Body

Modest increases in marketing and outreach to local communities can increase the amount of physical activity that occurs in parks, providing a cost-effective way to potentially improve a community's health, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

The project, which examined 50 parks across Los Angeles, found that simple interventions such as increased signage boosted physical activity by 7 to 12 percent over the study period in relation to parks that did not make changes. The findings are published online by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

[EMARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, OCT. 17] A new study suggests a growing number of U.S. adolescents lack antibodies that may help protect them later in life against an increasingly important cause of genital herpes. Published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases and available online, the findings show that fewer of today's teens have been exposed in their childhood to herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), a common cause of cold sores, than U.S. adolescents in previous years.

Montreal − What leads to high cholesterol? Your genes and lifestyle factors may not explain it all. A study presented today at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress has connected some of the risk for high cholesterol in adults to their mother's cholesterol levels before she even became pregnant.

The key finding: if a mother had high LDL ("bad") cholesterol prior to a pregnancy, her children are almost five times as likely to also have high LDL cholesterol as adults.

A specialist team of scientists from the University of Leicester has isolated viruses that eat bacteria -- called phages -- to specifically target the highly infectious hospital superbug Clostridium difficile (C. diff).

Now an exciting new collaboration between the University of Leicester, the University of Glasgow and AmpliPhi Biosciences Corporation could lead to the use of bacteriophages for treating the superbug Clostridium difficile infections.

A clinical study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases shows for the first time that an oral cholera vaccine (ShancholTM) provides sustained protection against cholera in humans for up to five years. The study showed the vaccine had a protective efficacy of 65% over a five-year period.

Researchers announced today in the journal Lancet Oncology that they are well on the way to discovering why women with the faulty genes BRCA 1 and BRCA 2, one of which was inherited by the actress Angelina Jolie, develop breast and ovarian cancer rather than other cancers.

The study, carried out by researchers at the UCL Department of Women's Cancer, found that abnormal levels of female hormones in the bloodstream could be the answer. The findings have already led to more research into novel ways of preventing cancers in women at risk.

Up until a year ago, how an elephant made its guttural infrasonic calls was still a matter of debate, as Christian Herbst, from the University of Vienna, Austria, points out: 'Some people suggested it's just like in us humans, so a passive, flow-induced vibration of the tissue in the larynx, and others suggested it's like purring in cats [requiring neural control].' Unfortunately, unlike in humans, it's a little difficult to slide an endoscope down an elephant's vocal tract to see what's happening.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — One day, amid his decades-long study of how animals move, including how frogs jump, Brown University biologist Thomas Roberts found himself and colleague Richard Marsh puzzling over the Guinness Book of World Records. A bullfrog named Rosie the Ribeter reportedly had jumped more than 2.1 meters in a single hop at the Calaveras County Jumping Frog Jubilee in 1986, but scientific studies had never reported a bullfrog jump beyond 1.3 meters.

TORONTO, Oct. 16, 2013—Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital are using adult bone marrow stem cells as they investigate a completely new way of treating chronic kidney disease and heart failure in rats.

Dr. Darren Yuen and Dr. Richard Gilbert were the first to show, in 2010, that enriched stem cells improved heart and kidney function in rats with both diseases.

But they and other scientists wondered about the potential side effects of returning those cells to the body, such as forming tumours.

NEW YORK, NY — Despite major efforts to keep operating rooms sterile, surgical wound infections remain a serious and stubborn problem, killing up to 8,200 patients a year in the U.S. A study by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers suggests that narrow-spectrum ultraviolet (UV) light could dramatically reduce such infections without damaging human tissue. The study, conducted in tissue culture, was published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

PHILADELPHIA (October 16, 2013) -- New research from the Monell Chemical Senses Center and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reveals how diseases can modify animal odors in subtle ways. In a recent study published in the public access journal PLOS ONE, scientists examined how infection with avian influenza (AIV) alters fecal odors in mallards.

Using both behavioral and chemical methods, the findings reveal that AIV can be detected based on odor changes in infected birds.

CHICAGO --- Scientists have discovered a critical new clue about why some people are able to control the HIV virus long term without taking antiviral drugs. The finding may be useful in shortening drug treatment for everyone else with HIV.

These rare individuals who do not require medicine have an extra helping of a certain type of immune protein that blocks HIV from spreading within the body by turning it into an impotent wimp, Northwestern Medicine® scientists report. The new finding comes from analyzing cells from these rare individuals and HIV in the lab.

School children demonstrated significantly increased knowledge of germ spread and prevention on a farm after working on an interactive lesson about microbes. Published October 16, 2013, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Meredith K. D. Hawking and colleagues from Public Health England, these results show the measurable benefits of education in increasing children's knowledge about the risk of infection during school farm visits, and the spread of harmful germs.

As sanctuary-kept chimpanzees grow from infant to juvenile, they develop increased susceptibility to human yawn contagion, possibility due to their increasing ability to empathize, says a study published October 16, 2013, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Elainie Madsen and colleagues from Lund University.

The mechanical properties of cells are often an indicator of disease. Cancer cells are typically soft and squishy. When the malaria parasite is inside a red blood cell, for example, the cell is stiffer than normal. Sickle cells also vary in stiffness.

Research into the stiffness of diseased cells is lacking, in part due to limits in technology. Researchers have developed a new technology to sort human cells according to their stiffness, which might one day help doctors identify certain diseases in patients, according to a new study.