September 1 is World Deafness Day

Deafness is a real and often underestimated health problem in Europe: 6% of the European population suffer of hearing impairment. It is now known that over 50% of all hearing impairments is caused by genetic factor. Over the last 7 years, the European Commission has channelled more than €10 million into research on different aspects of deafness. One particular project receiving support from the European Commission identified several genes which when

A new device being developed by researchers at the University of Southampton and Great Ormond Street Hospital is designed to optimise the effectiveness of chest physiotherapy techniques on babies and children suffering from breathing difficulties.

Rachael Gregson, a Research Fellow at the University’s School of Medicine and Great Ormond Street Hospital is leading the research and has developed an innovative sensing mat to measure chest physiotherapy.

Rachael says that although ches

Three Johns Hopkins researchers propose, for the first time, that HIV and other retroviruses can use a Trojan horse style of infection, taking advantage of a cloak of human proteins to sneak into cells.

The hypothesis explains 20 years of perplexing observations and suggests new ways to reduce HIV transmission and treat HIV infection, but it also implies that existing approaches to developing vaccines against HIV won’t work. A description of the hypothesis and its supporting evidence a

The Internet and the mail proved to be good aids in tracing chlamydia among young men. The results of an acclaimed project at Umeå University in Sweden are now being published in the September issue of the journal Eurosurveillance. With this method, 39 percent (396 of 1,016 interviewees), which is the highest published participation rate ever in a chlamydia screening of young men.

The project, being run by the researching general practitioner Daniel Novak together with his thesis director Ro

The tedious laboratory trial-and-error method for refining protein/peptide-based medicines could be accelerated and complemented by an innovative in silico (on computer) protein design method, according to researchers at Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and the University of California at Riverside.

Their findings, appearing in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could drastically decrease the time it takes to move potentia

A First Step Toward Robots the Size of a Grain of Sand

Chemists at the University of California, San Diego have developed minute grains of silicon that spontaneously assemble, orient and sense their local environment, a first step toward the development of robots the size of sand grains that could be used in medicine, bioterrorism surveillance and pollution monitoring.

In a paper to be published in September in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which will

What can bees teach us about speed shopping?
Does trading off speed for accuracy pay?

“Bumblebees have been shown to have very fine colour vision – which they can use to find up to 5,000 flowers a day,” says says Melbourne scientist Adrian Dyer who first made the observations whilst working in Germany.

Adrian’s study published in Nature casts light on how they do it – and may help us to learn from the bees how to design robot eyes in the future.

Adrian is

The majority of epilepsy patients who are seizure-free for the first year after surgery will have a favorable long-term outcome, according to a study in the August 26 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study examined 175 patients with intractable epilepsy (when the condition is not relieved by medication) who had surgery that removed a small portion of the brain identified as a region involved in seizure generation, and who were seizure-free

In keeping with a national trend, surgeons at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital say a new, less invasive approach to removing a kidney from a living donor is prompting more people to give one of their kidneys to someone in need of a transplant.
Over the past four years, the number of people donating a kidney at the hospital has doubled, from 14 in 1999 to 28 in 2002.

This is consistent with increases seen at other kidney transplant centers since the introduction several years ago

Radiologists are experimenting with contrast digital mammography to better diagnose cancer in dense breasts, according to a study appearing in the September issue of the journal Radiology.

“This advanced digital application is increasing the potential of mammography,” said the study’s lead author, Roberta A. Jong, M.D. “Contrast digital mammography makes cancers stand out against dense breast tissue that previously hid tumors with conventional film mammography,” said Dr. Jong, assistan

A long-standing medical discussion about how transplanted organs survive in a new body has received provocative new evidence from Mayo Clinic research. It shows a donated kidney survives in a new body by turning on a protective mechanism to shield it from the hostile environment of the patient’s immune system. The results are published in this month’s American Journal of Transplantation.

Says Mark Stegall, M.D., head of the transplant team that studied kidney genes’ response

Group of compounds found in red wine, vegetables simulate benefit of low-calorie diet

Mice, rats, worms, flies, and yeast all live longer on a low-calorie diet, which also seems to protect mammals against cancer and other aging-related diseases. Now, in yeast cells, researchers at Harvard Medical School and BIOMOL Research Laboratories have for the first time found a way to duplicate the benefits of restricted calories in yeast with a group of compounds found in red wine and vegetable

Anyone who made it to high school biology has learned about mitosis, or cell division. One cell divides into two, two into four and so forth in a process designed to pass on exact copies of the DNA in chromosomes to daughter cells. New research, by a University of Georgia team, shows how the genes that control this process are regulated.

The study is important for cancer research because the regulation of cell division goes awry in tumors and normal cell growth and behavior are lost. Unders

Multifocal intraocular lenses improve near vision without compromising distance vision. However, patients with these intraocular lenses may experience reduced contrast sensitivity and they may see haloes around lights. These are the conclusions of a study appearing in the September issue of Ophthalmology, the clinical journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Eye M.D. Association.

Monofocal lenses are the current standard of treatment, but usually require spectacles for near vis

Advancement To Revolutionize Oral Drug Delivery Zengen, Inc. announced today that its revolutionary drug delivery technology will be used in the new Chloraseptic® Relief Strips(tm), the only medicated oral strip for the treatment of sore throat. Zengen’s proprietary technology is the first to use drug active ingredients in an oral strip. “We are excited to be part of the new generation of Chloraseptic products,” said R. Steven Davidson, chief executive officer of Zengen.

A group of scientists led by Dr. Elaine Fuchs at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Rockefeller University have uncovered an unexpected new role for the well-known transcription factor, GATA-3, in hair follicle development. GATA-3 was previously identified for its role in coaxing hematopoietic stem cells towards a T-cell fate. Now, Dr. Fuchs and colleagues reveal that GATA-3 is also involved in epidermal stem cell specification. This finding lends valuable insight into hair follicle generatio