Curated News: Top Clipped Stories

• share
• favorite_border

Women who undergo surgical menopause at an earlier age may have an increased risk of decline in memory and thinking skills, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 65th Annual Meeting in San Diego, March 16 to 23, 2013. Early surgical menopause is the removal of both ovaries before natural menopause and often accompanies a hysterectomy.

• share
• favorite_border

People who are depressed after a stroke may have a tripled risk of dying early and four times the risk of death from stroke than people who have not experienced a stroke or depression, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 65th Annual Meeting in San Diego, March 16 to 23, 2013.

• share
• favorite_border

New research suggests that testing a portion of a person’s saliva gland may be a way to diagnose Parkinson's disease. The study was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 65th Annual Meeting in San Diego, March 16 to 23, 2013.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of surgeons and scientists at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have developed a new technique that will allow surgeons to identify during surgery which lymph nodes are cancerous so that healthy tissue can be saved. The findings will be published in the January 15 print edition of Cancer Research.

• share
• favorite_border

Repression of a single protein in ordinary fibroblasts is sufficient to directly convert the cells – abundantly found in connective tissues – into functional neurons. The findings, which could have far-reaching implications for the development of new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington’s, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, will be published online in advance of the January 17 issue of the journal Cell.

• share
• favorite_border

New research suggests that drinking sweetened beverages, especially diet drinks, is associated with an increased risk of depression in adults while drinking coffee was tied to a slightly lower risk. The study was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 65th Annual Meeting in San Diego, March 16 to 23, 2013.

• share
• favorite_border

UCLA researchers have found a link between Parkinson's disease and the pesticide Benomyl, whose toxicological effects still linger in the environment, ten years after it was banned by the EPA. More important, the research suggests the way this pesticide does its damage may occur in other people with Parkinson's, even for those who were not exposed to this pesticide.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UCLA say it's not just what you eat that makes those pants tighter — it's also genetics. In a new study, scientists discovered that body-fat responses to a typical fast-food diet are determined in large part by genetic factors, and they have identified several genes they say may control those responses.

• share
• favorite_border

The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975–2009, shows that overall cancer death rates continued to decline in the United States among both men and women, among all major racial and ethnic groups, and for all of the most common cancer sites, including lung, colon and rectum, female breast, and prostate. However, the report also shows that death rates continued to increase during the latest time period (2000 through 2009) for melanoma of the skin (among men only) and for cancers of the liver, pancreas, and uterus. The special feature section on human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers shows that incidence rates are increasing for HPV-associated oropharyngeal and anal cancers and that vaccination coverage levels in the U.S. during 2008 and 2010 remained low among adolescent girls.

• share
• favorite_border

People taking the blood pressure drugs called beta blockers may be less likely to have changes in the brain that can be signs of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 65th Annual Meeting in San Diego, March 16 to 23, 2013.

• share
• favorite_border

Have questions about the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer? We have answered some common inquiries about the report and the findings.

• share
• favorite_border

By combining the power of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, and one of nature's own natural "zoom lenses" in space, astronomers have set a new distance record for finding the farthest galaxy yet seen in the universe.

• share
• favorite_border

WASHINGTON—A study by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) indicates that full implementation of the Affordable Care Act would expand health insurance coverage for more low-income women, enabling more than a million women to obtain potentially life-saving screening for breast and cervical cancer. The study, “Health Care Reform and Women’s Insurance Coverage for Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening,” was published in a recent issue of the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

• share
• favorite_border

Providing birth control to women at no cost substantially reduced unplanned pregnancies and cut abortion rates by 62 percent to 78 percent over the national rate, a new study shows.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have confirmed and expanded on changes in structural efficiency of white matter in the brain that can be related to positive behavioral changes in subjects practicing the technique for a month and a minimum of 11 hours total.

• share
• favorite_border

Trillions of microbes inhabit the human body, occupying virtually every nook and cranny. And most of the time, this relationship is a friendly one, with microbes helping to digest food, strengthen the immune system and ward off dangerous pathogens. Now, some 200 U.S. scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere report findings from the most comprehensive census of the microbial make-up of healthy humans.

• share
• favorite_border

Male doctors make more money than their female counterparts, even when factoring in medical specialty, title, work hours, productivity and a host of other factors, according to a comprehensive new analysis from researchers at the University of Michigan Health System and Duke University.

• share
• favorite_border

Some regions expected to have more wildfires while others will have fewer.

• share
• favorite_border

In a study of more than 1,000 adults, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs are more likely than non-users to experience decreased energy, fatigue upon exertion, or both. The researchers suggest that these findings should be taken into account by doctors when weighing risk versus benefit in prescribing statins.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study shows that changes in walking speed in late life may signal the early stages of dementia known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The research is published in the June 12, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

• share
• favorite_border

Add an increased risk of stroke to the list of health problems caused by sleeping fewer than six hours a night.

• share
• favorite_border

UCLA stem cell scientists purified a subset of stem cells found in fat tissue and made from them bone that was formed faster and was of higher quality than bone grown using traditional methods, a finding that may one day eliminate the need for painful bone grafts that use material taken from the patient during invasive procedures.

• share
• favorite_border

After a marathon debate over a pair of studies that show how the avian H5N1 influenza virus could become transmissible in mammals, and an unprecedented recommendation by a government review panel to block publication, one of the studies was finally and fully published today (May 3, 2012) in the journal Nature.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that young children with sleep-disordered breathing are prone to developing behavioral difficulties such as hyperactivity and aggressiveness, as well as emotional symptoms and difficulty with peer relationships.

