Curated News: Staff Picks

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Real weight loss patients share how they are navigating the holdiays and keeping the pounds off.

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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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Don’t believe in Santa Claus? Magic, you say? In fact, science and technology explain how Santa is able to deliver toys to good girls and boys around the world in one night, according to a North Carolina State University researcher.

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The sharp decrease in global carbon dioxide emissions attributed to the worldwide financial crisis in 2009 quickly rebounded in 2010.

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With pocketbooks stretched even more during the holidays this year, Americans may find it difficult to tip their service providers as much as they would like to, but according to a University of New Hampshire professor who researches service expectations, consumers should do their best to give something.

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The ranges of species will have to change dramatically as a result of climate change between now and 2100 because the climate will change more than 100 times faster than the rate at which species can adapt, according to a newly published study focusing on rattlesnakes.

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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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Established human embryonic cell lines, including those approved for federal research funding under former President George W. Bush, are different than newly derived human embryonic stem cell lines, according to a study by UCLA stem cell researchers.

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Given the obesity epidemic among the nation’s young, one would hope that children’s hospitals would serve as a role model for healthy eating. But hospitals in California fall short, with only 7 percent of entrees classified as “healthy.”

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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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Research at Iowa State University has led to discovery of a genetic method that can increase biomass in algae by 50 to 80 percent. The breakthrough comes from turning on certain genes in algae that increase the amount of photosynthesis in the plant, which leads to more biomass.

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New details about the birth of a famous black hole that took place millions of years ago have been uncovered, thanks to a team of scientists who used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory as well as from radio, optical and other X-ray telescopes.

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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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For 520 days, space researchers collected data on the impact of prolonged operational confinement on the sleep, performance, and mood on humans during a simulated Mars mission that ended last week in Moscow. The research could provide valuable insight for future long-duration space missions.

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Thousands of smokers will quit on Thursday, November 17th, with the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout. But many will be puffing away by Christmas and will need to quit several times before quitting for good. The Quit & Stay Quit Monday, a nonprofit initiative backed by leading public health schools, says Smokeout quitters can stay on track by using Monday as the day to recommit and re-quit if they relapse.

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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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UAB psychologist says amidst sexual harassment controversy, Herman Cain is at psychological crossroad. He can either self-destruct, or move on. But he must act now.

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In May 2009, Riverview Medical Center became part of a research study sponsored by Johns Hopkins University called the Atlantic C-PORT-E Elective Angioplasty trial. Riverview was selected to participate in this research study for its high level of experience and outstanding cardiovascular services.

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Over the past decade, the populations of staghorn and elkhorn corals in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary have remained steady after dramatic declines in the last century. Long-term monitoring conducted by researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) has revealed that while populations of the iconic branching corals remain far below their historic numbers, the surviving populations of both species have not suffered further declines.

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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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Being reminded of the concept of God can decrease people’s motivation to pursue personal goals but can help them resist temptation, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

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A University of Iowa study suggests that one-quarter of households that filed for bankruptcy in 2007 would not have been in that situation if the credit regulations of the 1970s had remained in place.

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The recent conflict between Congress and President Barack Obama over raising the federal debt ceiling caused many economists and policymakers to fret that the financial markets would assess a higher risk premium on U.S. Treasury securities. However, a University of Arkansas finance study suggests that financial markets increasingly regard such controversies as political posturing rather than serious threats to the economy and therefore the conflicts have not recently caused higher default-risk premiums in the long-term.

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A low-fat diet with fish oil supplements eaten for four to six weeks prior to prostate removal slowed down the growth of prostate cancer cells – the number of rapidly dividing cells – in human prostate cancer tissue compared to a traditional, high-fat Western diet.

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New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows that obesity may make annual flu shots less effective.

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Oncolytic viral therapy shows great potential for treating an aggressive form of breast cancer

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Researchers warn of a looming health crisis in the wake of rising mortgage delinquencies and home foreclosures. The study is the first long-term survey of the impact the current housing crisis is having on older Americans. The study focused on adults over 50 and found high rates of depression among those behind in their mortgage payments and a higher likelihood of making unhealthy financial tradeoffs regarding food and needed prescription medications.

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The spread of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement to cities across the country has led to a national discussion on the role of corporations and brought the term "corporate personhood" to the fore in recent weeks.

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University of Pennsylvania researchers found that homeowners in default or foreclosure showed an increase in mental health symptoms and physical symptoms.

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The perfect national candidate is often drawn taller and larger than average citizen, which could be a throwback to our caveman politics.

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A University at Buffalo-led research team has established the presence of a dynamic Jahn-Teller effect in defective diamonds, a finding that will help advance development of diamond-based systems in applications such as quantum information processing.

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A tiny piece of a critical receptor that fuels the brain and without which sentient beings cannot live has been discovered by University at Buffalo scientists as a promising new drug target for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

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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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Using one of the most sensitive neutrino detectors on the planet, physicists are now measuring the flow of solar neutrinos reaching Earth more precisely than ever before. It probes matter at the most fundamental level to provide a powerful tool for directly observing the sun’s composition.

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Children as young as 3 are likely to say that things made by humans have owners, but that natural objects, such as pine cones and sea shells, are not owned, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association.

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In a painstaking re-analysis of Hubble Space Telescope images from 1998, astronomers have found visual evidence for two extrasolar planets that went undetected back then. Finding these hidden gems in the Hubble archive gives astronomers an invaluable time machine for comparing much earlier planet orbital motion data to more recent observations. It also demonstrates a novel approach for planet hunting in archival Hubble data.

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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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Put up your dukes. A North Carolina State University study of aggression in fruit flies aims to provide a framework for how complex gene interactions affect behavior. And these clues in flies could translate to a better understanding of human genes and behavior.

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A single high dose of the hallucinogen psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called “magic mushrooms,” was enough to bring about a measureable personality change lasting at least a year in nearly 60 percent of the 51 participants in a new study, according to the Johns Hopkins researchers who conducted it.

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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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Effects of a particularly devastating human kidney disease may be blunted by making a certain cellular protein receptor much less receptive, according to new research by scientists from North Carolina State University and French universities and hospitals.