Landmark data from the PROactive Study, presented today at the 41st meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) demonstrated that ACTOS® (pioglitazone HCl) significantly reduced the combined risk of heart attacks, strokes and death by 16% in high-risk patients with type 2 diabetes.
“The PROactive study is the first in the world to prospectively show that a specific oral glucose lowering medication, namely pioglitazone, can significantly improve cardiov
Women with atrial fibrillation who are not on anticoagulant therapy have a higher rate of ischemic stroke and face a higher absolute risk for stroke than do men with the condition, according to a joint study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, Massachusetts General Hospital, the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente and Boston University School of Medicine.
Using a sample of 13,559 patients with atrial fibrillation, or rapid irregular contraction
Diamonds have always been alluring, but now a team of scientists has made them truly magnetic — on the nanoscale.
In a paper published in the Aug. 26 issue of Physical Review Letters, the researchers report a technique to make magnetic diamond particles only 4-5 nanometers across. The tiny diamond magnets could find use in fields ranging from medicine to information technology.
Ferromagnetism has been historically reserved for metals, but scientists are becoming incre
Data reveal insights into formation of stars in early universe
NASA’s Swift satellite and ground-based telescopes have discovered the most distant exploding star on record, confirming a 1999 prediction made by University of Chicago astrophysicist Don Lamb and Daniel Reichart, who was then a graduate student at Chicago.
Now a faculty member at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Reichart led the team that discovered the afterglow of the explosion, called a gam
Study suggests chronic infections may create autoimmune response
New research finds the human immune system has foregone evolutionary changes that would allow it to produce better antibodies in less time because the improved antibodies would be far more likely to attack the body’s own tissues. The Rice University study finds the immune system has evolved a near-perfect balance for producing antibodies that are both effective against pathogens and unlikely to cause autoimmune
Four seemingly unrelated viral diseases may some day be defeated by a single treatment, according to a recent collaborative study involving researchers at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Their study focuses on viruses responsible for HIV, measles, Ebola and Marburg and includes investigators from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study is being funded by a grant from the Hudson-Alpha I
In studies with mice, Penn State researchers have shown that a combination of retinoic acid — a product the body makes naturally from vitamin A — and PIC, a synthetic immunity booster, significantly elevates the immune system response to a tetanus shot.
Dr. A. Catharine Ross, who holds the Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair in Nutrition at Penn State, directed the study. She says, “There aren’t very many examples of using nutrition to improve immune response. These results show that a
For the first time, researchers have observed exactly how some cells are able to repair DNA damage caused by the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
The Ohio State University study revealed how the enzyme photolyase uses energy from visible light to repair UV damage.
This enzyme is missing in all mammals, including humans, although all plants and all other animals have it. Greater understanding of how photolyase works could one day lead to drugs that help repair UV d
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that 85 percent of embryos transferred during in vitro fertilization fail to become live births, highlighting the need for improving diagnostic techniques to identify viable embryos.
Published in the August issue of Fertility and Sterility, the study reviewed seven years of U.S. statistics from all the fertility clinics that report data on reproductive techniques. Director of the Yale Fertility Center, Pasquale Patrizio, M.D., pr
Scientists in Global Drifter Program deploy ceremonial 1,250th buoy
An ambitious idea spawned more than 20 years ago to develop a new way to watch the world change has come to fruition.
The Global Drifter Program (GDP), largely led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and Scripps Distinguished Professor Peter Niiler, will meet its lofty goal of blanketing the globe on Sept. 18 when the program’s 1,250th instrument is
Study points to importance of pathway in cancer progression
The cancer gene MYC is among the most commonly overexpressed oncogenes in human cancers. Most human cancers demonstrate high levels of MYC or its biological partners, including those of the breast, ovaries, lung, prostate, and skin, as well as leukemias and lymphomas. MYC is a regulator of other genes–a transcription factor–and scientists have been working for more than two decades to identify its target genes in order
Using a blood test to measure the level of the hormone prolactin can help determine, in certain clinical settings, whether an epileptic seizure has occurred, according to a guideline developed by the American Academy of Neurology and published in the September 13, 2005 issue of Neurology. The guideline authors reviewed all of the scientific evidence available on use of the prolactin blood test to diagnose seizures and developed evidence-based recommendations.
The blood test, which
Microbian evolution on a wide variety of surfaces can produce phenomena such as corrosion, dirt, smells and even serious hygiene and health problems.
It is well known there is a great interest in the design and development of the so-called “hygienic surfaces”, referring to surfaces that not only provides biocidal activity but also to those that are easy to clean and even self-cleaning.
Achieving these properties on a surface is possible by means of coatings and treatments
Researchers at the Botany Department of the University of Navarra, Ana María de Miguel y Miriam de Román, have undertaken a study on the use of mycorrhizzae-introduced plants (colonised with the “Tuber melanosporum” fungus or black Perigord truffle), on surface land areas affected by fires.
Taking advantage of reforestation work carried out by Viveros y Repoblaciones de Navarra in the recovery of the Nazar kermes oak forest (Estella-Lizarra region), a typical Mediterranean-type
Scientists using the NASA Swift satellite and several ground-based telescopes have detected the most distant explosion yet: a gamma-ray burst from the edge of the visible Universe.
This powerful burst, probably marking the death of a massive star as it collapsed into a black hole, was detected on 4th September 2005. The burst comes from an era soon after stars and galaxies first formed, less than a billion years after the Big Bang.
“How a single star could generate so m
The European Commission has selected the EBI to coordinate a project that will stimulate and explore synergies between bioinformatics (the science of storing, retrieving and analysing large amounts of biological information) and medical informatics (the science of processing, sharing and using large amounts of medical information). The SYMBiomatics project will culminate in a White Paper that will inform the Commission’s funding policy on the synergy between these two rapidly growing areas. The aim i
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