Focus: Hidden - Utah

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Adults with hypertension who are age 75 years and older, including those who are frail and with poor overall health, could benefit from lowering their blood pressure below current medical guidelines. The multi-institutional investigation was published online in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and presented at the American Geriatrics Society Annual Scientific Meeting on May 19. The findings could have broad health implications for older Americans, 75 percent of whom have high blood pressure.

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Women talk more than men, texting makes you dumb, sign language is pantomime. These are just a few of the myths Abby Kaplan, professor of linguistics at the University of Utah, debunks in her recently published book, “Women Talk More Than Men…And Other Myths about Language Explained.”

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University of Utah law and philosophy professor Leslie Francis makes a mark in the field of applied ethics

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A new study by University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law professor Christopher L. Peterson analyzes the U.S. government’s effort to create an effective consumer financial protection agency.

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Nubia Peña is one of 122 students who will graduate from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law on Friday. She was selected as one of the top 25 law students in the country by National Jurist magazine for her commitment to social justice, empowering marginalized communities, and developing new young leaders of color.

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The United States Olympic Committee today announced the addition of the University of Utah Health Care (UUHC) to the National Medical Network. UUHC will serve as a national medical center, specializing in orthopedic medicine, physical medicine, primary care, dentistry, psychiatry, ophthalmology and neurosurgery for elite U.S. athletes. The partnership will also include collaborative research and educational opportunities for athletes at the University of Utah.

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The primary threat to vultures is the presence of toxins in the carrion they consume. Losses of vultures can allow other scavengers to flourish. Proliferation of such scavengers could bring bacteria and viruses from carcasses into human cities.

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The new president should use her or his critical first year to reframe inequality as the crucial macroeconomic issue.

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Patients with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome who receive catheter ablation to cure their abnormal heart rhythms are just as likely as non-ablated patients to develop atrial fibrillation no matter what age they receive ablation, according to a new study.

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Atrial fibrillation patients taking warfarin, a popular anticoagulation drug, are at higher risk of developing kidney failure if anticoagulation levels are not properly managed, according to a new study from researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute.

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Despite studies that claim people with cancer are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease--raising the possibility that what triggers cancer also prevents the neurodegenerative disorder--a new investigation finds a more somber explanation. Many cancer patients don’t live long enough to get Alzheimer’s. The research, led by investigators at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, was published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B.

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Study of more than 10,000 patients treated long term with the blood thinner, warfarin, reveals higher rates of dementia for patients with atrial fibrillation versus non-AF patients

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A study found that 97 percent of confirmed flu cases among babies 6 months and younger occurred in those whose moms were not vaccinated while they were pregnant.

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A team of researchers led by University of Utah civil and environmental engineering professor Chris Pantelides has developed a new process of fixing damaged bridge columns that takes as little as a few days.

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Using insights from cognitive psychology, Dr. Samuel Brown discusses new approaches to reduce suffering for ICU patients and their families when they need high levels of care, including concrete strategies to apply before, during, and after a serious illness.

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The devastating consequences of sexual trauma in the military reported by 25 percent of female and 1 percent of male veterans who served in the U.S. armed forces are associated with a much higher risk for homelessness

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William Anderegg and his colleagues looked for patterns in previous studies of tree mortality and found some common traits that characterized which species lived and which died during drought. The results, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, can help chart the future of forests.

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By showing that a phenomenon dubbed the “inverse spin Hall effect” works in several organic semiconductors – including carbon-60 buckyballs – University of Utah physicists changed magnetic “spin current” into electric current. The efficiency of this new power conversion method isn’t yet known, but it might find use in future electronic devices including batteries, solar cells and computers.

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The western United States relies on mountain snow for its water supply. Water stored as snow in the mountains during winter replenishes groundwater and drives river runoff in spring, filling reservoirs for use later in summer. But how could a warming globe and a changing climate interrupt this process?

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Fire, a tool broadly used for cooking, constructing, hunting and even communicating, was arguably one of the earliest discoveries in human history. But when, how and why it came to be used is hotly debated among scientists. A new scenario crafted by University of Utah anthropologists proposes that human ancestors became dependent on fire as a result of Africa’s increasingly fire-prone environment 2-3 million years ago.

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In the April 6 issue of the journal Nature Communications, a new study used fossils and mercury isotopes from volcanic gas deposited in ancient proto-Pacific Ocean sediment deposits in Nevada to determine when life recovered following the end-Triassic mass extinction 201.5 million years ago.

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A team of international paleontologists demonstrate that ancient mammal relatives known as therapsids were suited to the drastic climate change by having shorter life expectancies and would have had a better chance of success by breeding at younger ages than their predecessors.

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A new multi-year study from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City shows that testosterone therapy helped elderly men with low testosterone levels and pre-existing coronary artery disease reduce their risks of major adverse cardiovascular events — including strokes, heart attacks, and death.

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Low levels of total vitamin D and bioavailable vitamin D can help predict a person’s risk of major adverse cardiovascular events such as a heart attack, stroke, heart failure or death, according to a first-of-its-kind study from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

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New study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City found that effectively treating depression can reduce a patient’s chance of having a stroke, heart failure, a heart attack or death.

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People with high levels of good cholesterol, or high-density lipoprotein, are not as safe from heart disease when high levels of a newly identified biomarker of inflammation in the arteries are also found in their bloodstream, according to a new study.

