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A leading nanotechnology scientist has raised questions over a billion dollar industry by boldly claiming that there is a limit to how small nanotechnology materials can be mass produced.

In a paper published today, Thursday, 21 April, in IOP Publishing's journal Nanotechnology, Professor Mike Kelly, Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics, University of Cambridge, stated that you cannot mass produce structures with a diameter of three nanometres or less using a top-down approach.

Current UK procedures to screen new immigrants for tuberculosis (TB) fail to detect more than 70 per cent of cases of latent infection, according to a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

TB is caused by a bacterial infection which is normally asymptomatic, but around one in 10 infections leads to active disease, which attacks the lungs and kills around half of people affected.

Infants who have problems with persistent crying, sleeping and/or feeding – known as regulatory problems – are far more likely to become children with significant behavioural problems, reveals research published ahead of print in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Around 20% of all infants show symptoms of excessive crying, sleeping difficulties and/or feeding problems in their first year of life and this can lead to disruption for families and costs for health services.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study in fruit flies offers a broad view of the potent and sometimes devastating molecular events that occur throughout the body as a result of methamphetamine exposure.

The study, described in the journal PLoS ONE, tracks changes in the expression of genes and proteins in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) exposed to meth.

Unlike most studies of meth, which focus on the brain, the new analysis looked at molecular changes throughout the body, said University of Illinois entomology professor Barry Pittendrigh, who led the research.

Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health have identified a common genetic variant associated with substantially increased risk of developing pulmonary fibrosis, a debilitating and life-threatening lung condition. The genetic variant is found in a region of DNA thought to regulate the production of an important mucus-forming protein.

However, knowing the gene variant is not, by itself, enough for a test to determine who would be at risk of the disease, experts say.

A team led by researchers at National Jewish Health has discovered a new genetic variation that increases the risk of developing pulmonary fibrosis by 7 to 22 times. The researchers report in the April 21, 2011, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine that nearly two-thirds of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or familial interstitial pneumonia carry the genetic variation. It is associated with the MUC5B gene, which codes for a mucus-forming protein.

BOSTON (April 20, 2011, 5pm ET) − Eating more n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, commonly known as omega-3 fatty acids, may help carriers of a genetic variant on the perilipin 4 (PLIN4) gene locus lose weight more efficiently. Based on this observation, researchers at the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University identified a microRNA (miRNA) which may elucidate the underlying biological mechanism.

A new discovery in a deadly lung disease may change the direction of research while uncovering increased risk for many patients and families. The Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis (CPF) and the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (PFF) applaud the efforts of scientists that led to the discovery of a genetic variation associated with the MUC5B gene which may increase the risk of developing Pulmonary Fibrosis (PF).

(Boston) – A pulse oximetry 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.

The training video, which is the fifth BMC-produced video to appear in the NEJM's Videos in Clinical Medicine section, provides best practices for physicians utilizing pulse oximetry.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- How much scientific evidence is there for and against the assertion that exposure to video game violence can harm teens?

Three researchers have developed a novel method to consider that question: they analyzed the research output of experts who filed a brief in a U.S. Supreme Court case involving violent video games and teens.

Their conclusion? Experts who say violent video games are harmful to teens have published much more evidence supporting their claims than have experts on the other side of the debate.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Women who choose among different breast cancer treatment options make smarter choices when getting the information and making decisions in small doses rather than all at once, as is customary, a University of Michigan study found.

It's long been known that people who aren't good with numbers have a harder time understanding the risk information they need to make good medical decisions, says Brian Zikmund-Fisher, assistant professor at the U-M School of Public Health and a research assistant professor at the U-M Health System.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The debate over the constitutionality of regulating corporate speech took a significant turn in the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, but it's an issue that almost certainly won't die down in the aftermath of that highly publicized case, says a University of Illinois business law expert.

Law professor Larry E. Ribstein says the court's 5-to-4 ruling in favor of corporate speech has sparked a furor among pundits and the public that shows little signs of ebbing.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Coastal residents and oil-rig workers may soon have longer warning when a storm headed in their direction is becoming a hurricane, thanks to a University of Illinois study demonstrating how to use existing satellites to monitor tropical storm dynamics and predict sudden surges in strength.

As partners in the international research consortium named MetaHit, scientists from the University of Copenhagen have contributed to show that an individual's intestinal bacteria flora, regardless of nationality, gender and age, organises itself in certain clusters. The cluster of intestinal bacteria flora is hypothesised to have an influence on how we react to both our diet and medicine absorbed through the gastro-intestinal tract. The results have recently been published in the journal Nature.

CHICAGO --- Recruiting thousands of patients to collect health data for genetic clues to disease is expensive and time consuming. But that arduous process of collecting data for genetic studies could be faster and cheaper by instead mining patient data that already exists in electronic medical records, according to new Northwestern Medicine research.