Body

DURHAM, N.C. – Changes in managing patients before, during and after colorectal surgery cut hospital stays by two days and reduced readmission rates, according to researchers who led a study of the approach at Duke University Hospital.

The practice, called enhanced recovery, is easier on patients before surgery, doing away with the fasting period and bowel evacuation that are typically prescribed. After surgery, patients are encouraged to eat and move about as soon as possible, leading to faster recoveries.

Carbon offsetting initiatives could be improved with new insights into the make-up of tropical forests, a study suggests.

Scientists studying the Amazon Basin have revealed unprecedented detail of the size, age and species of trees across the region by comparing satellite maps with hundreds of field plots.

The work has been published in the Scientific Reports journal.

CSIC researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox, from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (a joint centre of CSIC and Pompeu Fabra University-UPF), explains: "When the Y chromosome of three living Bourbons was decoded and we saw that it did not match with the DNA recovered from the pumpkin in 2010, we decided to sequence the complete genome and to make a functional interpretation in order to see if the blood could actually belong to Louis XVI".

End-of-life aspects, the corresponding terminology, and the relevance of palliation in advanced cancer are often not considered in publications on randomized controlled trials (RCTs). This is the result of an analysis by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), which has now been published as final report.

A Finnish team of researchers was the first in the world to discover a gene mutation in ameloblastoma, which is a tumour of the jaw.

Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have identified the structural features that enable the innate immune system to discriminate between viral and endogenous RNAs in living cells.

About ten years after the first moon landing, scientists on earth made a discovery that proved that our home planet still holds a lot of surprises in store for us. Looking through the portholes of the submersible ALVIN near the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in 1979, American scientists saw for the first time chimneys, several meters tall, from which black water at about 300 degrees and saturated with minerals shot out. What we have found out since then: These "black smokers", also called hydrothermal vents, exist in all oceans.

Initial treatment for a brain infection caused by fungus could now be treated in three days, rather than two weeks, due to study by University of Liverpool scientists.

Cryptococcus – a form of yeast - infections are often fatal but are relatively neglected in medical research. They are found in many parts of the world, including Africa, Australasia and South East Asia and mainly affect people with weakened immune systems. This infection kills up to 700,000 people a year.

In 2009 the influenza pH1N1 virus caused the first flu pandemic in the 21st century. The virus reached Finland in May 2009 and killed more than 50 people in the country. Since 2011 the pH1N1 virus infects Finns mainly during flu epidemics (winter/spring seasons).

With a new generation of military veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has become a prominent concern in American medical institutions and the culture at-large. Estimates indicate that as many as 35 percent of personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD. New research from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine is shedding light on how PTSD is linked to other diseases in fundamental and surprising ways.

Just a few grams of the new substance are enough to tag the entire olive oil production of Italy. If counterfeiting were suspected, the particles added at the place of origin could be extracted from the oil and analysed, enabling a definitive identification of the producer. "The method is equivalent to a label that cannot be removed," says Robert Grass, lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich.

New research led by a scientist at the University of York reveals that a process that forms a key element in the development of the nervous system may also play a pivotal role in the spread of breast cancer.

The alligator snapping turtle is the largest river turtle in North America, weighing in at up to 200 pounds and living almost a century. Now researchers from Florida and the University of Vermont have discovered that it is not one species — but three.

Examining museum specimens and wild turtles, the scientists uncovered deep evolutionary divisions in this ancient reptile.

WASHINGTON, April 24—A droplet of clear liquid can bend light, acting as a lens. Now, by exploiting this well-known phenomenon, researchers have developed a new process to create inexpensive high quality lenses that will cost less than a penny apiece.

Because they're so inexpensive, the lenses can be used in a variety of applications, including tools to detect diseases in the field, scientific research in the lab and optical lenses and microscopes for education in classrooms.

RICHLAND, Wash. – A common plant puts out a welcome mat to bacteria seeking to invade, and scientists have discovered the mat's molecular mix.

The study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals new targets during the battle between microbe and host that researchers can exploit to protect plants.