RxPG News : Latest Research

New device performs better than old for removing blood clots

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) An experimental blood clot-removing device outperformed the FDA-approved MERCI; retriever device, according to late-breaking science presented at the American Stroke Association's 2012 International Stroke Conference.

The SOLITAIRE; Flow Restoration Device is a self-expanding stent-based design that mechanically removes blood clots from blocked vessels after a stroke. After insertion into the clot using a thin tube, or catheter, the device traps the clot then both device and clot are removed, restoring blood flow. The MERCI retriever uses a tiny corkscrew, guided by a balloon-tipped wire, to snare and remove the blood clot.

In the Solitaire With the Intention for Thrombectomy (SWIFT) trial, the first U.S. clinical trial to compare the two devices, 113 stroke patients at 18 hospitals were randomly assigned to undergo clot removal with either device within eight hours of stroke onset between Feb. 2010-Feb. 2011.

The trial was ended at the suggestion of a safety monitoring committee nearly a year earlier than planned due to significantly better outcomes with the new device. The experimental device opened blocked vessels without causing symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage in 61 percent of patients. The currently approved device had the same result in 24 percent of cases - a statistically significant difference, said Jeffrey L. Saver, M.D., lead author of the study, professor of neurology and director of the Stroke Center in the Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California in Los Angeles.

The use of the new device also led to better survival three months after stroke. There was a 17.2 percent mortality rate with the new device versus 38.2 percent with the older one.

Stroke caused by a blood clot blocking a blood vessel supplying the brain is the most common type of stroke, accounting for about 87 percent of all strokes. The FDA-approved treatment for stroke with the most robust body of evidence is use of a clot-busting drug, but the drug must be given within 4.5 hours of symptom onset, and more quickly in older patients. When clot-busting drugs cannot be used or are ineffective, the clot can sometimes be mechanically removed, during or even after the 4.5 hours. The study didn't compare mechanical clot removal to drug treatment.

Although not yet approved in the United States, the new device is approved in Europe.

Other specific findings - all of which were statistically significant - were:

Two percent of SOLITAIRE-treated patients had symptoms of bleeding in the brain compared to 11 percent of MERCI patients.

At the 90-day follow-up, overall adverse event rates, including bleeding in the brain, were similar for the two devices.

Fifty-eight percent of SOLITAIRE-treated patients had good mental/motor functioning at 90 days compared to 33 percent of MERCI patients.

The SOLITAIRE device also opened more vessels when used as the first treatment approach, necessitating fewer subsequent attempts with other devices or drugs.

Patients' average age was 67 years and 68 percent were male. Forty percent had not improved with standard clot-busting medication prior to the study, while the remainder had not received it.

The time from the start of symptoms to start of the clot retriever treatment was on average 4.9 hours for SOLITAIRE and 5.3 hours for MERCI. The study results account for this time difference.

This heralds a new era in acute stroke care, said Saver. We're going from our first generation of recanalization procedures, which were only moderately good in reopening target arteries, to now having a highly effective recanalization device. This really is a game-changing result.

Gene related to fat preferences in humans found

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A preference for fatty foods has a genetic basis, according to researchers, who discovered that people with certain forms of the CD36 gene may like high-fat foods more than those who have other forms of this gene.

The results help explain why some people struggle when placed on a low-fat diet and may one day assist people in selecting diets that are easier for them to follow. The results also may help food developers create new low-fat foods that taste better.

Fat is universally palatable to humans, said Kathleen Keller, assistant professor of nutritional sciences, Penn State. Yet we have demonstrated for the first time that people who have particular forms of the CD36 gene tend to like higher fat foods more and may be at greater risk for obesity compared to those who do not have this form of the gene. In animals, CD36 is a necessary gene for the ability to both detect and develop preferences for fat. Our study is one of the first to show this relationship in humans.

Keller and a tem of scientists from Penn State, Columbia University, Cornell University and Rutgers University examined 317 African-American males and females because individuals in this ethnic group are highly vulnerable to obesity and thus are at greatest risk for obesity-related diseases.

The team gave the participants Italian salad dressings prepared with varying amounts of canola oil, which is rich in long-chain fatty acids. The participants were then asked to rate their perceptions of the dressings' oiliness, fat content and creaminess on a scale anchored on the ends with extremely low and extremely high.

The team also gave participants questionnaires aimed at understanding their food preferences. Participants rated how much they liked each food on a scale anchored with dislike extremely and like extremely. Foods included on the questionnaire were associated with poor dietary intake and health outcomes, such as half-and-half, sour cream, mayonnaise, bacon, fried chicken, hot dogs, French fries, cheese, chips, cake, cookies and doughnuts. The researchers collected saliva samples from the participants to determine which forms of CD36 they had. From the saliva samples, they extracted DNA fragments and examined differences in the CD36 gene contained within the fragments.

They found that participants who had the AA form of the gene -- present in 21 percent of the population -- rated the salad dressings as creamier than individuals who had other forms of the gene. These individuals reported that the salad dressings were creamier regardless of how much fat was actually in them. The researchers also found that AA individuals liked salad dressings, half-and-half, olive oil and other cooking oils more than those who had other forms of the gene. The results are published in a recent issue of the journal

Cardiovascular Nursing Spring Meeting

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New scientific findings and hot topics in cardiovascular nursing will be the focus of the 12th Annual Spring Meeting on Cardiovascular Nursing. Managing in today's challenging financial environment and dealing with the increasing issue of cardiovascular disease in dementia patients are just two items on the packed agenda.

Some 200 abstracts will be presented by nurses and allied professionals on a wide range of topics including arrhythmias, heart failure, prevention, acute care, myocardial infarction and implantable devices. There's such a breadth of research and quality improvement projects that nurses and AHPs (allied health professionals) bring to this congress, says Professor Christi Deaton, immediate past-chairperson of the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (CCNAP).

This year's meeting, 'Health at Heart', is organised jointly by the (CCNAP) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the Professional Society for Cardiovascular and Thorax Surgery Nurses, based in Denmark. It will be held 16-17 March 2012 at the state of the art Bella Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark.

New scientific findings will be presented on risky behaviours in adolescents with congenital heart disease, the links between depression and heart disease, the impact of art on quality of life in stroke survivors, and numerous other subjects of interest to journalists and the wider public.

This year will see a record number of moderated posters presented, a great opportunity for journalists to get stories and speak to the researchers. We increased the number of moderated poster sessions because it was such a popular forum last year, says Dr Kaat Siebens, chairperson of the CCNAP. It was an excellent opportunity to see the posters up close and have a good discussion with the scientists.

In addition to the abstracts, sessions will be held on hot topics in cardiovascular nursing that affect large numbers of patients. A session on fear in cardiovascular patients will consider whether fear is a positive coping strategy or negative emotional status, how fear can lead to delays in seeking treatment, and the relationship between fear and inflammation, which is associated with worse outcomes. Another session will explore the growing problem of how to manage complex cardiovascular problems in older patients with dementia.

A session will be devoted to leadership and management in difficult times, including how to get nurse-patient ratios right and how to motivate and retain experienced nurses. This is particularly newsworthy given today's financial climate. We are in difficult financial times and that affects healthcare, says Professor Deaton. Oftentimes healthcare systems decrease staffing when there is an economic crisis.

For the first time a daily congress news will be distributed which highlights events not to be missed by delegates and the press, and the day's top three abstracts (oral, moderated poster, and poster), chosen by the CCNAP and dubbed the 'Reviewers Choice'.

Also new will be on-site interviews with key figures, including a nurse prescriber who can discuss this important subject ahead of the 2013 meeting in Glasgow, where nurses can prescribe.

The meeting attracts around 600 nurses, allied professionals and technicians from Europe and beyond. Delegates and journalists will stay at the striking Bella Sky Comwell Hotel, which is attached to the congress centre. For those who wish to visit the city centre, Copenhagen Central Station is just 10-15 minutes' drive away.

We drafted the scientific programme with topics that are really important for our delegates, concludes Dr Siebens. And everybody is feeling the crisis, so I think one of the most important sessions will be the one regarding leadership and management in difficult times.

The effect of occasional binge drinking on heart disease and mortality among moderate drinkers

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Most studies have found that binge drinking is associated with a loss of alcohol's protective effect against ischemic heart disease (IHD) and most studies have found an increase of coronary risk among binge drinkers.

This study followed 26,786 men and women who participated in the Danish National Cohort Study in 1994, 2000, and 2005 and sought to see if binge drinking increased the risk of IHD or all-cause mortality among light-to-moderate drinkers: (up to 21 drinks/week for men and up to 14 drinks/week for women). A drink was 12g.

Binge drinking (more that 5 drinks on an occasion) did not show differences in risk of ischemic heart disease (coronary disease) or total mortality than among always moderate drinkers. These results are somewhat different from results of many other epidemiologic studies that have shown increased risk of health problems (even higher risk of coronary disease) to be associated with what was referred to as binge drinking.

Why there were no adverse effects of binge drinking in this study has provoked considerable discussion among members of the Forum. The assessments of alcohol were based on consumption in the week prior to the examination, so data was not available to judge whether or not binge-drinking episodes occurred rarely or regularly. Data was available for smoking, education, physical activity, BMI, and self-reported hypertension and diabetes. There was a strong increase in IHD risk and mortality from binge drinking among heavy drinkers, but the authors were comparing outcomes in binge vs. non-binge drinkers among subjects in the light-to-moderate categories, and so in all comparisons, the relative risk of IHD and all-cause mortality was higher for non-drinkers than for all other categories of drinkers.

The general consensus of opinion among Forum members is the definition of binge drinking. The rapid consumption of more than 5 drinks on an empty stomach surely has different effects than the consumption of alcohol over several hours with food, such as during a prolonged dinner. The rate of consumption strongly affects the consequences of alcohol; the speed of drinking and context should constitute part of the definition of 'bingeing' and not just the total number of drinks.

The Forum concludes that binge drinking, however defined, is not a healthy pattern of alcohol consumption. But the circumstances of consumption (rate of consumption, with or without food, etc.) may also be important in its definition and in judging its effects on health.

The Forum does not take the results of this single study to support binge drinking. What the Danish results suggest is that the occasional excess embedded in a moderate consumption pattern is not shown to be harmful in this study. As recognized in responsible drinking guidelines from Australia, Canada and the US, occasional episodes of consumption greater than the recommended daily levels do not necessarily change the classification of a normally moderate drinker into that of an abuser.

ORNL, partners earn FLC honor for cookstove technology

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Envirofit International, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Colorado State University have won a Federal Laboratory Consortium award for excellence in technology transfer for a clean-burning cookstove designed for the developing world.

The story began in 2007 when Envirofit and Colorado State approached ORNL in search of guidance for selecting a commercially available low-cost metal combustor alloy able to withstand harsh operating conditions. The combustor component in the Envirofit stove design had to resist temperatures up to 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit in the presence of corrosive compounds resulting from burning a variety of biomass. The metal cost could not exceed a few dollars per pound.

Mike Brady of ORNL's Materials Science and Technology Division led a team that identified a family of low-cost iron-based alloys with the potential to meet Envirofit's design targets. ORNL also assisted Envirofit in specifying alloy compositional tolerances needed to achieve durability targets without significantly increasing alloy cost.

Under a work for others agreement funded by Envirofit, ORNL provided ongoing alloy specification and impurity tolerance input, assisted with the design and interpretation of corrosion studies to assess the durability of candidate alloys. ORNL also performed advanced characterization of corrosion products on laboratory and field-tested metal components.

This knowledge transfer resulted in a joint patent disclosure between Envirofit and Colorado State University, and ORNL for the metal combustor component and cookstove assembly.

To date, more than 150,000 Envirofit G-3300 stoves have been sold in the developing world. These stoves reduce smoke and harmful gases by up to 80 percent, reduce fuel use by up to 60 percent and reduce cooking time by up to 50 percent compared to traditional cooking fires and stoves. The core technology developed for the G-3300 has now been integrated across six models of wood and charcoal stoves.

Brady noted that this success story illustrates technology transfer at its best as ORNL was able to quickly provide materials selection guidance by leveraging extensive experience in high-temperature materials. This expertise was gained under the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Industrial Technologies programs and Fossil Energy Advanced Research Materials programs.

Other ORNL members of the team were Larry Walker, David Stinton, Tim Theiss, Thomas Rosseel, Joe Marasco, Alex DeTrana and Frank Damiano. The award citation was for Materials for a Low-Cost, Clean Cookstove.

DOE laboratories won a total of seven of the 23 FLC awards for 2012 with the other honors going to Argonne National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. The awards will be presented May 3 at the FLC national meeting in Pittsburgh.

Clot-busting drugs appear safe for treating 'wake-up' stroke patients

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Clot-busting drugs may be safe for patients who wake up experiencing stroke symptoms, according to preliminary research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2012.

In wake-up stroke, the person wakes up with symptoms after going to sleep with none. Not knowing when the stroke began excludes these patients from anti-clotting drugs that must be given within 4.5 hours of the beginning of the stroke.

Because wake-up strokes are common, occurring in up to a quarter of stroke sufferers, more research is needed on how to treat these patients, said Dulka Manawadu, M.D., lead researcher and a stroke medical consultant at King's College Hospital in London, U.K. Patients who experience stroke symptoms should call Emergency Medical Services urgently and get to the hospital fast, regardless of the time of onset. This will help specialists decide if novel interventions are appropriate and feasible.

In the study, researchers used a stroke registry to compare clot busting treatments received by 326 patients within 4.5 hours of symptom onset to 68 wake-up stroke patients, with unknown onset.

All the patients were treated in the same London medical center, where 20 percent suffered wake-up stroke. Researchers didn't randomly assign patients to receive different treatments for comparison, which is the gold standard and, thus, a limitation of the study.

Our study shows that administering clot-busting drugs to patients with wake-up stroke who have the same clinical and imaging features as those treated within current guidelines is feasible and safe, Manawadu said.

Researchers analyzed information on patients who received the clot-buster alteplase, sold under the name Activase, between January 2009 and December 2010. Wake-up stroke patients received clot-busting treatments if their clinical presentation and early stroke changes on CT scan images were comparable to those treated with a known time of onset. Both groups had similar blood pressure, blood sugar levels and scores on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, which is a standardized method used by healthcare professionals to measure the level of impairment caused by a stroke.

After three months, the researchers found the wake-up stroke patients' death rates, risk of bleeding inside the brain, and the proportion that made a good recovery were similar to those patients treated within a known 4.5 hours of stroke onset.

Sometimes, doctors are reluctant to give clot-busting drugs to patients in whom the time of stroke onset is not known, because the risks of bleeding are not known, Manawadu said. However, a significant proportion of patients who have stroke symptoms on waking may have suffered stroke in the early hours of the morning and may still be within the window of time where clot-busting treatments are known to be effective. It is also likely that advanced imaging techniques may help to identify patients with wake-up stroke who have the potential to benefit from clot-busting drugs.

This is an area of growing importance because it may allow us to extend the indication for this effective treatment, Manawadu said. Research has been limited to date but the time is ripe to investigate effective treatments in this group of patients.

Infections in childhood linked to high risk of ischemic stroke

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Common infections in children pose a high risk of ischemic stroke, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2012.

In a review of 2.5 million children, the researchers identified 126 childhood ischemic stroke cases and then randomly selected 378 age-matched controls from the remaining children without stroke. They discovered that 29 percent of those who suffered a stroke had a medical encounter for infection in the two days preceding the stroke versus one percent of controls during the same dates.

In the three- to seven-day window, 13 percent of children had an infection compared to 2 percent of controls.

The elevated risk of stroke didn't persist after the first month of infection, researchers said.

This is the first large study to establish the relationship between infection and stroke in children, said Heather Fullerton, M.D., the study's principal investigator and director of the Pediatric Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease Center at the University of California in San Francisco.

Researchers analyzed diagnostic and radiologic databases of children enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente healthcare plan from 1993 to 2007. They evaluated medical records and chart reviews for infections during the two years prior to the childhood stroke, and the same time period for the age-matched controls.

