News Articles

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections doubled at U.S. academic medical centers between 2003 and 2008, according to a new report published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.MRSA infections, which cannot be treated with antibiotics related to penicillin, have become common since the late 1990s. These infections can affect any part of the body, including the skin, blood stream, joints, bones, and lungs.  The findings run counter to a recent CDC study that found MRSA cases in hospitals were declining. The CDC study looked only at cases of invasive MRSA—infections found in the blood, spinal fluid, or deep tissue. It excluded infections of the skin, which the new study includes.

The horns of creatures as different as elk and rhinoceros beetles - along with other decorative, mate-attracting structures -  are sensitive to changes in nutrition. They aren’t diabetic, but they are insulin-dependent; if they want to grow big horns and therefore attract mates.

Is there a 'biological clock' that women recognize innately, and act on accordingly? New research casts some doubt on that.

Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease.Now patients are getting some high-tech help. REMPARK (Personal Health Device for the Remote and Autonomous Management of Parkinson’s Disease) is a wearable monitoring and actuation system that identifies the motor status of Parkinson’s patients in real time. The system will also determine what phase a patient is in while walking or performing everyday activities and provide a cue to initiate movement when a gait-freezing episode occurs.

Researchers have developed a new method of repairing bone using a synthetic bone graft substitute material. Combined with gene therapy, they say it can mimic real bone tissue and has potential to regenerate bone in patients who have lost large areas of bone from disease or trauma.The researchers have developed a scaffold material made from collagen and nano-sized particles of hydroxyapatite which acts as a frame for the body’s own cells and repairs bone in the damaged area using gene therapy. The cells are tricked into overproducing bone producing BMPs (proteins), encouraging regrowth of healthy bone tissue. 

Can anyone accurately forecast the result of the London Olympics while they are a week away?Even more daring, can they forecast results without in depth knowledge of athlete training?Economists at Ruhr-Universität Bochum are taking a shot at it and, if it sounds like complete madness, we'll go ahead and spoil it and tell you they believe that China, USA, and Russia will top the score table with 102, 100, and 71 medals, respectively, so you can move on to another article. But if you are interested in the nuts and bolts, read on.  You can decide if this is mumbo-jumbo or solid science.

Can modern physicists examine ancient myths and teach us about modern social networks, even science ones like Science 2.0?Pesky humanities types are always butting into science and a new article in EPL (Europhysics Letters) turns the tables.  Pádraig Mac Carron and Ralph Kenna from Coventry University performed detailed text analyses of the Iliad, Beowulf and the Táin Bó Cuailnge and found that the interactions between the characters in all three myths were consistent with those seen in real-life social networks. Taking this further, the researchers compared the myths to four known works of fiction -- Les Misérables, Richard III, Fellowship of the Ring, and Harry Potter -- and found clear differences.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are teaming up to provide $32 million for development of a technology platform that will mimic human physiological systems in the laboratory, using an array of integrated, interchangeable engineered human tissue constructs - a human body on a chip.The new program is called “Barrier-Immune-Organ: MIcrophysiology, Microenvironment Engineered TIssue Construct Systems” (BIO-MIMETICS) and includes the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT, the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, MatTek Corp. and Zyoxel Ltd.

In the 1990s, life was simpler for environmentalists.  Crippling the logging industry was all that was needed to protect trees and birds.  But, as in abortion or gun control, you have to sue everyone or you can sue no one and even responsible logging and clearing brush was stopped by environmental lawsuits and as a result, wildfires have become far more frequent and far more devastating.  Now add a new wrinkle - no logging is leading to more global warming.

NASA's Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3), a large inflatable heat shield developed, was launched by sounding rocket at 7:01 a.m. Monday from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va.  It successfully survived a trip through Earth's atmosphere while traveling at hypersonic speeds of 7,600 mph.

At the time of diagnosis, hundreds of mutations already exist in leukemia cells but new research has found they are a part of normal aging and are not related to cancer.Even in healthy people, stem cells in the blood routinely accumulate new mutations over the course of a person’s lifetime. In many cases only two or three additional genetic changes are required to transform a normal blood cell already dotted with mutations into acute myeloid leukemia (AML). 

Researchers have linked mutations in specific genes to each of the four recognized subtypes of medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor of children. The discovery provides doctors with potential biomarkers for guiding and individualizing treatment and reveals prospective therapeutic opportunities for countering this devastating malignancy.Medulloblastomas occur in the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls balance and other complex motor functions, and are treated with a combination of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Though overall survival hovers around 70 percent, most survivors are unable to live independently due to the lasting effects of both tumor and treatment.