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PORTLAND, Ore. May 8, 2009. Creating diverse forests for multiple uses is important to natural resource managers and landowners. A study conducted in southwestern Oregon provides forest managers with information that offers choices when managing land for a variety objectives that may include a high level of wood production, a moderate level of wood production with some wildlife habitat features, or low wood production that provides cover and forage for a wider variety of wildlife species.

Montreal, May 8, 2009 – The latest electronic edition of the journal Nature Genetics reports the discovery of a new gene responsible for congenital sideroblastic anemia, a rare disease, mainly characterized by the presence of ringed sideroblasts in the patients' bone marrow. This Genome Canada project, co-directed by Dr. Mark Samuels, an investigator with the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center and a professor at the Université de Montréal Department of Medicine, is being conducted under the Atlantic Medical Genetics and Genomics Initiative (AMGGI).

p>A study from one of the largest public health systems in the country has found that African American patients experienced significantly worse outcomes after angioplasty and stenting than patients of other races, though researchers are not sure why. According to data reported today at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) 32nd Annual Scientific Sessions, no single factor explains why African Americans were at higher risk after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), but the hazard was clear.

Dengue fever is the most common infectious disease transmitted by mosquitoes – some 100 million people around the world are infected. Researchers at the Hygiene Institute at Heidelberg University Hospital were the first to present a three-dimensional model of the location in the human cell where the virus is reproduced. Their research provides an insight into the exact process of viral replication and serves as a model for other viruses whose replication is still unclear, such as the hepatitis C virus.

Current strategies for designing vaccines against HIV and cancers, for instance, may enable some components in multi-component vaccines to cancel the effect of others on the immune system, eliminating their ability to provide protection, according to an article to be published shortly in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The authors also suggest, and successfully test, techniques that offer a solution to newly revealed mechanisms that enable some vaccine components to outcompete others.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – When stress increases blood pressure, a natural mechanism designed to bring it down by excreting more salt in the urine doesn't work well in about one-third of healthy, black adolescents, researchers report.

They hope the finding, which is being presented May 8 at the American Society of Hypertension 24th Annual Scientific Program in San Francisco, will lead to early identification of youth at risk of becoming hypertensive adults.

Higher concentrations of melanin -- the color pigment in skin and hair -- may be placing darker pigmented smokers at increased susceptibility to nicotine dependence and tobacco-related carcinogens than lighter skinned smokers, according to scientists.

"We have found that the concentration of melanin is directly related to the number of cigarettes smoked daily, levels of nicotine dependence, and nicotine exposure among African Americans," said Gary King, professor of biobehavioral health, Penn State.

Bacteria in the gut of the Anopheles gambiae mosquito inhibit infection of the insect with Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria in humans, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Scientists with the Bloomberg School's Malaria Research Institute found that removing these bacteria, or microbial flora, with antibiotics made the mosquitoes more susceptible to Plasmodium infection because of a lack of immune stimulation. Their study is published in the May 8, 2009, edition of the journal PLoS Pathogens.

One in 2 patients with Graves' disease suffers impairments to their everyday lives. In the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, Katharina Ponto and coauthors, from Mainz University, describe affected patients' psychological stresses and occupational disability (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2009; 106(17): 283-9).

A new phase III clinical trial of early stage breast cancer patients has shown that a molecule designed to home in on nearby lymph nodes is just as accurate as current techniques, but faster, more specific and easier to use.

Why is the immune system able to fight off some viruses but not others, leading to chronic, life-threatening infections like HIV and hepatitis C?

A new UCLA AIDS Institute study suggests the answer lies in a protein called interleukin-21 (IL-21), a powerful molecule released by immune cells during chronic infection. Published May 7 in the online edition of Science, the finding could explain how the immune system limits viral replication, restricting a virus's spread through the body.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands: New research that uses an innovative approach to study, for the first time, the relative contributions of food and exercise habits to the development of the obesity epidemic has concluded that the rise in obesity in the United States since the 1970s was virtually all due to increased energy intake.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands: New research suggests that, if used properly, vibration plate exercise machines may help you lose weight and trim the particularly harmful belly fat between the organs.

In a study presented on Friday at the European Congress on Obesity, scientists found that overweight or obese people who regularly used the equipment in combination with a calorie restricted diet were more successful at long-term weight loss and shedding the fat around their abdominal organs than those who combined dieting with a more conventional fitness routine.

In the 25 years between 1981 and 2006 mortality rates from coronary heart disease (CHD) in Iceland decreased by a remarkable 80% in men and women aged between 25 and 74 years. How could such a huge decline be explained? Were the health services of Iceland so much better, or were its citizens reducing their risks?1

Exercise is one of eight preventive measures identified by the European Heart Health Charter and features prominently in the scientific programme of EuroPRevent 2009, the congress of the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation.1 EuroPRevent 2009 takes place in Stockholm, Sweden, on 6-9 May.