But reveals little influence of reefs on land damage
According to research reported this week in Current Biology, tsunami damage to coral reefs closest to the epicenter of the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was occasionally spectacular, but surprisingly limited, particularly when compared to damage from chronic human misuse in the region.
Less than 100 days after the tsunami of December 26, 2004, a team of ecologists from James Cook University, the Wildlife Conser
In a national study of children in motor vehicle crashes, researchers at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia report that traumatic stress can occur without injury. Looking at a wide range of crashes reported to State Farm Insurance Companies®, researchers found that while most children did well, two percent of the children and five percent of their parents experienced multiple traumatic stress symptoms that disrupted their lives.
There are more than 1.5 million crashes i
Inaccurate diagnoses led to painful biopsies that in themselves worsened the condition of patients with rare muscle-to-bone disease
A new research study shows how common a medical misdiagnosis can be and how severely it can exacerbate a disease. Focusing on a rare, genetic and disabling disease known as fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or FOP, researchers designed the study as an examination of the frequency of misdiagnosis and the complications associated with it.
T
Research may hold key to reduce national rate and improve neonatal health
Low birth weight, an important risk factor of infant mortality and childhood developmental disorders, varies more than 3-fold in regions across the U.S., according to national research conducted at Dartmouth Medical School. The study offers promise for health care experts in an area of prenatal health where progress has been elusive.
Published in the November 7 issue of Pediatrics, the study is the f
First national study encourages changes by the movie industry
The first national study to look at the connection between smoking in movies and smoking initiation among adolescents shows that exposure to smoking in popular films is a primary risk factor in determining whether young people will start smoking.
The study by researchers from Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) and Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) appears in the November 7 issues of the journal, Pediatrics. The re
The progression of the artery-clogging disease atherosclerosis is linked to the inability of specialized bone marrow cells to continuously repair damage to the arterial lining, Duke University Medical Center researchers have demonstrated.
The researchers also identified characteristic clusters of genes expressed at distinct phases of disease progression. The Duke cardiologists and geneticists believe that the findings of their latest experiments represent a new paradigm for unders
Need more evidence that men and women are different? Look no further than the Sunday funnies. According to a new Stanford University School of Medicine study, gender affects the way a person’s brain responds to humor.
The first-of-its-kind imaging study showed that women activate the parts of the brain involved in language processing and working memory more than men when viewing funny cartoons. Women were also more likely to activate with greater intensity the part of t
Every year at least 30 million women in malaria-endemic areas of Africa become pregnant. Many of them develop placental malaria, a pregnancy-specific form of the disease, which frequently results in low birth weight of the child. Placental malaria might increase the susceptibility of infants to malaria, but previous studies were inconclusive. A careful study by Patrick Duffy and colleagues (of the Seattle Biomedical Institute), published in the international open-access medical journal PLoS Medic
Humans exposed to malaria get infected and sick to varying degrees, and some of that variation is due to differences in genetic makeup between individuals. But how important are genetic factors compared with environmental ones? Margaret Mackinnon and colleagues (from the University of Cambridge) have an answer which they report in the international open-access medical journal PLoS Medicine.
Rather than focusing on specific genes, Mackinnon and colleagues were interested in the
Grandma has Alzheimer’s disease – should you sign her up for a new research study, even if she doesn’t really understand what it entails? What if the research has real risks, is unlikely to benefit her, but could lead to advances that will help future patients with Alzheimer’s? A new study sheds light on these questions, which may come up more often as potential treatments require more involved and invasive research.
“As potential new therapies such as vaccines, ge
Especially in Mexican-American children
Children bottle-fed past 12 months of age and Mexican-American children may be at high risk for iron deficiency and the problems that accompany it, according to a national study by Medical College of Wisconsin and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin researchers. The research was done in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Rochester and the American Academy of Pediatrics Center for Child Health Research. The findings appe
A novel “Flu Chip” developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder that can determine the genetic signatures of specific influenza strains from patient samples within hours may help world health officials combat coming epidemics and pandemics.
Tests last month on the new technology by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta showed the CU-Boulder Flu Chip can determine the genetic make-up of types and subtypes of the flu virus in about 11 hours, said CU-Boulde
Venus Express, the first mission to Venus by the European Space Agency (ESA), uses Finnish technology for two crucial devices.
The probe is to be launched on Wednesday, Nov. 9 from Kazakhstan. Venus Express is scheduled to arrive at its destination next April. It will then begin to study the second planet’s atmosphere, surface and other characteristics.
The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) designed the computer system and software for the probe’s ASPERA-4 par
After five years of being the world’s largest free-floating object, the B-15A iceberg has finally broken up off Antarctica’s Cape Adare.
ESA’s Envisat satellite’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) is sensitive to ice, and has been tracking the movement of the drifting ice object since the beginning of this year. Its latest imagery reveals the bottle-shaped iceberg split into nine knife-shaped icebergs and a myriad of smaller pieces on 27-28 October,
A new optical instrument that could vastly reduce the amount of time the pharmaceutical industry spends in R&D, by speeding up the measurement of drug inhaler performance, is being launched by Loughborough University spin out VariDose Limited.
Heightened interest in innovative pulmonary drug delivery is fuelled by the emergence of inhaled systemic drugs and global concern over the sharp rise in respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The g
A pre-clinical research project coordinated by The University of Manchester, which will advance understanding of how cancer cells evade the immune system, has been awarded nearly €12m by the EU. The European Union Framework Programme (FP6) will enable doctors to improve ‘T-cell mediated immunotherapy’, which has the potential to fight a broad range of cancers.
The five year ‘ATTACK’ Project (Adoptive engineered T-cell Targeting to Activate Cancer Killing), involves an internat
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