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.
ORLANDO, Fla. - Results of a Mayo Clinic study show that a simple, noninvasive finger sensor test is "highly predictive" of a major cardiac event, such as a heart attack or stroke, for people who are considered at low or moderate risk, according to researchers.
The study will be presented Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 11:30 a.m. EDT at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in Orlando (0917-7).
Göteborg, Sweden – March 26, 2009 – While physical exercise has been shown to trigger migraine headaches among sufferers, a new study describes an exercise program that is well tolerated by patients. The findings show that the program decreased the frequency of headaches and improved quality of life. The study is published in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain.
The study used a sample of migraine sufferers who were examined before, during and after an aerobic exercise intervention. The program was based on indoor cycling (for continuous aerobic exercise) and was designed to improve maximal oxygen uptake without worsening the patients' migraines.
New Orleans, La. -March 26, 2009 –Nearly 90 percent of the 700,000 strokes that affect U.S. patients each year are caused by a blockage of blood vessels supplying the brain, known as ischemic stroke. A new study published in Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, the official journal of The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), provides solid evidence of the effectiveness of catheter-based therapy (CBT) to remove blood clots in stroke patients. CBTs, which include stents and thrombectomy, may be used for ischemic stroke patients who arrive too late or have contraindications for intravenous thrombolysis, a drug treatment frequently used to break down blood clots.
The study was initiated in 1985. A total of 51 teenagers with anorexia nervosa were studied, together with an equally large control group of healthy persons. The groups have been investigated and compared several times as the years have passed.
"This study is unique in an international perspective. It is the only study in the world that reflects the natural course of anorexia nervosa in the population", says Elisabet Wentz, Associate Professor in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Sahlgrenska Academy.
The research group has published new results from the study in two scientific journals: the British Journal of Psychiatry and the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
A new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia suggests taking public transit may help you keep fit.
The study, published in the Journal of Public Health Policy, finds that people who take public transit are three times more likely than those who don't to meet the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada's suggested daily minimum of physical activity.
Doctoral student Ugo Lachapelle and Assoc. Prof. Lawrence Frank of the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning used 4,156 travel surveys from metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, to examine whether transit and car trips were associated with meeting the recommended levels of physical activity by walking.
Recent commentary has suggested that the extent to which anomaly theories have become ingrained in the minds of academics and popular commentators alike has led to certain common assumptions and misconceptions about Clarke's pattern recognition theory of humour.
"There are two major misconceptions that have arisen," says Clarke. "First there is the assumption that this theory suggests that the deviation from a pattern is rewarded in humour; second there is the idea that the eight patterns identified correspond to categories of jokes or types of comedy in some way, as if there were eight types of humour. Both are entirely untrue.
Talk about house calls! The Wildlife Conservation Society thanks The Brain Tumor Foundation and its "Road To Early Detection" campaign for their assistance in performing a brain scan on a gorilla at the Bronx Zoo.
ALEXANDRIA, VA – Patients with Parkinson disease may be able to improve their postural stability by directing their attention to the external effects of their movements rather than to the movements of their own body, according to a study published in the February 2009 issue of Physical Therapy, the scientific journal of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA).
PITTSBURGH, March 26 – Mutations in a gene may cause poor lung development in children, making them more vulnerable to diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) later in life, say researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and the German Research Center for Environmental Health. Their study, published online in Physiological Genomics, measured expression levels of the gene and its variants in both mouse lungs and children ages 9 to 11.
Massoud Amin, University of Minnesota professor of electrical and computer engineering, will speak to members of the U.S. Congressional Research and Development Caucus during a briefing on the U.S. power grid and energy in the nation's capitol today, Thursday, March 26.
Patients with moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exhibit a disordered breathing-swallowing pattern that may account for their higher risk of aspiration pneumonia, according to new research from the University of Pittsburgh.
In the first issue for April of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Roxann Diez Gross, Ph.D., and colleagues report that patients with moderate to severe COPD exhibit alterations between breathing and swallowing patterns even when they are not experiencing exacerbations.
A tiny variation within a single gene can determine not only how quickly and well lungs grow and function in children and adolescents, but how susceptible those children will be to exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, even in utero, according to researchers from the University of Southern California.
