One of astronomy's big questions is why galaxies forming as recently as 1 billion years after the Big Bang contain so much dust. The leading hypothesis is that supernovae, stars that explode at the end of their lives, contain large amounts of metal-enriched material that, in turn, harbors key ingredients of dust, like silicon, iron and carbon.
A new study points to a troubling connection between out-of-pocket expenses for people contending with both physical illnesses and depression, affecting access to antidepressant treatment.
Dr. Carolyn Dewa, head of the Work and Well-being Research and Evaluation Program at the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and her team explored whether the amount of money spent on medication before a disability episode impacts medication use among workers on depression-related disability. This study built on previous research that revealed workers on depression-related short-term disability improved with antidepressant treatment.
SALT LAKE CITY – University of Utah researchers have found that delayed-enhancement magnetic resonance imaging (DE-MRI) holds promise for predicting treatment outcomes and measuring disease progression for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), a little known heart rhythm disorder that affects more than 3.5 million Americans and causes more than 66,000 deaths a year. Their latest study on a novel application of this technology for AF appears in the April 7 issue of the journal Circulation.
A simple way of establishing which preterm infants are at risk of developing the eye disease ROP is to follow their weight gain. A new study from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, suggests that following weekly weight development might replace the need for considerably more expensive ophthalmological examinations.
Leipzig: Research and industry are increasingly exploiting the potential of aptamers. As well as their application in research, medical diagnosis and treatment, aptamers are also interesting as a basis for biosensors for use in environmental analysis because their characteristics enable them to identify and bind target molecules as surely as a key fits a lock. In a new book, researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) describe the methods used to obtain aptamers. A newly-approved project aims to develop new nanostructured biosensors to measure harmful substances in water.
Scientists have designed tiny new sensor structures that could be used in novel security devices to detect poisons and explosives, or in highly sensitive medical sensors, according to research published tomorrow (8 April) in Nano Letters.
The new 'nanosensors', which are based on a fundamental science discovery in UK, Belgian and US research groups, could be tailor-made to instantly detect the presence of particular molecules, for example poisons or explosives in transport screening situations, or proteins in patients' blood samples, with high sensitivity.
In 2007 and 2008 two groups of theoretical physicists (Hammer and Platter, and von Stecher, D'Incao, and Greene) predicted the existence of universal four-body states that are closely tied to Efimov trimer states. Now, a team of scientists of the Institute for Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, has proven these states experimentally in an ultracold gas of cesium atoms. At particular energy separations from an Efimov state, they found two four-body loss resonances, which are a strong evidence for the existence of a pair of four-body states closely tied to Efimov trimers.
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Rutgers geneticist Linda Brzustowicz and her colleagues have identified a specific DNA change that is likely to increase risk for developing schizophrenia in some people. It provides a potential mechanism that may be a point of entry for drug therapy, consistent with the growing trend of personalized medicine.
The research findings are reported in the April issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP). An accompanying editorial highlights the significance of this work.
Scientists at the University of Melbourne have discovered the local action of immune cells in the skin, which could improve treatment of viral skin infections.
This work identifies previously unrecognised first-line defence mechanisms that are particularly important in barrier locations such as the skin and the gut, often used as portals of entry by viruses and bacteria.
Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that a tiny aquatic plant can be used to clean up animal waste at industrial hog farms and potentially be part of the answer for the global energy crisis. Their research shows that growing duckweed on hog wastewater can produce five to six times more starch per acre than corn, according to researcher Dr. Jay Cheng. This means that ethanol production using duckweed could be "faster and cheaper than from corn," says fellow researcher Dr. Anne-Marie Stomp.
"We can kill two birds – biofuel production and wastewater treatment – with one stone – duckweed," Cheng says. Starch from duckweed can be readily converted into ethanol using the same facilities currently used for corn, Cheng adds.
Damage to patients' immune systems is happening sooner now than it did at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, suggesting the virus has become more virulent, according to a new study in the May 1, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.
Conventional wisdom says several years will pass between HIV infection and the need for antiretroviral therapy. However, clinicians have observed that patients are entering HIV care with lower initial CD4 cell counts than in previous years and now often require antiretroviral therapy soon after entering care, raising the question of whether HIV has become more virulent.
GOLDEN, Colo. (April 7, 2009) – The 2009 HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award™ recipients were identified in a report issued today by the leading independent healthcare ratings organization. These hospitals represent an elite group that save lives, save money and prevent errors at a higher rate than other U.S. hospitals.
PHILADELPHIA (April 7, 2009) – It may be wise to trust the female nose when it comes to body odor. According to new research from the Monell Center, it is more difficult to mask underarm odor when women are doing the smelling.
"It is quite difficult to block a woman's awareness of body odor. In contrast, it seems rather easy to do so in men," said study lead author Charles J. Wysocki, PhD, a behavioral neuroscientist at Monell.
The researchers speculate that females are more attuned to biologically relevant information in sweat that may guide women when choosing a mate.
In the study, women and men rated the strength of underarm odors, both alone and in conjunction with various fragrances.