The children with stroke ranged from infants to adolescents, average 10.5 years old (oldest child was 19). Researchers identified three stroke-free controls per case. Findings between girls and boys or ethnic groups didn't differ.

Researchers found acute infections are more important in triggering stroke than chronic infections over time.

These were predominantly minor acute infections and represented a variety of infections, including upper respiratory infections, urinary tract infections and ear infections, Fullerton said. No particular type of infection predominated.

The study findings hold implications for the secondary prevention of stroke in children, she said.

Most previously healthy children with an ischemic stroke have a disease of the blood vessels to the brain, and these children are at highest risk of recurrent stroke. This study may provide some insight into why children develop this arteriopathy: the inflammatory process that results from an infection which may lead to stroke by causing vascular injury, researchers said.

The standard treatment for ischemic stroke in children is blood thinners. But the study suggests that future research should focus on the potential role for anti-inflammatory medications in preventing the recurrence of stroke in this population.

The incidence of stroke in childhood is about five per 100,000 in the United States each year, Fullerton said.

About half of childhood strokes are hemorrhagic (bleeding in the brain), according to American Heart Association statistics.

Childhood infections are exceedingly common, while childhood strokes are uncommon, Fullerton said. Parents should not be alarmed at the findings of this study. We suspect that there are rare genetic factors that may place some children at risk for this uncommon effect of common infections.

Infection is an established risk factor for ischemic stroke in adults. In the United States, stroke is the fourth leading cause of death and a leading cause of serious disability among adults.

Penn State scientists elected to American Geophysical Union

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Michael Mann and David Pollard, both scientists in Penn State's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, have been elected as Fellows of the American Geophysical Union for exceptional contributions in original research in climate change.

Election as an AGU Fellow is one of the highest honors for scientists in Earth and space sciences. No more than 0.1 percent of AGU's 60,000-plus members is elected annually as Fellows. Only 61 scientists will receive the honor this year.

Mann, professor of meteorology and geosciences and director of the University's Earth System Science Center, is best known for using theoretical climate-system models and analyzing observational climate records to advance understanding of the Earth's climate and the changes -- both those naturally occurring and human-forced -- that have occurred over time.

In the late 1990s, Mann with colleagues published the hockey stick graph of Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the past millennium. Based upon so-called proxy climate records such as ice cores, tree rings and corals, the graph demonstrates significant global warming in the last century. The graph, which has become a lightning rod for climate-change deniers, and the ensuing controversy are the subject of Mann's soon-to-be-released book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From the Front Lines.

Mann was lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Scientific Assessment Report and was among the scientists who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore for that report. More recently, he was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union in recognition of his climate-related work.

The author of more than 140 peer-reviewed and edited publications, Mann is co-author with Penn State Geoscientist Lee Kump of Dire Predictions, Understanding Global Warming: The Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC.

Mann received his undergraduate degrees in physics and applied math from the University of California at Berkeley, a master's degree in physics and a doctorate in geology and geophysics from Yale University. He joined Penn State in 2005.

Pollard, senior scientist, Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, works with global climate models and ice-sheet models to both investigate the physical processes that have shaped Earth's climate over geologic time and project the future of the Earth's system. By coupling and applying these models in innovative ways, Pollard has developed several new modeling techniques.

One of these has allowed floating ice shelves to be integrated efficiently and realistically into ice-sheet models. With these, Pollard has been able to create simulations of the advance and retreat of the grounding line -- where floating ice shelves and grounded ice meet -- of the fragile and vulnerable West Antarctic ice sheet, much of which rests on bedrock far below sea level. Melting of the great polar ice sheets will result in global sea-level rise.

Using this model, Pollard and Robert DeConto, a colleague at the University of Massachusetts, have simulated the past 5 million years of West Antarctic ice sheet variations. The results indicate the West Antarctic ice sheet has collapsed and re-grown multiple times, a conclusion confirmed by data from sediment cores drilled by the AntarcticGeological Drilling project.

The model also extends the reach of the core data to a wider geographical context and not just the spot drilled.

Pollard is currently applying the model to the future to assess the danger of West Antarctic ice sheet collapse in the next few centuries or millennium due to anthropogenic climate warming.

As an associate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the early 1990s, Pollard was one of the main developers of the Genesis Global Climate Model, which has been widely used for studies of paleoclimate.

Pollard's research has been reported in more than 130 authored or co-authored publications in peer-reviewed literature.

Pollard, who came to Penn State in 1997, received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from Cambridge University, a master's degree in aeronautics and a doctorate in planetary science from California Institute of Technology.

Mann and Pollard will be recognized during an Honors Ceremony at the 2012 AGU Fall Meeting held Dec. 6-10, in San Francisco.

Wayne State University project aims to reduce HIV, AIDS among African-Americans

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) DETROIT -- A grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administered by the Michigan Department of Community Health, is helping a Wayne State University researcher's effort to promote HIV testing among African-Americans.

Dana Rice, Dr.P.H., adjunct assistant professor of family medicine and public health sciences, has received $166,000 to expand HIV testing in the Wayne County jails to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities.

We have a huge disparity in racial and ethnic HIV rates in the United States, she said, noting that black men and women make up only 14 percent of the general population in Michigan, but 58 percent of people living with HIV or AIDS. Officials said that from January through December 2011, 72 percent of all inmates in Wayne County jails were African-American.

This project helps to at least tackle the primary issue of HIV prevention, which is that most people don't know their status, said Rice, a resident of Southfield. We are helping to support making individuals more knowledgeable about their HIV status by providing this service in a place where there is a high-risk population.

Her team is conducting HIV screening in county jails in collaboration with community partners. It also provides comprehensive HIV prevention services to inmates, including counseling and referrals to care for those who test positive.

That counseling helps inmates understand and reduce risk factors, and implement risk-reduction strategies to prevent them from acquiring or spreading the disease.

Researchers also inform them about the basics of HIV and how it affects the body.The grant helps continue a program that began in 2008, when Rice was director of the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Department for the Wayne County Jail Health Services Division. The first portion of the funding expires March 31, but she expects it to be extended by an additional $166,000 to last through Sept. 30.

Rice said it is important to increase HIV testing among African-Americans because of the lack of knowledge and information within the community, where she said there has been complacency because HIV- and AIDS-related deaths aren't as prevalent as in the early 1980s, when the condition first became widely known.

Many high-risk people don't get tested because of the social stigma associated with HIV, which still is transmitted by high-risk behaviors and compounded by other socioeconomic issues within the community, Rice said.

Research assistants will work in county jail facilities to provide rapid testing results (within 20 minutes) to all inmates on an opt-out basis. Everyone is offered the test and specifically must decline it in writing.

Providing the test as a standard service helps reduce some of the stigma associated with the test and the disease, Rice said, while encouraging and promoting healthy behaviors that researchers hope will continue when the inmates are released.

It's not the social norm in our society that one should know their HIV status like their blood pressure or their blood type, she said. We really have to change the norms in our communities and reduce the stigma to recognize that knowing one's HIV status is vital personal health information.

It's also critical to public health, as we need to get people who have HIV diagnosed and linked into care to effectively reduce its transmission in the community.

Scientists help define structure of exoplanets

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Using models similar to those used in weapons research, scientists may soon know more about exoplanets, those objects beyond the realm of our solar system.

In a new study, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and collaborators came up with new methods for deriving and testing the equation of state (EOS) of matter in exoplanets and figured out the mass-radius and mass-pressure relations for materials relevant to planetary interiors.

Astronomers started detecting exoplanets 18 years ago and more than 700 have been found so far, the vast majority within the last two years. Interest is now growing in the structure and atmospheres of these worlds.

New equation-of-state work helps interpret the structure of exoplanets. As there is a minimal amount of data in each exoplanet observation, interpretation of their composition and structure depends largely on comparing their mass and radius with the composition expected given the distance from their parent star. The makeup implies a mass-radius relation, which relies heavily on EOS calculated from electronic structure theory and measured experimentally on Earth.

In the new research, lead Laboratory scientist Damian Swift, along with LLNL colleagues Jon Eggert, Damien Hicks, Sebastien Hamel, Kyle Caspersen, Eric Schwegler and Rip Collins, compared their modeling results with the observed masses and radii of exoplanets. Their results broadly support recent assumptions about the structures of exoplanets but can now take advantage of the accurate EOS models and data produced at Livermore.

Current theoretical techniques for calculating electronic structures can predict EOS relevant to planetary interiors, Swift said. But we still need experimental validation of these calculations; something that can now be done at the National Ignition Facility (NIF).

LLNL's National Ignition Facility is the world's largest laser designed to perform research on national security, fusion experimentation and basic science, such as astrophysics.

The team made specific predictions for notable exoplanets having earth-like, rocky, icy compositions, with planetary center pressures ranging from 8 to 19,000 Mbar (8 million to 1.9 billion atmospheres of pressure).

We have a project to measure material properties up to billions of atmospheres on NIF. We will eventually exceed the highest pressures investigated in the very small number of previous experiments using underground nuclear tests, which reached far above pressures that can be explored with other techniques currently available, Swift said.

Placing constraints on the structure of exoplanets requires accurate information about the compressibility of relevant compositions of matter, including iron alloys, silicates, and ices, under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature.

This sets the record straight and presents a survey of exoplanet structure information using material properties generated for, and validated using, experimental capabilities at the national labs, Swift said.

Report identifies 16 highest priorities to guide NASA's Technology Development efforts for next 5 years

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WASHINGTON -- During the next five years, NASA technology development efforts should focus on 16 high-priority technologies and their associated top technical challenges, says a new report from the National Research Council. In addition, the report recommends emphasis on flight demonstrations for technologies that are nearly ready and a 10 percent allocation from the existing program budget to advance and refine early emerging technologies.

It has been years since NASA has had a vigorous, broad-based program in advanced space technology development, said Raymond Colladay, president of RC Space Enterprises Inc., and chair of the committee that wrote the report. Success in executing future NASA space missions will depend on advanced developments that should already be under way.

The 16 high-priority technologies were selected with input from the external technical community as part of NASA's draft technology roadmaps and include items such as radiation mitigation; guidance, navigation, and control; nuclear systems for both power generation and transportation; and solar power generation (see full table below). These priorities were chosen to align with three main facets of NASA's overall mission: extending and sustaining human activities beyond low Earth orbit; exploring the evolution of the solar system and the potential for life elsewhere; and expanding our understanding of Earth and the universe.

The report sets forth an evaluation framework to prioritize which technologies to emphasize in the next five years of the 20- to 30-year window. NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) should establish a rigorous process to select among competing technologies at appropriate milestones in order to ensure that the most promising ones receive sufficient attention and resources. The report also recommends that OCT pursue cooperative development of high-priority technologies with other government agencies and the U.S. commercial space industry to leverage resources.

For technologies deemed closer to implementation, flight demonstrations, while expensive, are sometimes essential to transition a technology to an operational system, the report stipulates. Such technology flight demonstrations should be considered on a case-by-case basis when there is ample support from the user, including a reasonable level of cost-sharing.

To further foster collaboration, OCT should make the scientific and technical data that NASA has acquired from past and present space missions and technology development more readily available to U.S. industry, the report adds. This should include companies that do not have an ongoing working relationship with NASA and that are pursuing their own commercial goals, which may differ from NASA's science and exploration missions.

If NASA can sustain implementation of its technology roadmaps -- shaped by the priorities recommended in this study -- they will form a solid foundation, said Colladay. This foundation will support a breadth of NASA missions, as well as commercial and national needs, and provide the agency with the means to achieve its long-term goals.

The following table identifies NASA's highest-priority technologies for research and development over the next five years:

Research into possible Woodchester wild cat finds no cat DNA on deer

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Extensive DNA tests by experts at the University of Warwick on two deer carcasses found in Gloucestershire have not found any indication of a big cat presence.

The National Trust asked the University to test a roe deer carcass found near Woodchester Park, Gloucestershire in early January after examination of the wounds led to speculation that it may have been killed by a big cat.

Comprehensive DNA tests have found fox DNA on the Woodchester carcass and what is expected to be fox DNA on the second deer carcass found a few miles away.

Dr Robin Allaby, Associate Professor at the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, said:

We did not detect cat DNA on either deer carcass. Other than deer, by far the strongest genetic signal we found on the Woodchester Park carcass was from a fox. That fox DNA was found on the ribs, legs and fur plucking sites from the Woodchester deer carcass.

On the second deer carcass we found canid DNA . A more detailed analysis is underway to pin down the canid species but our expectation is that that will also be fox DNA.

Dr Robin Allaby took 45 samples in total, from the wounds of the deer carcasses with the aim of testing specifically for DNA from the saliva of any canid (for instance dog or fox) or felid (cat) species which had killed, or scavenged from the deer. He used those samples to carry out 450 PCRs (the polymerase chain reaction is a standard scientific technique to amplify the target DNA), and almost 600 sequence reactions. The team searched for two gene targets each of deer and canid, but over 30 different cat gene targets.

David Armstrong, Head Ranger for the National Trust in Gloucestershire said: The story of the investigation of the dead deer has really sparked off local curiosity with a lot of people coming out to Woodchester Park to explore. People love a mystery like this and although we haven't found a wild cat, many of our visitors clearly believe there might be something interesting living quietly hidden in Woodchester.

Rick Minter, author of a new book on big cats reported in Britain, said:

There has been speculation of breeding amongst feral big cats in the UK. We are no closer to indicating that with these results, but lessons have been learnt from Warwick University's valuable input to this exercise. The strong media interest suggests an appetite to look into this subject further, and recent community surveys in Gloucestershire have indicated a strong desire for big cat evidence to be researched carefully.

We should not be complacent about possible big cats in the UK, but considering these animals living secretly in our landscape can fire people's imaginations and help us consider all of the wild nature around us. Our outdoors can still hold surprises maybe.

Big cats will do their utmost to avoid contact with people but anyone who does see a big cat in the wild is advised to stay composed and back away from the animal.

Creating the perfect partial salt replacement

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) In the quest to lower sodium consumption in the North American diet, a team of University of Alberta researchers recently received $340,000 to conduct sensory and taste trials of the salt flavour enhancement product it created with a new, cleaner and more efficient technology.

The team took proteins from low value parts of poultry, fish and vegetables and created molecules that have kokumi characteristics. Kokumi was recently identified by the Japanese as the sixth basic taste, an addition to salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami (or savoury). Translated often as heartiness or mouthfulness, kokumi describes compounds in foods that don't have their own flavour. Rather, they enhance the flavour with which they're combined.

Hopefully, we'll be able to significantly reduce the sodium in several food products by replacing it with the kokumi we developed. Because the kokumi amplifies the taste of the salt, it allows foods to have much less salt and be better for you, without sacrificing the flavour. Done right, most consumers wouldn't know the difference, says Mirko Betti, who leads the team that also includes Michael Ganzle, Andreas Schieber and Maurice Ndagijimana.

While the flavour enhancer is one product among others that allows food manufacturers to replace salt without sacrificing flavour, kokumi is considered the best because it provides the best punch or first impact of a food, the best mildness and the best long-lasting taste development.

Kokumi is already sold on the market to food manufacturers as a salt enhancer by at least one major international food and chemical company who creates it from soy beans. However, the traditional way in which kokumi is manufactured also leads to the creation of many unhealthy by-products.

What makes Betti's kokumi unique is the way in which he manufactured it.

The ALES team broke the proteins from the various sources into their component fragments as is usually done. It then selected specific fragments and mixed them with sugars but instead of using the typical heat transfer process to create the kokumi molecules, it used a fermentation process, thereby drastically reducing the unwanted by-products and making the process much more cost-effective.

Plans are now underway to use the funding to conduct sensory trials to fine tune the process and technology.

The potential for the kokumi market is staggering as consumption of the food enhancer isn't linked to the ill effects, including heart disease, associated with overconsumption of sodium, which is common in the North American diet.

