Feature Channels: All Journal News

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Blacks and Latinos receive less adequate mental health care than Whites, finds a new study in Health Services Research.

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The sight of a snowfall can thrill children, but the first-ever snow line seen around a distant star gives astronomers an even greater thrill because of what it reveals about the formation of planets and our Solar System's history.

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Protein production or translation is tightly coupled to a highly conserved stress response—the heat shock response and its primary regulator, heat shock factor 1 (HSF1)—that cancer cells rely on for survival and proliferation, according to Whitehead Institute researchers. In mouse models of cancer, therapeutic inhibition of translation interrupts HSF1’s activity, dramatically slowing tumor growth and potentially rendering drug-resistant tumors responsive to other therapies.

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Contrary to current scientific understanding, it appears that our microbial companions play an important role in their hosts' evolution. A new study provides the first direct evidence that these microbes can contribute to the origin of new species by reducing the viability of hybrids produced between males and females of different species.

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Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have determined the orbital motion of two distinct populations of stars in ancient globular star cluster 47 Tucanae, offering proof they formed at different times and providing a rare look back into the Milky Way galaxy's early days.

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Male bats appear to be the sexy singers of the animal world: they have learned to vocalize in a specific way to attract females, but once they have their attention, they change their tune – literally. They then produce a more creative array of sounds to entertain and keep the females interested.

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The drug topiramate, typically used to treat epilepsy and more recently weight loss, may also help people addicted to both cocaine and alcohol use less cocaine, particularly heavy users, researchers in the department of Psychiatry at Penn Medicine report in a new study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

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A team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have identified a mechanism that can prevent the normal prion protein from changing its molecular shape into the abnormal form responsible for neurodegenerative diseases.

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Genes linked to chronic inflammation in asthma may be more active in people who are obese, according to new research that uncovers several biological ties between obesity and asthma.

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For more than 125 years, scientists have been peering through microscopes, carefully watching cells divide. Until now, however, none has actually seen how cells manage to divide precisely into two equally-sized daughter cells during mitosis. Such perfect division depends on the position of the mitotic spindle (chromosomes, microtubules, and spindle poles) within the cell, and it’s now clear that human cells employ two specific mechanisms during the portion of division known as anaphase to correct mitotic spindle positioning.

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A new study from UAB researchers is one of the first to study the relationship of exercise and stroke in a large biracial cohort of men and women in the U.S.

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A study led by a Loyola University Medical Center ENT physician provides a case study of a simple action that can reduce healthcare costs, without compromising care.

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Investigators at Massachusetts Eye and Ear have published the most thorough description of gene expression in the human retina reported to date.

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A new study co-authored by Boston University astronomers indicates that a bow shock (a dynamic boundary between sun’s heliosphere and the interstellar medium) is highly likely. These findings challenge recent predictions that no such bow shock would be encountered.

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Scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have developed a new way to measure the cumulative effect of impacts to the head incurred by football players.

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Using an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system to automate the immunization data shared between health providers and public health agencies enables physicians to assist individual patients faster and more effectively, while also providing more immediate, cohesive community data to the agencies tasked with promoting public health. Those are the findings of a new study conducted by researchers from Columbia University School of Nursing and partner institutions. The researchers also found that automated reporting reduced the lag time historically associated with data submitted on vaccinations and, in some cases, reduced the paperwork and staff time traditionally devoted to managing these required submissions.

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Most professional athletes are able to return to competition within a year after vertebral fusion surgery on the upper (cervical) spine, reports a study in the July issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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For patients with cancer, "prehabilitation"— interventions given between the time of diagnosis and the start of treatment—has the potential to reduce complications from treatments and improve physical and mental health outcomes, according to a report in the August American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (AJPM&R). AJPM&R, the official journal of the Association of Academic Physiatrists, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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A research project at Kansas State University has the potential to treat human deafness and loss of balance.

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Duke Medicine researchers have identified biochemical changes in people taking antidepressants – but only in those whose depression improves. These changes occur in a neurotransmitter pathway that is connected to the pineal gland, the part of the endocrine system that controls the sleep cycle, suggesting an added link between sleep, depression and treatment outcomes.

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Black students who attend predominantly white universities struggle to acclimate to what they perceive as a different culture from their own, where they feel a lack of intercultural understanding, a new study finds. The study, “Understanding the African-American Student Experience in Higher Education through a Relational Dialectics Perspective,” was published online today in the National Communication Association’s journal Communication Education.

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University of Adelaide research has shown new evidence that dinosaurs were warm-blooded like birds and mammals, not cold-blooded like reptiles as commonly believed.

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Researchers have identified a genetic mutation that causes congenital malformations of the kidney and urinary tract, a common form of birth defect and the most common cause of kidney failure in children. It is the first time that a specific genetic mutation has been linked to a non-syndromic form of urinary tract malformation. The findings were published in the July 17 online issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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In an editorial accompanying the new results of a trial of Radium-223 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Neha Vapiwala, MD, an associate professor and chief of the Genitourinary service in the department of Radiation Oncology in the Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, revisits the discovery of radium by Madame Marie Curie more than 115 years ago and traces its path to modern-day cancer care.

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Rapid tooth replacement by sauropods, the largest dinosaurs in the fossil record, likely contributed to their evolutionary success, according to a research paper by Stony Brook University paleontologist Michael D’Emic, PhD, and colleagues. Published in PLOS ONE, the study also hypothesizes that differences in tooth replacement rates among the giant herbivores likely meant their diets varied, an important factor that allowed multiple species to share the same ecosystems for several million years.

