Body

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Traditional endoscopes provide a peek inside patients' bodies. Now, a University of Florida engineering researcher is designing ones capable of a full inspection.

At 40 feet in length and weighing 8 tons, Sarcosuchus imperator, popularly known as SuperCroc, was the first and largest of the crocs Sereno found in the Sahara, but it was not the strangest, Sereno said. He and his teams soon discovered key fossils of five previously unknown or poorly understood species, most of them walking "upright" with their arms and legs under the body like a land mammal instead of sprawled out to the sides, bellies touching the ground.

The crocs and their nicknames:

A new study on pediatric H1N1 influenza admissions has found that asthma is a significant risk factor for severe disease in children with pandemic H1N1 compared with the seasonal flu. The study (http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/rapidpdf/cmaj.091724), led by researchers from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Ontario, is published online today in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) www.cmaj.ca.

New Haven, Conn. – A protein found in the saliva of ticks helps protect mice from developing Lyme disease, Yale researchers have discovered. The findings, published in the November 19 issue of Cell Host & Microbe, may spur development of a new vaccine against infection from Lyme disease, which is spread through tick bites.

WORCESTER, Mass. – A team of researchers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center at Gateway Park has developed a new model system to study fungal infections. The system can be a powerful tool for screening potential drug targets for conditions like thrush, athlete's foot and vaginal yeast infections, which affect millions of people each year but are difficult to treat with existing medications. Using the new model, the researchers also identified a gene that may be a promising target for a new anti-fungal drug.

DALLAS – Nov. 19, 2009 – Contrary to current thinking, a condition called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) might not develop as a direct result of acidic digestive juices burning the esophagus, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found in an animal study.

Amsterdam, 19 November 2009 – Last week during the 'Vaccines for Biothreats and Emerging and Neglected Diseases Symposium' in Galveston TX, USA, the Elsevier journal Vaccine released a supplement dedicated to vaccines for biodefense (www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0264410X). This publication provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview on vaccines that have been developed against a diverse group of human and veterinary pathogens, including Bacillus anthracis, smallpox, and blue tongue.

'Prevention is the best cure' is a common expression, but what happens if preventative measures are not used? A large proportion of pregnant Ugandan women are going out of their way not to be HIV tested, increasing the risk of mother-to-child transmission.

A recent paper by Larsson et al. in AIDS journal discussed how mother-to-child transmission of HIV can be easily and cost-effectively prevented using a short course of antiretroviral therapy. However, this is effective only if the mother is willing to be screened for HIV.

Oxford, November 19, 2009 – Elsevier, the leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today the publication of a freely available Special Issue of Child Abuse and Neglect The International Journal 1989-2009 on the 20th Anniversary of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Philadelphia, PA, 19 November 2009 - Phthalates are important components of many consumer products, including toys, cleaning materials, plastics, and personal care items. Studies to date on phthalates have been inconsistent, with some linking exposure to these chemicals to hormone disruptions, birth defects, asthma, and reproductive problems, while others have found no significant association between exposure and adverse effects.

Drug approvals are taking just as long as they ever did despite increased expenditure on new information technology at the Food and drug Administration. So says a statistical analysis of approval intervals from 1997 to 2006, published in the International Journal of Electronic Healthcare.

A series of studies carried out at the University of Haifa have found that rodent, reptile and ant lion species behave differently on either side of the Israel-Jordan border. "The border line, which is only a demarcation on the map, cannot contain these species, but the line does restrict humans and their diverse impact on nature," says Dr. Uri Shanas.

Chronic stress in humans has been implicated in heart disease, weight gain, and diabetes, among a host of other health problems. Extreme environments, a source of chronic stress, present a challenge even for the hardiest organisms, and plants are no exception. Yet, some species somehow manage to survive, and even thrive, in stressful conditions.

TEMPE, Ariz. – A baby's sleep position is the best predictor of a misshapen skull condition known as deformational plagiocephaly – or the development of flat spots on an infant's head – according to findings reported by Arizona State University scientists in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics.

There are minimal data assessing the relationship between diabetes with gallbladder, biliary and pancreatic cancer. Recent small studies have suggested an elevated risk of pancreatic cancer only in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM).