Their research could lead to a device that would restore bladder control for the more than 200,000 Americans living with spinal cord injury or disease-related spinal cord problems
Biomedical engineers at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that stimulating a specific nerve in the pelvis triggers the process that causes urine to begin flowing out from the bladder, refuting conventional thinking that “bladder emptying” requires signal
They started with a bare room and an idea. Now, after five years of painstaking, sophisticated tests, scientists at the University of Virginia Health System have discovered that a compound, derived from a rare South American plant, stops the growth of human breast cancer cells in laboratory cultures.
U. Va. Health System scientists Deborah Lannigan and Jeffrey Smith hope that, after further testing, their discovery could translate into a successful drug for the treatment of breast
Physicists in the US have proven that wax is a perfect model of the ocean floors. Using a tub of wax, geophysicists at Cornell and Columbia have produced a predictive model of tectonic microplates – one of the most important and poorly understood features of plate tectonics – for the first time. This research is reported today in the New Journal of Physics (www.njp.org) published jointly by the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft).
International heart and sports medicine experts have called for a Europe-wide cardiovascular screening programme for all young athletes before they are allowed to take part in competitive athletics.
The aim is to pick up potentially life-threatening problems that put young athletes at risk and to cut the numbers collapsing and dying while participating in competitive sport.
A European Society of Cardiology consensus report[1] published (Wednesday 2 February) in Europe&#
According to a study published today in the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the addition of popular bone building drugs to calcium and vitamin D therapy to treat bone loss associated with Crohn’s disease is not beneficial. Moreover, the study shows that calcium and vitamin D treatment alone can improve bone mineral density (BMD) in Crohn’s patients by 3 to 4 percent per year.
“Patients with Crohn’s often suffer loss
Lawyers are often suspicious of so-called “eye-witness accounts” and rightly so. Hundreds of scientific studies in the past few decades have shown that the memories of people who observe complex events are notoriously susceptible to alteration if they receive misleading information about the event after it has taken place. In this month’s issue of the journal Learning & Memory, scientists from Johns Hopkins University report new insights into how such “false memories” are formed. This is t
From the February 2005 Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology
Researchers have identified specific asthma characteristics in children that could help determine the type of asthma treatment they will best respond to. These findings were published in the February 2005 Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (JACI). The JACI is the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI). “Parents of children with asthma often ask: Is
Many of the drugs commonly prescribed to treat agitation, delusions and other symptoms that can accompany dementia are not effective, researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues report this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“Our review of 29 research studies found that drug therapies are not particularly effective for managing symptoms such as agitation, wandering and delusions that are observed in most patients with deme
For the first time, UCLA researchers have developed a new evaluation tool that can predict mortality risk in patients hospitalized with heart failure. The new tool — used right at the bedside — will help clinicians quickly decide upon hospital admission which patients are at a greater mortality risk that may require higher monitoring and earlier, more intensive intervention.
Published in the February 2, 2005 edition of JAMA, the new tool utilizes the combination of three simpl
Primary malignant brain tumors are not very common – about 9,000 patients diagnosed per year – and are associated with a poor prognosis. Treatment of these patients varies greatly among academic and community centers and can be in conflict with accepted guidelines of care, according to a new study.
Findings are reported in the February 3 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in an article titled “Malignant Glioma Patterns of Care.”
UCSF Med
May offer new approach to smallpox treatment
In a finding that represents an entirely new approach to treating viral diseases such as smallpox, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and collaborating institutions have shown that infections can be stymied by interfering with signals used by viruses to reproduce in human cells.
The results, reported in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, point to a possible strategy for broadly treating acut
As part of the assessment of the Channel Tunnel after ten years of operation, the Centre for European Regional and Transport Economics (CERTE) at the University of Kent was commissioned by Eurotunnel and Kent County Council to evaluate the impact of the Tunnel on Kent and the likely trends for the future. The results of this study have now been made available as a report.
The study, carried out by Roger Vickerman, Professor of European Economics and Director of CERTE, Alan Hay,
We have responded to the demands of our clients for innovative Treasury products
The world’s first derivative products based on 3-year U.S. Treasury Notes began trading today on Eurex US, the fully-electronic U.S.-based futures and options exchange. As previously announced, Eurex US expanded its product suite of benchmark USD-denominated fixed income derivatives to include 3-year U.S. Treasury futures and options on futures, meeting customer demand for derivatives on shorter term
The third telescope aboard NASA’s Swift gamma-ray observatory, the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) with key involvement from UK scientists at University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory, has seen first light and is now poised to observe its first gamma-ray burst. The UVOT captured an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, known by amateur astronomers as the ‘perfect’ face-on spiral galaxy. With the UVOT turned on the Swift observatory is fully operational. Swift’s two other instrume
Transport research must focus on the challenges of the future, such as keeping people and products mobile, improving road safety and energy efficiency, and making the sector more competitive. This is the clear message of the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) which will tomorrow unveil its Strategic Research Agenda for the sector. ERTRAC brings together all players of the sector – automotive industry, road infrastructures, local and national governments, NGOs, universit
An advanced radar technique to image forests in three dimensions has undergone an ESA-backed test campaign in Indonesia. A future space-based version could measure global biomass to sharpen the accuracy of climate change models.
The campaign, called the Second Indonesian Airborne Radar Experiment (INDREX-II), involved flying a test instrument called the Experimental Synthetic Aperture Radar (E-SAR), built by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), in a Dornier-228 aircraft over eight tes
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