Children with cerebral palsy who are severely impaired showed significant improvement in their motor skills using a new experimental physical therapy regimen, said researchers at Georgetown University and University of Alabama at Birmingham. The study – the first randomized, controlled trial of its kind conducted on children – appears in the February 2 issue of the journal Pediatrics.

All treated children in this study outperformed the children in conventional therapy across all measures of

New findings may pave way for improved pain relief methods

Although physicians administer radiation therapy to relieve bone cancer pain in more than 100,000 patients each year in the United States, little is known about why the treatment works. Using an experimental radiation model, University of Minnesota Cancer Center researchers and colleagues have determined that radiation treatment may relieve pain by reducing bone tumor size and decreasing progression of cancer-induced bone dest

Antibiotics, antihistamines, alcohol use, tobacco use, untreated hypertension and multisystem autoimmune diseases are potential risk factors for a retinal disorder known as central serous chorioretinopathy. This is the conclusion of a study appearing in the February issue of Ophthalmology, the clinical journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Eye M.D. Association. Central serous chorioretinopathy, or CSCR, is a disorder in which retinal cells detach and atrophy, causing visual impairment

Détente, and a good fence, can be far more effective than all-out assault in the age-old war between man and microbe, University of Chicago researchers report in the February issue of Gastroenterology. By injecting a protective coating into the intestines to pacify bacteria there instead of relying on antibiotics to kill them, the scientists were able to protect mice from otherwise lethal infections.

The protective coating, a high-molecular-weight polyethylene glycol, protected mice who had

A previously unidentified protein on the surface of intestinal cells is giving Purdue University researchers clues on how to prevent disease

The scientists believe their results eventually could lead to a way to prevent food-borne Listeria monocytogenes infection, which has a 20 percent fatality rate, as well as other diseases. The study of the bacteria is reported in the February issue of the journal Infection and Immunity.

“This research reveals a detailed mechanism tha

A new portable system for analyzing the walking patterns of people with Parkinson’s disease has been developed by researchers in the US and Japan. The system, described in the Institute of Physics publication Journal of Neural Engineering, will help doctors monitor the progress of the disease in patients and so tailor their therapy and drug regime more accurately than previously possible.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder of the central nervous system. Its symptoms inc

Using the latest terascale ASCI computers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have revealed details of the reactive states and faster relaxation of molecules at the water-to-air interface.

Scientists Christopher Mundy and I-Feng Kuo created the first ab initio calculations of a stable aqueous liquid-vapor interface. The simulations serve as a robust predictive tool in the investigation of electronic properties of molecules at interfaces.

These complex theoretical m

A pint-sized, tree-dwelling Brazilian monkey has proven to be strikingly similar to humans when it comes to sexual responses, a national research team has discovered.

Through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and collaborating institutions for the first time peered into the brains of fully conscious nonhuman primates to learn what’s really on their minds when it comes to sex. The research appears in the February 2004 issu

Chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have uncovered the molecular activity of an enzyme responsible for naturally turning a small protein into a potent antibiotic known as a lantibiotic.

The finding is described in the Jan. 30 issue of the journal Science. The research details how the enzyme performs two biosynthetic reactions that lead to the formation of fused cyclic structures required for antimicrobial activity. The discovery unlocks a door that could lead to a ne

The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker may be more famous, but the pharmacist, the engineer, and the doctor may be onto something big.

The latter group has combined resources and knowledge to create a novel way to deliver a new lung cancer treatment. The new system, which uses “nanoparticle cluster bombs,” has proven effective in treating cancerous lung cells in vitro (in a petri dish), it was reported today in the International Journal of Pharmaceuticals. The research tea

Women with breast cancer have fewer adverse effects from chemotherapy and less fatigue when using virtual reality as a distraction intervention during treatments, according to a study from the Duke University School of Nursing and Case Western Reserve Comprehensive Cancer Center.

In the study, published in the January 2004 issue of Oncology Nursing Forum, the researchers described how chemotherapy patients eased their fatigue and discomfort by solving a mystery, touring an art gallery or go

When recovering from a heart attack or stroke, the body must restore blood flow in order to resupply cells with oxygen. Ironically, the process of reoxygenation – so necessary for full recovery – also generates reactive oxygen species (ROS), molecules that induce apoptosis, or cellular death. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the University of Iowa have identified a biochemical strategy to block ROS – which effectively prevents cellular damage and death. Their

Birds were dying on an island off the coast of Florida, and people didn’t know why. A group of conservationists wondered if the culprit might be a pesticide sprayed into the air to wipe out mosquitoes. The explanation quickly came from an unlikely source in Wisconsin.

For several years, Warren Porter, a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been working with faculty and staff across campus to develop a computer model that could predict how animals, living on a

Careful study of changes in the genetic make-up of the SARS virus through the recent epidemic has allowed researchers from China and the University of Chicago to bolster the evidence for the animal origins of SARS and to chart three phases of the virus’s molecular evolution as it gradually adapted to human hosts, becoming more infectious over time.

The earliest phase involved cases that appeared to be independent and featured viral genomes identical to those found in animal hosts, the

Chemical engineers at Purdue University have shown how to make yeast cells double the activity and boost productivity of a type of enzyme plants need to create important chemicals such as anticancer compounds.

The work is related to efforts aimed at developing techniques to use plants and microorganisms as natural factories for producing pharmaceuticals. Such techniques would be safer and more environmentally friendly than conventional methods for making drugs, which often require hazardous

Teenagers suffering from depression may have abnormal brain structure, according to new research. An article published in BMC Medicine this week shows that adolescents diagnosed with major depressive disorder tend to have a small hippocampus – a part of the brain associated with motivation, emotion, and memory formation.

Researchers from Dalhousie University and the National Research Council of Canada studied 34 adolescents between the ages of 13 to 18 years old, half of whom were suffering