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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Although cytomegalovirus infection is a known cause of birth defects, including permanent hearing loss, most CMV infections in infants are not identified early, when interventions can lessen the effects of hearing loss.

Swabbing a newborn's mouth for saliva can be used to quickly and effectively screen for cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, a leading cause of hearing loss in children, says research in the June 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

To survive temperatures below -50 ° C and gale-force winds above 180 km/h during the Antarctic winter, Emperor penguins form tightly packed huddles and, as has recently been discovered – the penguins actually coordinate their movements to give all members of the huddle a chance to warm up. Physicist Daniel P. Zitterbart from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, recently spent a winter at Dronning Maud Land in the Antarctic, making high-resolution video recordings of an Emperor penguin colony. Together with biophysicist Ben Fabry from Erlangen University, physiologist James P.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Surgery death rates have dropped nationwide over the past decade, according to a University of Michigan Health System study that reveals cancer surgeries have seen the most dramatic improvement in safety.

The U-M study in this week's New England Journal of Medicine shows surgery mortality dropped substantially for eight different high-risk surgeries performed on 3.2 million Medicare patients from 1999 to 2008.

CHICAGO -- Newly diagnosed cancer patients frequently face hurdles in obtaining an appointment for care with an oncologist, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennnsylvania that will be presented Saturday, June 4 at the 2011 annual meeting of American Society of Clinical Oncology (Abstract #6128).

Intensity modulated radiation therapy, a newer, more precise form of radiation therapy, causes fewer gastrointestinal side effects when combined with hormone therapy than using three-dimensional radiation therapy, according to a study published in the June issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, the official scientific journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

(CHICAGO) –– Women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations, which are linked to a very high risk of breast and ovarian cancer, can safely take hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) to mitigate menopausal symptoms after surgical removal of their ovaries, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania which will be presented Monday, June 6 during the American Society for Clinical Oncology's annual meeting (Abstract #1501).

PORTLAND, Ore. - Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute researchers uncovered a gene that may be the key to helping kidney cancer patients who don't respond to current therapies. This discovery could also provide a toolkit to identify patients who are most likely to benefit from drugs that block this gene from causing cancer cells to grow.

The researchers created the 3-D model using the parameters of the Mount St. Helens blast including equations to determine mass, momentum and the heat energy of the gas, along with the size, density, specific heat and thermal conductivity of the solid particles.

"We integrated a wide range of geophysical and geochemical data to develop rigorous initial and boundary conditions for hydrodynamics calculations that reproduced, to an amazing degree, the observed dynamics of the blast envelope," said Voight.

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Baseline concussion tests given to hundreds of thousands of athletes might, paradoxically, increase risks in some cases, according to a Loyola University Health System researcher.

The tests likely have a high "false negative" rate, meaning a test shows an athlete has recovered, when in fact he or she is still experiencing cognitive impairments from the concussion.

CHICAGO, IL (June 5, 2011)––Each year, kidney cancer is diagnosed in nearly 60,000 people in the U.S. Many of these patients undergo surgery to remove the affected kidney, but this procedure can be risky for the elderly and those who have other health problems. Unfortunately, the prognosis of kidney cancer patients often cannot be determined until tumor samples are surgically removed and evaluated.

WASHINGTON (June 1, 2011) – By using mice lacking a crucial gene that controls the process of chromatin remodeling of cytokines including those responsible for inflammation and comparing them to normal wild type mice with the gene, researchers at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences have shown that the gene, Mta1, is essential for the parasite Schistosoma haematobium to establish a productive infection and survival in the host.

Scientists have uncovered the structure of the protein complex that assembles the tiny hair-like strands that cover the outside of bacteria. Called pili, these 'hairs' allow bacteria to group together and stick to human cells to cause infection - and are therefore a key target for a new generation of antibiotics.

UPTON, NY - New atomic-level "snapshots" published in the June 2, 2011, issue of Nature reveal details of how bacteria such as E. coli produce and secrete sticky appendages called pili, which help the microbes attach to and infect human cells. "These crystal structures unravel a complex choreography of protein-protein interactions that will aid in the design of new antibacterial drugs," said Huilin Li, a biophysicist at the U.S.

JUNE 1, 2011 – The American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) have updated their 2003 joint guideline for reprocessing gastrointestinal endoscopes to reaffirm reprocessing methods and take into account evolved technology and disinfection systems.