According to Health Canada, Canadians consume twice the amount of sodium they need every day. While it's an essential part of a healthy diet, too much sodium can lead to high blood pressure, a major risk factor for stroke, heart disease and kidney disease. Overconsumption of sodium has also been linked to increased risks of osteoporosis, stomach cancer and the severity of asthma.

National Foundation for Cancer Research funds critical TGen-UA cancer research

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) PHOENIX, Ariz. -- The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and the University of Arizona (UA) have received a three-year, $600,000 grant to study targeted cancer therapies from the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR).

The grant will enable TGen and the UA to continue its NFCR Center for Targeted Cancer Therapies (NCTCT), created in 2002, which is dedicated to discovering new therapies to treat pancreatic cancer, the nation's fourth leading cause of cancer death.

The Center is co-directed by TGen Physician-In-Chief Dr. Daniel Von Hoff, one of the nation's top oncologists and one of the world's leading authorities on pancreatic cancer, and by Dr. Laurence Hurley, a renowned medicinal chemist in the field of drug design and development and a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and the Howard Schaeffer Endowed Chair in Pharmaceutical Sciences in the College of Pharmacy at UA.

This NFCR grant should provide renewed hope for pancreatic cancer patients. This should help us move closer to better treatments and hopefully a cure for this devastating disease, said Dr. Von Hoff, who began working on the project when he was Director of the UA's Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson.

Researchers at NCTCT have developed new therapies that block the growth of pancreatic cancer cells by interfering with the molecules that promote pancreatic cancer cells, an approach called targeted cancer therapy.

The overall objective of the research is to design and develop novel antitumor agents that will extend the productive lives of patients who have cancer, Dr. Hurley said. Our medicinal chemistry research depends upon a structure-based approach to drug design that is intertwined with clinical oncology programs in cancer therapeutics directed by Dr. Von Hoff.

While traditional chemotherapeutic drugs impair cell division in a general way, targeted therapies specifically kill cancer cells and leave normal cells unharmed, resulting in enhanced cancer-killing power and fewer side effects.

If we can create the right drug to turn on the right gene to turn off the cancer, that is going to be a whole new approach to treating this disease, said NFCR President Franklin C. Salisbury Jr. This is 21st Century medicine. Not only do we need to support this research, but the world needs to know that we are on our way to curing cancer.

One specific area of research at NCTCT focuses on the development of agents that target the mutated K-Ras gene, which signals cancer cells to proliferate, migrate and survive.

The NFCR grant is enabling us to go after a key gene that is the most common abnormal gene in pancreatic cancer. We want to target that gene, Dr. Von Hoff said.

Mutations in the K-Ras gene are found in more than 95 percent of pancreatic cancers. These mutations cause K-Ras proteins to be constantly activated. Inhibition of this mutant K-Ras gene should have profound effects on limiting the growth and survival of pancreatic cancer cells. Dr. Von Hoff and Dr. Hurley have identified promising compounds that, in laboratory tests, inhibit growth of pancreatic cancer cell lines expressing the mutant K-Ras gene. They hope to advance three new candidate compounds over the next three years.

Besides targeting the mutant K-Ras gene, the Center also is using computational methods to extract genomics and pathway information from cancer cells and match each patient with the most effective treatment option available.

Nearly 44,000 Americans were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2011, and more than 37,000 died last year from this aggressive disease, which kills most patients within the first year. The pancreas is a gland behind the stomach that secretes enzymes into the small intestine to help digestion and produce hormones. There are no early detection methods available, so the cancer usually is not found until its advanced stages.

Columbia Journalism, Stanford Engineering receive $30 million from David and Helen Gurley Brown

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) NEW YORK and PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford University's School of Engineering today announced a $30 million gift from longtime Cosmopolitan magazine editor and author Helen Gurley Brown to establish the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation.

The Institute and the collaboration between the two schools is groundbreaking in that it is designed to encourage and support new endeavors with the potential to inform and entertain in transformative ways. It will recognize the increasingly important connection between journalism and technology, bringing the best from the East and West Coasts.

The Institute, the first of its kind, is inspired by the memory of Ms. Brown's late husband, David Brown, a graduate of both Stanford University and the Columbia School of Journalism. Brown, who along with partners Richard Zanuck and Steven Spielberg created such classic American films as Driving Miss Daisy, The Verdict and Jaws, was also a former journalist, publisher and, late in his career, a stage producer whose credits included the musicals Sweet Smell of Success and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Of the total gift, each school will receive $12 million for Institute activities. The gift to Columbia's Journalism School, the largest in its history, will endow a professorship whose holder will be the Institute's East Coast director. The gift to Stanford's Engineering School will similarly endow the position of the West Coast director. An additional $6 million will go to Columbia which will also pay for the construction of a highly visible signature space at the eastern end of the J-School's landmark building, featuring a state-of-the-art high-tech newsroom. The funding of the Institute will support graduate and postgraduate fellowships, both at Stanford and Columbia, and competitively awarded Magic Grants, intended to seed the most innovative and promising ideas for future development conceived of by Brown Fellows.

Commenting on the announcement, Helen Gurley Brown said, David and I have long supported and encouraged bright young people to follow their passions and to create original content. Great content needs useable technology. Sharing a language is where the magic happens. It's time for two great American institutions on the East and West Coasts to build a bridge.

The east-west collaboration of the two schools will enable students at both institutions to build upon their ideas with professors and innovators at both universities. At both locations there will be a strong emphasis on executing new ideas and demonstrating products and prototypes. The Institute will establish ongoing links to business leaders and media companies to bring its innovations to market.

New York City, as the major center for the television, music, print media and advertising, is profoundly affected by rapidly evolving digital technology, said Stanford engineering professor Bernd Girod, who will serve as the Institute's founding director until Columbia appoints his East Coast counterpart. The Brown Institute will bring together creative innovators skilled in production and delivery of news and entertainment with the entrepreneurial researchers at Stanford working in multimedia technology.

This gift from David and Helen Gurley Brown is truly transformative for the school, said Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. As we enter our Centennial year, the Browns' generosity will enable us to explore new and exciting realms of leadership in our field. We are thrilled to have this opportunity to collaborate with Stanford Engineering.

Stanford brings to this partnership its exceptional research and teaching, a history of transformative technology innovation and a tradition of multidisciplinary collaboration, said Stanford University President John Hennessy. We are excited about the opportunity to partner with Columbia University's truly outstanding School of Journalism, and look forward to combining the expertise of New York and Silicon Valley at a critical point in the evolution of media.

Stanford Engineering has a storied history of achievement and entrepreneurship. Its faculty and graduates have founded such iconic companies as Google, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems and Yahoo! and contributed to such groundbreaking technologies as lasers, global positioning, magnetic resonance imaging, digital sound synthesis and modern web-search algorithms.

Under Dean Nick Lemann, Columbia Journalism School is building on its tradition of leadership by developing innovative teaching and research addressing the future of a fast-changing news media, said Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger, a First Amendment scholar who has written extensively about press freedom. We are deeply appreciative of Helen Gurley Brown's vision in honoring her late husband by bringing together his two alma maters to develop the next generation of digital journalism. We look forward to working with Stanford in seeking new ways for technology and creativity to enhance a robust free press in our society.

The Institute will have a distinguished board of advisors including leaders from technology, venture capital and media including, among others, Frank A. Bennack, Jr., CEO of Hearst Corporation; Bill Campbell, Chairman of the Board at Intuit and an Apple Inc. board member; and Eve Burton, Vice President and General Counsel of Hearst Corporation.

Helen Gurley Brown, who turns 90 in February, is one of the world's most popular and influential editors. She led Cosmopolitan magazine from 1965 to 1996 and authored many books, including the 1962 bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl. Her impact on popular culture and society has reached around the globe, largely due to the three-plus decades when she put her personal stamp on Cosmopolitan in a way that has rarely been replicated. Under her reign, Cosmopolitan became the go-to magazine for women worldwide and remains the best selling young women's magazine around the world today with 64 editions, in 35 languages and more than 80 countries.

As both CEO of Hearst Corporation and advisor to the Brown Institute, today marks a very special day for education, journalism and technology, said Bennack. I'm very proud of David's legacy and Helen, who understood the power of community, in particular, and its importance to women, long before social media had a name.

NASA scientists awarded distinctions as 2012 AGU elected Fellows

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) GREENBELT, Md. -- NASA scientists figure prominently in the distinguished group honored as Fellows of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2012. Dr. F. Michael Flasar, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Dr. Anthony D. Del Genio, a physical scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), New York, have been named AGU Fellows. Dr. James Slavin, who recently moved from NASA Goddard to the University of Michigan, was also named a Fellow.

These scientists are among the 61 new AGU Fellows elected in recognition of their acknowledged eminence in Earth and space sciences. No more than 0.1% of the total membership of AGU can receive this honor in any given year. New Fellows are nominated by their scientific peers and chosen by a committee of existing Fellows. The new Fellows will be presented with an official certificate during a ceremony to be held at the AGU meeting in San Francisco in the Fall of 2012.

To be elected a Fellow of AGU is a special tribute, and it is great to see these outstanding Goddard scientists being recognized by their peers, says Dr. Nicholas White, Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate at NASA Goddard.

Flasar was cited for his fundamental contributions to planetary and atmospheric science, particularly his research on the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as Saturn's moon Titan, the only satellite in the solar system to have a planet-like atmosphere. He is the Principal Investigator for the infrared instrument, called the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS), aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft. CIRS measures temperature and can provide a wealth of information about the surface, internal structure and atmosphere of a planet or moon. Flasar is also a member of the Cassini Radio Science team, which investigates Saturn's and Titan's atmospheres, measures the gravity of Saturn and its moons and studies the properties of Saturn's rings.

Studies by Flasar and his colleagues have highlighted the similarities between the meteorology and global climates of Earth and these other bodies, as well as the rich diversity of planetary atmospheres. Flasar predicted, for example, that Titan has a jet-stream-like wind pattern near the winter pole that isolates a pocket of air in much the same way that air currents on Earth set up the atmospheric conditions for the ozone holes to form. Detailed measurements made by CIRS later confirmed the existence of this wind pattern in the northern hemisphere. Flasar also was on the team that discovered one of Titan's most puzzling features: most of the atmosphere rotates up to 20 times faster than the moon itself.

A senior researcher at GISS, Del Genio was cited for fundamental contributions in atmospheric and cloud physics, including the use remote sensing data, to improve basic understanding of climate physics and reliable climate forecasting capability.

Workplace safety program can reduce injuries if aggressively enforced, study finds

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A longstanding California occupational safety program requiring all businesses to eliminate workplace hazards can help prevent injuries to workers, but only if it is adequately enforced, according to a new study by the RAND Corporation.

The first-ever evaluation of the California Injury and Illness Prevention Program found evidence that the program reduces workplace injuries, but only at businesses that had been cited for not addressing the regulation's more-specific safety mandates.

We found the safety effects to be real, but not very large, said John Mendeloff, lead author of the study and a senior public policy researcher for RAND, a nonprofit research organization. We think that the most important reason for the limited impact of this program is that inspectors often did not go beyond a review of the employer's written document.

When California Division of Occupational Safety and Health inspectors did investigate further and found failures to comply with provisions to train workers, identify and abate hazards, and investigate injury causes, the average injury rates at targeted businesses declined more than 20 percent in the following two years, Mendeloff said.

However, these provisions were cited in only about 5 percent of Cal-OSHA inspections, RAND researchers found. In the other 20 percent of inspections where a violation of the rule was cited, it was only for the section requiring the employer have a written program. Such a violation carries an average penalty of $150.

The California Injury and Illness Prevention Program, which became effective in 1991, requires all employers to adopt certain procedures. These include communicating to employees about risks, carrying out regular workplace surveys and abating the hazards that are found, training employees about how to work safely, and investigating the causes of the injuries that occur. In contrast, almost all other safety standards address specific hazards -- for example, those dealing with protection against falls.

The program has been the most frequently violated Cal-OSHA standard in every year since 1991, being cited in about 25 percent of all inspections. The California program is also one possible model for federal OSHA's current rule-making effort to develop a safety and health program rule.

The RAND study notes that higher penalties for noncompliance with the program and more extensive activities to make employers aware of their obligations could enhance compliance. However, two other approaches could have a greater impact: having inspectors conduct more in-depth assessments of employer programs and having inspectors link the violations they find and the injuries that have occurred to the program by asking Why weren't these prevented by your Injury and Illness Prevention Program?

The study found that employers who were cited for violations of the Injury and Illness Prevention Program in one inspection usually came into compliance in future inspections. However, the overall percentage of inspections finding program violations did not change over time.

Moreover, the percentage of first-time inspections finding violations was the same in 2007 as it was in 1993. These findings indicate that information about the program requirements failed to reach many employers, they failed to be convinced to comply by the threat of penalties, or both.

The 20 percent reduction in injuries following citations for the specific requirements of the California Injury and Illness Prevention Program translates to about 1 injury per year at a workplace with 100 employees. Most estimates of the value of preventing a work injury are in the range of $15,000 to $50,000. The RAND study did not find evidence that the statewide workplace fatality rate had decreased after the introduction of the program standard.

The study of injury effects was carried out using several different injury data sets. In all cases, inspections were included in the data if before and after injury rates could be obtained for the inspected business. The study was limited to workplaces in the manufacturing, transportation, utilities, wholesale trade and health care sectors. It included inspections through 2006.

SwRI-led RAD measures radiation from solar storm

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The largest solar particle event since 2005 hit the Earth, Mars and the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft travelling in-between, allowing the onboard Radiation Assessment Detector to measure the radiation a human astronaut could be exposed to en route to the Red Planet.

On Sunday, a huge coronal mass ejection erupted from the surface of the sun, spewing a cloud of charged particles in our direction, causing a strong S3 solar storm. A NASA Goddard Space Weather Lab animation of the CME illustrates how the disturbance impacts Earth, Mars and several spacecraft. Solar storms can affect the Earth's aurorae, satellites, air travel and GPS systems; no harmful effects to the Mars Science Laboratory have been detected from this solar event.

We only have a few hours of data downloaded from the RAD so far, but we clearly see the event, said RAD Principal Investigator Don Hassler, science program director in the Space Studies Department at Southwest Research Institute. The Mars Science Laboratory, launched Nov. 26, will land a sophisticated car-sized rover called Curiosity on the surface of the planet in August. Loaded with 10 instruments including RAD, Curiosity will traverse the landing site looking for the building blocks of life and characterizing factors that may influence life, such as the harsh radiation environment expected on Mars. This SPE encounter is particularly exciting in light of the alignment between the Earth, MSL and Mars right now and for the next few months. It will be very interesting to compare the RAD data, collected from inside the capsule, with the data from other spacecraft.

This event has also been seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, Geostationary Operational Environment Satellites, the Advanced Composition Explorer, and the twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory spacecraft in Earth orbit as well as the Solar Heliospheric Observatory flying between Earth and the sun.

RAD was designed to characterize radiation levels on the surface of Mars, but an important secondary objective is measuring the radiation during the almost nine-month journey through interplanetary space to prepare for future human exploration, said Hassler. RAD is an important bridge between the science and exploration sides of NASA.

Not only will this give us insight into the physics of these giant clouds, but like an astronaut, RAD is tucked inside the MSL 'spacecraft,' Hassler continued. Measurements from RAD will give us insight about the shielding provided by spacecraft for future manned missions in deep space.

RAD will collect data nearly continuously during cruise and will downlink data every 24 hours. Positioned in the front-left corner of the rover, the instrument is about the size of a coffee can and weighs about three pounds, but has capabilities of an Earth-bound instrument nearly 10 times its size. When MSL arrives at Mars, RAD will detect charged particles arriving from space and will measure neutrons and gamma rays coming from Mars' atmosphere above, or the surface material below, the rover.

Newer radiation technology improves head and neck cancer patients' long-term quality of life

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Patients treated with IMRT for head and neck cancer report an increasingly better quality of life post-treatment when compared to patients receiving other forms of radiation therapy, according to a study presented at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium, sponsored by AHNS, ASCO, ASTRO and SNM.