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A new study from Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute and Johns Hopkins Medical Center lends more evidence to the idea that it’s better to be shaped like a pear — with weight around the hips — as opposed to an apple — with weight around the abdomen.

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End-stage heart failure patients treated with stem cells harvested from their own bone marrow experienced 37 percent fewer cardiac events - including deaths and heart failure hospital admissions - than a placebo-controlled group, according to a new study. Results from ixCELL-DCM, the largest cell therapy clinical trial for treating heart failure to date, will be presented at the 2016 American College of Cardiology annual meeting and published online in The Lancet on April 4.

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Intermountain Healthcare is one of eight health systems and hospitals nationwide that were recognized Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for implementing protocols that have helped to reduce the rate of venous thromboembolism (VTE), or blood clots, among hospital patients.

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Alkane fuel is a key ingredient in combustible material such as gasoline, airplane fuel, oil — even a homemade bomb. Yet it’s difficult to detect and there are no portable scanners available that can sniff out the odorless and colorless vapor. But University of Utah engineers have developed a new type of fiber material for a handheld scanner that can detect small traces of alkane fuel vapor, a valuable advancement that could be an early-warning signal for leaks in an oil pipeline, an airliner, or for locating a terrorist’s explosive.

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University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law receives $250,000 gift and new $5 million endowment to top-ranked environmental law program

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University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law hosts 'Green Infrastructure, Resilient Cities: New Challenges, New Solutions'

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Internationally acclaimed clinical scholar, academic leader assumes begins in new role on May 15, 2016.

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Inheriting a mutation in the APC gene leads to a nearly 100% lifetime risk of colorectal cancer. While colon cancer can be kept at bay by removing the large intestine, these patients also have up to a 15% risk of getting cancer in the small intestine, which is the leading cause of cancer death in this patient group. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), has identified the first prevention treatment for these patients, a two-drug combination that significantly reduces the number and size of precancerous polyps in the small intestine.

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The most common immune disorder, common variable immunodeficiency disorder (CVID), is notoriously difficult to diagnose early, before serious complications develop. Genetic analysis of six families from across the U.S. and Europe has revealed that mutations in IKAROS, known for its central role in immune cell development, define a new class of CVID. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the results open the door to personalized health care tailored to patients with this disorder.

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University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Professor Michael Teter is available to discuss the merits of Merrick Garland as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice —as well as how Garland's appointment will change the court's make-up and political considerations that factor into the process.

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The Entertainment Arts & Engineering (EAE) program at the University of Utah is the No. 1 undergraduate school for studying game design, according to the Princeton Review, which released the rankings today. The EAE graduate program is ranked No. 3.

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University of Utah scientists identified two genes that make some pigeon breeds develop feathered feet known as muffs, while others have scaled feet. The same or similar genes might explain scaled feet in chickens and other birds, and provide insight into how some dinosaurs got feathers before they evolved into birds.

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For humans to understand speech and for other animals to know each other’s calls, the brain must distinguish short sounds from longer sounds. By studying frogs, University of Utah researchers figured out how certain brain cells compute the length of sounds and detect short ones.

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In a search for new antiviral drugs, University of Utah scientists found that a common heart failure medicine, spironolactone, has an unexpected ability to block Epstein Barr virus (EBV), a herpesvirus that causes mononucleosis. The drug blocks a key step in viral infection common to all herpesviruses, revealing that it could be developed into a new class of drug to treat herpesvirus infections including herpes, shingles, and mono. The research was published in PNAS.

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New report from the S.J. Quinney College of Law focuses on remedies to help protect migrant women from domestic violence and sexual assault. The research is part of a broader initiative at the law school focused on drawing attention to empowering people through human rights education.

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A University of Utah biochemist is one of four researchers worldwide to receive a grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi US Services Inc. to develop glucose-responsive insulin.

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Roughly eight percent of our DNA comes from viruses that infected our ancestors millions of years ago. New research by University of Utah geneticists shows that more than an oddity, the viral DNA switches on genes responsible for initiating an immune response. When removed, the innate immune system –a first-responder to infection by pathogens including viruses- does not function properly. The study shows that viral DNA functions in our body by helping us fight infections.

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A University of Utah-led initiative to help people with rare and untreatable diseases was highlighted by the White House at the Precision Medicine Initiative Summit today. Patient Empowered Precision Medicine Alliance (PEPMA) will lay the groundwork for a pipeline that rapidly matches patients with rare diseases that are untreatable with current therapies to the right drugs for their condition, at a relatively low cost.

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The University of Utah’s No.1- ranked video game program, Entertainment Arts & Engineering (EAE), and the David Eccles School of Business announce the creation of the nation’s first dual master’s degree combining a Master of Business Administration with a Master in EAE in game development. This unique degree for graduate students is designed to prepare them for all facets of the growing $91 billion video game industry, from designing and producing games to publishing them in a competitive market.

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University of Utah engineers have discovered a new kind of 2D semiconducting material for electronics that opens the door for much speedier computers and smartphones that also consume a lot less power.

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Researchers have always thought that flat, ultrathin optical lenses for cameras or other devices were impossible because of the way all the colors of light must bend through them. But University of Utah electrical and computer engineering professor Rajesh Menon and his team have developed a new method of creating optics that are flat and thin yet can still perform the function of bending light to a single point, the basic step in producing an image.