosaurs.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Reporting in Biology Letters, Steve Brusatte, Professor Michael Benton, and colleagues at the University of Bristol show that dinosaurs did not proliferate immediately after they originated, but that their rise was a slow and complicated event, and driven by two mass extinctions. ...
Disease leads to vision loss more often in men.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A new study shows that men are more likely to lose vision as a result of a particular cause of intracranial hypertension, or increased pressure in the brain, than women with the condition. The research is published in the October 15, 2008, online issue of Neurology[R], the medical journal ...
Eureka! How distractions facilitate creative problem-solving.(Report)
Nov 02, 2008 ... How many times have you spent hours slaving over an impossible problem, only to take a break and then easily solve the problem, sometimes within minutes of looking at it again? Although this is actually a common phenomenon, up until now the way that this occurs has been unclear. But new ...
Einstein's relativity survives neutrino test.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Physicists working to disprove "Lorentz invariance" -- Einstein's prediction that matter and massless particles will behave the same no matter how they're turned or how fast they go -- won't get that satisfaction from muon neutrinos, at least for the time being, says a consortium of ...
Infrared echoes give NASA's Spitzer a supernova flashback.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Hot spots near the shattered remains of an exploded star are echoing the blast's first moments, say scientists using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Eli Dwek of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and Richard Arendt of the University of Maryland, ...
M.I.N.D. Institute researchers find important clue to learning deficit in children with autism.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has discovered an important clue to why children with autism spectrum disorders have trouble imitating others: They spend less time looking at the faces of people who are modeling new skills. The study was conducted using ...
The green Sahara, a desert in bloom.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Reconstructing the climate of the past is an important tool for scientists to better understand and predict future climate changes that are the result of the present-day global warming. Although there is still little known about the Earth's tropical and subtropical regions, these regions ...
Stress tests to confirm need for cardiac stent not occurring in most patients, new study finds.
Nov 02, 2008 ... UCSF researchers investigating the appropriate use of procedures to open narrowed coronary arteries -- such as angioplasty and stenting -- found that less than half of Medicare patients had documented noninvasive stress testing prior to elective percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI, ...
Why are T cells tolerant to hepatitis B virus?
Nov 02, 2008 ... The level of PD-1 expression has been proved by recent studies to be positively correlated with the extent of HBV-specific T cell impairments. However, the degree of T cell exhaustion which affects the disease statuses of hepatitis B patients has so far been only evaluated in restricted ...
'Fishapod' reveals origins of head and neck structures of first land animals.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Newly exposed parts of Tiktaalik roseae--the intermediate fossil between fish and the first animals to walk out of water onto land 375 million years ago--are revealing how this major evolutionary event happened. A new study, published this week in Nature, provides a detailed look at the ...
Clue to genetic cause of fatal birth defect.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A novel enzyme may play a major role in anencephaly, offering hope for a genetic test or even therapy for the rare fatal birth defect in which the brain fails to develop, according to a study from researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. The ...
Black patients with chronic pain less likely to have obesity assessed.
Nov 02, 2008 ... At the intersection of two U.S. health epidemics u obesity and chronic pain u researchers from the University of Michigan Health System found black patients with chronic pain were less likely to have their weight or body mass index (BMI) recorded, even though they are at higher risk for ...
Risk and reward compete in brain.
Nov 02, 2008 ... That familiar pull between the promise of victory and the dread of defeat u whether in money, love or sport u is rooted in the brain's architecture, according to a new imaging study. Neuroscientists at the USC Brain and Creativity Institute have identified distinct brain regions ...
Warming in Yosemite National Park sends small mammals packing to higher, cooler elevations.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Global warming is causing major shifts in the range of small mammals in Yosemite National Park, one of the nation's treasures that was set aside as a public trust 144 years ago, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists. The study, published in ...
More effective treatment identified for common childhood vision disorder.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Scientists have found a more effective treatment for a common childhood eye muscle coordination problem called convergence insufficiency (CI). For words on a page to appear in focus a child's eyes must turn inward, or converge. In CI, the eyes do not converge easily, and as a result, ...
Researchers and students to develop small CubeSat satellites.
Nov 02, 2008 ... ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A satellite about the size of a loaf of bread will be designed and built at the University of Michigan and deployed to study space weather, thanks to a new grant from the National Science Foundation. Undergraduate and graduate students will be heavily involved ...
Pleasure seekers: Clubbing is a controlled rave experience.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Clubbersupeople who dance the night away in dance clubsuare seeking communal, ecstatic experiences. And, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, modern clubbers get a more controlled, legalized version of the raves of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Authors ...
Engineers aim to solve 'burning' computer problem.
Nov 02, 2008 ... If you've balanced a laptop computer on your lap lately, you probably noticed a burning sensation. That's because ever-increasing processing speeds are creating more and more heat, which has to go somewhere u in this case, into your lap. Two researchers at the University of ...
Intensive support programs can help hospitalized smokers stay smoke free.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Hospital-sponsored stop-smoking programs for inpatients that include follow-up counseling for longer than one month significantly improve patients' ability to stay smoke-free. An analysis of clinical trials of programs offered at hospitals around the world finds that efforts featuring ...
Extreme nature helps scientists design nano materials.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Scientists are using designs in nature from extreme environments to overcome the challenges of producing materials on the nanometre scale. A team from the UK's John Innes Centre, the Scripps Research Institute in California and the Institut Pasteur in Paris have identified a stable, ...
Nanotechnology boosts war on superbugs.
Nov 02, 2008 ... This week Nature Nanotechnology journal (October 12th) reveals how scientists from the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) at UCL are using a novel nanomechanical approach to investigate the workings of vancomycin, one of the few antibiotics that can be used to combat increasingly ...
Young galaxy's magnetism surprises astronomers.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Astronomers have made the first direct measurement of the magnetic field in a young, distant galaxy, and the result is a big surprise. Looking at a faraway protogalaxy seen as it was 6.5 billion years ago, the scientists measured a magnetic field at least 10 times stronger than ...
Transparency in politics can lead to greater corruption.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Why are some countries more prone to political corruption? Viviana Stechina from Uppsala University, Sweden, has investigated why corruption among the political elite was more extensive in Argentina than in Chile during the 1990s. Among other things, her research shows that greater ...
Triple antiplatelet therapy appears superior to dual antiplatelet therapy.(Clinical report)
Nov 02, 2008 ... Results of five research studies and a clinical registry first-report presentation scheduled for the 20th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium, sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), suggest that triple antiplatelet therapy for ...
New robotic repair system will fix ailing satellites.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Researchers at Queen's University are developing a new robotic system to service more than 8,000 satellites now orbiting the Earth, beyond the flight range of ground-based repair operations. Currently, when the high-flying celestial objects malfunction u or simply run out of fuel u they ...
Gene with probable role in human susceptibility to pulmonary tuberculosis identified.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A new gene that may confer susceptibility to pulmonary tuberculosis has been identified by Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) researchers and their collaborators in The Netherlands, Indonesia, United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation. In the current j PLoS Genetics, the ...
Case Western Reserve University research finds drug candidate slows age-related macular degeneration.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Research results from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine show that the progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is markedly slowed in new laboratory-engineered mice when they received treatments of retinylamine, a trial drug that has been tested in a ...
Astrocytes and synaptic plasticity.
Nov 02, 2008 ... By mopping up excess neurotrophic factor from neuronal synapses, astrocytes may finely tune synaptic transmission to affect processes such as learning and memory, say Bergami et al. The major cellular events of learning and memory are long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term ...
New data examine stents and bypass surgery in patients with 3VD and LMD.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Newly reported data presented at the 20th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium, sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) from the SYNTAX clinical trial (SYNergy Between PCI With TAXUS and Cardiac Surgery) reveal similar safety and ...
Lack of vitamin D linked to Parkinson's disease.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A majority of Parkinson's disease patients had insufficient levels of vitamin D in a new study from Emory University School of Medicine. The fraction of Parkinson's patients with vitamin D insufficiency, 55 percent, was significantly more than patients with Alzheimer's disease ...
Volcanic eruptions more complex and harder to predict, according to new Science paper.(Report)
Nov 02, 2008 ... New research by a team of US and UK scientists into volcanoes has found that they function in a far more complex way than previously thought, making future eruptions even harder to predict. The findings by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK and Penn ...
New approach to genetic testing could halve deaths from inherited bowel cancer.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Changing the approach to genetic screening for cancers in Australia could effectively halve deaths caused by an inherited form of bowel cancer, says a University of Melbourne expert. Professor John Hopper u an Australia Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council ...
Scientists trace molecular origin of proportional development.
Nov 02, 2008 ... When it comes to embryo formation in the lowly fruit fly, a little molecular messiness actually leads to enhanced developmental precision, according to a study in the Oct. 14 Developmental Cell from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. While the fundamentals of this ...
Research shows link between bisphenol a and disease in adults.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A research team from the Peninsula Medical School, the University of Exeter, the University of Plymouth and the University of Iowa, have found evidence linking Bisphenol A (BPA) to diabetes and heart disease in adults. Their research paper is to be published in the Journal of ...
Fat-regenerating 'stem cells' found in mice.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Researchers have identified stem cells with the capacity to build fat, according to a report in the October 17th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication. Although they have yet to show that the cells can renew themselves, transplants of the progenitor cells isolated from the ...
The risk factors of abdominal venous thrombosis.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Abdominal venous thrombosis may present as BCS or SVT. Hereditary and acquired risk factors have been implicated in the etiopathogenesis of abdominal venous thrombosis. Hereditary risk factors for thrombophilia include Factor V Leiden gene mutation, Prothrombin gene mutation, homozygous ...
Link possible between pet food contamination and baby formula contamination.
Nov 02, 2008 ... A study(1) published in the November issue of a scientific journal, Toxicological Sciences, which is published by Oxford Journals on behalf of the Society of Toxicology, describes the kidney toxicity of melamine and cyanuric acid based on research that was done to characterize the toxicity ...
Despite 'peacenik' reputation, bonobos hunt and eat other primates too.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Unlike the male-dominated societies of their chimpanzee relatives, bonobo societyuin which females enjoy a higher social status than malesuhas a "make-love-not-war" kind of image. While chimpanzee males frequently band together to hunt and kill monkeys, the more peaceful bonobos were ...
Filling in the blanks: Consumers want complete information to make choices.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Most people don't like to make a purchase without complete information about the product they're buying. For example, if someone comparing wireless plans doesn't know the coverage area, she may be more likely to walk away from the purchase. A new study in the Journal of Consumer ...
First tunable, 'noiseless' amplifier may boost quantum computing, communications.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and JILA, a joint institute of NIST and the University of Colorado (CU) at Boulder, have made the first tunable "noiseless" amplifier. By significantly reducing the uncertainty in delicate measurements of microwave ...
Milestone influenza publication by Elsevier journal Vaccine.
Nov 02, 2008 ... Last month during an influenza conference organized by the European Scientific Working Group on influenza (ESWI), the Elsevier journal Vaccine released a supplement dedicated to influenza vaccines (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0264410X). This publication provides a ...
Changes needed in way the United States Conducts military interventions.(Report)
Nov 02, 2008 ... In preparing for possible future military interventions, the United States needs to shift substantial resources to the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, and military-civilian efforts must be integrated from top to bottom, according to a new report issued ...