'Birth control' for centrioles

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Like DNA, centrioles need to duplicate only once per cell cycle. Rogers et al. uncover a long-sought mechanism that limits centriole copying, showing that it depends on the timely demolition of a protein that spurs the organelles' replication.

The study will appear in the January 26, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology and online at www.jcb.org.

Research identifies risk factors that affected World Trade Center evacuation

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January 22, 2009 -- Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health have released findings identifying factors that affected evacuation from the World Trade Center (WTC) Towers on September 11. A research methodology known as participatory action research (PAR) was used to identify individual, organizational, and structural (environmental) barriers to safe and rapid evacuation.

Patients starting Parkinson's drug rasagiline earlier do better

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Tampa, FL (Jan. 26, 2009) – There is hope that the drug rasagiline can do what no other medication for Parkinson's disease now does -- slow the progression of a devastating degenerative brain disease that eventually robs people of their ability to move and function.

Protecting the nest egg: Special gifts have symbolic value

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Don't cash out Grandma's savings bond. Gifts passed on from one generation of family members to the next are worth more than their monetary value, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Those gifts carry the symbolic value attributed to them by the family's traditions, lore, and heritage.

Consumers desire more genetic testing, but not designer babies

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A new study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center found a high desire for additional genetic testing among consumers for life altering and threatening medical conditions including mental retardation, blindness, deafness, cancer, heart disease, dwarfism and shortened lifespan from death by 5 years of age. Consumers, however, are less interested in prenatal genetic testing for traits including tall stature, superior athletic ability and superior intelligence.

Caution: Lose more than weight with imported diet pills

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Americans who use illegal diet pills from South America are taking amphetamines without knowing it and seriously risking both their health and their jobs. Physicians need to be made aware of the range of serious side effects of these drugs to allow them to identify and treat those patients presenting with unexplained symptoms. These findings1, by Dr Pieter Cohen from the Department of Internal Medicine at the Cambridge Health Alliance in the US and Harvard Medical School, have recently been published online in Springer's Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Frequent sex and masturbation in 20s and 30s linked to higher prostate cancer risk

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Men who are very sexually active in their twenties and thirties are more likely to develop prostate cancer, especially if they masturbate frequently, according to a study of more than 800 men published in the January issue of BJU International.

However the UK research team also found that frequent sexual activity in a man's forties appears to have little effect and even small levels of activity in a man's fifties could offer protection from the disease. Most of the differences were attributed to masturbation rather than sexual intercourse.

Telemedicine can dramatically improve child sexual assault examinations in rural areas

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(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — The use of telemedicine can dramatically improve the quality of child sexual assault examinations in rural communities where rates of abuse and neglect are highest — sometimes more than double the statewide rate — a study published in the January issue of the medical journal Pediatrics has found.

Unmasked and vulnerable

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Donning a face mask is an easy way to boost protection from severe respiratory illnesses such as influenza and SARS, new research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has found, but convincing a reluctant public and health workers is proving a struggle.

In a world-first clinical trial of the efficacy of masks, researchers found adult mask wearers* in the home were four times more likely than non-wearers to be protected against respiratory viruses, including the common cold.

Study examines risk factors for cancer in unaffected breast of breast cancer patients

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A new study identifies certain patient and tumor characteristics that may help indicate which breast cancer patients would be the most likely to benefit from preventive surgery to remove the unaffected breast. Published in the March 1, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study could help patients with breast cancer make more informed treatment choices.