Body

Gastric bypass surgery helps diabetes but doesn't cure it

SEATTLE—After gastric bypass surgery, diabetes goes away for some people—often even before they lose much weight. So does that mean gastric surgery "cures" diabetes? Not necessarily, according to the largest community-based study of long-term diabetes outcomes after bariatric surgery. For most people in the study, e-published in advance of print in Obesity Surgery, diabetes either never remitted after gastric surgery or relapsed within five years.

Students at cooperative schools are more engaged

Student engagement is not independent of the type of school attended.Nor is it independent of the organisational development of the school.The school's organisational style affects the work of its teaching staff, which, in turn, has repercussions on the performance and engagement of their students.As IkerRos, the UPV/EHU researcher, has been able to verify in his PhD thesis, these factors vary when comparing public schools, subsidised schools and co-operative schools, the latter being the ones that fare best.

Possible new treatment for Ewing sarcoma

SALT LAKE CITY— Discovery of a new drug with high potential to treat Ewing sarcoma, an often deadly cancer of children and young adults, and the previously unknown mechanism behind it, come hand-in-hand in a new study by researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah. The report appears in today's online issue of the journal Oncogene.

Bioengineered marine algae expands environments where biofuels can be produced

Biologists at UC San Diego have demonstrated for the first time that marine algae can be just as capable as fresh water algae in producing biofuels.

The scientists genetically engineered marine algae to produce five different kinds of industrially important enzymes and say the same process they used could be employed to enhance the yield of petroleum-like compounds from these salt water algae. Their achievement is detailed in a paper published online in the current issue of the scientific journal Algal Research.

Release all Tamiflu data as promised, argue researchers

The latest correspondence is posted online today as part of the BMJ's open data campaign, aimed at persuading Roche to honour the promise it made almost three years ago to make key Tamiflu trial data available for independent scrutiny.

Last week, Donald MacLean, Life Cycle Leader for Tamiflu, wrote to Professor Chris Del Mar in his capacity as coordinating editor of the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group, concerning "our debate on Tamiflu data."

BioMAP screening procedure could streamline search for new antibiotics

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have developed a new strategy for finding novel antibiotic compounds, using a diagnostic panel of bacterial strains for screening chemical extracts from natural sources.

Seizures linked to surgery drugs can be prevented by anesthetics, U of T team finds

Two drugs commonly given during cardiac surgery can lead to convulsive seizures, but anesthetics can help cut the risk, according to new research from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Drugs limiting excess mucus could save lives

Respiratory conditions that restrict breathing such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are common killers worldwide. But no effective treatments exist to address the major cause of death in these conditions – excess mucus production.

Grapefruit-medication interactions increasing

The number of prescription drugs that can have serious adverse effects from interactions with grapefruit are markedly increasing, yet many physicians may be unaware of these effects, states an article published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The article, a review by the researchers who discovered the interactions more than 20 years ago, summarizes evidence to help clinicians better understand the serious effects this common food can have when consumed with certain prescription drugs.

Researchers identify cause of anethesia-associated seizures

Antifibrinolytic drugs are frequently used to prevent blood loss during surgery, but sometimes cause convulsive seizures. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Beverly Orser at the University of Toronto investigated the molecular mechanisms that underlie this side effect. By studying antifibrinolytics in mice, Orser and colleagues found that the drugs inhibited the activity of glycine receptors in the brain, leading to seizures. Seizures could be prevented by co-treatment with the general anesthetic isoflurane.

Bariatric surgical procedures have similar therapeutic benefits in obese adults

Obesity is associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, both of which can be significantly improved by weight loss. Gastric bypass and adjustable gastric banding are two bariatric surgery techniques that are frequently used to effect weight loss in obese patients, but it is unclear if the two procedures produce different outcomes. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Samuel Klein at the University of Washington School of Medicine in St.

Identifying the cause of anesthesia-induced seizures

Antifibrinolytic drugs are frequently used to prevent blood loss during surgery, but sometimes cause convulsive seizures. In the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Beverly Orser at the University of Toronto investigated the molecular mechanisms that underlie this side effect.

By studying antifibrinolytics in mice, Orser and colleagues found that the drugs inhibited the activity of glycine receptors in the brain, leading to seizures. Seizures could be prevented by co-treatment with the general anesthetic isoflurane.

Crash landings

Diagnosing an injury in a swan is a far from easy undertaking. Not only are swans large, frequently weighing over 10 kg, but they are generally not happy at being handled and thus many of them can only be examined after sedation, which naturally represents a risk. The hip joints of many species of bird are known to be vulnerable to injury but swans are believed to suffer broken hips only rarely. The traditional way of examining the birds' hips relies on radiography but Gumpenberger and Scope now show that computerized tomography (CT) gives more reliable findings.

Improving 3-D image capture in real time

This press release is available in Spanish.

A team of researchers of the Public University of Navarre has developed a technique that enables the processing in real time of 3-D images to be improved. The work, which has applications for 3-D video, aeronautics, the automotive sector or intelligent systems for operating theatres, for example, has been published in the American journal "IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence", a leading publication in terms of its impact in the field of Computational Sciences and Artificial Intelligence.

Yuzhou Flora -- a hidden gem of the Middle and Late Permian Cathaysian Flora

About 250 million years ago, four major floral provinces existed on the Earth's surface, the Gondwana Floral Province in temperate Southern Hemisphere, the Angara Floral Province in temperate Northern Hemisphere, and the Euroamerican and the Cathaysian floral provinces in tropical equatorial regions. These floras evolved as the continents drifted. The Cathaysian Flora is mainly distributed in most areas of today's China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. North China lies at the center of the origin of the Cathaysian Flora.