Curated News: Top Hit Stories

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A proposal to construct an artificial human testicle and research how human sperm are made from stem cells received a grant from the NIH.

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Could heading the ball in soccer lead to degenerative brain disease, like that seen in athletes in other sports? That's the question addressed by a review in the January issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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Low levels of vitamin D have been linked to depression, according to UT Southwestern Medical Center psychiatrists working with the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study. It is believed to be the largest such investigation ever undertaken.

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New research by Johns Hopkins scientists suggests that vitamin D, long known to be important for bone health and in recent years also for heart protection, may stop conferring cardiovascular benefits and could actually cause harm as levels in the blood rise above the low end of what is considered normal.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a gene that is required for proper development of the mouse inner ear. In humans, this gene, known as FGF20, is located in a portion of the genome that has been associated with inherited deafness in otherwise healthy families.

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People with diets high in several vitamins or in omega 3 fatty acids are less likely to have the brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer’s disease than people whose diets are not high in those nutrients, according to a new study published in the December 28, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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The holidays are upon us and, for many Americans that means some degree of weight gain and the subsequent New Year’s resolution to diet. However, shedding the pounds may have some negative consequences on the overall health of older women if the weight loss is not maintained, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

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Companies are shifting to digital platforms and media to interact and collaborate with customers and employees.

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If the festive season tempts your tastebuds to overindulge, learn to prevent holiday weight gain with these 10 tips from the team of medical experts at Greenwich Hospital’s Weight Loss & Diabetes Center

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In a new article published in the December 11, 2011, online edition of the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers from Stony Brook University (NY, USA) demonstrate that “the fish are okay” belief ignores an important knowledge gap – the possible effects of CO2 during the early development of fish eggs and larvae.

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Symptoms improved significantly in adults with the bleeding disorder hemophilia B following a single treatment with gene therapy developed by researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and demonstrated to be safe in a clinical trial conducted at the University College London (UCL) in the U.K.

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group of Penn Medicine researchers is set to save lives with cell phone cameras -- and they're challenging the public to help. The MyHeartMap Challenge, a month-long contest slated to take place beginning in mid January, will send thousands of Philadelphians to the streets and to social media sites to locate and capture information about as many automated external defibrillators (AEDs) as they can. The contest is just a first step in what the Penn team hopes will grow to become a nationwide, crowd-sourced AED registry project that will put the lifesaving devices in the hands of anyone, anywhere, anytime.

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Poor mental health before pregnancy predicts which pregnant women are most likely to have a pregnancy complication and give birth to a low birth- weight baby, a new nationwide survey reveals.

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The relative risk of autism spectrum disorder in children of mothers on valproate monotherapy was found to be 2.6 times that of children not exposed to antiepileptic medication in utero. The risk of childhood autism was almost five-fold increased compared to children without prenatal exposure to valproate.

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A recent study of obese volunteers participating in a 12-week dietary weight-loss program found that successful weight losers had significantly higher resting nerve activity compared to weight-loss resistant individuals. The study was accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

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Two new studies from the University of New Hampshire Crimes against Children Research Center suggest that concerns about teen sexting may be overblown. One study found the percentage of youth who send nude pictures of themselves that would qualify as child pornography is very low. The other found that when teen sexting images do come to police attention, few youth are being arrested or treated like sex offenders.

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Neurosurgeons continue to explore minimally invasive surgery with gamma radiation (gamma knife surgery / GKS) in the treatment of brain lesions causing seizures and epilepsy. Studies of the procedure are showing it to be an effective alternative to invasive microsurgery for hypothalamic hamartomas and other lesions that lie deep within the brain.

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Women dieters who grab a snack between breakfast and lunch lose less weight compared to those who abstain from a mid-morning snack, according to a study led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

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Obese patients enrolled in a weight-loss program delivered over the phone by health coaches and with website and physician support lost weight and kept it off for two years, according to new Johns Hopkins research. The program was just as effective as another weight-loss program that involved in-person coaching sessions.

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Adding to research linking alcohol to breast cancer risk, a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that adolescent girls with a family history of breast disease — either cancer or the benign lesions that can become cancer – have a higher risk of developing benign breast disease as young women than other girls. And unlike girls without a family history, this already-elevated risk rises with increasing alcohol consumption.

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Using its near-infrared vision to peer 9 billion years back in time, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an extraordinary population of tiny, young galaxies that are brimming with star formation. The galaxies are typically a hundred times less massive than the Milky Way galaxy, yet they churn out stars at such a furious pace that their stellar content would double in just 10 million years. By comparison, the Milky Way would take a thousand times longer to double its population.

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Obese rhesus monkeys lost on average 11 percent of their body weight after four weeks of treatment with an experimental drug that selectively destroys the blood supply of fat tissue, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports in Science Translational Medicine.