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Networks of spherical nanoparticles embedded in elastic materials may make the best stretchy conductors yet, engineering researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered.

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An international team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has determined and analyzed the three-dimensional atomic structure of the human glucagon receptor, which helps regulate glucose levels in the bloodstream and is the target of potential therapeutic agents for type 2 diabetes.

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Vitamin D-deficient older individuals are more likely to struggle with everyday tasks such as dressing or climbing stairs, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

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Exposure to perfluorinated chemicals is linked to changes in thyroid function and may raise the risk of mild hypothyroidism in women, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

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Genomic imprinting maintains a reserve pool of blood-forming stem cells in mouse bone marrow

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Analyzing the maize trade among 217 nations suggests that if U.S. maize exports are disrupted due to environmental or other factors, supplies and food security in many nations could be jeopardized due to the bilateral nature of trade patterns.

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Kansas State University researchers are defeating persistent bacteria known for causing infections in hospitals. They have discovered how a regulatory system helps this bacteria resist a host's innate immune defense -- a finding that may help develop novel drug compounds to fight the bacteria.

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A five-year study gives new hope to some of the world’s most endangered primates by establishing a roadmap to protect all 27 species in Tanzania – mainland Africa's most primate-diverse country.

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A new Johns Hopkins research report says emergency room visits for severe dizziness have grown exponentially in recent years, with costs topping $3.9 billion in 2011 and projected to reach $4.4 billion by 2015. The investigators say roughly half a billion a year could be saved immediately if emergency room physicians stopped the routine and excessive use of head CT scans to search for stroke in dizzy patients, and instead used simple bedside physical exams to identify the small group of patients that truly needs imaging.

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The information carried by the electrical activity of neurons is a mixture of stored memories, environmental circumstances, and current state of mind, scientists have found in a study of laboratory rats. The findings offer new insights into the neurobiological processes that give rise to knowledge and memory recall.

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UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center is ranked among the top 12 cancer centers in the nation, according to a U.S. News & World Report survey of board-certified physicians from across the country. The survey reviewed patient outcomes, the cancer center’s reputation among physicians, mortality rates and other care-related factors.

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Researchers have identified a self-perpetuating signaling circuit inside connective tissue cells that allows these cells to propel themselves in a particular direction, just as tumor cells do when invading healthy tissue during cancer metastasis.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have unlocked some of the mysteries of West Nile virus outbreaks and shown that use of a mosquito vector-index rating system works well to identify the best time for early intervention.

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“Multiple hospitalizations for complications from a terminal illness may be burdensome for elderly patients and reflect poor quality care,” write Joan M. Teno, M.D., M.S., of the Warren Alpert School of Medicine of Brown University, Providence, R.I., and colleagues, who conducted a study to examine whether the occurrence of multiple hospitalizations for the complications of infections or dehydration was associated with survival.

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In a study that included more than 10,000 men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer, use of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) was associated with a significantly increased risk of acute kidney injury, with variations observed with certain types of ADTs, according to a study in the July 17 issue of JAMA.

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Among patients who experienced in-hospital cardiac arrest requiring vasopressors (drugs that increase blood pressure), use of a combination therapy during cardiopulmonary resuscitation resulted in improved survival to hospital discharge with favorable neurological status, according to a study in the July 17 issue of JAMA.

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Lyle R. Petersen, M.D., M.P.H., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services, Fort Collins, Colo., and colleagues conducted a review of the medical literature and national surveillance data to examine the ecology, virology, epidemiology, clinical characteristics, diagnosis, prevention, and control of West Nile virus.

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An analysis of West Nile virus epidemics in Dallas County in 2012 and previous years finds that the epidemics begin early, after unusually warm winters; are often in similar geographical locations; and are predicted by the mosquito vector index (an estimate of the average number of West Nile virus-infected mosquitoes collected per trap-night), information that may help prevent future outbreaks of West Nile virus-associated illness, according to a study in the July 17 issue of JAMA.

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In a study of adults recruited and followed up over the past 3 decades in the United States, longer duration of overall and abdominal obesity beginning in young adulthood was associated with higher rates of coronary artery calcification, a subclinical predictor of coronary heart disease, according to a study in the July 17 issue of JAMA.

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The protein TAp73 is a relative of the well-known, tumor-suppressor protein p53, yet it is still not known whether TAp73 enhances tumor cell growth and, if so, exactly how. Penn researchers found that TAp73 supports the proliferation of human and mouse tumor cells. They also identify an important mechanism by which TAp73 gives tumor cells a growth advantage: it activates the expression of an enzyme important for cell replications and anti-oxidant protection.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins have coaxed stem cells into forming networks of new blood vessels in the laboratory, then successfully transplanted them into mice. The stem cells are made by reprogramming ordinary cells, so the new technique could potentially be used to make blood vessels genetically matched to individual patients and unlikely to be rejected by their immune systems, the investigators say.

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A drug already approved to treat multiple sclerosis may also hold promise for treating cardiac hypertrophy, or thickening of the cardiac muscle--a disorder that often leads to heart failure, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine report.

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Obesity and its related health problems impacts far more people with a disability than previously reported, according to new research in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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Long-term success in college may be better predicted with Advanced Placement (AP) exams and personality traits in combination with standard admission practices, according to new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Rice University.

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People with pre-diabetes who lose roughly 10 percent of their body weight within six months of diagnosis dramatically reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes over the next three years, according to results of research led by Johns Hopkins scientists.