A natural form of sugar could offer a new, noninvasive way to precisely image tumors and potentially see whether cancer medication is effective, by means of a new imaging technology developed at UC San Francisco in collaboration with GE Healthcare.
Placentas support the fetus and mother, but those organs grow according to blueprints from dad, according to new research at Cornell University. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June, shows that the genes in a fetus that come from the father dominate in building the fetal side of the placenta.
Despite taking a tailored risk assessment tool that factors in family history and personal habits, nearly 20 percent of women did not believe their breast cancer risk, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have described another link in the chain of events that connect acute viral infections to the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
By studying the planarian flatworm, a master of regenerating missing tissue and repairing wounds, the lab of Whitehead Institute Member Peter Reddien has identified an unexpected source of position instruction: the muscle cells in the planarian body wall. This is the first time that such a positional control system has been identified in adult regenerative animals.
Research led by scientists from the University of California, San Diego has decoded the genetic basis of chronic mountain sickness (CMS) or Monge’s disease. Their study provides important information that validates the genetic basis of adaptation to high altitudes, and provides potential targets for CMS treatment.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have discovered the molecular mechanism by which the deadly Ebola virus assembles, providing potential new drug targets. Surprisingly, the study showed that the same molecule that assembles and releases new viruses also rearranges itself into different shapes, with each shape controlling a different step of the virus’s life cycle.
A study spearheaded by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Minnesota has shown that the world's largest owl – and one of the rarest – is also a key indicator of the health of some of old-growth Russian forests.
Decision-making by a surrogate for a family member who is unable to make medical decisions is more complicated than decision-making by patients themselves.
A multi-institutional team led by Dianna Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D., of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) has found a recurrent genetic mutation that has been linked to deadly thoracic aortic dissections in family members as young as 17 years of age.
The article, Dynamics of squeezing fluids: Clapping wet hands," reports on what happens to a thin film of water when it is compressed vertically. Ultimately, oil companies are interested in this research, says Virginia Tech engineering science and mechanics faculty member Sunny Jung, because of the oil separation process.
A health risk score calculated automatically using routine data from hospital electronic medical records (EMR) systems can identify patients at high risk of unplanned hospital readmission, reports a study in the September issue of Medical Care, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
New research suggests that Neandertals in Paleolithic Europe made specialized tools from animal bones before the arrival of modern humans, and that modern humans may have acquired knowledge of this early technology from Neandertals.
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have discovered a novel and complex visual circuit in a dragonfly's brain that could one day help to improve vision systems for robots.
When post surgical pain becomes chronic pain, the causes could be related to the type of surgery performed or from common psychological factors considered to be predictive of chronic post-op pain, such as anxiety, depression and pain catastrophizing. Research reported in The Journal of Pain showed that a combination of acute pain and anxiety and pain magnification, regardless of the type of surgical procedure, increases the risk for development of chronic pain.
Up to 70 percent of us will experience low back pain in our lifetimes and many will progress to long term, chronic low back pain. Research reported in The Journal of Pain shows that high pain intensity at onset is predictive of future pain and disability, even after five years.
Rresearchers have established new techniques for predicting the severity of seasonal cholera epidemics months before they occur and with a greater degree of accuracy than other methods based on remote satellite imaging. Taken together, findings from these two papers may provide the essential lead time to strengthen intervention efforts before the outbreak of cholera in endemic regions.
An international team of astronomers led by BoMee Lee has established that mature-looking galaxies existed much earlier than previously known, about 11.5 billion years ago. “Finding them this far back in time is a significant discovery,” says lead author Lee. Reported in The Astrophysical Journal.
There has been an “explosion of new and innovative” therapies for neurologic conditions such as stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson disease and multiple sclerosis, a top neurologist reports in the August issue of the journal Neurologic Clinics.
Newly released research findings from University of Utah neuroscientists assert that there is no evidence within brain imaging that indicates some people are right-brained or left-brained.
For years in popular culture, the terms left-brained and right-brained have come to refer to personality types, with an assumption that some people use the right side of their brain more, while some use the left side more.
Following a two-year study, University of Utah researchers have debunked that myth through identifying specific networks in the left and right brain that process lateralized functions.
A large multicenter study has found that current non-invasive techniques for respiratory support are less effective than widely assumed, in reducing the incidence of severe lung injury in very premature infants.
Astronomers have made an important measurement of the magnetic field emanating from a swirling disk of material surrounding the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The measurement, made by observing a recently-discovered pulsar, is providing them with a powerful new tool for studying the mysterious region at the core of our home galaxy.
Children who are exposed to lead are nearly three times more likely to be suspended from school by the 4th grade than children who are not exposed, according to a new University of Wisconsin-Madison study.
Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have discovered a powerful mechanism by which viruses such as influenza, West Nile and Dengue evade the body's immune response and infect humans with these potentially deadly diseases. The findings may provide scientists with an attractive target for novel antiviral therapies.
