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 Back to Eurekalert Medical and Health News Archives
Eurekalert Medical and Health News: 02-20-2005
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston have devised a mathematical tool that predicts how the frequency of mammograms affects the number of lives saved by detecting breast cancers at an earlier stage. With screening guidelines and financial coverage varying among health systems and insurers - sometimes dramatically - the model provides quantitative predictions of the mortality benefits, on average, in populations of women over the course of 40 years.
New biomolecular technologies have largely failed to deliver the hoped-for knockout punch breakthrough against the defences of disease-causing bacteria, says a leading Canadian specialist in antibiotic resistance.
Duke University Medical Center researchers have found that joints whose cartilage lacks a specific type of collagen will develop osteoarthritis - the so-called "wear-and-tear" form of the disease - at a greatly accelerated rate.
Although predicting el Nino events months before they begin has become a major success story in climate prediction, a Duke University oceanographer who did early research in the field believes more could be done with the computer and satellite technology underlying these advances.
According to Jonathan A. Patz, as the world's climate warms, and as people make widespread alterations to the global landscape, human populations will become far more vulnerable to heat-related mortality, air pollution-related illnesses, infectious diseases and malnutrition.
As the world's synchrotrons move towards ever larger facilities to increase output, MIRRORCLE-6X has taken a giant step forward by moving backwards. Comparable in some ways to much larger synchrotrons, MIRRORCLE-6X occupies only a few square meters of floor space.
A transplant is the only option for someone with end-stage liver disease, but the patient faces difficult questions when choosing the best time to receive the transplant. Today, in a panel discussion at the 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., University of Pittsburgh researcher Andrew Schaefer will present findings on how his mathematical models can help a patient make the right decision.
Using genetics, Navy sonar, deep-sea submersibles, and toxicology, scientists are peering into the lives of whales - past and present - in ways never before possible. At a 3:00 PM press conference on February 19th at the annual meeting of AAAS, leading researchers will share their latest discoveries emerging from these high tech ventures, using DNA sequences, deep-sea video and sound-clips.
AAAS/Sea Grant Panel will take place on Feb 20, 2005 entitled "Transcending Boundaries: Challenges for Holistic Restoration in the Chesapeake Watershed." A panel of scientifiic experts addresses the issue of why the two-decade old Chesapeake Bay restoration effort has not yet met expectations and details the adaptive management approach required to achieve concrete results on the ground.
If you crammed for tests pulling 'all nighters' in school, ever wonder why your memory is now foggy on what you learned? A University of Houston professor may have the answer with findings on circadian rhythms and long-term learning and memory. Professor Arnold Eskin was awarded two grants totaling $2,472,528 from the National Institutes of Health to continue investigating memory formation and the impact of the biological clock on learning and memory.
Charu Kaushic, assistant professor and supervisor of the studies, says the implication of this work is quite significant. "The research clearly shows, and reaffirms previous research, that in female mice, sex hormones have a profound effect on susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections as well as on the body's defense mechanisms against them."
Judy Illes, PhD, senior research scholar at the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the Stanford University School of Medicine, will discuss the clinical implications of new imaging technologies today during the "Neuroethics: Neuroscience and its ethical, legal and social implications" panel discussion at the annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.
Marine seaweeds have a remarkable and previously unknown capacity to detoxify serious organic pollutants such as TNT or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and they may therefore be able to play an important role in protecting the ecological health of marine life.
A study led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers has shown that a potent and highly selective therapy for chronic myelogenous leukemia may ultimately be more effective than Gleevec., the current standard of care. The researchers report in the February Cancer Cell that the new compound, AMN107 - discovered by and in development with Novartis Pharma AG - is about 20 times more potent than Gleevec and is effective in treating Gleevec-resistant disease in model systems.
Researchers at UC San Diego and the UC Berkeley-affiliated International Computer Science Institute co-authored a study mapping key genetic signposts that will accelerate whole-genome association analysis.
A new analysis reports on the history and stakeholders behind the drugs.
Researchers have created a way to transform the dead bone of a transplanted skeletal graft into living tissue in an experiment involving mice.
EU researchers based in the US have given an outstanding "yes" to the creation of a network for them and about them. Following a survey of researchers from EU countries working in the US, carried out by the European Commission, over 90% of the 2000 respondents said that they wanted closer research links with Europe.
A new study on whether the model used to identify patients most in need of a liver transplant can be improved upon found that measuring serum sodium in potential transplant patients helps to better predict those with a poor prognosis.
A new study investigating the effects of the major flavonoid component of green tea on hepatic steatosis (fatty liver) found that it significantly protected livers that suffered ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in mice. I/R injury, which is caused by decreased blood flow, can lead to complications after liver transplantation.
A saliva test can predict whether children will develop cavities later in life, USC researchers say.
Men middle-aged and older routinely get blood tests for prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, to screen for prostate cancer. However, many men with elevated PSAs don't have prostate cancer and undergo unnecessary biopsies, which can cause infertility, incontinence, and impotence. Other men do have prostate cancer, but have normal PSAs, allowing the cancer to spread undetected. A preliminary study from Children's Hospital Boston shows that a simple urine test may improve upon PSA screening.
A majority of Americans believes it is appropriate to use reproductive genetic testing to avoid having a child with a life-threatening disease, or to test embryos to see if they will be a good match to provide cells to help a sick sibling, a new report of the Genetics and Public Policy Center reveals. However, most Americans believe it would be wrong to use genetic testing to select the sex or other non-health related, genetic characteristics of a child.
Bigger is smarter is better. That's the conventional wisdom for why the human brain gradually became three times larger than the ancestral brain. But bigger brains were not generally smarter brains. Archaeological records indicate our ancestors went through two periods of more than a million years each in which tool-making techniques didn't gradually improve, despite a gradual brain size increase.
Expectant mothers should be advised not to drink alcohol, as this may pose health risks to the foetus, argues an editorial in this week's BMJ.
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