Body

Access to safe drinking water is a step closer to being a reality for those in developing countries.

A study paves the way for the next generation of portable water purification devices, which could provide relief to the 780 million people around the world who face every day without access to a clean water supply.

A new study conducted at the University of Colorado Boulder and involving Cornell University shows the outward appearance of female barn swallows, specifically the hue of their chestnut-colored breast feathers, has an influence on their physiological health.

PISCATAWAY, NJ – People with alcohol dependence may be more genetically susceptible to certain types of eating disorders, and vice-versa, according to a study in the September issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

In a study of nearly 6,000 adult twins, researchers found that common genetic factors seemed to underlie both alcoholism and certain eating disorder symptoms—namely, binge eating and purging habits, such as self-induced vomiting or laxative abuse. Genes appeared to explain 38 percent to 53 percent of the risk of developing those disorders.

Part of the risk for alcohol dependence is genetic, and the same is true for eating disorders. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found it's likely some of the same genes are involved in both.

In the September issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, the researchers report that people with alcohol dependence may be more genetically susceptible to certain types of eating disorders and vice versa.

HUNTSVILLE, TX (09/21/13) -- Weapons were involved in 40 percent of domestic violence cases in Houston, and researchers discovered distinct patterns on when and where each type of weapon was used, according to a recent study at Sam Houston State University.

Research at the University of Liverpool has shown that the mechanisms of the human foot are not as unique as originally thought and have much more in common with the flexible feet of other great apes.

Current understanding of the evolution of human walking is based on research from the 1930s, which proposes that human feet function very differently to those of other apes, due to the development of arches in the mid-foot region and the supposed rigidity of that on the outside edge of the foot.

Scientists using a pioneering bio-imaging system to record simultaneously the development of hundreds of aquatic embryos have discovered significant parent-offspring similarities in the timing and sequence of that development.

Researchers at Plymouth University have found the timing of key developmental milestones – such as the first beating of the heart, formation of the eyes and movement – differs markedly between individuals in a species of aquatic snail, but also that these timings appear to be heritable, i.e. they are passed from mother to offspring.

Like cuckoos, honeyguides are parasitic birds that lay their eggs in other birds' nests and dupe them into raising their young. Now scientists reveal that, unlike in cuckoos, the resemblance between honeyguide eggs and those of their bee-eater bird hosts hasn't evolved to trick hosts into accepting the imposter egg as one of their own. Rather, it appears to have evolved to trick other honeyguides who would otherwise destroy the eggs because of fierce competition for host nests. The new research is published today, 21 August, in the journal Biology Letters.

Stop smoking services across England have had an increasing impact in helping smokers to quit in their first 10 years of operation and have successfully reached disadvantaged groups, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

However, performance across local services has varied considerably and requires attention, say the authors.

Infection during a newborn's first 7 days of life is associated with bacterial infection or colonization in the mother

Early-onset neonatal infection, defined as infection in the first 7 days of life, is associated with maternal infection and colonization, a systematic review and meta-analysis by Grace Chan (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health) and colleagues found in this week's issue of PLOS Medicine.

Mental health conditions contribute to approximately 14% of the total global burden of disease but there is a substantial treatment gap in both developed and developing countries. Treatment of mental health conditions in low resource settings such as Nigeria, one of Africa's most populous countries, is particularly challenging where that are few mental health professionals. For example Nigeria has a population of ~150 million but only 0.06 psychiatrists and 0.02 psychologists per 100,000 people.

OAKLAND, Calif., August 20, 2013 — Kaiser Permanente Northern California nearly doubled the rate of blood pressure control among adult members with diagnosed hypertension between 2001 and 2009 through one of the largest, community-based hypertension programs in the nation, as reported today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Implementation of a large-scale hypertension program that included evidence-based guidelines and development and sharing of performance metrics was associated with a near-doubling of hypertension control between 2001 and 2009, compared to only modest improvements in state and national control rates, according to a study in the August 21 issue of JAMA.

Although a pooling of data from 12 studies showed a statistically significant association between use of lateral wedge insoles and lower pain in medial knee osteoarthritis, among trials comparing wedge insoles with neutral insoles, there was no significant or clinically important association between use of wedge insoles and reduction in knee pain, according to a study in the August 21 issue of JAMA.

Researchers have identified a new genome-wide significant locus (the place a gene occupies on a chromosome) for infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS), a serious gastrointestinal condition associated with gastrointestinal obstruction, according to a study in the August 21 issue of JAMA. Characteristics of this locus also suggest the possibility of an inverse relationship between levels of circulating cholesterol in neonates and IHPS risk.