Body

WASHINGTON, DC – A new study released this week in The Lancet Infectious Diseases finds that African children who contract pneumococcus – a bacterial infection that causes pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis – are 36 times as likely to have sickle-cell disease, a blood disorder prevalent in African children that increases the risk for infectious diseases and early death. The study underscores the critical need for use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) among populations predisposed to sickle-cell disease, most notably those in sub-saharan Africa.

The study, by researchers from the University of Bristol and a large group of international collaborators, examined data from the Antiretroviral Therapy Cohort Collaboration (ART-CC) which involved nearly 40,000 patients who started ART between 1996 and 2006 in Europe and North America.

Of the 1,876 deaths that occurred in that time, a definitive cause of death could be assigned to 85% of cases. Overall, almost 50% of patients died from AIDS which remains the most common cause of death.

BATON ROUGE – In a set of papers just published in two leading scholarly journals, LSU sociology professor Matthew Lee reports that both violent crime and all-cause mortality rates are on average substantially lower in communities with a vibrant civic climate.

A new study – using high speed video and feathers bought on ebay – shows that when the male snipe sticks out his outer tail feathers, they flutter like flags in the wind, producing a highly seductive drumming sound. The winged Lothario also dives to increase the speed and therefore raise the pitch of the call in a bid to impress the female of the species.

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – MicroRNAs are small bits of RNA within cells that wield enormous power. They influence virtually every biological process by controlling the "expression" of genes. Helping them in exerting this control is a unique class of proteins called Argonautes.

Acellular dermal matrix (ADM) is a dermal biomaterial in which all of the cellular elements have been removed. The biologic properties of ADM, including its ability to support tissue regeneration repopulation with fibroblasts, revascularization, new collagen deposition and eventual absorption and replacement with native tissue permit its use in tissue reconstruction. A few studies for intestinal elongation have been performed, but the results are uncertain.

There is increasing evidence to include combined neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) as an alternative to surgical resection alone, to improve survival for locoregional esophageal cancer. More recently, attention has focused on the presence of extracapsular lymph node involvement (LNI), which identifies a subgroup of patients with significantly worse long-term survival. Little is known about the effects of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) on the presence of extracapsular LNI and its prognostic value in patients with resected esophageal cancer.

Kansas City, MO – April 28, 2010 – The results of two separate research studies taking place at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics will help physicians use genetic testing to prevent complications, and ease the worry of new parents by predicting in advance which newborns may require readmission to the hospital shortly after birth. The studies also will help physicians identify which of their young patients are likely to respond well – or not – to steroid therapy for asthma.

Techniques for using digital technology in separating conjoined twins, developing facial prostheses and acquiring data from anthropologic specimens will be among the topics presented at a symposium sponsored by the American Association of Anatomists (AAA; www.Anatomy.org) on April 28. The symposium is part of the Experimental Biology 2010 conference being held April 24-28, 2010 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

ANAHEIM, CA – In studies on cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders and other degenerative conditions, some scientists are moving away from the "nature versus nurture" debate, and are finding you're not a creature of either genetics or environment, but both - with enormous implications for a new approach to health.

WASHINGTON—A new report from the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars defines the criteria for a new technology assessment function in the United States. The report, Reinventing Technology Assessment: A 21st Century Model, emphasizes the need to incorporate citizen-participation methods to complement expert analysis. Government policymakers, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and citizens need such analysis to capably navigate the technology-intensive world in which we now live.

Researchers from the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter have for the first time identified a link between blood levels of the gas hydrogen sulfide (a gas more commonly associated with the smell of rotten eggs), obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The recent study published in the medical journal Diabetologia and presented at the British Microcirculation Society earlier this month, compared blood levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in lean men, overweight men with metabolic syndrome and male patients with established type 2 diabetes (T2DM).

BERKELEY, CA – A team of scientists working at beamline 9.0.1 of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has used x-ray diffraction microscopy to make images of whole yeast cells, achieving the highest resolution—11 to 13 nanometers (billionths of a meter)—ever obtained with this method for biological specimens. Their success indicates that full 3-D tomography of whole cells at equivalent resolution should soon be possible.

A five-minute screening test could cut the risk of developing bowel cancer by a third and save thousands of lives from what is the UK's second biggest cancer killer, according to new research led by Imperial College London, published today in the Lancet.

Editors of several medical research journals have issued a statement calling for rigorous standards and transparency in research that is designed to influence patient care and health policy.