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(Boston) – An endotracheal extubation training video produced by Rafael Ortega, MD, the vice-chair of academic affairs for the department of anesthesiology at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and professor of anesthesiology at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), and his colleagues is featured in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

A mere glass full of water from Monterey Bay Aquarium's 1.2 million-gallon Open Sea tank, among the 10 largest aquariums in the world, is all scientists really needed to identify the Pacific Bluefin tuna, dolphinfish and most of the other 13,000 fish swimming there.

Researchers also for the first time used DNA from water samples to discern which of the species were most plentiful in the tank.

Treatment with progesterone, a naturally occurring hormone that has been shown to alleviate severe hot flashes and night sweats in post-menopausal women, poses little or no cardiovascular risk, according to a new study by the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health.

A team of scientists from the University of Leicester has demonstrated a novel treatment for Hairy Cell Leukaemia (HCL), a rare type of blood cancer, using a drug administered to combat skin cancer.

Researchers from the University of Toronto (U of T) have found that the theory behind the popular blood type diet--which claims an individual's nutritional needs vary by blood type--is not valid. The findings are published this week in PLoS One.

"Based on the data of 1,455 study participants, we found no evidence to support the 'blood-type' diet theory," said the senior author of the study, Dr. Ahmed El-Sohemy, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Nutrigenomics at the U of T.

MINNEAPOLIS – Middle-aged men who drink more than 36 grams of alcohol, or two and a half US drinks per day, may speed their memory loss by up to six years later on, according to a study published in the January 15, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. On the other hand, the study found no differences in memory and executive function in men who do not drink, former drinkers and light or moderate drinkers. Executive function deals with attention and reasoning skills in achieving a goal.

KANSAS CITY, MO- At a glance, DNA is a rather simple sequence of A, G, C, T bases, but once it is packaged by histone proteins into an amalgam called chromatin, a more complex picture emerges. Histones, which come in four subtypes—H2A, H2B, H3, and H4—can either coil DNA into inaccessible silent regions or untwist it to allow gene expression. To further complicate things, small chemical flags, such as methyl groups, affect whether histones silence or activate genes.

RICHLAND, Wash. -- Researchers simulating how certain bacteria run electrical current through tiny molecular wires have discovered a secret Nature uses for electron travel. The results are key to understanding how the bacteria do chemistry in the ground, and will help researchers use them in microbial fuel cells, batteries, or for turning waste into electricity.

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report a three-fold increase in the use of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) across the nation for patients with pancreatic disease. Although adaptation of MIS for this difficult-to-reach gland is recent, the growing trend points to improved patient outcomes, such as reduced bleeding and infections. Now published online, the paper will appear in the March print edition of JAMA Surgery.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Jan. 15, 2014 — A study published in the January issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings shows that most clinical practice guidelines for interventional procedures (e.g., bronchoscopy, angioplasty) are based on lower-quality medical evidence and fail to disclose authors' conflicts of interest.

An article published in the January issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics reports results of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) phase II clinical trial of Bevacizumab (Avastin) in addition to cisplatin and pelvic radiation for locally advanced cervical cancer. The group reports that the addition of Bevacizumab to the existing standard of care was safe and showed promising overall results. The 2- and 3- year overall survival rates were 89.8 percent and 80.2 percent, respectively.

McGill researchers, led by Dr. Maya Saleh of the Department of Medicine, have identified an enzyme, cIAP2 that helps the lungs protect themselves from the flu by giving them the ability to resist tissue damage. "It's a discovery that offers exciting new avenues for controlling influenza, since until now attempts to target the virus itself have proven challenging, especially in the face of emerging new strains of the virus," says Saleh, who is also a researcher at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC).

A new technology developed at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Systems Biology (CSB) allows simultaneous analysis of hundreds of cancer-related protein markers from miniscule patient samples gathered through minimally invasive methods. This new technology uses antibodies linked to unique DNA 'barcodes' to detect a wide range of target proteins and is both powerful and exquisitely sensitive.

Hanover, NH - Research carried out in two distinct communities in Colombia illustrates how coevolution between humans and bacteria can affect a person's risk of disease. Working with colleagues in Columbia and the U.S., Scott Williams, PhD, a professor of genetics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, and his graduate student Nuri Kodaman discovered that the risk of developing gastric cancer depends heavily on both the ancestry of the person and the ancestry of Helicobacter pylori with which that person is infected.

(Lebanon, NH, 1/15/14) - Since the enactment of the National Cancer Act in 1971, the U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in cancer research and treatment. And yet, the cancer mortality rate—the historic benchmark of progress—has only declined modestly while the mortality rates of other leading causes of death have declined substantially. This difference has led many to question whether we've made progress in the 'War on Cancer'. The answer is definitively yes according to Norris Cotton Cancer Center research published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.