Intensity modulated radiation therapy, or IMRT, is a highly specialized form of external beam radiation therapy that allows the radiation beam to better target and conform to a tumor. It is a newer treatment that has become widely adopted for treating head and neck cancer. Prior studies have shown that IMRT decreases the probability of radiation therapy related side effects, including dry mouth and chewing and swallowing problems, but no study has been conducted to measure long-term quality of life in head and neck cancer patients treated with various forms of radiation therapy.

Investigators from the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, prospectively administered the University of Washington Quality of Life instrument, a standardized, previously validated questionnaire that patients complete after radiation therapy, to 155 patients undergoing treatment for cancers of the head and neck and analyzed the scores over time. Fifty-four percent of patients were initially treated with IMRT and 46 percent were treated with non-IMRT techniques.

The researchers showed that the early quality of life gains associated with IMRT not only are maintained but become more magnified over time. At one-year post-treatment, 51 percent of IMRT patients rated their quality of life as very good or outstanding compared to 41 percent of non-IMRT patients. However, at two-years after treatment, the percentages changed to 73 percent and 49 percent, respectively. Also, 80 percent of patients treated with IMRT reported that their health-related quality of life was much better or somewhat better compared to the month before developing cancer. In contrast, only 61 percent of patients treated by non-IMRT techniques felt similarly.

Although the researchers acknowledged that quality of life is somewhat of a subjective concept, they nonetheless believe their findings support the widespread use of IMRT for head and neck cancer.

Hopefully, these results provide some reassurance to patients that radiation therapy using contemporary techniques in the hands of expert specialists can maintain their function and long-term quality of life, while still curing them of cancer, Allen Chen, MD, lead author of the study and director of the radiation oncology residency training program at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento, Calif., said.

Radiation therapy for head and neck cancer is without a doubt an intensive process and very intimidating to most patients. Folks think about the prospects of six to seven weeks of radiation and naturally expect the worst. It is nice to know that technological advances have made the treatment much more tolerable than in the past.

LED lights point shoppers in the right direction

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Looking for an item in a large department store or mall can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, but that could change thanks to a hybrid location-identification system that uses radio frequency transmitters and overhead LED lights, suggested by a team of researchers from Penn State and Hallym University in South Korea.

LED lights are becoming the norm, said Mohsen Kavehrad, W. L. Weiss Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Center for Information and Communications Technology Research at Penn State. The same lights that brighten a room can also provide locational information.

To locate an item in a mall, the system would not need to transfer large amounts of data. Kavehrad and his team envision large stores or malls with overhead LED light fixtures, each assigned with a location code. At the entrance, a computer that is accessible via keyboard or even telephone would contain a database of all the items available. Shortly after a query, the location or locations of the desired item would appear.

The human eye can't see beyond 15 on and offs of a light per second, said Kavehrad. We can get kilobytes and megabytes of information in very rapid blinking of the LEDs, he told attendees at the SPIE Photonics West 2012 conference today in San Francisco.

But LED-transmitted locational information alone will not work because light does not transmit through walls. Kavehrad, working with Zhou Zhou, graduate student in electrical engineering, Penn State, designed a hybrid LiFi system using a Zigbee multihop wireless network with the LEDs.

ZigBee is an engineering specification designed for small, low-power digital radio frequency applications requiring short-range wireless transfer of data at relatively low rates. ZigBee applications usually require a low data rate, long battery life, and secure networking.

While a ceiling light can have communications with anything placed beneath its area, light cannot travel through walls, so a hybrid system using light and RF became the practical solution.

The system consists of the location-tagged LEDs and combination photodiode and Zigbee receiver merchandise tags. The request for an item goes from the computer through the many jumps of short radio frequency receivers and transmitters placed throughout the mall. The RF/photodiode tag on the merchandise sought, reads its location from the overhead LED and sends the information back through the wireless network to the computer.

Even when merchandise is moved from room to room, the accurate location remains available because a different LED overhead light with a different location code signals the tag.

While ideal for shopping applications, this hybrid model is also useful in other situations. LED-transmitted information is useful in places like hospitals, where radio frequency signals can interfere with equipment.

Modern Geographic Positioning Systems, such as those in cell phones, can easily locate people outside, but they do not work within buildings. A hybrid system in a high-rise office building, for example, could not only tell the system someone was in the building, but could identify the floor where the person was at that time. In museums or hospitals, navigation systems could guide people through large buildings by reading the final destination signal from a hand-carried photodiode device and initializing lights or other indicators to show the proper path.

Kavehrad notes that Zigbee devices are designed to be inexpensive, as are the photodiodes also required for the system. Not every identical item would need a tag and the tags are reusable.

Also working on this project were Yong Up Lee, professor of electronics, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea, currently at Penn State on sabbatical, and Sungkeun Baang and Joohyeon Park, masters degree students at Hallym University.

NIH launches trials to evaluate CPR and drugs after sudden cardiac arrest

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The National Institutes of Health has launched two multi-site clinical trials to evaluate treatments for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. One will compare continuous chest compressions (CCC) combined with pause- free rescue breathing to standard cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which includes a combination of chest compressions and pauses for rescue breathing. The other trial will compare treatment with the drug amiodarone, another drug called lidocaine, or neither medication (a salt-water placebo) in participants with shock-resistant ventricular fibrillation, a condition in which the heart beats chaotically instead of pumping blood.

The majority of the approximately 350,000 people who have cardiac arrest in the United States each year are assessed by emergency medical service (EMS) providers. During a cardiac arrest, the heart stops beating, and unless it is restarted within minutes, the person usually dies. Although immediate CPR can be lifesaving, more than 90 percent of people who experience a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital die before reaching a hospital or soon thereafter.

Increasing survival rates for people who experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a major public health goal, said Susan B. Shurin, M.D., acting director of the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which is the lead federal sponsor of the studies. These new trials could provide critical insight about which resuscitation efforts are most effective for cardiac arrest.

The trials will serve a combined population of nearly 21 million people from diverse urban, suburban, and rural regions across the U.S. and Canada.

The CCC trial will compare survival-to-hospital-discharge rates for two CPR approaches delivered by paramedics and fire fighters. Persons experiencing cardiac arrest will be randomly assigned to receive continuous chest compressions, or standard CPR by emergency responders. Standard CPR, the approach recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA) for use by emergency responders, includes chest compressions with short pauses for assisted breathing. This approach has been called into question by emerging data suggesting that stopping chest compressions to provide assisted breathing interrupts overall blood flow, thereby lowering survival.

Previous studies have shown that people who suffer cardiac arrest outside of the hospital and are treated by bystanders are more likely to survive when given compressions alone, according to Graham Nichol, M.D., M.P.H., principal investigator of the CCC trial and a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Prehospital Emergency Care and medical director of the Clinical Trials Center at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 2010, AHA adopted new guidelines that recommended continuous chest compressions only for bystanders.

The CCC trial will help to determine if continuous compressions is equal to or better than standard professional CPR when paramedics, who are better able to provide assisted breathing than bystanders, intervene, said Nichol.

Trained emergency personnel will give all participants in the CCC trial three cycles of CPR followed by heart rhythm analysis and, if needed, an electrical shock (defibrillation), applied to the chest. Half will be randomly assigned to receive continuous compressions combined with pause-free rescue breathing and half will receive standard professional CPR.

The CCC trial will enroll up to 23,600 participants at eight major regional locations across the U.S. and Canada.

The Amiodarone, Lidocaine, or neither (Placebo) for Out-Of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Due to Ventricular Fibrillation or Tachycardia study (ALPS) will determine whether amiodarone or lidocaine improves survival-to-hospital-discharge rates for participants with shock-resistant ventricular fibrillation. Participants will receive one or the other drug or a placebo.

About 25 percent of cardiac arrests are due to ventricular fibrillation. When shock treatment with a defibrillator fails to restore normal heart rhythm during ventricular fibrillation, medications such as amiodarone or lidocaine are often given, but their effectiveness in improving survival is unknown.

Answering these questions is crucial and will determine the role of these drugs for patients who experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, said Peter Kudenchuk, M.D., principal investigator of the ALPS trial and the Seattle-King County Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC) clinical site, and professor of medicine and heart rhythm specialist at the University of Washington School of Medicine (UW Medicine).

The ALPS trial will enroll up to 3,000 participants at nine locations across the U.S. and Canada.

CCC and ALPS are part of the NIH-supported Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC), the first large-scale clinical research network in the world designed to study, improve, and standardize how EMS teams deliver very early, pre-hospital interventions to improve patient survival after cardiac arrest or trauma. ROC has forged innovative multidisciplinary research partnerships between emergency physicians, cardiologists, EMS workers, trauma surgeons, and neurosurgeons to bring diverse perspectives to research that ultimately will lead to better clinical practice. As with all clinical trials funded by the NIH, an independent group of experts will monitor patient safety throughout both trials.

The NHLBI is the lead federal sponsor for both of the new studies, and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command is a federal co-sponsor. Additional funding is provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Defense Research and Development Canada, and the AHA.

Almost 60 fire and EMS organizations will participate in the ALPS trial, and approximately 125 EMS organizations will participate in the CCC trial.

Participating centers include:

Research finds newer radiation therapy technology improves patients' quality of life

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Patients with head and neck cancers who have been treated with newer, more sophisticated radiation therapy technology enjoy a better quality of life than those treated with older radiation therapy equipment, a study by UC Davis researchers has found.

The findings, presented today at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Phoenix, is the first of its kind to measure long-term quality of life among cancer patients who have undergone radiation therapy for advanced cancers of the throat, tongue, vocal cords, and other structures in the head and neck.

Allen Chen, assistant professor and director of the residency and fellowship training program in the UC Davis Department of Radiation Oncology, reported that the use of intensity-modulated radiation therapy, or IMRT, was associated with fewer long-term side effects, which led to a better quality of life. Standard radiation therapy to the head and neck has been known to affect a patient's ability to produce saliva, taste, and even chew food. These side effects historically have resulted in permanent disabilities.

With the newer machines using IMRT, physicians are skillfully able to deliver higher doses of radiation to the tumor and lower doses to surrounding normal tissues than ever before, Chen said. I wanted to see if this theoretical advantage resulted in any tangible improvements in quality of life for patients.

For the study, Chen used the University of Washington Quality of Life instrument, a standardized, previously validated questionnaire that patients complete after radiation therapy. The survey was administered prospectively to 155 patients at UC Davis Cancer Center diagnosed with head and neck cancers, 54 percent of whom were initially treated with IMRT and 46 percent of whom were treated with other radiation therapy technologies. All of the patients receiving IMRT also underwent image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT), which has been available at UC Davis since 2006 and is used to increase accuracy by taking a high-quality scan of the tumor daily.

Chen and his colleagues found that the early gains observed in quality of life became magnified over time for those who received IMRT treatment. For example, one year after treatment, 51 percent of the IMRT patients rated their quality of life as very good or outstanding, compared to 41 percent of non-IMRT patients. But two years after treatment, the percentages changed to 73 percent and 49 percent respectively.

John Torres of Sacramento was diagnosed in early 2010 with a large tumor at the base of his tongue on the right side of his throat. Fearing that surgery might result in the loss of his voice box, Torres opted for IMRT with IGRT and had 33 treatments.

Torres, now 73 and in remission, points out that the treatments were no walk in the park, but said he is faring much better than he expected. Although his mouth is often dry and he has lost some taste sensation, he is enjoying an active life.

I golf a couple of time a week, he said. My wife and I like to socialize. We go out, and we dance. And we are planning to take a cruise through the Panama Canal in next two or three months. Life has gotten back to pretty much exactly what it was.

Chen acknowledged that quality of life is difficult to measure because of its subjective nature. Nonetheless, he said the findings support the more widespread use of IMRT in radiation clinics throughout the country.

There has been some reluctance to utilize it because it is expensive, resource intensive, and takes on average 10 to 12 hours to prepare a single patient's treatment, he said. I think this is further evidence that our investment in developing newer technologies is really paying off.

Young adults responded well to swine flu

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) About one in five young adults in their late 30's received a flu shot during the 2009-2010 swine flu epidemic, a University of Michigan (U-M) study released today says.

But about 65 percent were at least moderately concerned about the flu, and nearly 60 percent said they were following the issue very or moderately closely.

Using survey data collected from approximately 3,000 young adults during the 2009-2010 H1N1 influenza epidemic, this second of three parts in a U-M Generation X Report explores the first serious infectious disease Americans ages 36-39 ever experienced. It describes how the group kept abreast of the issue and what actions they eventually took to protect themselves and their families.

The data is part of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth conducted by the Institute for Social Research at University of Michigan and directed by Jon D. Miller, author of the report. The study, funded by the National Science Foundation since 1986, now includes responses from approximately 4,000 Gen Xers--those born between 1961 and 1981.

These results suggest that young adults in Generation X did reasonably well in their first encounter with a major epidemic, says Miller. Those with minor children at home were at the greatest risk, and they responded accordingly with higher levels of awareness and concern.

According to Miller, understanding GenX reactions to this recent threat may help public health officials manage future epidemics more effectively.

This nationally-representative study helps us understand young adults' knowledge of viral infections and the ways they sought information on the H1N1 epidemic, says Gavin Fulmer, associate program director in NSF's Division of Research on Learning. The findings can inform public health officials about the relationships among health knowledge, accessible sources of health information and preventive behaviors. This may help us address future epidemics or other potential health emergencies.

The results also show that even though a majority of Generation X young adults felt that they were well informed or very well informed about the issue, overall they scored only moderately well on an Index of Influenza Knowledge, a series of five items designed to test the level of knowledge about viral infections generally and about the swine flu epidemic specifically.

Among the other findings:

Young adults with minor children at home were most likely to follow the news about influenza closely and were most concerned about the swine flu epidemic.

Young adults were most likely to report getting information about the epidemic from friends, co-workers and family members. In the month before the survey, they reported having about nine such conversations, compared to getting news about the flu less than three times via print or broadcast media and about five times from searching the internet.

The most trusted sources of information about the influenza epidemic were physicians, followed by the National Institutes of Health, pharmacists at local drug stores and nurses from county health departments. The least trusted sources were YouTube videos, drug company commercials and Wikipedia articles.

In the decades ahead, the young adults in Generation X will encounter numerous other crises--some biomedical, some environmental, and others yet to be imagined, says Miller. They will have to acquire, organize and make sense of emerging scientific and technical information, and the experience of coping with the swine flu epidemic suggests how they will meet that challenge.

A third Generation X Report on the topic of food and cooking will be issued in April 2012. Subsequent reports will cover climate, space exploration, citizenship and voting.

WHOI's John Waterbury receives NAS Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has awarded John Waterbury, scientist emeritus in the Biology Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the 2012 Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal.

Waterbury is among 17 individuals honored by NAS this year in recognition of their extraordinary scientific achievements in a wide range of fields spanning the physical, biological, and social sciences. The recipients will be formally recognized in a ceremony on April 30, 2012, during the NAS annual meeting.

Waterbury is being honored for his path-breaking discovery and characterization of ecologically important marine microorganisms, setting in motion major advances in our understanding of marine food webs and the cycling of essential elements in ocean ecosystems. The prestigious award, established through the Helen P. Smith Fund, is given every three years in recognition of excellence in published research on marine or freshwater algae and includes a $20,000 prize.

A career as a general microbiologist at WHOI, with its unique access to the seas, has afforded me the opportunity to study diverse groups of ecologically important microorganisms, Waterbury said. Almost anytime we dipped a bucket into the ocean, we came up with fascinating new microbes. Possessing a microbial 'green thumb' helped in being able to isolate and characterize what turned out to be important groups involved in nutrient cycling at the base of the marine food chain.

The Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal is the icing on what has been a very rewarding forty-year tenure at WHOI, he added.

After graduating from the University of Vermont with a degree in zoology in 1965, Waterbury began working with Stanley Watson at WHOI on nitrifying bacteria. The two men, along with colleague Frederica Valois, are credited with discovering the abundance of unicellular cyanobacteria in the ocean in the 1970s. Waterbury obtained his master's and doctorate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1975, he returned to WHOI and continued research that highlighted cyanobacteria's critical ecological roles for the ocean and the planet.

