Body

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Urinary tract infections can occur with no apparent cause, and as effectiveness of antibiotics fades, treating them is also becoming less predictable.

University of Michigan Medical School researchers have identified bacterial genes that help the infections spread, providing a potential new target for treating UTIs, a global public health concern mostly affecting women. UTIs lead to lost work time, emergency room visits and health care spending of $3.5 billion in the United States.

A new study by Robert Stahelin, an adjunct associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame and an associate professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine-South Bend, as well as a member of Notre Dame's Eck Institute for Global Health, investigates how the most abundant protein that composes the Ebola virus, VP 40, mediates replication of a new viral particle.

Hair loss can be devastating for the millions of men and women who experience it. Now scientists are reporting that a substance from honeybee hives might contain clues for developing a potential new therapy. They found that the material, called propolis, encouraged hair growth in mice. The study appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Cigarette smoking generates as much as $170 billion in annual health care spending in the United States, according to a new study co-authored by researchers at Georgia State University's School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and RTI International.

Dr. Terry F. Pechacek, a professor of health management and policy at Georgia State, was the senior author of the study, "Annual Healthcare Spending Attributable to Cigarette Smoking (An Update)," which was published Wednesday by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Fatigue and pain, along with other symptoms, prevent many people with multiple sclerosis (MS) from exercising. But a new how-to guide for a home-based exercise program, tested by researchers at Case Western Reserve University's nursing school and the Lerner Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, offers a way for people with MS to stay more physically active.

A Danish Research Team identified a molecular mechanism that ensures that when cells divide, the genomic material passes correctly to the resulting daughter cells:

"The process, known as chromosome segregation, is vitally important because incorrect passage of the genomic material makes cells prone to develop into cancer cells," says Jakob Nilsson, associate professor at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research.

The new discovery depends on a protein called BubR1 which if mutated can cause cancer.

The Ebola virus travels from person to person through direct contact with infected body fluids. But how long can the virus survive on glass surfaces or countertops? How long can it live in wastewater when liquid wastes from a patient end up in the sewage system? In an article published Dec. 9 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, Kyle Bibby of the University of Pittsburgh reviews the latest research to find answers to these questions.

A team of researchers from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and environmental testing firm URS reports that a small subset of natural gas wells are responsible for the majority of methane emissions from two major sources -- liquid unloadings and pneumatic controller equipment -- at natural gas production sites.

A happy worker is a productive worker. That adage may be true, according to a new study from The University of Texas at Dallas.

Two UT Dallas public affairs researchers found that family-friendly policies are beneficial for increasing productivity of employees in public organizations, and the authors said the finding likely lends itself to job satisfaction and commitment.

PHILADELPHIA--Two-thirds of women treated for early-stage breast cancer in the U.S. receive longer radiation therapy than necessary, according to a new study published in JAMA this week from Penn Medicine researchers Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, and Justin E. Bekelman, MD.

Although the use of a type of radiation treatment that is shorter in duration and less costly has increased among women with early-stage breast cancer who had breast conserving surgery, most patients who meet guidelines to receive this treatment do not, according to a study appearing in JAMA. The study is being released to coincide with the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have uncovered the mechanism that enables the enzyme Lecithin: retinol acyltransferase (LRAT) to store vitamin A--a process that is indispensable for vision.

"Without this information, our knowledge was inadequate to understand the molecular mechanisms of blindness caused by mutations in the enzyme," said Marcin Golczak, assistant professor of pharmacology at Case Western Reserve and an author of the study.

New research reports that liver transplant recipients with less understanding of treatment information and improper use of medications may be more likely to have trouble following the prescribed regimen. According to the study published in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society, the patients' non-adherence is linked to adverse clinical outcomes, such as organ rejection or graft loss.

Reductions in government healthcare spending in the European Union (EU) are associated with increased maternal mortality rates, suggests a new paper published today (10 December) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG). However, if skilled birth attendants are in place, the association disappears, highlighting the potential importance of maternal care, finds the research.

In the depths of the Arctic Ocean, buried deep in the sediment, an ancient creature waited for over a million years to be discovered. Paul Valentich-Scott, from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (California), and three scientists from the United States Geological Survey (USGS, Menlo Park, California), Charles L. Powell, Brian D. Edwards, and Thomas D. Lorenson were up to the challenge. Each with different expertise, they were able to collect, analyze, and identify a new genus and new species of bivalve mollusk.