Body

The dreaded scratch or puncture test is the most common way of assessing allergic reactions to as many as 40 different substances at once. But because the test involves needles that prick multiple points along the skin's surface, it's a particularly high-stress examination for children -- and their understandably anxious parents.

Far too many "teachable moments" are lost in a doctor's office during which young adults with hypertension could have learned how to reduce their blood pressure. In fact, only one in every two hypertensive young Americans does in fact receive such advice and guidance from a healthcare provider within a year from being diagnosed, says Heather M. Johnson of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in the US. She led a study which examined how regularly such education is provided and documented by one of the ten largest physician practice groups in the US.

A major new Series on health and ageing, published in The Lancet, warns that unless health systems find effective strategies to address the problems faced by an ageing world population, the growing burden of chronic disease will greatly affect the quality of life of older people. As people across the world live longer, soaring levels of chronic illness and diminished wellbeing are poised to become a major global public health challenge.

New research reports that the rate of hospitalization due to hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection has significantly declined in the U.S. from 2002 to 2011. Findings published in Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, show that older patients and those with chronic liver disease are most likely to be hospitalized for HAV. Vaccination of adults with chronic liver disease may prevent infection with hepatitis A and the need for hospitalization.

A genetically diverse mouse model is able to predict the range of response to chemical exposures that might be observed in human populations, researchers from the National Institutes of Health have found. Like humans, each Diversity Outbred mouse is genetically unique, and the extent of genetic variability among these mice is similar to the genetic variation seen among humans.

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 6, 2014--Short-term certificate programs at community colleges offer limited labor-market returns, on average, in most fields of study, according to new research published today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (EEPA), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. The results of the study, which focused on community college programs in Washington State, are in line with recent research in other states (Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia) that found only small economic returns from short-term programs.

WASHINGTON, DC (November 6, 2014)--In honor of Veterans Day, the peer-reviewed journal Women's Health Issues (WHI) today released a new Special Collection on women veterans' health, with a focus on mental health. The special collection also highlights recent studies addressing healthcare services, reproductive health and cardiovascular health of women veterans.

Toronto, ON - For most cancer patients, primary tumours are often not the most deadly. Instead, it is the metastatic tumours - tumours that spread from their original location to other parts of the body - that are the cause of most cancer deaths.

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, are proposing a new surgical intervention for children born with a single ventricle in their heart--instead of the usual two. The new approach would potentially reduce the number of surgeries the patients have to undergo in the first six months of life from two to just one. If successful, it would also create a more stable circuit for blood to flow from the heart to the lungs and the rest of the body within the first days and months of life.

Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU), at Karolinska Institutet (KI), Stockholm and the University College London investigated the function of ciliary cell extensions in the pancreas. Stimulation of the insulin-producing beta cells increases the number of insulin receptors on their cilia. The cilia consequently play an important role in the release and signal transduction of insulin, a hormone that reduces sugar levels.

Defective cilia lead to elevated blood sugar levels and lowered insulin release

Human-caused climate change, ocean acidification and species extinctions may eventually threaten the collapse of civilization, according to some scientists, while other people argue that for political or economic reasons we should allow industrial development to continue without restrictions.

In a new paper, two astrophysicists argue that these questions may soon be resolvable scientifically, thanks to new data about the Earth and about other planets in our galaxy, and by combining the earth-based science of sustainability with the space-oriented field of astrobiology.

"The technique makes it possible for the first time to remove large organic molecules from associated structures and place them elsewhere in a controlled manner," explains Dr. Ruslan Temirov from Jülich's Peter Grünberg Institute. This brings the scientists one step closer to finding a technology that will enable single molecules to be freely assembled to form complex structures. Research groups around the world are working on a modular system like this for nanotechnology, which is considered imperative for the development of novel, next-generation electronic components.

High-speed reading of the genetic code should get a boost with the creation of the world's first graphene nanopores - pores measuring approximately 2 nanometers in diameter - that feature a "built-in" optical antenna. Researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have invented a simple, one-step process for producing these nanopores in a graphene membrane using the photothermal properties of gold nanorods.

WASHINGTON, DC, November 6, 2014 -- Go to almost any American high school and the elements of teen social networks become quickly apparent: the cliques, the pecking orders, and the varying degrees of self-segregation by race, age, gender, and social status.

For years, sociologists have identified seemingly universal human instincts that spur this kind of sorting. These include the desires for familiarity and certainty; for control and dominance; and for security and support.

"The team has accomplished a major goal, the generation of a blight-resistant American chestnut tree," said Dr. Timothy Tschaplinski, a scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory who does chemical analysis for the research team to determine if the tissue of transgenic trees differs from that of wild-type trees. "The results of the metabolite analyses indicate that the nuts produced from transgenic plants aren't appreciably different from those produced by wild-type plants and should be safe for consumption.