Body

St. Louis, Feb. 19, 2009 — Bacteria that cause urinary tract infections (UTIs) make more tools for stealing from their host than friendly versions of the same bacteria found in the gut, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Washington have found.

The rate of cervical cancer varies among different geographical areas in Southeast England according to a new study published today in the open access journal BMC Public Health. The study shows that the occurrence of cervical cancer is increased in more deprived areas.

People who lead unhealthy lifestyles are more than twice as likely to suffer a stroke than those who eat and drink sensibly, don't smoke, and take regular exercise, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

Minimally invasive breast surgery may be trading better cosmetic outcomes for worse rates of cure, warns a senior doctor in an editorial published on bmj.com today.

Effectiveness and safety, as well as aesthetic outcomes, need to be considered when planning surgery for breast cancer, writes Monica Morrow, Chief of the Breast Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. But over the past 30 years, surgery has become increasingly devoted to improving cosmetic outcomes.

Kingston, ON – Infection prevention and control resources and programming in Canadian long-term care facilities fall short of recommended standards, a new Queen's University study shows.

Led by professor of Community Health and Epidemiology Dick Zoutman, the national survey of 488 facilities is the first comprehensive examination of these resources and programs in almost 20 years.

SEATTLE – Women who have multiple sclerosis may reduce their risk of relapses after pregnancy if they breastfeed their babies, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 61st Annual Meeting in Seattle, April 25 to May 2, 2009.

For the study, researchers followed 32 pregnant women with MS and 29 pregnant women without MS during each trimester and up to a year after they gave birth. The women were interviewed about their breastfeeding and menstrual period history.

Most U.S. hospitals did not give an approved acute stroke drug to any Medicare patients between 2005 and 2007, and a large portion of the general population does not have ready access to a hospital that provides the treatment to Medicare patients, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2009.

People at the highest risk of having a stroke — the elderly and those who have had a previous stroke — are less likely to know the five warning signs of stroke, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2009.

Researchers also found that:

Trees do it. Bees do it. Even environmentally stressed fish do it. But Prof. Yossi Loya from Tel Aviv University's Department of Zoology is the first in the world to discover that Japanese sea corals engage in "sex switching" too.

His research may provide the key to the survival of fragile sea corals ― essential to all life in the ocean ― currently threatened by global warming.

For millions of Americans with cancer, the side effects of chemotherapy and other treatment drugs can be devastating. But new drug-delivery research based on nano- and microtechnology from Tel Aviv University might provide much-needed relief, as well as more effective cancer treatment.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – There are approximately 7.1 million injury-related emergency department (ED) visits by children younger than 15 in the United States annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a new study, researchers from two universities, including the University of Missouri, found that young children with multiple injury-related ED visits are more likely to have been reported to Child Protective Services (CPS) than children with only one visit.

Berkeley - An innovative and easily implemented technique in which nanoscale elements precisely assemble themselves over large surfaces could soon open doors to dramatic improvements in the data storage capacity of electronic media, according to scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst).

As the world marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, there is much focus on evolution in animals and plants. But new research shows that for the countless billions of tiniest creatures – microbes – large-scale evolution was completed 2.5 billion years ago.

"For microbes, it appears that almost all of their major evolution took place before we have any record of them, way back in the dark mists of prehistory," said Roger Buick, a University of Washington paleontologist and astrobiologist.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Not far beneath the ocean's surface, tiny phytoplankton swimming upward in a daily commute toward morning light sometimes encounter the watery equivalent of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone: a sharp variation in marine currents that traps billions of these single-celled organisms and sends them tumbling until a shift in wind or tide alters the currents and sets them free.

A new gene that provides resistance to a fungal disease responsible for millions of hectares of lost wheat yield has been discovered by scientists from the US and Israel.

"This is the first step to achieving more durable resistance to a devastating disease in wheat," said Dr Cristobal Uauy, co-author of the report, recently appointed to the John Innes Centre in Norwich.