John has been a true pioneer in the discovery, isolation, and cultivation of marine cyanobacteria. These microbes have turned out to be of fundamental importance in understanding the ecology and biogeochemistry of the open oceans, said Mak Saito, a colleague and associate scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department at WHOI. It's wonderful to see John honored for these efforts by the National Academy of Sciences.

Waterbury was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1994, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2003. He has authored or co-authored over 60 papers.

Foot and ankle structure differs between sprinters and non-sprinters

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The skeletal structure of the foot and ankle differs significantly between human sprinters and non-sprinters, according to Penn State researchers. Their findings not only help explain why some people are faster runners than others, but also may be useful in helping people who have difficulty walking, such as older adults and children with cerebral palsy.

According to Stephen Piazza, associate professor of kinesiology, the research is the first to use magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate that sprinters have significantly longer bones in their forefeet than non-sprinters and reduced leverage in their Achilles tendons than non-sprinters.

We made the most direct measurement possible of leverage in the Achilles tendon and found that sprinters' tendons had shorter lever arms -- or reduced leverage for pushing their bodies off of the ground -- compared to non-sprinters, said Piazza.

Piazza explained that there may be a trade-off between leverage and tendon force when rapid muscle contraction is required.

Imagine a wheelbarrow with 30-foot handles. Such long handles would provide you with great mechanical advantage compared to what you would get from a wheelbarrow with three-foot handles, but rapidly producing the same rotation of this wheelbarrow would be more difficult because you'd have to move the ends of the handles really fast. It is easier for your hands to generate these lifting forces when they move a few inches rather than a few feet in the same amount of time, said Piazza. The Achilles tendons are like your hands; they are better able to lift your body (the wheelbarrow) when the handles are long enough to provide sufficient leverage without being so long that they prevent rapid force generation by the calf muscles.

According to Josh Baxter, graduate student, shorter Achilles tendon lever arms and longer toe bones permit sprinters to generate greater contact force between the foot and the ground and to maintain that force for a longer time, thus providing advantages to people with sprinter-like feet.

To conduct their research, the scientists studied two groups of eight males, for a total of 16 people. The first group was composed of sprinters who were involved in regular sprint training and competition. The second group consisted of height-matched individuals who never had trained or competed in sprinting. To be included in the sprinter group, individuals were required to currently be engaged in competitive sprinting and have at least three years of continuous sprint training. Of the eight sprinters, six competed in the 100-meter dash, with personal-best times ranging from 10.5 to 11.1 seconds. The other two men reported 200-meter personal best times of 21.4 and 24.1 seconds.

The researchers took MRI images of the right foot and ankle of each of the subjects. They then used specialized software to analyze the images. The scientists found that the Achilles tendon lever arms of sprinters were 12 percent shorter than those of non-sprinters. They also found that the combined length of the bones in the big toes of sprinters was on average 6.2 percent longer than that of non-sprinters, while the length of another foot bone, the first metatarsal, was 4.3 percent longer for sprinters than for non-sprinters. Their results are reported in the current issue of the

Eating smart: Researcher studies foods, dietary supplements that may reduce risk of prostate cancer

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University professor is turning to nutrition to tackle prostate cancer.

Brian Lindshield, assistant professor of human nutrition, is helping men make more informed diet decisions by studying foods and dietary supplements that may reduce the risk of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer among men in the United States.

I'm interested in researching ways to prevent prostate cancer rather than how to treat it after a person has been diagnosed with cancer, Lindshield said.

The goal of Lindshield's research is twofold: He is performing basic studies that examine specific drugs as well as dietary supplements. His research has been supported by grants from the Johnson Cancer Research Center and the National Institute of Health Center of Biomedical Research Excellence, or COBRE, for epithelial function in health and disease.

One project focuses specifically on two drugs -- finasteride and dutasteride -- that are used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH, which is an enlargement of the prostate. Both drugs inhibit enzymes that convert the male hormone testosterone to a more potent form, called dihydrotestosterone, or DHT. Finasteride inhibits one of these enzymes, while dutasteride inhibits both of these enzymes.

Because these drugs inhibit DHT production, they may also prevent the development of prostate cancer. Several clinical trials have shown that both drugs decrease prostate cancer incidence, but at a cost.

Among the men who took these drugs and still got prostate cancer, more of them had a high-grade or more aggressive prostate cancer, Lindshield said. It's kind of a double-edged sword. These drugs can lower the risk of developing prostate cancer, but they also might lead to worse outcomes for men who do develop the disease.

That's where Lindshield's research fits in: He is comparing finasteride and dutasteride to see if one is better than the other.

Our hypothesis is that dutasteride is a better option because it inhibits both enzymes while finasteride only inhibits one, Lindshield said.

For a second project, Lindshield is studying different dietary supplements that affect prostate cancer risk. He is focusing on extract from saw palmetto, a type of shrub that looks similar to a palm tree. Many men take saw palmetto extract because it is believed to benefit prostatic health and inhibit the same enzymes as finasteride and dutasteride. But a lack of regulation and research surrounding saw palmetto has not provided clear insight into whether taking the extract is beneficial.

The supplement market is kind of the wild world of whatever goes, Lindshield said. It is not regulated in the United States, so many different kinds of saw palmetto extracts exist.

Lindshield wants to determine the composition of different saw palmetto extracts and determine which ones may be most effective. So far the researchers have collected various saw palmetto extracts -- from small liquids to capsules. They are beginning to measure the active components of each of the extracts and then will look at different extracts to see if they are effective in decreasing prostate cancer.

We want to look at how they affect growth of prostate cancer cells and inhibit the enzymes that produce DHT, Lindshield said.

While both projects are in the early stages, Lindshield hopes that they can provide insight into ways that men can reduce their risk of prostate cancer.

Identified a cause of resistance to colon cancer treatment

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Doctors and researchers of Hospital del Mar and its research institute, the IMIM, have lead a study describing a new pharmacological resistance to cancer. This new mechanism is a mutation in an oncogene called EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) causing resistance to treatment using a drug called cetuximab, a monoclonal antibody which specifically attacks the EGFR.

The study proves that, both in lab models and in patients with colon cancer, this mutation appears during the disease and that, when this happens, it stops the drug from being effective and the tumor grows. This finding will benefit a large number of patients since colorectal cancer is the second most frequent tumor and cetuximab is a drug used regularly to treat this form of cancer.

Also, another extremely relevant fact is that tumors acquire this mutation do respond to a treatment using another similar drug, called panitumumab, which is also available for clinical use. This carries important clinical implications, since it suggests the possibility of carrying out clinical tests to confirm the effectiveness of panitumumab in patients with colon cancer who no longer respond to cetuximab, this increasing the range of therapies that may be used on patients with this cancer.

The relevance of this study is also in the fact that it is the first time that a mutation is detected in the field of oncology instead of a bond with the antibody as a form of resistance. Therefore, it will be interesting to see whether there are other similar mutations causing resistance to other pharmacological antibodies which are used frequently to treat other forms of cancer, such as breast cancer.

Therefore, this is a completely new mechanism of resistance to a drug used very often for a type of cancer with a high incidence and relevant clinical implications for the treatment of patients with this type of cancer.

The discovery of this mutation may explain, at a molecular level, the benefits obtained by some patients with colon cancer treated with panitumumab and the inefficiency when treating with cetuximab explains Clara Montagut, an associate doctor of the Oncology service of Hospital del Mar and a researcher at IMIM, who has lead this study.

Colorectal cancer is the most frequent form of cancer in men and women and shows an increasing incidence, and is the main cause of death by cancer when studying the cases in male and female patients jointly. However, over the past decade, treatment has been revolutionized with the introduction of new chemotherapy drugs and treatments targeting cellular targets, such as monoclonal antibodies or drugs used to treat colorectal cancer. Dr. Joan Albanell, head of the Medical Oncologic service of Hospital del Mar and head of the research group and the author of the study, states that: This new type of mutation reveals one of the causes why cancer therapy with monoclonal antibodies may cease to be effective at a given moment and, especially, opens the door to looking for solutions.

Dr. Montagut concludes by saying: These results justify developing tests to detect this mutation in patients that are being treated with cetuximab for colorectal cancer. Later studies shall also have to validate whether this mutation contributes to acquiring a resistance to cetuximab in tumors for which it is also used, such as head and throat cancer.

Group settings can diminish expressions of intelligence, especially among women

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) In the classic film 12 Angry Men, Henry Fonda's character sways a jury with his quiet, persistent intelligence. But would he have succeeded if he had allowed himself to fall sway to the social dynamics of that jury?

Research led by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found that small-group dynamics -- such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties -- can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well, said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study.

The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain processes information about social status in small groups and how perceptions of that status affect expressions of cognitive capacity.

We started with individuals who were matched for their IQ, said Montague. Yet when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect.

Our study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences even subtle social signals in group settings may have on individual cognitive functioning, said lead author Kenneth Kishida, a research scientist with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. And, through neuroimaging, we were able to document the very strong neural responses that those social cues can elicit.

The researchers recruited subjects from two universities and administered a standard test to establish baseline IQ. The results were not viewed until after a series of ranked group IQ tasks, during which test takers, in groups of five, received information about how their performances compared to those of the other group members.

Although the test subjects had similar baseline IQ scores -- a mean of 126, compared to the national average of 100 -- they showed a range of test performance results after the ranked group IQ tasks, revealing that some individuals' expressed IQ was affected by signals about their status within a small group.

The researchers wanted to know what was happening in the brain during the observed changes in IQ expression. The subjects were divided into two groups based on the results of their final rank -- the high performers, who scored above the median, and the low performers, who scored at or below the median. Two of every group of five subjects had their brains scanned using fMRI while they participated in the task.

Satellite observes spatiotemporal variations in mid-upper tropospheric methane over China

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Atmospheric methane (CH4), one of the main greenhouse gases, has increased dramatically worldwide since the pre-industrial era. However, much work is needed to build on intermittent and scattered observations since the 1960s and systematic study since the 1980s. Since 1983, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has coordinated global in-situ measurement of methane. Quantification of methane emissions still has large uncertainties, mainly because of undersampling over most regions of the globe by surface observation networks. In particular, spatiotemporal variations of mid-upper tropospheric methane in China are not well understood, because of limited in-situ measurements.

Dr. ZHANG Xingying and his group at the National Satellite Meteorological Center of the China Meteorological Administration tackled this problem using satellite observations. Using Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) methane data from 2003 to 2008, they revealed spatiotemporal variations of mid-upper tropospheric methane in China.

Their study shows that in the mid troposphere, a center of low CH4 concentration is located over western China, attributable to minimal industrial and agricultural activity. The lowest CH4 mixing ratio in the upper troposphere is over southern China, related to atmospheric transport from the ocean.

A seasonal cycle of methane has been discovered. One peak in summer and the other in winter over eastern, northeastern and northwestern China. Only one peak (in summer) occurs over southern and western China.

Before 2007, CH4 mixing ratio was nearly stable. The average mixing ratio during the last 6 years over major northern hemispheric countries is similar. However, there has been a significant increase in tropospheric CH4 concentrations after 2007 in most northern hemispheric areas, with slightly larger increases over China.

Dr. ZHANG Xingying has stated that the trend of CH4 based on satellite observation is still somewhat uncertain, because of the short, 6-year dataset. More satellite data of higher quality are needed for further trend analysis.

To understand the profile of methane in China and provide data for validation of satellite products, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements were made at a ground-based hyperspectral remote sensing laboratory at the National Satellite Meteorological Center. A Bruker FTIR instrument (IFS 120 M, made in Ettlingen, Germany) with 0.008 cm-1 spectral resolution, was used for observations. Several years of data have been collected.

Implementation and promotion of this work will publicize methane spatiotemporal variations and their potential sources. In so doing, informed efforts may be mounted to reduce methane emission and resulting global climate change.

The National Satellite Meteorological Center manages satellite climate products in China. Two payloads for greenhouse gas monitoring are in development for the next satellite. One of the payloads is similar to AIRS for mid-upper tropospheric greenhouse gases. The other is for low tropospheric greenhouse gases, and uses a near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer. Meanwhile, more in-situ measurements have been carried out in China for more detailed investigation of greenhouse gases.

Dr. XIONG Xiaozhen, an expert from NOAA, is in charge of AIRS methane product retrieval. He believes that this study is the first to use satellite data for analyzing mid-upper tropospheric methane over China, and represents important step in the study of climate change.

UH Case Medical Center offers new therapy for gynecologic cancer patients

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) CLEVELAND: Patients with gynecologic cancer have new hope in a novel technology now offered at the Seidman Cancer Center at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center. A team of cancer specialists, led by Robert DeBernardo, MD, is among the first in the nation to launch a dedicated program using Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) to treat ovarian, endometrial and select other cancers.

Performed immediately following surgery, HIPEC delivers heated chemotherapy through a 'hot bath' into the abdominal cavity, where it can penetrate diseased tissue directly. After the surgeon removes as much visible cancer as possible, a heated, a sterilized chemotherapy solution is circulated throughout the abdomen through a technologically sophisticated perfusion system to destroy the remaining cancer cells.

This is a new and potentially revolutionary way of treating women with gynecologic cancers, which tend to be quite responsive to chemotherapy, says Dr. DeBernardo, gynecologic oncologist at UH Case Medical Center and Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Our preliminary data and experience has been overwhelmingly positive and the therapy has been well-tolerated and effective. HIPEC promises to extend lives in a meaningful way.

HIPEC has been used for years in patients with colon, pseudomyxomas and appendiceal cancers as well as mesothelioma, cancers that in general are not responsive to chemotherapy, but it is now viewed as a promising new treatment for gynecologic malignancy.

UH Case Medical Center plans to launch several Phase One trials for patients this spring, including a first-of-its kind study involving the use of heated chemotherapy for ovarian cancer that has spread to the thoracic cavity, a procedure called Hyperthermic Intrathoracic Chemotherapy (HITEC). These hard-to-treat cancers typically recur and HITEC is performed after minimally invasive lung surgery.

There are several advantages to HIPEC compared to traditional chemotherapy, including improved survival rates for gynecologic cancer patients. Previous studies on the use of chemotherapy given directly into the abdomen, known as intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy, have shown an extension of women's lives with advanced ovarian cancer on average of 1.5 years longer than women receiving intravenous (IV) treatment.

HIPEC allows a much higher dose of chemotherapy to permeate the diseased tissue. Because conventional chemotherapy is usually administered intravenously, it circulates throughout the body and is diluted by the time it reaches the abdomen.

Despite the obvious benefits, only a minority of women currently receive IP therapy due to practical difficulties involved in administering chemo directly in the abdomen following surgery, says Dr. DeBernardo. HIPEC is now viewed as the next logical step in treating gynecologic cancers such as recurrent and new ovarian and certain endometrial cancers.

Additionally, there has been strong research demonstrating that heating the solution (hyperthermia) also enhances the power of the chemotherapy, improving absorption by tumors and susceptibility of cancer cells. Furthermore, because chemotherapy is kept within the abdomen, HIPEC minimizes the rest of the body's exposure to the treatment, which helps reduce some side effects such as hair loss.

In addition to gynecologic cancer patients, the multidisciplinary HIPEC team, comprised of surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, intensivists, chemotherapy nurses and perfusionists at UH Case Medical Center, is offering the procedure to patients with gastrointestinal cancers and mesothelioma.

We believe this procedure can improve the odds for our patients and are eager to launch this series of clinical trials to further validate HIPEC's use in our patients, says Dr. DeBernardo. In our battle against cancer, we keep developing novel methods to outsmart the disease and HIPEC is yet another important tool in our war chest.

NSF grant will aid Wayne State professors' mathematical modeling of fatty liver predictors

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Detroit - Predicting problems in one of the body's most complex organs soon may become easier because of work being done by Wayne State University researchers.