• share
• favorite_border

Online daters intent on fudging their personal information have a big advantage: most people are terrible at identifying a liar. But new research is turning the tables on deceivers using their own words.

• share
• favorite_border

Ever gone to the movies and forgotten where you parked the car? New UCLA research may one day help you improve your memory. UCLA neuroscientists have demonstrated that they can strengthen memory in human patients by stimulating a critical junction in the brain. Published in the Feb. 9 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, the finding could lead to a new method for boosting memory in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease.

• share
• favorite_border

The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be vaporizing and devouring asteroids, which could explain the frequent flares observed, according to astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

• share
• favorite_border

Why do we like fatty foods so much? We can blame our taste buds. In the first study to identify a human receptor that can taste fat, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report that our tongues recognize and have an affinity for fat and that variations in a gene can make people more or less sensitive to the taste of fat in foods.

• share
• favorite_border

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has looked deep into the distant universe and detected the feeble glow of a star that exploded more than 9 billion years ago. The sighting is the first finding of an ambitious survey that will help astronomers place better constraints on the nature of dark energy: the mysterious repulsive force that is causing the universe to fly apart ever faster.

• share
• favorite_border

Large national study shows difference between lung function of cigarette and marijuana smokers; doctors warn against other known complications.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a gene that is required for proper development of the mouse inner ear. In humans, this gene, known as FGF20, is located in a portion of the genome that has been associated with inherited deafness in otherwise healthy families.

• share
• favorite_border

Adolescent children of lesbian mothers report as good quality of life as those with heterosexual parents, reports a study in the January Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, the official journal of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

• share
• favorite_border

Babies born at a very low birth weight are more likely to have memory and attention problems when they become adults than babies born at a low to normal weight, according to a study published in the December 6, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

• share
• favorite_border

UMHS moved patients, staff, and equipment to new children's and women's hospital.

• share
• favorite_border

Team investigating causes of Dravet syndrome presents new approach to understanding the syndrome to American Epilepsy Society.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope have found the fastest spinning star ever discovered. This massive bright young star, called VFTS 102, rotates at a dizzying 1 million miles per hour.

• share
• favorite_border

Two new studies from the University of New Hampshire Crimes against Children Research Center suggest that concerns about teen sexting may be overblown. One study found the percentage of youth who send nude pictures of themselves that would qualify as child pornography is very low. The other found that when teen sexting images do come to police attention, few youth are being arrested or treated like sex offenders.

• share
• favorite_border

Obese patients enrolled in a weight-loss program delivered over the phone by health coaches and with website and physician support lost weight and kept it off for two years, according to new Johns Hopkins research. The program was just as effective as another weight-loss program that involved in-person coaching sessions.

• share
• favorite_border

Adding to research linking alcohol to breast cancer risk, a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that adolescent girls with a family history of breast disease — either cancer or the benign lesions that can become cancer – have a higher risk of developing benign breast disease as young women than other girls. And unlike girls without a family history, this already-elevated risk rises with increasing alcohol consumption.

• share
• favorite_border

Using its near-infrared vision to peer 9 billion years back in time, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an extraordinary population of tiny, young galaxies that are brimming with star formation. The galaxies are typically a hundred times less massive than the Milky Way galaxy, yet they churn out stars at such a furious pace that their stellar content would double in just 10 million years. By comparison, the Milky Way would take a thousand times longer to double its population.

• share
• favorite_border

Obese rhesus monkeys lost on average 11 percent of their body weight after four weeks of treatment with an experimental drug that selectively destroys the blood supply of fat tissue, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports in Science Translational Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

The greatest astronomical discovery of the 20th century may have been credited to the wrong person. But it turns out to have been nobody's fault except for that of the actual original discoverer himself. Writing in the Nov. 10th issue of the journal Nature, astrophysicist Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute has put to bed a growing conspiracy theory about who was fairly credited for discovering the expanding universe.

• share
• favorite_border

In a painstaking re-analysis of Hubble Space Telescope images from 1998, astronomers have found visual evidence for two extrasolar planets that went undetected back then. Finding these hidden gems in the Hubble archive gives astronomers an invaluable time machine for comparing much earlier planet orbital motion data to more recent observations. It also demonstrates a novel approach for planet hunting in archival Hubble data.

• share
• favorite_border

A study of 416,175 Taiwanese shows that moderate exercise adds three years to life expectancy compared to inactivity.

• share
• favorite_border

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite -- temporarily designated P4 -- was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet.

• share
• favorite_border

A Stony Brook University School of Medicine study concludes that there do not appear to be any negative associations between bedsharing in toddlerhood and children’s behavior and cognition at age 5.

• share
• favorite_border

Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa.

• share
• favorite_border

“Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth,” a review paper that will be published on July 15, 2011, in the journal Science, concludes that the decline of large predators and herbivores in all regions of the world is causing substantial changes to Earth’s terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems.

• share
• favorite_border

Improving and maintaining health factors not traditionally associated with dementia, such as denture fit, vision and hearing, may lower a person’s risk for developing dementia, according to a new study published in the July 13, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

• share
• favorite_border

Self-conscious about your age? Careful where you spit. UCLA geneticists now can use saliva to reveal how old you are. The June 22 advance online edition of the Public Library of Science ONE publishes the findings, which offer a myriad of potential applications. A newly patented test, for example, could offer crime-scene investigators a new forensic tool for identifying a suspect’s age.