Body

Scientists are reporting development and successful initial tests of a potential new delivery system for the biological signaling agent responsible for the effects of Viagra. It could be used to deliver the substance, called nitric oxide or NO, to treatment conditions ranging from heart disease to skin ulcers and other wounds that fail to heal, according to a report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Cancer survivors are less likely to be employed, and they work fewer hours, than similarly aged adults without a history of cancer, even two to six years after diagnosis, according to a study by Penn State researchers.

"The finding is significant when you consider that there are nearly 12 million cancer survivors living in the United States," said John Moran, assistant professor of health policy and administration, who led the study.

In one of the first studies to examine the reasons for the rising number of women delivering their babies by cesarean section, Yale School of Medicine researchers found that while half of the increase was attributable to a rise in repeat cesarean delivery in women with a prior cesarean birth, an equal proportion was due to a rise in first time cesarean delivery. Among these deliveries, factors such as slowly progressing labor and fetal heart rate concerns were the largest contributors.

Up to 3.6 million lives could be saved every year if midwifery services were upgraded in 58 developing countries by 2015, according to a major new report released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in partnership with the University of Southampton and 28 other organisations worldwide.

The State of the World's Midwifery 2011 reveals new data confirming there is a significant gap between the numbers of midwives practising and those needed to save lives.

Troy, N.Y. – A new technique developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute allows researchers to collect large amounts of biochemical information from nanoscale bone samples.

Along with adding important new insights into the fight against osteoporosis, this innovation opens up an entirely new proteomics-based approach to analyzing bone quality. It could even aid the archeological and forensic study of human skeletons.

Homosexual men taking bicalutamide for prostate cancer were much more likely to report sexual problems during treatment than heterosexual patients, according to a study in the July issue of the urology journal BJUI.

Researchers from Romania and the USA studied 17 heterosexual men and 12 homosexual men receiving a 50mg daily dose of bicalutamide, a fast-acting, non-steroidal anti-androgen, which is similar to other anti-androgens, but with reportedly fewer side effects.

A quick and easy way to detect groundwater in semi-arid hard rock areas that is also economical could improve the siting of borewells to improve clean water supply in the developing world. Details of the approach are outlined in the International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology this month.

Jeremy Smith, Governor's Chair for Molecular Biophysics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has helped reveal a key trigger of Gerstmann–Sträussler–Scheinker (GSS) syndrome, a rare but deadly neurodegenerative disease. The finding could have far-reaching implications for the treatment of other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's.

Broadcasters failed to prepare audiences for events in North Africa and the Middle East, according to new research from the International Broadcasting Trust (IBT) and the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Published today (Weds June 22), the Outside the Box report looks in detail at the nature of non-news factual coverage on all the main television channels in 2010 and finds that some countries like Libya and Yemen received little or no coverage at all.

Researchers in Australia have discovered that mothers who smoke during pregnancy are causing developmental changes to their unborn babies that lead to them having lower levels of the type of cholesterol that is known to protect against heart disease in later life – high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Steven Riley, from Imperial College London, and colleagues analyze a community cohort study from the 2009 (H1N1) influenza pandemic in Hong Kong, finding that more children than adults were infected with H1N1, but children were less likely to progress to severe disease than adults. The authors recommend that revised pandemic preparedness plans should include prospective serological cohort studies, such as this one, in order to be able to estimate rates of severe disease per infection.

In the final article in a six-part PLoS Medicine series on migration & health, Anita Davies and colleagues from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) discuss the specific health risks and policy needs associated with return migration. As global migration increases generally, so too does return to home countries, where the health of returnees is impacted by the cumulative exposure to social determinants and risk factors of health during the migration process, during the return movement, and following return.

The world's oceans support vast populations of single-celled organisms (phytoplankton) that are responsible, through photosynthesis, for removing about half of the carbon dioxide that is produced by burning fossil fuels – as much as the rainforests and all other terrestrial systems combined. One group of phytoplankton, known as the coccolithophores, are known for their remarkable ability to build chalk (calcium carbonate) scales inside their cells, which are secreted to form a protective armour on the cell surface.

(Edmonton) A University of Alberta researcher has co-written an extensive study of the caribou population in the Fort McMurray oilsands region that show the animals' survival isn't as threatened as was perceived in the past. The study recommends efforts to manage human activity around resource development before resorting to the drastic measure of a wolf kill.

An analysis of data from previously published studies indicates that intensive-dose statin therapy is associated with an increased risk of new-onset diabetes compared with moderate-dose therapy, according to a study in the June 22/29 issue of JAMA.