Howard Matthew and Yinlun Huang, professors of chemical engineering and materials science, recently received a $550,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a mathematical model of liver metabolism that can be used to analyze and more effectively predict responses to possible treatments for hepatic steatosis, more commonly known as fatty liver.

The condition affects between 15 and 20 percent of the U.S. population and often is a precursor to more serious problems. Accumulation of fat droplets, or lipids, inside liver cells is a key characteristic in many of the organ's failure modes. Increased lipid accumulation is usually the first symptom to appear before a measurable dysfunction occurs.

Identifying the causes of fat accumulation, however, is difficult because of the complex nature of the liver, which is involved in making and redistributing metabolites for most tissues in the body. Additionally, a variety of mechanisms trigger liver dysfunctions.

Matthew and Huang's goal is to develop a mathematical model to analyze and optimally compute possible interventions for treating fatty livers. Their main approach assumes that cellular control of fat metabolism acts as an optimal feedback-control system, and that the liver is trying to maintain certain levels of metabolites to satisfy the needs of other tissues.

A mathematical model based on that principle, Matthew believes, could predict liver cell responses to stimuli. Their model would allow more accurate predictions of metabolic responses than the models currently in use. Such methods, which assume that a cell's objective is primarily to grow, tend to work better with simpler organisms like bacteria or yeast, but not so well with animal cells.

By focusing on cells' rates of response to disturbances, we can actually achieve a better model with narrower levels of error associated with our predictions, Matthew said.

A preliminary model using cultured liver cells already has achieved some reasonably good results, he said. The current NSF award is geared toward refining that model and collecting more accurate dynamic data.

The team will use perfusion systems that allow researchers to maintain precise levels of metabolites outside cells and to change them instantaneously, looking at response rates of cells to disturbances. Fluorescent lipids will be used so researchers can detect which ones the cells are taking up and how fast they are being redistributed. The team then can model the nature of metabolites being distributed.

We're looking for changes that occur in minutes to hours in order to refine the model, Matthew said. The liver typically begins responding within minutes.

Researchers must ascertain the accuracy of prediction at the cellular level before moving to animals and beyond, he said.

We want our model to predict with a limited amount of data in order to identify which areas might be the key differences between individuals, Matthew said. That allows biologists and physicians to narrow their focus to particular areas and possibly screen particular enzymes as drug targets.

Our long-term goal is to use these kinds of models to find out why different people respond to treatments in different ways, so that we can develop a personalized medicine approach to treating the liver or any other tissues.

The power of flowers: Research sprouts a closer look at sunflower genetics

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University researcher's plant genetic work is rooted in the sunflower state.

Mark Ungerer, associate professor of biology, has two major research projects that involve evolutionary change in sunflowers, the state flower of Kansas.

What we do in the lab is referred to as ecological or evolutionary genetics, Ungerer said. We study naturally occurring species and try to understand the genetic basis or genetic underpinnings of natural variation.

There are more than 50 species of sunflowers. Some are annual plants -- meaning they germinate, flower and die in one year -- and some are perennial plants that grow and bloom every year and live longer.

Ungerer's first project focuses on five species of annual sunflowers: two parent species and three hybrid derivative species. All three hybrid species arose from ancient hybridization events between the same two parents -- an unusual way for new species to develop, Ungerer said.

What also makes the system unique is that the hybrid species are recently derived in the last half a million years, Ungerer said. It seems like a long time, but that is actually pretty recent in evolutionary terms.

But there is another interesting aspect of the three hybrid species: While they have the same number of chromosomes as the two parent species, the hybrid species' genomes are 50 to 75 percent larger in terms of the amount of DNA.

Ungerer's research team made an important discovery that explains this DNA difference. The researchers studied long terminal repeat, or LTR, retrotransposons, which are mobile genetic elements that can copy themselves and insert the copies into various chromosome locations. Ungerer's team discovered that the hybrid species and the parent species were different because of massive proliferation events, or rapid reproduction, of the LTR retrotransposons. Not only that, these transposable elements are still active and cause mutations in sunflowers.

It's like a smoking gun, Ungerer said. It helps us study the process.

The researchers now want to know the triggers of these proliferation events and how the species have reacted to this increase in genome size. Ungerer has received $610,000 from the National Science Foundation to study these rapid proliferation events and how they affect the evolution of the hybrid sunflowers.

Although virtually all plants and animals have these types of sequences in their genomes, we still know very little about what phenomena cause them to amplify and make extra copies of themselves, Ungerer said.

Ungerer is studying two naturally occurring phenomena -- hybridization and stress -- that are hypothesized to cause proliferation of these mobile DNA sequences. The group of five annual sunflowers provides an excellent system to study the roles of hybridization and stress because not only have the three hybrid species arisen from ancient hybridization events, but they also are locally adapted to harsh and stressful environments, unlike their parental species. Two of the hybrid species grow in the desert and the third hybrid species grows in salt marshes, Ungerer said.

Ungerer's second project looks at clinal variation of a perennial sunflower species. This species has a wide geographic distribution across central North America and grows in areas from Texas north to Manitoba, Canada. Ungerer wants to understand population differences between sunflowers in different parts of the region.

For this research, Ungerer's team is conducting common garden experiments, which involve gathering seeds from each of the populations across central North America. The Kansas seeds came from the Konza Prairie Biological Station. The seeds are then grown in the same common garden at Kansas State University.

If you see differences among plants in a common garden experiment, you attribute that to genetic differences of populations at these different locations, Ungerer said. We have found striking differences.

Some of these striking differences include germination and flowering time. For example, because the growing season in Manitoba is much shorter, sunflowers grow quickly and flower in about two months. In Texas, where the growing season is much longer, sunflowers grow much slower and the plants grow much larger before they flower in about seven months.

Now we are trying to expand this research to look at some of the underlying genetics of these differences, Ungerer said.

His second project has been funded by the K-State Integrated Genomic Facility and the Division of Biology's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.

Climate balancing: Sea-level rise vs. surface temperature change rates

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Engineering our way out of global climate warming may not be as easy as simply reducing the incoming solar energy, according to a team of University of Bristol and Penn State climate scientists. Designing the approach to control both sea level rise and rates of surface air temperature changes requires a balancing act to accommodate the diverging needs of different locations.

Basic physics and past observations suggest that reducing the net influx of solar energy will cool the Earth, said Peter J. Irvine, graduate student, University of Bristol, UK, and participant in the Worldwide Universities Network Research Mobility Programme to Penn State. However, surface air temperatures would respond much more quickly and sea levels will respond much more slowly.

Current solar radiation management approaches include satellites that block the sun, making the Earth's surface more reflective or mimicking the effects of volcanoes by placing aerosol particles in the upper atmosphere.

These solar radiation management approaches could be cheaper than reducing carbon dioxide emissions, said Klaus Keller, associate professor of geosciences, Penn State. But they are an imperfect substitute for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and carry considerable risks.

How well they work at reducing sea level rise or surface air temperatures depends on how they are implemented.

Strategies designed to reverse sea-level rise differ from the strategies designed to limit the rate of temperature changes, said Ryan Sriver, research associate in geosciences, Penn State.

To stop or reverse sea-level rise, the incoming solar radiation would have to be decreased rapidly, but this approach would produce rapid cooling. Adopting a more gradual approach would reduce the risks due to rapid cooling, but would allow for considerable sea-level rise.

The researchers note that people living close to sea level are likely more concerned about sea-level rise than about the rates of surface temperature changes. In contrast, those living far from the oceans, are likely more concerned about rates of surface temperature changes that can influence agricultural or energy usage.

The researchers used a model to analyze the tension between controlling sea level rise and rates of surface temperature changes. They ran 120 scenarios with differing combinations of solar radiation management including one called business as usual, which has no SRM.

They note that their model includes many approximations. For example, it does not include a mechanistic representation of ice sheets. They also did not consider scenarios that combine solar radiation management and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

They report in the current issue of

Black Friday provides bushfire answers

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Clearing vegetation close to houses is the best way to reduce impacts of severe bushfires, according to a team of scientists from Australia and the USA who examined house loss after as a result of Black Saturday, when a series of fires raged across the Australian state of Victoria, killing 173 and injuring 414.

The research involving 12,000 measurements at 500 houses affected by the Black Saturday fires was only made possible by the sheer size of the devastation of February 7, 2009.

More than any other major wildfire in Australia, Black Saturday provided an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the effects of land management on house loss, said senior author Dr Philip Gibbons from The Australian National University.

The research team found that fuel reduction close to houses afforded the greatest protection.

Clearing trees and shrubs within 40 meters of houses was the most effective form of fuel reduction on Black Saturday, said Dr Gibbons.

However, there was less risk to houses from vegetation in planted gardens compared with vegetation in remnant native bushland.

Houses close to public forest were at greater risk, but concerns raised after Black Saturday about national parks were not reflected in the results.

On Black Saturday, houses were at similar risk whether they were adjacent to National Park or State Forest, said Professor David Lindenmayer from ANU, a co-author of the research.

Logging native forests did not reduce the chance of house loss.

We found no significant relationship between house loss and the amount of logging in the landscape, said Professor Ross Bradstock from The University of Wollongong who was an expert witness in the Bushfires Royal Commission.

A key issue after Black Saturday was prescribed burning. However, the researchers found that protection afforded to houses by prescribed burning on Black Saturday was only modest, despite the team examining landscapes that had been burnt considerably before Black Saturday.

Clearing vegetation within 40 meters of houses was twice as effective as prescribed burning, said Dr Geoff Cary from ANU.

All forms of fuel reduction examined in the study, including prescribed burning, were most effective if undertaken closer to houses, .

Bbut the research team cautions that reducing fuel close to houses is not always an appropriate strategy.

Intensive fuel reduction close to houses can be expensive, can have significant environmental and aesthetic impacts and can be risky in some circumstances, said Dr Gibbons.

Many of these issues can be avoided if new housing is not permitted adjacent to forests.

The researchers conclude that fuel reduction close to houses is only a partial solution to bushfires.

No amount of fuel reduction will guarantee that a house is safe on extreme weather days like Black Saturday, so it is critical that other measures, such as early evacuation, safer places and architectural solutions are considered by every resident in fire-prone areas in addition to, or instead of, fuel reduction, said Dr Gibbons.

These are findings that are probably important internationally, said Dr Max Moritz from the University of California at Berkeley who was a co-author of the research.

Housing density in many bushfire-prone regions is increasing, so the next major bushfire will be even more devastating unless we continue to learn from Black Saturday, added Dr Gibbons.

Salk scientist Ronald M. Evans wins 2012 Wolf Prize in Medicine

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) La Jolla- Salk Institute scientist Ronald Evans has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2012 Wolf Prize in Medicine, Israel's highest award for achievements benefiting mankind. According to the Wolf Prize jury, Evans was selected for his discovery of the gene super-family encoding nuclear receptors and elucidating the mechanism of action of this class of receptors.

Evans, professor and head of the Salk Institute's Gene Expression Laboratory and the March of Dimes Chair in Molecular and Developmental Biology, is world renowned for his seminal research of nuclear hormone receptors, which has since led to more than a half-dozen drugs for cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Israel President Shimon Peres will present Evans with this award at a special ceremony at the Knesset, the House of Representatives for the State of Israel, in Jerusalem, on May 13, 2012.

The Wolf Prize is a great honor conferred on only the most excellent scientists and artists in the world, said Salk president William R. Brody. The Wolf Foundation award was developed to further their historical mission: philanthropy that supports working for the betterment of humanity. Ron's work embodies that vision.

Evans is only the second Salk scientist to be chosen for the distinguished prize. Five annual Wolf Prizes have been awarded since 1978 to outstanding scientists and artists for achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among peoples, irrespective of nationality, race, color, religion, sex, or political view. The prizes of $100,000 in each area are given every year in the scientific fields of Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Medicine and Physics, as well as one prize in the Arts.

As part of an elite group of 2012 recipients, Ron will have the opportunity to share the stage with Placido Domingo, one of the world's preeminent tenors. To date, a total of 272 scientists and artists from 23 countries have been honored, and over one-third of all the Wolf Prize winners in medicine, physics and chemistry have went on to receive the Nobel Prize.

The Wolf award honor comes on the heels of another distinguished benchmark in Evans list of achievements. In 2010, he was selected as a Rolf Sammet Guest Professor at Frankfurt University on behalf of the Aventis Foundation and an elite selection committee. In 2011, he enjoyed conducting his Rolf Sammet Guest Professorship, dedicated to teaching internationally outstanding scientists who make important research contributions in the life and natural science field.

Throughout his career, Evans has received some of medical science's most prestigious awards and has published more than 250 papers, many of which are among the most cited in the world.

UCLA joins forces with White House to meet unique needs of veterans, families

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) As part of a White House effort to ensure that America's military heroes receive care worthy of their service, the UCLA Health System and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA have pledged to mobilize their uniquely integrated missions in education, research and clinical care to help train physicians to meet the special needs of veterans, active service members and their families.

Joining Forces, an initiative launched by first lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, announced last week that UCLA and a number of other renowned institutions, along with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM), have partnered to help create a new generation of doctors, medical schools and research facilities that can deliver first-rate care to current and former military members, including treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries.

The commitment is the latest in a series of ongoing efforts by the UCLA Health System and the Geffen School of Medicine to provide cutting-edge medical and mental health care to wounded warriors and their loved ones.

We are honored to participate in the White House Joining Forces initiative to address the health care needs of military service members, veterans and their families, said Dr. A. Eugene Washington, UCLA's vice chancellor for health sciences and dean of the Geffen School of Medicine. We launched Operation Mend in 2007, a program that provides reconstructive surgery and medical services to service members wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. This unique medical program combines the best of the military's resources with the skills of the UCLA Health System for a comprehensive and collaborative treatment approach for those who have served our country.

We're also pleased to address the mental health needs of U.S. military personnel and their families through our FOCUS (Families OverComing Under Stress) program. Currently being implemented at over 20 sites around the country and in Japan, UCLA's FOCUS provides mental health intervention, treatment and support to improve the psychological health of our military members and their families. Our goal is to show these heroes that their country is there for them, no matter what they're going through.

Together, the Geffen School of Medicine, the UCLA Health System, the AAMC and the AACOM are committed to enriching medical education to make physicians aware of the clinical challenges and best practices associated with caring for this group; developing new research and clinical trials on post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries to better understand and treat these conditions; sharing information and best practices with each other and other institutions through a collaborative web forum created by the AAMC; and growing the body of knowledge leading to improvements in health care and wellness for military service members, veterans and their families.

I'm inspired to see our nation's medical schools step up to address this pressing need for our veterans and military families, Michelle Obama said. By directing some of our brightest minds, our most cutting-edge research and our finest teaching institutions toward our military families, they're ensuring that those who have served our country receive the first-rate care that they have earned.

To date, UCLA's Operation Mend has treated nearly 60 U.S. soldiers wounded and disfigured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Founded by philanthropist Ronald A. Katz, a member of the board and executive committee of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and his late wife, Maddie, Operation Mend is a partnership among the UCLA Health System, Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, and the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.

The program's original goal was to give returning service members with severe facial injuries access to the Army's best burn center and the nation's best plastic and reconstructive surgeons. The mission has since expanded to include healing of the body, mind and spirit. In addition to plastic and reconstructive surgery, the program now provides mental health support for service members and their families, orthopedic reconstruction for severely damaged limbs, urologic treatment, otolaryngological care, examination and treatment of reproductive issues, repair of airways, and the design of prosthetic ears.

Since 2009, UCLA's Project FOCUS, led by associate professor of psychiatry Patricia Lester, has reached out to military families to help prevent the personal and psychological problems that long and often multiple wartime deployments can lead to, not only for the service member on the front lines but for families back home.

UCLA faculty have also been pivotal in advancing research and policy on post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries, a major focus of the new Joint Forces partnership.

