Body

(Boston) - Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that some medical inpatients with unhealthy alcohol use may benefit from a brief intervention. The BUSM study appears in the May issue of Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Alexandria, VA – Tens of thousands of Americans are diagnosed annually with head and neck cancers, but many adults are unaware of doctors who specialize in treating these conditions, according to a recent survey by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS), the association representing America's ear, nose and throat (ENT) doctors.

PHILADELPHIA - The circadian clock coordinates physiological and behavioral processes on a 24-hour rhythm, allowing animals to anticipate changes in their environment and prepare accordingly. Scientists already know that some genes are controlled by the clock and are turned on only one time during each 24-hour cycle. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found that some genes are switched on once every 12 or 8 hours, indicating that shorter cycles of the circadian rhythm are also biologically encoded.

Researchers have found an alternative, "non-surgical" method to treat chronic tendinosis (tendinitis) of the Achilles tendon that fails conservative treatment, according to a study performed at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago, IL.

A new MR procedure that uses diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) to determine whether or not a breast lesion is malignant or benign may help reduce unnecessary breast biopsies, according to a study performed at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD. DWI is a method that produces images detecting the exchange of water molecules between tissue compartments (diffusion).

In a paper publishing online April 23rd in Cell Stem Cell, a Cell Press journal, Dr. Sheng Ding and colleagues from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, report an important step forward in the race to make reprogrammed stem cells that may be better suited for use in clinical settings.

Ding and his colleagues show that mouse cells can be reprogrammed to form stem cells with a combination of purified proteins and a chemical additive, thus avoiding the use of genetic material.

The new technique solves one of the most challenging safety hurdles associated with personalized stem cell-based medicine because for the first time it enables scientists to make stem cells in the laboratory from adult cells without genetically altering them. This discovery has the potential to spark the development of many new types of therapies for humans, for diseases that range from Type 1 diabetes to Parkinson's disease.

The study was published in an advance, online issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell on April 23, 2009.

SALT LAKE CITY – University of Utah researchers have identified a region of the human genome that may contribute to the development of pelvic floor disorders such as pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence, according to a study published this week in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Kristina Allen-Brady, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Utah School of Medicine analyzed the DNA of 70 women from 32 families with at least two cases of pelvic floor disorders (PFD) and found significant evidence for a gene that predisposes to PFD on chromosome 9.

Research linking bad habits such as smoking and the direct impact on a senior's health will be presented during the American Geriatrics Society's Annual Meeting April 29 - May 3 in Chicago, IL. The study followed more than 2,000 seniors who were current smokers, past smokers and had never smoked. All three groups were compared to show a link between smoking and the speed at which participants walked. After five years, it was discovered that smokers showed a significantly slower pace in their gait than those who had previously smoked.

A computer-aided detection (CAD) method may help radiologists identify cancerous lung nodules at an early stage, according to a study performed at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, MD.

In patients with prostate cancer undergoing prostatectomy, MR imaging plays an important role in determining if the cancer is restricted to the prostate gland or if it has spread beyond the capsule, according to a study performed at the University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.

Image guided drainage of tubo ovarian abscesses help women avoid surgery, according to a study performed at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA. Tubo ovarian abscesses (TOAs) are an infected collection of pus, involving a patient's fallopian tube(s) or ovaries. They can occur in patients with complicated cases of pelvic inflammatory disease, appendicitis or diverticulitis.

NEW YORK (April 23, 2009) – The Wildlife Conservation Society announced today a study showing that some coral reefs off East Africa are unusually resilient to climate change due to improved fisheries management and a combination of geophysical factors. WCS announced the results of the study at the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI), which is meeting this week in Phuket, Thailand.

When an employee has so many complex passwords to remember that he keeps them on a sticky note attached to his computer screen, that could be a sign that your organization needs a wiser policy for passwords, one that balances risk and complexity, explains computer scientist Karen Scarfone. Scarfone is co-author of new guidelines for agency-wide password management issued for public comment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Visiting aliens may be the stuff of legend, but if a scientific team working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is right, we may be able to find extraterrestrial life even before it leaves its home planet—by looking for left- (or right-) handed light.