Body

Philadelphia, PA, October 24, 2012 – The American Urological Association (AUA) introduces new clinical guidelines for the treatment of Overactive Bladder, Urodynamics, Hematuria, and Vasectomy. The guidelines, which were developed using a rigorous 9-step process to synthesize and summarize the literature to determine the level and quality of evidence for a certain practice, are published in a supplement to the December issue of The Journal of Urology®. This supplement is freely and openly accessible at www.jurology.com.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- As the number of fungal meningitis cases continues to rise, physicians across the country are faced with how best to provide the early treatment that can save lives.

A University of Michigan Health System infectious disease expert is the lead author of a New England Journal of Medicine report detailing how the outbreak evolved and the complexities of providing anti-fungal treatments.

It has long been known that breast density, or mammographic density, is a strong risk factor for breast cancer, and that estrogen and progestin hormone therapy increases dense breast tissue. Now, a study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research has identified several gene variants in hormone metabolism and growth factor pathways that may be associated with breast density and, hence, breast cancer risk.

A species relies on genetic diversity to survive and low diversity usually indicates that there has been inbreeding due to a decrease in population size. By looking at historic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from museum samples, new research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Genetics has found that koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) have had low genetic diversity for over 120 years.

Durham, NC – What makes some ocean animals more prone to extinction than others? A new study of marine fossils provides a clue.

An analysis of roughly 500 million years of fossil data for marine invertebrates reveals that ocean animals with small geographic ranges have been consistently hard hit — even when populations are large, the authors report.

New research carried out by scientists at Universities in Exeter, France and Switzerland reveals for the first time the importance of social networking in producing a successful family.

The study found that, regardless of how big and healthy individual chicks are, what really matters to their chances of surviving and breeding is how siblings in the nest interact with each other, with cooperative families faring best.

Boosting the activity of a vitamin-sensitive cell adhesion pathway has the potential to counteract the muscle degeneration and reduced mobility caused by muscular dystrophies, according to a research team led by scientists at the University of Maine.

Lives could be saved by removing age restrictions on rotavirus vaccination

A study published in this week's PLOS Medicine, which suggests that the additional children's lives saved by removing the age restrictions for rotavirus vaccination in low- and middle-income countries would be much greater than any extra deaths from vaccine-associated complications (namely, intussusception-a form of bowel obstruction), has informed policy regarding the age restrictions for this vaccine.

A major three-year trial led by researchers at UCL, in partnership with the Health Protection Agency, has shown that giving one-to-one feedback to healthcare workers makes them twice as likely to clean their hands or use soap.

'Direct to consumer' research, using data obtained through increasingly popular online communities such as 23andMe, PatientsLikeMe and the Personal Genome Project, has methodological limitations that are known to epidemiological studies, including selection bias, information bias, and confounding. These limitations mean that the results and conclusions of research using these methods need to be interpreted with caution, according to a paper published in the journal PLoS Medicine.

A new study conducted by a team of scientists led by Giles Duffield, assistant professor of biological sciences and a member of the Eck Institute for Global Health at the University of Notre Dame focuses on the circadian clock of the heart, and used cultured heart tissue. The results of the new study have implications for cardiovascular health, including daily changes in responses to stress and the effect of long-term rotational shift work.

CHICAGO –Among patients without acute respiratory distress syndrome, protective mechanical ventilation with use of lower tidal volumes (the volume of air inhaled and exhaled during each breath) was associated with better outcomes including less lung injury, lower mortality, fewer pulmonary infections and a shorter hospital length of stay, according to a meta-analysis of previous studies, reported in the October 24/31 issue of JAMA.

A new study from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) provides initial evidence that New Jersey's Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) decal requirement lowers crash rates among intermediate (i.e., probationary) teen drivers and supports the ability of police to enforce GDL provisions. The study, which linked New Jersey's licensing and crash record databases to measure effects of the requirement, was published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Animals like antelope, frogs and rodents may be tricky to catch, but they provide protein in places where traditional livestock are scarce. According to the authors of a new paper in Animal Frontiers, meat from wild animals is increasingly important in central Africa.

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Tampa, Florida, 23 October 2012—Top marine predators like tuna and sharks are suffering from the effects of climate change as the availability of prey decreases and the spatial distribution of their prey shifts. Countless other marine plants and animals are also affected.