David Hovda, a professor of neurosurgery and director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center, is a national expert on traumatic brain injuries who played a key role in advising the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the establishment of mandatory protocols to help service members recover after suffering such injuries. In June 2011, the U.S. Army presented Hovda with its Strength of the Nation Award for his extraordinary contributions to caring for the nation's wounded warriors. The award is presented annually to an individual who engages in exemplary public service that makes a substantial contribution in completing the Army's mission. Operation Mend's Ronald Katz received the award in 2010.

'Meating' a solution: Research finds that LED lights extend meat shelf life, save retailers money

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A switch to LED lights in refrigeration units could save the retail meat industry millions of dollars each year, according to research from Kansas State University.

Kyle Steele, recent master's graduate in animal sciences and industry, Silver Lake, Kan., found that using light-emitting diode, or LED, lights in refrigeration units both saves energy for meat retailers and extends the shelf life of some beef products.

By using LED lighting in meat retail display cases, Kansas retailers can save money by lowering the operational costs of refrigerated cases and extending the color shelf life of fresh meat products, Steele said. Additionally, by extending the color shelf life, retailers have a greater opportunity to sell the product at full price, and the state of Kansas can gain tax revenue from the full retail price rather than a discounted price.

Steele compared the use of LED lights and fluorescent lights in meat refrigeration units because many meat retailers currently use fluorescent lights. He worked with Elizabeth Boyle and Melvin Hunt, both professors of animal sciences and industry, as well as with Melissa Weber, recent doctoral graduate in animal sciences and industry, Collinwood, Tenn.

During refrigerated display, the color of fresh meat changes because of its natural chemistry and exposure to oxygen. Because color is a large factor that influences customers in purchasing meat, some consumers discriminate against discolored meat. These discolored meat products must either be discounted or discarded, which has been estimated to cost the meat industry up to a billion dollars each year, Steele said.

For his research, Steele looked at five different meat products: pork loin chops, beef loin steaks, ground beef, ground turkey and beef inside round steaks. Steele looked at several aspects of these meat products and their refrigeration units:

* Discoloration: The researchers brought in trained color panelists to score meat color changes over time while displayed under both lighting types.

* Rancidity: The researchers measured the rancidity of the meat products stored under both types of light. Light affects the oxidation of fat in meat, which can cause rancidity and a change in taste.

* Operating efficiency: The researchers studied operating efficiency of the two types of lights by measuring how many times a refrigeration unit had to cycle to keep the meat cool and how many running hours that cycle lasted.

The researchers found that LED lights scored positively in nearly all areas. Most significantly, LED lights helped reduce operating costs and prolonged the shelf life for most of the meat products.

Most meat products displayed under LED lighting had colder internal product temperatures, which helps extend product shelf life, Steele said. Beef loin steaks and inside round steaks that were stored under LED lights can have up to one day longer shelf life.

Among operational costs, LED lights had fewer cycles per running hour, meaning they were a more efficient and cost-saving light source than fluorescent lights.

Steele will give a research presentation titled Shelf life of five meat products displayed under light emitting diode or fluorescent lighting at the Capitol Graduate Research Summit in Topeka in February.

Canada's first renal denervation procedure to reduce high blood pressure performed today

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Doctors at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre today performed a minimally invasive surgical procedure to treat high blood pressure, called renal denervation, for the first time in Canada. The procedure can significantly reduce high blood pressure in patients who cannot effectively treat their hypertension through drugs. These patients, numbering approximately 250,000 Canadians, have to endure an especially high risk of heart attacks and stroke, which continues to kill thousands of Canadians every year.

The first Canadian patient to undergo renal denervation, a 57-year-old male from Toronto, will be discharged tomorrow after overnight observation. The procedure was performed by a multi-disciplinary team, led by Dr. Dheeraj Rajan, Interventional Radiology Specialist; Dr. Douglas Ing, Cardiologist and Dr. George Oreopoulos, Vascular Surgeon. The team recently returned from Germany, where they trained for the procedure. Germany has approved the use of renal denervation to treat selected patients with hypertension.

The Peter Munk Cardiac Centre was the first centre in Canada to receive approval for renal denervation from Health Canada under the Special Access Program that allows practitioners to request access to procedures or drugs that are currently not otherwise approved for use in Canada. As the Health Canada web site notes: This access is limited to patients with serious or life-threatening conditions on a compassionate or emergency basis when conventional therapies have failed, are unsuitable, or are unavailable.

Said Dr. Barry Rubin, Medical Director at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre: Decreasing a patient's systolic blood pressure from 160 to 130 mm Hg over a period of six months, which this procedure has been shown to do, could prevent many heart attacks and strokes from ever happening.

In addition, renal denervation could also save the health care system countless millions of dollars by minimizing the need for anti-hypertension drugs that patients have to take, often for the rest of their lives, to say nothing of the millions more in savings from not having to treat heart attacks and strokes that don't happen.

The procedure was first used in patients in Melbourne, Australia, and its effects were reported in a clinical trial published in the December 4, 2010 issue of The Lancet. This trial saw cardiologists from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and several European countries de-activate the nerves located on the outside of the artery that feeds blood to the kidney, with a resulting drop in blood pressure. It has been known for over 50 years that the kidney plays a defining role in determining blood pressure.

Said Dr. Rubin: Our multidisciplinary renal denervation program, which also includes hypertension and kidney specialists, will treat many more patients with hypertension in the months ahead. Our focus will be directed at studying the safety and efficacy of the procedure, which could also have important secondary benefits. For example, many Canadians with heart failure have high blood pressure. Using renal denervation to treat high blood pressure in these patients could improve heart failure, a major cause of death of Canadians.

Continuing uncertainties surround anti-influenza drug

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Incomplete availability of data has hampered a thorough assessment of the evidence for using the anti-influenza drug oseltamivir, a Cochrane Review has found. However, after piecing together information from over 16,000 pages of clinical trial data and documents used in the process of licensing oseltamivir (Tamiflu) by national authorities, a team of researchers has raised critical questions about how well the drug works and about its reported safety profile. The new analysis shows inconsistencies with published reports, and describes possible under-reporting of drug-related side-effects in some published trial reports. While the drug did reduce the time to first alleviation of symptoms by an average of 21 hours, it did not reduce the number of people who went on to need hospital treatment. Results from the reanalysis of data also raise questions about how the drug works as an influenza virus inhibitor.

These finding are published in The Cochrane Library by an international team of researchers from Italy, Australia, USA, UK and Japan. It was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) programme.

In line with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations made in 2002, governments around the world have spent billions of dollars stockpiling neuraminidase inhibitors such as oseltamivir and zanamivir (Relenza). The agents' proposed mode of action is to limit the proliferation of viruses within an infected person, which in turn reduce the duration of a person's symptoms, and consequently reduce the chances of passing the disease to another person.

Led by Dr Tom Jefferson, a Cochrane review author and independent epidemiologist based in Rome, Italy, a team of researchers have obtained and analysed data on antiviral drugs, much of which has never been published, and evaluated the evidence that lay behind some of the statements. This latest Cochrane review focused primarily on oseltamivir because it is a commonly used and stockpiled drug and is on the list of WHO essential drugs. The Cochrane team were reluctant to base their research on the trials that have been published in scientific journals, because while many trials have been conducted around the world, only a few have been published.

We identified that a large number of studies, including data from 60% of the people who have been involved in randomised, placebo-controlled phase III treatment trials of oseltamivir have never been published. This includes the biggest treatment trial ever undertaken on oseltamivir that on its own included just over 1,400 people of all ages, says Jefferson. We are concerned that these data remain unavailable for scrutiny by the scientific community.

Although the team were able to access thousands of pages of data provided to national regulatory agencies and other bodies, they were only able to access a proportion of the data they needed to evaluate fully the effects of oseltamivir, despite requests to the drug's manufacturer, Roche.

When the team compared published data with the more complete unpublished trial records, they found inconsistencies in the published record of the trials. For example, while unpublished trial reports mentioned serious adverse events (some even classified as possibly related to oseltamivir), one of the two most cited publications makes no mention of such effects, and the other states ... there were no drug-related serious adverse events.

Jefferson and colleagues also found disparities in the numbers of influenza-infected people reported to be present in the treatment versus control groups of oseltamivir trials. The researchers believe that this imbalance may be caused by oseltamivir affecting antibody production. The disparity is important because in oseltamivir trials, primary efficacy outcomes were analyzed on the influenza infected subpopulation, but it is not clear that these groups were in fact comparable, says Jefferson.

The researchers conclude that there is an urgent need for independent research on both of these drugs. There is continuing uncertainty about their effects beyond the initial reduction in symptoms, mainly because full access to the data needed has still not been provided. We believe that until more is known about the mode of action of neuraminidase inhibitors health professionals, patients and other decision makers need to reflect on the findings of this review before making any decision about the use of the drug, concluded Jefferson.

Also published in this issue of The Cochrane Library is an updated systematic review of neuraminidase inhibitors for children only ('Neuraminidase inhibitors for preventing and treating influenza in children' by Wang et al). Dr David Tovey, Editor in Chief of The Cochrane Library notes that This review uses more standard review methods and only evaluates published studies. The two reviews therefore use different methods and this leads to differences regarding their findings, but some results are broadly similar to those presented in the review by Jefferson et al.

Muscle relaxants and neuromodulators for managing RA pain: Many options, but no clear successes

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Pain management is a high priority for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, so three researchers in Australia analysed existing study data to see whether two different classes of drugs can help. When looking at muscle relaxants, they discovered that neither the benzodiazepine agents, diazepam and triazolam, nor the non- benzodiazepine agent, zopiclone, reduce pain when taken for one to 14 days. However, even this short use was associated for both agents with drowsiness and dizziness.

When looking at neuromodulators, the researchers discovered weak evidence that using oral nefopam, topical capsaicin and oromucosal cannabis for one to seven days can reduce pain in patients with rheumatoid arthritis better than placebo. Each drug has its own set of side effects, but together they included nausea, sweating, dizziness, dry mouth light headedness, local burning and irritation. Accessibility to these medications is also an issue with nefopam not being widely available in many countries and cannabis use illegal in many parts of the world. These results are published in The Cochrane Library in two separate papers.

Until further research is available, given the relatively mild nature of the adverse events, capsaicin could be considered as an add-on therapy for patients with persistent local pain and inadequate response or intolerance to other treatments. In view of the low quality of the evidence we found to support this option, some caution should be applied, says lead researcher Bethan Richards, who works at the Institute of Rheumatology and Orthopedics, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown, Australia. However, oral nefopam and oromucosal cannabis have more significant side effect profiles and the potential harms seem to outweigh any modest benefit achieved.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a disease in which a people's immune systems, which normally fight infection, attack the lining of their joints. This makes the joints swollen, stiff, and painful. The small joints of their hands and feet are usually affected first. There is currently no cure for rheumatoid arthritis, so the treatments aim to relieve pain and stiffness and improve their mobility.

Muscle relaxants can be used to treat anxiety and promote sleep, and some people believe they may also reduce pain by acting on the nerves that cause pain, but this remains controversial. Neuromodulators alter the way nerves communicate with each other and, consequently, alter the overall activity level of the brain. This may reduce the amount of pain felt by an individual.

The researchers looked for clinical studies that had compared these drugs with either other active treatments or placebos. After searching through the major clinical databases they found only a few, small trials. For muscle relaxants, they found six trials that had a total of 126 participants, and for the neuromodulators they found four trials that involved 141 participants. The data was further weakened because the procedures used in the trials ran the risk that the patients or those running the trials could have affected the findings.

Given the large number of people with rheumatoid arthritis, and the debilitating affect that the disease has on their lives, it is disappointing that no high-quality studies have been carried out on these drugs in this patient group, says Richards.

The researchers suggest that to better assess the efficacy and safety of medications for pain management in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, large high quality, double-blind placebo-controlled trials are now required.

Research reveals power of the subconscious in human fear

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The human subconscious has a bigger impact than previously thought on how we respond to danger, according to research led by the University of Exeter. Published today (I8 January), the study shows that our primitive response to fear can contradict our conscious assessment of danger.

The findings have implications for how anxiety disorders, such as phobias, are treated. The research also suggests we share a primitive response to fear with other animals, despite being able to consciously anticipate and assess danger.

Participants recruited to the study sat in front of a screen, on which a coloured shape sometimes appeared. Half the time, the image was accompanied by a mild electric shock. For the rest of the time, the image appeared but no shock was given.

During the trial they were asked to rate whether or not they expected a shock to be given and their 'skin conductance' was monitored. This technique measures the variation in the electrical activity of the sweat glands in the skin, which is an indication of the state of arousal of the sympathetic nervous system. In other words, it gives us a reading of a person's emotional state.

Following a series of trials involving shocks, participants were more likely to predict they would not receive a shock when the image was next shown. The complementary result was that they generally anticipated receiving a shock if they had not had one for the last few images. This phenomenon of expecting good luck after a run of bad luck and vice versa, is known as the 'gambler's fallacy'.

The skin conductance responses revealed the opposite pattern. Following a series of shocks accompanying the image, their physical responses to the next image shown suggested participants were more likely to expect another shock, but that they were less likely to expect a shock after a run of no-shock trials. This pattern of responding is consistent with 'associative learning': associating a visual cue with a significant event, a phenomenon that is well known in animals.

Previously it has been thought that, when using this type of procedure, humans respond differently from animals because we rely on conscious reasoning, rather than associative learning to generate our expectations. This study suggests that, despite our sophisticated mental capabilities, our responses are in fact driven by these more primitive processes when in danger.

Lead author, Professor Ian McLaren of the University of Exeter said: This research clearly shows that, in these circumstances, our reaction to a fear-provoking stimulus depends on a primitive response caused by associative learning. This is something we share with other animals.

This could have important practical implications. Now that we know that associative processes are implicated in our response to fear-inducing stimuli, we need to consider the implications for the ways in which we treat anxiety and phobias.

Drilling around the globe

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) On 15 January the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program ICDP heads into a new round. About a dozen proposals for drilling projects to explore our planet have been filed for the year 2012. The topics cover a wide range of research projects, ranging from earthquake research over paleao -climate research to the exploration of natural resources. The planned drill sites span the globe, from Iceland to South Africa.

New is also the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Professor Brian Horsfield of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, who now directs the evaluation of the proposals and the planning of the suggested research. New in the office but in business for a long time: Brian Horsfield heads the Center for Integrated Hydrocarbon Research at the GFZ, holds the Chair of Organic Geochemistry and Hydrocarbon Systems at the Technical University Berlin, and is a member of acatech, the National Academy of Science and Engineering. He has over 30 years of experience in the petroleum industry and research.

About his ideas concerning the importance of scientific research boreholes, he says: Drilling the Earth's crust is an indispensable tool for the geosciences and ICDP is the global leader in the effort to contribute to the understanding and sustainable use of our planet, be it the protection against natural disasters, serving an ever-growing population with natural resources or exploring the natural and anthropogenic processes of our dynamic earth.

In December last year, Brian Horsfield took over the chair of the ICDP from Professor Rolf Emmermann, formerly the founding Director of the GFZ. It was Professor Emmerman who initiated the founding of the ICDP. In February 1996 in Tokyo, he encouraged China, the United States and Germany to sign an agreement establishing the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, which serves the exploration of the active processes on the continents. The research topics cover the whole spectrum of Earth Sciences: Volcanoes are drilled, earthquake epicenters are pierced, sediments in lakes acting as climate archives are opened, geothermal energy and methane hydrates are examined as an energy source - there are very few geoscientific issues that are not examined by research drilling.

The ICDP scientific drilling program has proved highly successful and has set new standards in the exploration of our planet, explains Professor Reinhard Huettl, Chair of the Executive Board of the GFZ and Vice President of the Helmholtz Association. Today, 24 states and UNESCO are members of and the ICDP. 29 drilling projects and 57 international workshops have already been conducted that have completely changed our view of Earth. In addition, this drilling program has the character of a role model for international cooperation. The achievement of Professor Emmermann against this background cannot be overstated. After his retirement as the Chair of the Scientific Executive Board of the GFZ (1992 - 2007), Rolf Emmermann was the chairman of the ICDP governing board until December 2011.

