Culture

Azti-Tecnalia, the R+D centre that specialises in marine and foodstuff research, has for the first time developed an in-house, scientific project to identify and study food trends. Knowing the trends constitutes a great opportunity for the agri-food industry to promote innovation in foodstuffs and anticipate consumer demands.

In the United States, a baby is born with a facial cleft every hour, of every day of the year! Such birth defects result from both gene mutations and environmental insults. PRDM16 is a transcription factor originally described as being aberrantly activated in specific types of leukemia's, and more recently as a master regulator of brown adipose tissue differentiation. In a study published in the April 2012 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, investigators have now shown that this transcription co-factor plays a critical role in development of the embryonic palate.

Lebanon, NH - Research led by vascular surgeons at Dartmouth-Hitchcock may offer new hope to sufferers of peripheral artery disease, the cause of nearly 60,000 lower-limb amputations annually, through the use of a patient's own stem cells.

Richard J. Powell MD, chief of vascular surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, is the principal investigator on a national study – involving 550 patients at 80 sites around the country – of so-called "no option" patients, for whom the disease is so advanced that amputation is the only available treatment.

New research confirms thrombus aspiration (TA) during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) provides long-term outcomes similar to conventional intervention with bare-metal or drug-eluting stents.

Low dose whole body CT is nearly four times better than radiographic skeletal survey, the standard of care in the U.S., for determining the extent of disease in patients with multiple myeloma, a new study shows.

Boston – Cardiothoracic surgeons and endocrinologists from Boston Medical Center (BMC) have found that among patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, achieving Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) benchmarks for glycemic control may be irrelevant when perioperative continuous insulin infusion protocols are implemented. These findings will be presented at the Annual meeting of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery on May 1 in San Francisco, CA.

People with good hearing also have a keen sense of touch; people with impaired hearing generally have an impaired sense of touch. Extensive data supporting this hypothesis was presented by Dr. Henning Frenzel and Professor Gary R. Lewin of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany. The two researchers showed that both senses – hearing and touch – have a common genetic basis.

CHICAGO – Clinical studies registered in clinicaltrials.gov between 2007-2010 are dominated by small, single-center trials and contain significant heterogeneity (different in nature, difficult to compare) in methodological approaches, including the use of randomization, blinding, and data monitoring committees, according to a study in the May 2 issue of JAMA.

(Garrison, NY) Although federal regulations provide protections for people who participate in research, protections are also needed for some people who decline to participate and may face harmful repercussions as a result, concludes an article in IRB: Ethics & Human Research.

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- There's a high rate of depression among patients with hepatitis C, but a standard treatment for the disease includes a drug, interferon, that can cause depression.

In a review article, researchers tackle the complexities of diagnosing and managing depression before and after initiating treatment with interferon.

Dr. Murali S. Rao of Loyola University Medical Center is a co-author of the study, published in the International Journal of Interferon, Cytokine and Mediator Research.

Conservationists with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have found that larger male gorillas living in the rainforests of Congo seem to be more successful than smaller ones at attracting mates and even raising young.

The study—conducted over a 12-year period in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo—helps to illuminate the selective pressures that influence the evolution of great apes.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– What might happen if droughts were predicted months ahead of time? Food aid and other humanitarian efforts could be put together sooner and executed better, say UC Santa Barbara geographers Chris Funk, Greg Husak, and Joel Michaelsen. After over a decade of gathering and analyzing climate and vegetation data from East Africa, the researchers, who are part of the U.S.

Clarksburg, MD—This week, the second-year results of an important clinical trial on age-related macular degeneration (AMD), known as the Comparison of AMD Treatments Trials (or CATT), were published in the journal Ophthalmology. Researchers found that two drugs known as Avastin (bevacizumab) and Lucentis (ranibizumab), commonly used to treat the wet form of AMD, were similarly effective in maintaining vision.

CHICAGO (May 1, 2012)—A recent study published in the May/June 2012 issue of General Dentistry, the peer-reviewed clinical journal of the Academy of General Dentistry, found that an alarming increase in the consumption of sports and energy drinks, especially among adolescents, is causing irreversible damage to teeth—specifically, the high acidity levels in the drinks erode tooth enamel, the glossy outer layer of the tooth.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The use of stun guns by police significantly increases the chances of citizen injury, yet also protects the officers more than other restraint methods, according to the most comprehensive research to date into the safety of stun guns in a law enforcement setting.