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The greatest astronomical discovery of the 20th century may have been credited to the wrong person. But it turns out to have been nobody's fault except for that of the actual original discoverer himself. Writing in the Nov. 10th issue of the journal Nature, astrophysicist Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute has put to bed a growing conspiracy theory about who was fairly credited for discovering the expanding universe.

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With the holiday season fast approaching, Natalie Wood, Ph.D., assistant director of Saint Joseph’s University’s Center for Consumer Research, offers the following strategies for how marketers can be better prepared and leverage the power of social media to strengthen their existing marketing campaign. With the right social media strategy, Wood says marketers can maximize brand exposure at very little cost.

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Two nationally recognized child abuse experts from the University of New Hampshire are available to discuss the beating of a Texas woman when she was 16 years old, allegedly by her father, a Texas county court judge.

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Recently revised guidelines have set a new optimal range for triglycerides. For most patients with higher than optimal levels, lifestyle changes, not medications, are recommended as the primary means to lower triglycerides and achieve better cardiovascular health, according to a special article in the November issue of Clinical Nutrition Insight. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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University of Michigan Health System researchers will use a $3.5 million federal grant to study a new approach in halting the downward spiral of diabetes. Rather than simply too much glucose, reseearchers believe diabetes disrupts metabolic pathways in complication-prone tissue that leads to poor vision, kidney failure and nerve damage.

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Researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have discovered a way to model human breast cancer that could lead to new tools for predicting which breast cancers will spread.

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1) One out of 20,000 newborns has autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease, and 30% die shortly after birth. 2) The gene that’s implicated in the disease produces a protein that’s important for signaling in the kidneys 3) New urine tests might help diagnose the disease.

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Addressing the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease, before a patient shows outward signs of cognitive problems, has sometimes been a challenge for physicians and researchers, in part because they have not been using common and specific terms to describe the disease’s initial phases.

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Bank of America’s plan to begin charging customers $5 a month for using its debit card has been met with resistance from citizens and members of Congress alike. In fact, there is some reputational capital at risk as a result of this kind of charge, says a banking expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins have modified HIV in a way that makes it no longer able to suppress the immune system. Their work, they say in a report published online September 19 in the journal Blood, could remove a major hurdle in HIV vaccine development and lead to new treatments.

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Prostate cancer survivors and their partners experience improved sexual satisfaction and function after couples counseling, according to research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The article, published in the September issue of Cancer, a journal of the American Cancer Society, revealed both Internet-based sexual counseling and traditional sex therapy are equally effective in improving sexual outcomes. Couples on a waiting list for counseling did not improve.

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Taking probiotics seems to provide both children and adults with a mild degree of protection against many upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) including the common cold, according to a new systematic review.

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The estimates of the population without health insurance in the U.S. remained unchanged in 2010, as compared to 2009, reflecting the counteracting effects of not only the sluggish economic recovery but also the preliminary benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), says Timothy McBride, PhD, leading health economist and associate dean of public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Study suggests improved screening for suicidal tendencies by primary care providers is needed.

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UAB study released today reports that fifth-graders with ADHD are nearly twice as likely to sustain injuries requiring medical attention.

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Significant new data just published in the New England Journal of Medicine (Sept. 8) lead by Dr. Julie Palmer, shows that black women are equally at risk.

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People with high cholesterol may have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in the September 13, 2011, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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After analyzing more than 3 million tweets, gigabytes of YouTube content and thousands of blog posts, a new study finds that social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring.

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Gene therapy delivered directly to a particularly stubborn type of breast cancer cell causes the cells to self-destruct, lowers chance of recurrence and helps increase the effectiveness of some types of chemotherapy, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported in the Sept. 13 edition of Cancer Cell.

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Men who maintain a healthy body throughout life are often better able to fight off diseases like cancer. That’s why experts at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have created a guide with cancer prevention tips to help men at every stage of life.

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Make headway, Max Headroom! Meant to be Cornell classroom demonstration, a robot avatar conversation quickly turned into the spat chat heard around the world.

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Research on Mt. Everest climbers is adding to the evidence that an amino acid called leucine — found in foods, dietary supplements, energy bars and other products — may help people burn fat during periods of food restriction, such as climbing at high altitude, while keeping their muscle tissue.

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The first nuclear power plant being considered for production of electricity for manned or unmanned bases on the Moon, Mars and other planets may really look like it came from outer space.

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With “sustainability” on the minds and lips of more and more people — determined to use resources today in ways that do not jeopardize the needs of future generations — the American Chemical Society (ACS) today began one of the largest-ever sessions devoted to sustainability and green chemistry.

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Robert S. Langer, Sc.D., the David H. Koch Institute Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been named winner of the 2012 Priestley Medal by the American Chemical Society (ACS).

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Applying lessons from emergency planning and response after Hurricane Katrina, in which the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University was involved, BBI is providing resources for the protection and safety of people with disabilities who live in the path of Hurricane Irene.

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Here are tips on how to use social media during natural disasters.

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These experts are available for media interviews regarding Hurricane Irene.