The next flu pandemic: when it happens, restricting air travel won’t help

Restricting air travel from countries where there is a serious influenza outbreak will do little to hold back the spread of the infection, according to the findings of a study conducted at the UK Health Protection Agency and published in the journal PLoS Medicine.

Sometimes a new type of influeza virus appears that causes an illness that is more serious than is usually the case for flu. This ha

A group of researchers led by Dr. José López Barneo, of the University of Seville and Virgen del Rocío hospital, are taking part in European project PULMOTENSION. The aim of this research project is to fight pulmonary hypertension (PH), a serious illness. PH describes a group of chronic vascular diseases that cause lengthy disability with a fatal ending. It also causes heart failure due to high blood pressure in the lung’s blood vessels, brings shortage of breath, and decreases physical capacity in

Percutaneous image-guided biopsy of renal masses is safe and accurate, and it frequently alters clinical decision making, says a new study from the University of Michigan.

For the study, the researchers reviewed 153 kidney biopsies in 126 patients. The researchers found that more than 60% of patients had a change in their treatment–whether surgery, tumor ablation, chemotherapy or radiation–due to biopsy results, and that as many as 75 unnecessary kidney removals were potentially avoid

A new MRI guided technique known as manual interleaved MR-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) safely treats fibroids in 60% less time than conventional MRgFUS, according to a new study by researchers from the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA.

For the study, researchers analyzed the results of 14 women with symptomatic fibroids who were treated with the rapid interleaved MRgFUS. The researchers found that interleaved MRgFUS permitted up to 127 sonications–sound wave pulses that break

Duke University Medical Center researchers have developed a simple formula that will enable anesthesiologists to predict, based on individual patient characteristics, how much blood to have on hand in the operating room prior to coronary artery bypass surgery.

The new formula not only can save hospital resources and staff time, but also can lead to a more rational allocation of banked blood, according to the researchers.

Before a bypass procedure, blood typically is deliver

Asthmatic patients showed significant improvement in peak expiratory flow, airway responsiveness and number of symptom-free days after treatment with bronchial thermoplasty, a new procedure designed to reduce the ability of airway smooth muscle to narrow from inflammation.

These results appear in the May 1 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.

Gerard Cox, M.B., F.R.C.P.C., of the Firestone Institut

Although linguists have argued that certain patterns of language organization are the exclusive province of humans — perhaps the only uniquely human component of language — researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of California San Diego have discovered the same capacity to recognize such patterns and distinguish between them in Sturnus vulgaris, the common European starling.

In the April 27, 2006, issue of Nature, the researchers show that these starlings – long kn

WHAT: Marburg haemorrhagic fever is an uncommon disease. In some outbreaks in Africa, nearly 90 percent of cases have been fatal. Such high mortality rates make Marburg virus, the agent that causes the disease, a great concern for researchers developing medical countermeasures against potential bioterrorist threats. Currently there is no effective way to prevent or treat Marburg virus after someone is infected, but new research appearing in this week’s issue of the journal The Lancet may chang

Efforts now directed a understanding genetic causes of disease

The sequencing of human chromosome 3 announced in the current issue of the journal Nature represents a milestone for the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center – the final stage of its multi-year project to sequence the human genome.

Researchers at the BCM genome sequencing center in Houston are now using the information to discover the genetic basis for human disease, said Dr. Richard

A group of Japanese scientists has discovered that cannabinoids can cause some white blood cells to lose their ability to migrate to the sites of infection and inflammation. These findings, which appear in the May 5 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, could have potential use in the development of novel anti-inflammatory drugs.

The cannabinoids are a group of chemicals that include marijuana. These compounds bind to and activate the body’s cannabinoid receptors. There are

It is a marvel of nature that a creature such as a caterpillar changes into something quite different, a butterfly. Contrast that with a grasshopper, which looks largely the same from the time it hatches through its adult stage.

New University of Washington research shows that a regulatory gene named broad, known to be necessary for development of insects that undergo complete metamorphosis, also is key for the maturation of insects that have incomplete metamorphosis. The work ap

For some microbes, the transformation from a benign lifestyle in the soil to that of a potentially deadly human pathogen is just a breath away.

Inhaled into the lungs of a mammal, spores from a class of six related soil molds found around the world encounter a new, warmer environment. And as soon as they do, they rapidly shift gears and assume the guise of pathogenic yeast, causing such serious and sometimes deadly afflictions as blastomycosis and histoplasmosis.

But

MIT brain researchers have developed a “cocktail” of dietary supplements, now in human clinical trials, that holds promise for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

For years, doctors have encouraged people to consume foods such as fish that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids because they appear to improve memory and other brain functions.

The MIT research suggests that a cocktail treatment of omega-3 fatty acids and two other compounds normally present in the blood, co

Leading academics will meet this week to explore the initial findings from research into the views of consumers around the metabolic syndrome and its perceived health risks.

The research is part of a €12.5m project entitled Lipgene, which is funded by the EU. The metabolic syndrome is the focus of the project; this disease is characterised by a number of strongly inter-related risk factors for cardiovascular disease including obesity, dyslipidemia, insulin-resistance and hyperten

Researchers at the University of Manchester are testing a secret herb in a bid to stop the severe hot flushes that besiege breast cancer patients on hormone treatment.

Professor Alex Molassiotis, of the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, says the herb – one of the mint family, found in any kitchen – is thought to stop the hot flushes and night sweats which can be so bad that some women have to change their clothes three or four times a night.

It is traditionall

MIT scientists have just learned another lesson from nature. After years of wondering how organisms managed to create self-medications, such as anti-fungal agents, chemists have discovered the simple secret. Scientists already knew that a particular enzyme was able to coax a reaction out of stubborn chemical concoctions to generate a large family of medically valuable compounds called halogenated natural products. The question was, how do they do it? Chemists woul