Body

Hospitals with aggressive treatment styles, also known as high hospital care intensity (HCI), had lower rates of patients dying from a major complication (failure to rescue) but longer hospitalizations, writes Kyle H. Sheetz, M.D., M.S., of the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy, Ann Arbor, Mich., and colleagues.

Along rivers in Tennessee and Georgia, scientists have been studying brownish-orange spiders, called Anelosimus studiosus, that make cobwebby nests "anywhere from the size of a golf ball to the size of a Volkswagen Beetle," researcher Jonathan Pruitt says. The individual spiders are only the size of a pencil eraser, but they form organized groups that can catch prey ranging from fruit flies to small vertebrates. "We have found carcasses of rats and birds inside their colonies," Pruitt says. Unlike most spiders, which are solitary, these social spiders work together in groups.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Breathing oxygen helps the body create energy for its cells. As a result of the breathing process, reactive molecules called "free radicals" are produced that often cause damage to proteins and genes found in cells. This damage is known as oxidative stress. Free radicals also have been linked to cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Now, investigators at the University of Missouri have discovered a molecule that treats oxidative stress.

ALEXANDRIA, VA — The American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery Foundation has released the first ever mutli-disciplinary, evidence-based clinical practice guideline to improve the diagnosis and management of tinnitus, the perception of sound—often ringing—without an external sound source. The guideline was published today in the journal Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery.

For older adults, being unable to identify scents may be a predictor of mortality within five years, according to a study published October 1, 2014, in the journal PLOS ONE by Jayant Pinto from The University of Chicago and colleagues.

Studying mice with a genetic change similar to what is found in Kabuki syndrome, a inherited disease of humans, Johns Hopkins researchers report they have used an anticancer drug to "open up" DNA and improve mental function.

Researchers have identified a molecular mechanism that could explain why the common cold can bring on life-threatening asthma attacks.

Published today in Science Translational Medicine, the findings indicate this may be a potential target for new drugs that could be more effective than existing treatments.

Viruses that infect the airways are the most common cause of asthma attacks, accounting for 80-90 per cent of cases. The great majority of these are rhinoviruses, which are the predominant cause of the common cold.

Researchers at UC San Francisco and Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, may have found a predictor for a disorder affecting kidney transplant recipients that can accelerate organ failure, a discovery that eventually could allow for customized therapies and improved patient selection for transplant.

An international research team's field work, drilling and measuring melt rates and ice sheet movement in Greenland is showing that things are, in fact, more complicated than we thought.

"Although the Greenland Ice Sheet initially speeds up each summer in its slow-motion race to the sea, the network of meltwater channels beneath the sheet is not necessarily forming the slushy racetrack that had been previously considered," said Matthew Hoffman, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist on the project.

PITTSBURGH—The notion of "group selection"—that members of social species exhibit individual behavioral traits that render a population more or less fit for survival—has been bandied about in evolutionary biology since Darwin. The essence of the argument against the theory is that it's a "fuzzy" concept without the precision of gene-based selection.

Spiders found in international cargo brought into North America are sometimes submitted to arachnologists for identification. Often, these spiders are presumed to be of medical importance because of their size or similarity to spiders that are known to be venomous.

To protect their gut microbes during illness, sick mice produce specialized sugars in the gut that feed their microbiota and maintain a healthy microbial balance. This protective mechanism also appears to help resist or tolerate additional harmful pathogens, and its disruption may play a role in human diseases such as Crohn's disease, report scientists from the University of Chicago in Nature on Oct 1.

Contrary to the popular research-based assumption that the world's coral reefs are doomed, a new longitudinal study from UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) paints a brighter picture of how corals may fare in the future.

New insights into botulinum neurotoxins and their interactions with cells are moving scientists ever closer to safer forms of Botox and a better understanding of the dangerous disease known as botulism. By comparing all known structures of botulinum neurotoxins, researchers writing in the Cell Press journal Trends in Biochemical Sciences on October 1st suggest new ways to improve the safety and efficacy of Botox injections.

WASHINGTON— The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) proudly announces the publication of a Health Education & Behavior (HE&B) supplement devoted to the latest research and practice to promote healthy aging. The October 2014 supplement, "Fostering Engagement and Independence: Opportunities and Challenges for an Aging Society," contains a dozen peer-reviewed articles on innovative behavioral and psycho-social approaches to improve the health of the nation's fastest growing cohort - older adults.