What happens to renewable energy programs in a country in a full-scale debt crisis -- do the programs whither and die in the winds of austerity? How do people view such programs when many of them can't afford to heat their houses? The answers to these two questions are actually linked, according to a new analysis in the JRSE.
Observations with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have revealed a massive cloud of multimillion-degree gas in a galaxy about 60 million light years from Earth. The hot gas cloud is likely caused by a collision between a dwarf galaxy and a much larger galaxy called NGC 1232.
New research from an ice core taken from West Antarctica shows that the warming that ended the last ice age in Antarctica began at least two, and perhaps four, millennia earlier than previously thought.
Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine have discovered how a common oral bacterium can contribute to colorectal cancer.
Typical combinations of anti-HIV medications do not appear to cause language delays in children who where exposed to HIV in the womb and whose mothers took the antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy.
Moffitt Cancer Center researchers suggest secondary cancers seen in melanoma patients who are being treated for a BRAF gene mutation may require new strategies, such as enhanced surveillance and combining BRAF-inhibitor therapy with other inhibitors, especially as they become more widely used. They discussed this topic in a review article that appears in the July issue of Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.
Herniated discs in the lower (lumbar) spine most often result from avulsion (separation) of the tissue connection between the disc and spinal bone, rather than rupture of the disc itself, according to a study in Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
A clinical trial conducted at the Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA has found that, compared with soybean oil, a limited duration (24 weeks) of fish oil is safe and effective in reversing liver disease in children with intestinal failure who require intravenous nutrition. The researchers believe that fish oil may also decrease the need for liver and/or intestinal transplants — and mortality — associated with this disease.
In a paper published in the Journal of Cell Biology, Sharon Campbell, PhD, professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Clare Waterman of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health showed that cell mobility occurs through the interactions between the protein vinculin and the cytoskeletal lattice formed by the protein actin. By physically binding to the actin that makes up the cytoskeleton, vinculin operates as a form of molecular clutch transferring force and controlling cell motion.
Prostate cancer aggressiveness may be established when the tumor is formed and not alter with time, according to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
After decades of research, multiple sclerosis patients are seeing a “rapid expansion” of effective new treatment options, according to a review article in the journal Neurologic Clinics.
Ethics and psychiatry experts at Johns Hopkins say current guidelines for physician conduct on social media are misframing the issue as a distinction between personal and professional identities, forcing physicians into an online "identity crisis".
Although screening programs prior to participation in sports have been used for many years for young competitive athletes, it has been suggested that screening programs might also be worthwhile in the general population. Description of the incidence of sports-related sudden death by specific sports as well as by sex and age may help inform the debate.
In a study that included patients with mitral valve regurgitation due to a condition known as flail mitral valve leaflets, performance of early surgical correction compared with initial medical management was associated with greater long-term survival and lower risk of heart failure, according to a study in the August 14 issue of JAMA.
In a large population of Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure who underwent implantation of a cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator, patients who had the cardiac characteristics of left bundle-branch block and longer QRS duration had the lowest risks of death and all-cause, cardiovascular, and heart failure readmission, according to a study in the August 14 issue of JAMA.
Patients with severe mitral valve regurgitation who are otherwise healthy should have mitral valve repair surgery sooner rather than later, even if they feel no symptoms, a Mayo Clinic-led study by U.S. and European researchers found. The results challenge the long-held belief that it is safer to “watch and wait” until a patient has symptoms, such as shortness of breath. This is the largest study to show that patients who undergo surgery early after diagnosis have improved long-term survival and lower risk of heart failure.
When egg and sperm combine, the new embryo bustles with activity. Its cells multiply so rapidly they largely ignore their DNA, other than to copy it and to read just a few essential genes. The embryonic cells mainly rely on molecular instructions placed in the egg by its mother in the form of RNA.
While the effect of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs) in infant formula on children's cognitive development may not always be evident on standardized developmental tasks at 18 months, significant effects may emerge later on more specific or fine-grained tasks.
Teenagers who have been seriously injured in a fight show a reduction in intelligence and cognitive ability, according to a large study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Black patients preoccupied with racial concerns have higher blood pressure than those who aren’t, according to results of new Johns Hopkins-led research. The findings suggest that heightened race consciousness could at least in part account for the disproportionately high rate of hypertension in black Americans — the highest prevalence of any group in the United States and one of the highest rates in the world.
Proton therapy, using high-energy subatomic particles, may offer a precise, organ-sparing treatment option for children with high-risk forms of neuroblastoma.
As demand climbs for more fuel-efficient vehicles, knowledge compiled over several years about diesel engines and a new strategy known as “low-temperature combustion” (LTC) might soon lead auto manufacturers and consumers to broader use of cleaner diesel engines in the United States.