Investigators have discovered that some type of protective system goes into action in some cases when a baby’s immune system is deficient. This discovery indicates a hidden safety net that might have far-reaching consequences for treating diseases of the immune system such as AIDS. The Mayo Clinic-led study was conducted with colleagues in Toronto and Baltimore, and is reported in the early online edition of the Feb. 1 Journal of Immunology.
The researchers studied 20 patients who as
Results from a small-scale experiment in western North Carolina illustrate the importance of National Forest lands in ensuring high water quality in the Southern Appalachian region. Conducted by scientists from the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS), the study, published in the January 2006 issue of the journal Water, Air, and Soil Pollution, showed that the quality of water in streams from an area heavily affected by urbanization was significantly improved by its passage through
The diagnostic value of CT enteroclysis is superior to conventional enteroclysis, previously considered the gold standard, as an imaging method for the evaluation of the small bowel in patients with Crohn’s disease, a new study shows.
Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory disease of the intestinal wall. Complications of Crohn’s disease, such as abscesses, and stenoses, are found in approximately 40% of patients. Patients with inflammatory and some-times even obstructiv
Many dog owners who relinquish their pets to animal shelters are not entirely honest about their dogs’ behavioral problems probably for fear that their pets will be put to sleep, according to a study from the University of Pennsylvania and University of California veterinary schools. According to the researchers, these behavioral problems may sometimes pose a risk to an adopting family who could unknowingly take in an aggressive animal.
The researchers studied behavioral questionn
When Sylvia the baboon lost Sierra, her closest grooming partner and daughter, to a lion, she responded in a way that would be considered very human-like: she looked to friends for support. According to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, baboons physiologically respond to bereavement in ways similar to humans, with an increase in stress hormones called glucocorticoids. Baboons can lower their glucocorticoid levels through friendly social contact, expanding their social network
The most powerful earthquakes – such as those that shook Indonesia in 2004, Alaska in 1964, Chile in 1960 and the Pacific Northwest in 1700 – occur in subduction zones, areas of the sea floor just offshore where two tectonic plates meet and one dives beneath the other.
But not all subduction zones are created equal, and University of Washington researchers believe they have found a key to determine which subduction zones – or which specific areas within a subduction zone – migh
Children’s Rehabilitative Services (CRS) at St. Joseph’s Children’s Health Center in Phoenix is using a special ultrasound to identify the risk for stroke in children who have sickle cell disease. The transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasound measures blood flow in the arteries, identifying the narrowness of the artery and assessing stroke risk.
The TCD ultrasound, which is placed at the base of the patient’s skull, measures the blood flow in the arteries. The more rapid
An important new study explores the impact of artificial bonuses on customer loyalty. For example, putting a few extra “bonus” stamps on a frequent-buyer card – instead of just requiring more purchases in the first place – leads to an artificial feeling of advancement towards a goal…and repeat business. In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Consumer Research, this phenomenon is termed the “endowed progress effect.”
“The endowed progress effect we document is shown to affect the attr
People who feel sad or anxious without knowing the source of their sulkiness will let negative feelings affect their decision-making on unrelated issues. However, a groundbreaking new study in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Consumer Research reveals a surprisingly simple way to combat the rule of bad feelings: identify the source of the negative emotion.
“When we do not know the cause of our negative states – referred to as mood states by psychologists–we use the moo
A forthcoming article in the March 2006 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research compares the attitudes of American and Singaporean subjects toward well-known brands in order to assess how a consumer’s self-view influences perception of consumer goods. The researchers found that Westerners, who tend to have a personality-oriented independent self-view, focus on the general qualities of the brand. Easterners, who focus more interdependently on contextual factors and their relationships to other
Reduction in small-fiber nerves may underlie complex regional pain syndrome-I (reflex sympathetic dystrophy)
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have found the first evidence of a physical abnormality underlying the chronic pain condition called reflex sympathetic dystrophy or complex regional pain syndrome-I (CRPS-I). In the February issue of the journal Pain, they describe finding that skin affected by CRPS-I pain appears to have lost some small-fiber nerve endings
Many of us have experienced déjà vu – the unsettling sensation of knowing that a situation could not have been experienced, combined with the feeling that it has. It is usually so fleeting that psychologists have until recently thought it impossible to study. But for some people, the feeling of having been there before is a persistent sensation, making every day a ‘Groundhog Day’. Psychologists from Leeds’ memory group are working with sufferers of chronic déjà vu on the world’s first study
A study released by the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Corporations of Massachusetts, Inc. (MHSACM), a statewide organization representing over 100 community-based mental health and substance abuse service providers, found that the MassHealth behavioral health carve-out provides efficient and effective mental health and substance abuse services and is of good taxpayer value to the Commonwealth.
The Romney Administration is currently considering dismantling the program.
Changes in the brain that are important indicators of bipolar disorder are not prominent until young adulthood and are reduced in persons taking mood-stabilizing medications, Yale School of Medicine researchers report this month in Biological Psychiatry.
The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to measure a part of the brain that regulates emotions, the ventral prefrontal cortex, that lies above the eyes. The changes in persons with bipolar disorder were not prominent until yo
A shoulder shrug. Lack of eye contact. A hand gesture. What patients don’t say can be just as important as what they do, according to a study of nonverbal behavior published in a January issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
According to the study by Richard Frankel, Ph.D., professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine and a research scientist at the Regenstrief Institute and the Center for Implementing Evidence Based Practice at the Indian
The authors of a paper in last week’s Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Section B, who say their 7.9 mm-long fish from a peat swamp in Southeast Asia is the smallest fish and vertebrate known, have failed to make note of work published last fall that describes sexually mature, male anglerfishes measuring 6.2 mm to 7.4 mm in length.
The 6.2 mm specimen is by far the smallest of any vertebrate, beating the recent claim by a full 1.7 mm, according to Ted Pietsch, a Univ
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