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ROCHESTER, Minn. - Mayo Clinic researchers confirmed that patients who receive therapeutic hypothermia after resuscitation from cardiac arrest have favorable chances of surviving the event and recovering good functional status. In therapeutic hypothermia, a patient's body temperature is cooled to 33 degrees Celsius following resuscitation from cardiac arrest, in order to slow the brain's metabolism and protect the brain against the damage initiated by the lack of blood flow and oxygenation. This study was published in the December 2010 issue of Annals of Neurology.

Nanotechnology offers a range of benefits over traditional materials and enables the development of innovative applications and products. However, there are often concerns about the safety aspects and to what extent these have been investigated. High-quality measurements are the basis for reliable safety assessments, process improvement, quality control and the development of new nanotechnology applications.

One of the goals of the European Research Council, ERC, is to bring the world's leading researchers to work in Europe. American Juleen Zierath is one of those who have received funds from the ERC. She found the best environment for her research at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Knee replacement surgery takes far more time to conduct in overweight and obese patients than in normal weight patients, according to recent research at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. The study will be presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting, held Feb. 15-19 in San Diego, Calif. The study has implications for hospital staff scheduling surgeries, operating room utilization and personnel staffing, and also raises the question of whether knee replacements should be reimbursed based on time.

For years, doctors have used platelet rich plasma (PRP) to promote healing in various surgeries, but a recent study demonstrates that a type of PRP did not improve healing after rotator cuff repair. The study, conducted by Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) investigators, will be presented at the upcoming American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) 2011 Specialty Day meeting, held Feb. 19 in San Diego, Calif., following the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL, February, 18 2011– Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have developed a unique technology that stabilizes an otherwise unstable form of calcium carbonate. This mineral form provides significantly higher biological absorption and retention rates than other sources presently used as dietary calcium supplements.

Calcium is considered to be one of the most important minerals in the human body for maintaining bone mass and coronary health. Insufficient dietary calcium intake can induce osteoporosis and poor blood-clotting.

Adelaide researchers have taken a step closer to the development of a universal flu vaccine, with results of a recent study showing that a vaccine delivered by a simple nasal spray could provide protection against influenza.

Biodiversity loss is a growing concern. Protected areas are a instrument to counteract this trend. The UN's Convention on Biological Diversity conference of the parties in Nagoya (October 2010) set stringent new targets to be reached by 2020. At least 17% of terrestrial and inland water and 10% of coastal and marine areas have to be protected. But are protected areas really protected? Are they in the right place? Where should new protected areas be located?

Patients with both type 1 diabetes and CKD have an increased risk of adverse outcomes. Despite aggressive treatment, many patients with type 1 diabetes and overt nephropathy develop End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) and/or succumb to a premature death. The competing risks of death and ESRD may confound the estimates of risk for each outcome.

When it was time to get funding, the promise of the human genome project knew no bounds, curing cancer and anything else that would help. And in the ten years since the human genetic code was mapped, expectations among scientists, health care industry, policy makers and the public have remained high concerning the promise of genomics research for improving health.

The most popular model used by geneticists for the last 35 years to detect the footprints of human evolution may overlook more common subtle changes, a new international study finds.

Classic selective sweeps, when a beneficial genetic mutation quickly spreads through the human population, are thought to have been the primary driver of human evolution. But a new computational analysis, published in the February 18, 2011 issue of Science, reveals that such events may have been rare, with little influence on the history of our species.

New research from the University of Pennsylvania is beginning to crack the code of which strain of flu will be prevalent in a given year, with major implications for global public health preparedness. The findings will be published on February 17 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

Scientists have identified the gene that allows the Rubella virus to block cell death and reverse engineered a mutant gene that slows the virus's spread. Tom Hobman and a team of researchers at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry believed that RNA viruses were able to spread by blocking the pathways in cells that lead to cell suicide, and isolated the responsible gene in Rubella, also known as German measles. They then created a mutant version of this gene that made the virus spread more slowly. These results are reported in PLoS Pathogens.

Glaucoma – a leading cause of vision loss and blindness worldwide – runs in families. A team of investigators from Vanderbilt University and the University of Florida has identified a new candidate gene for the most common form of the eye disorder, primary open angle glaucoma (POAG).

The findings, reported Feb. 17 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, offer novel insights into glaucoma pathology and could lead to targeted treatment strategies.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Most people know that exercise is important to maintain and improve health; however, sedentary lifestyles and obesity rates are at all-time highs and have become major national issues. In a new study, University of Missouri researchers found that healthy adults who received interventions focused on behavior-changing strategies significantly increased their physical activity levels. Conversely, interventions based on cognitive approaches, which try to change knowledge and attitudes, did not improve physical activity.