According to estimates, 10 % of women suffer from urinary incontinence, which can occur at all ages. Stress urinary incontinence is the most prevalent form of the condition and can result from intensive physical exercise, childbirth, weakened pelvic floor muscles, a decrease in blood oestrogen levels, a gynaecological operation or tissue ageing. Most stress urinary incontinence cases can be treated or cured. Several treatments, including surgery, have long helped patients with this psychologically u

A molecule expressed in the earliest stages of pregnancy that vanishes when the baby is born seems to keep some cells responsible for directing the immune system in an immature and accepting stage, Medical College of Georgia researchers says.

Their finding that the molecule HLA-G helps make dendritic cells – which work like air-traffic controllers for the immune system – tolerant helps explain how a fetus, with genes from both parents, can avoid rejection by the mother’s immune system.

Once freed from its home inside the nucleus of an atom, a neutron lives on average 886.8 seconds (about 14.8 minutes), plus or minus 3.4 seconds, according to recent measurements performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

This result, published in the Oct. 10 issue of Physical Review Letters, is the most precise ever achieved using beams of neutrons and is the culmination of almost 10 years of work. The new neutron lifetime value is consistent with physicists’ cur

An industrial engineer at Purdue University has created a method to increase the efficiency, profitability and capacity of recycling operations for electronic products such as computers and television sets.

The work also promises to open up a new area of research in a field known as scheduling.

More than 1.5 billion pounds of electronic equipment is processed every year in the United States, and the quantity of discarded personal computers is expected to rise substantially over the

Some men may be more prone to prostate cancer because a variation in a specific gene makes them more susceptible to the harmful effects of cancer-causing agents, a new study shows. The results of the study led by Wake Forest University School of Medicine researcher Jianfeng Xu, Ph.D. will be published today in the British Journal of Cancer.

Xu and his team, in collaboration with researchers at Johns Hopkins University, looked at variations in a gene that controls the body’s response to

Two new studies now show that aprepitant – the first in a new class of drugs that interfere with the vomiting reflex – can substantially reduce chemotherapy-associated nausea and vomiting in cancer patients treated with cisplatin, a common type of chemotherapy. Results of both Journal of Clinical Oncology studies, early release articles published online October 14, formed the basis of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of aprepitant in March 2003.

Aprepitant Combined with