'Open-source' robotic surgery platform going to top medical research labs

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) SANTA CRUZ, CA--Robotics experts at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Washington (UW) have completed a set of seven advanced robotic surgery systems for use by major medical research laboratories throughout the United States. After a round of final tests, five of the systems will be shipped to medical robotics researchers at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Nebraska, UC Berkeley, and UCLA, while the other two systems will remain at UC Santa Cruz and UW.

We decided to follow an open-source model, because if all of these labs have a common research platform for doing robotic surgery, the whole field will be able to advance more quickly, said Jacob Rosen, associate professor of computer engineering in the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz and principal investigator on the project.

Rosen and Blake Hannaford, director of the UW Biorobotics Laboratory, lead the research groups that developed the Raven II robotic surgery system and its predecessor, Raven I. A grant from the National Science Foundation funded their work to create seven identical Raven II systems. Hannaford said the systems will be shipped out from UW by the end of January. After they are delivered and installed, all seven systems will be networked together over the Internet for collaborative experiments.

Robotic surgery has the potential to enable new surgical procedures that are less invasive than existing techniques. For some procedures, such as prostate surgery, the use of surgical robots is already standard practice. In addition, telesurgery, in which the surgeon operates a robotic system from a remote location, offers the potential to provide better access to expert care in remote areas and the developing world. Having a network of laboratories working on a common platform will make it easier for researchers to share software, replicate experiments, and collaborate in other ways.

Even though it meant giving competing laboratories the tools that had taken them years to develop, Rosen and Hannaford decided to share the Raven II because it seemed like the best way to move the field forward. These are the leading labs in the nation in the field of surgical robotics, and with everyone working on the same platform we can more easily share new developments and innovations, Hannaford said.

According to Rosen, most research on surgical robotics in the United States has focused on developing new software for various commercially available robotic systems. Academic researchers have had limited access to these proprietary systems. We are changing that by providing high-quality hardware developed within academia. Each lab will start with an identical, fully-operational system, but they can change the hardware and software and share new developments and algorithms, while retaining intellectual property rights for their own innovations, Rosen said.

The Raven II includes a surgical robot with two robotic arms, a camera for viewing the operational field, and a surgeon-interface system for remote operation of the robot. The system is powerful and precise enough to support research on advanced robotic surgery techniques, including online telesurgery.

In addition to Rosen and Hannaford, UCSC postdoctoral researchers Daniel Glozman and Ji Ma, along with a group of dedicated undergraduate students working in Rosen's Bionics Lab, played a key role in developing the Raven II. Rosen and Glozman have also developed a Raven IV surgical robotics system, which includes four robotic arms and two cameras. The system enables collaboration between two surgeons working from separate locations and connected over the Internet.

Shock therapy to eradicate Escherichia Coli

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:03:27 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) According to a study published in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health, a short burst of low voltage alternating current can effectively eradicate E. coli bacteria growing on the surface of even heavily contaminated beef. The technique offers an inexpensive and easy to implement approach to reducing the risk of food poisoning, which can occur despite handlers complying with hygiene standards.

Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a bacterium that is commonly found in the gut of humans and warm-blooded animals. Most strains of E. coli are harmless. Some strains however, such as enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), can cause severe foodborne disease. It is transmitted to humans primarily through consumption of contaminated foods, such as raw or undercooked ground meat products, raw milk and contaminated raw vegetables and sprouts.Infection with this bacterium causes serious diarrhea, dehydration, kidney problems and can lead to serious long-term problems or even be fatal in children, the elderly and people with pre-existing health problems. Tens of thousands of people are affected by E. coli infection each year through eating contaminated beef and other food products. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about 2500 people are hospitalized and there are several dozen deaths each year.

Now, Ajit Mahapatra and colleagues at Fort Valley State University, in Georgia and Virginia Tech have demonstrated that applying a low-voltage alternating current to beef samples inoculated with large numbers of the potentially lethal E. coli O157:H7 can almost completely deactivate the bacterium, which is usually present on the surface of contaminated meat. The team points out that the level of contamination used in their tests far exceeded the contamination that would be seen in commercial carcasses after slaughter.

Previous researchers had demonstrated that electricity can kill bacteria effectively. The study by Mahapatra and colleagues proves efficacy against E. coli O157:H7 at low voltage and low alternating current. It offers a quick and easy way to decontaminate at-risk, but otherwise safe beef without recourse to microbicidal chemicals or other more complicated treatment processes.

Deep brain stimulation is effective at improving motor symptoms patients with advanced Parkinson's disease

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:54:41 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers from the University of Florida and 14 additional medical centers reported results in the online version of The Lancet Neurology journal indicating that deep brain stimulation — also known as DBS — is effective at improving motor symptoms and quality of life in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease.

The study, sponsored by St. Jude Medical Inc., tested the safety and effectiveness of a constant current DBS device developed by St. Jude Medical to manage the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. The device aimed to reduce tremors, improve the slowness of movement, decrease the motor disability of the disease and reduce involuntary movements called dyskinesia, which are a common side effect of Parkinson's drugs.

After treatment, analysis of 136 patient diaries revealed longer periods of effective symptom control — known as "on time" — without involuntary movements. "On time" for patients who received stimulation increased by an average of 4.27 hours compared with an increase of 1.77 hours in the group without stimulation. Patients also noted overall improvements in the quality of their daily activities, mobility, emotional state, social support and physical comfort.

"I think it is safe to say since dopamine treatment emerged in the 1960s, DBS has been the single biggest symptomatic breakthrough for Parkinson patients who have experienced the fluctuations associated with levodopa therapy," said Michael S. Okun, M.D., first author of the study, administrative director of the UF College of Medicine's Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration, and the National Medical Director for the National Parkinson Foundation. "This study validates the use of mild electrical currents delivered to specific brain structures in order to improve Parkinson's disease in select patients with advanced symptoms, and additionally, it explored a new stimulation paradigm. Future improvements in devices and the delivery systems for DBS will hopefully provide exciting new opportunities for Parkinson's sufferers."

Only patients who have had Parkinson's disease for five years or more were included in the study. They were randomly assigned to a control group that delayed the onset of stimulation for three months, or a group whose stimulation began shortly after surgery. All patients were followed for 12 months.

The deep brain stimulation procedure involves surgeons implanting small electrodes into an area of the patient's brain that controls movement. The electrodes are connected to a device precisely programmed to use mild electrical current to modulate problematic brain signals that result in movement problems.

Today's voltage-controlled DBS devices deliver pulses of current that vary slightly with surrounding tissue changes. The DBS devices tested in this study are intended to provide more accurate delivery and control of the electrical pulses.

"We are committed to driving research that will provide solutions for physicians and their patients whose needs are currently unmet," said Rohan Hoare, president of St. Jude Medical Neuromodulation Division. "These results are significant as they offer evidence that stimulation with the Libra™ constant current system enabled patients to have better motor control and an improvement in their quality of life when compared to the control group."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of DBS for Parkinson's disease in 2002. At least 500,000 people in the United States suffer from Parkinson's with about 50,000 new cases reported annually, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. These numbers are expected to increase as the average age of the population rises.

"The study answered some very important questions concerning cognition and mood with lead implantation (alone) versus implantation with stimulation. It also refutes the hypothesis that DBS increases depressive symptoms," said Gordon H. Baltuch, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of neurosurgery in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a study author. "The group's results also showed a decrease in the infection rate to 4 percent from previously published 10 percent. It shows that American neurosurgeons and neurologists with their industry partners are improving the safety of this procedure and working in a collaborative fashion."

Comparable with other large DBS studies, the most common serious adverse event revealed was infection, which occurred in five patients. Likewise, some participants also reported an increase in the occurrence of slurred speech, known as dysarthria.

"Technology is on the move, and we expect to see continued improvements to DBS approaches, equipment and materials," said Okun, who is also affiliated with UF's McKnight Brain Institute. "DBS has set the bar high for the development of new therapies for advanced Parkinson's disease patients. DBS will be the standard of care gene therapy and other cell-based therapies that are now being conceived will be measured against, and this will hopefully translate into significant improvements in what we can offer our patients."

Interferon-stimulated gene 15 (ISG15), a ubiquitin like protein, is a new therapeutic target for breast cancer

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:44:02 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) In a study published in the January 2012 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, Dr. Shyamal Desai and her co-investigators report that gene knock-down studies demonstrate that elevated ISG15 pathway results in disruption of the cytoskeletal architecture of breast cancer cells. ISG15 also inhibits degradation of cellular proteins involved in cell motility, invasion, and metastasis, promoting breast cancer cell migration. Interferon-stimulated gene 15 (ISG15), a ubiquitin like protein, is highly elevated in a variety of cancers including breast cancer.

Dr. Desai said "Using ISG15 and UbcH8 gene knocked-down approach, our recent published and unpublished results explicitly demonstrated that the ISG15 pathway inhibits the ubiquitin-mediated proteasome-dependent protein degradation in breast cancer cells. We were the first to recognize this antagonizing effect of ISG15 in cancer cells"; however, others are increasingly coming to the same conclusion in their observations that ISG15 conjugation stabilizes cellular proteins.

Dr. Arthur Haas said "Given the crucial role of the ubiquitin/26S proteasome pathway in normal cell homeostasis, one expects that ISG15-induced downregulation of the ubiquitin pathway must contribute to breast tumor cell viability. Concurrently, in this manuscript we demonstrate that ISG15 promotes breast cancer cell migration by inhibiting ubiquitin-mediated degradation of cellular proteins associated with cell motility, invasion and metastasis".

The authors report that the elevated ISG15 pathway results in disruption of the cytoskeletal architecture effecting actin polymerization and formation of focal adhesions in breast cancer cells. Targeted knockdown of both ISG15 and UbcH8 resulted in reconstitution of the cytoskeletal architecture. Dr. Desai said "Disruption of cellular architecture is a hallmark of cancer. The ISG15 pathway is also elevated in a variety of tumors. Our results therefore reveal that the ISG15 pathway which is aberrantly elevated in tumors could disrupt cell architecture and contribute to breast cancer cell motility". "Because the cellular architecture is conserved and the ISG15 pathway is constitutively activated in tumor cells of different lineages, our observations in breast cancer must hold true for many other tumors".

If ISG15 confers motility to tumor cells in vivo, as suggested in this manuscript, then Dr. Desai concludes that "strategies to decrease ISGylation could provide a therapeutic advantage for patients diagnosed with metastatic tumors overexpressing the ISG15 pathway".

Dr. Steven R. Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine said that "these intriguing studies by Desai and colleagues suggests that modulation of the ISG15 pathway may provide future therapeutic targets for breast cancer and other metastatic tumors".

Best way to boost adult immunizations is through office-based action, study finds

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Promoting immunizations as a part of routine office-based medical practice is needed to improve adult vaccination rates, a highly effective way to curb the spread of diseases across communities, prevent needless illness and deaths, and lower health care costs, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Increasingly, vaccinations are being offered outside of physician offices at pharmacies, workplaces and retail medical clinics. Even so, office-based medical practice continues to be central to the delivery of recommended vaccinations to adults.

Regardless of where vaccines are actually administered, office-based providers are uniquely positioned to identify patients who need vaccination, to communicate credibly about the benefits and risks of vaccination, and to ensure that vaccination histories are properly maintained, said Katherine Harris, the study's lead author and a senior economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

The RAND study outlines improvements needed to strengthen the role of office-based medical providers to promote vaccination to adult patients. These include creating tools to improve communications between patients and providers about vaccinations, and stronger incentives to encourage health providers to refer patients to community sites that administer vaccinations if they do not offer them.

Diseases that can be readily prevented by vaccines take a heavy toll on adults in the United States despite the wide-spread availability of this generally safe and effective preventive care. The yearly health care and productivity costs blamed on influenza -- a common illness that can be prevented by vaccination -- is as high as $90 billion, depending on the severity of the annual outbreak.

In contrast to childhood vaccination rates, which are generally high, adult vaccination rates remain disappointingly low. Even in the case of influenza, inoculation rates for even those at the highest risk of death do not exceed 70 percent. Vaccines recommended for adults can prevent influenza, pneumococcal sepsis, shingles, hepatitis A and B, pertussis (whooping cough) and the human papillomavirus -- the leading cause of cervical cancer.

Researchers say recent changes in the policy and practice environments provide a unique window of opportunity to improve the delivery of vaccinations to adults. Health care reform legislation promotes preventive care and improves financial access to adult vaccinations.

RAND researchers identified bottlenecks that have stalled delivery of adult vaccinations and propose strategies to overcome these shortcomings. Their effort included a review of past research about adult vaccination, a stakeholder workshop, interviews with experts, and a short telephone survey of adults to learn about the relationship between influenza vaccination and public beliefs and misperceptions about its safety.

The study reports that while medical offices are the location where most adults receive vaccinations, only about one-fourth of physician offices stock all recommended vaccines for adults. Reasons include the fact that some vaccines have a short shelf life and insurance payments for administering adult vaccines may not cover the doctor's costs.

Researchers say one priority is to collect better national information about the patterns of office-based vaccination of adults to pinpoint gaps in practice, which could then be targeted for improvement efforts.

Better guidance should be developed to help health providers effectively promote and administer vaccines, including structured vaccination counseling protocols. Providers also need tools to help them evaluate whether to administer vaccines onsite or refer their patients to community resources such as pharmacies and flu vaccine clinics, according to the study.

Systems also must be developed to credit primary care providers for providing vaccine counseling, whether their patients receive the vaccination on-site or go elsewhere to get it.

ALMA early science result reveals starving galaxies

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Astronomers using the partially completed ALMA observatory have found compelling evidence for how star-forming galaxies evolve into 'red and dead' elliptical galaxies, catching a large group of galaxies right in the middle of this change.

For years, astronomers have been developing a picture of galaxy evolution in which mergers between spiral galaxies could explain why nearby large elliptical galaxies have so few young stars. The theoretical picture is chaotic and violent: The merging galaxies knock gas and dust into clumps of rapid star formation, called starbursts, and down into the maws of the supermassive black hole growing in the merger's core. As more and more matter heaves onto the black hole, powerful jets erupt, and the region around the black hole glows brilliantly as a quasar. The jets blowing out of the merger eventually plow out the galaxy's potential star-forming gas, ending the starbursts.

Until now, astronomers had never spotted enough mergers at this critical, jet-plowing stage to definitively link jet-driven outflows to the cessation of starburst activity. During its Early Science observations in late 2011, however, ALMA became the first telescope to confirm nearly two dozen galaxies in this brief stage of galaxy evolution.

What did ALMA actually see? Despite ALMA's great sensitiviy to detecting starbursts, we saw nothing, or next to nothing - which is exactly what we hoped it would see, said lead investigator Dr. Carol Lonsdale of the North American ALMA Science Center at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia. Lonsdale presented the findings at the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Austin, Texas on behalf of an international team of astronomers.

For these observations, ALMA was tuned to look for dust warmed by active star-forming regions. However, half of Lonsdale's two dozen galaxies didn't show up at all in ALMA's observations, and the other half were extremely dim, indicating that there was very little of the tell-tale dust present.

ALMA's results reveal to us that there is little-to-no starbursting going on in these young, active galaxies. The galaxy evolution model says this is thanks to their central black holes whose jets are starving them of star-forming gas, Lonsdale said. On its first run out of the gate, ALMA confirmed a critical phase in the timeline of galaxy evolution.

Once their star-forming gas has been blown away, merging galaxies will be unable to make new stars. As the last generation of massive and brilliant, but short-lived, blue stars dies out, the long-lived, lower mass, redder stars come to dominate the merger's star population, giving the gas-starved galaxy an overall reddish hue over time.

Berkeley Lab seeks to help US assert scientific leadership in critical materials

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A few short decades ago, few could have imagined that the world would be seriously concerned over something called dysprosium. Also known as number 66 on the periodic table, dysprosium was once just another element for chemistry students to memorize but is now one of the most sought-after and critically needed materials on the planet.

Belonging to a family of elements known as lanthanides-also called rare earths-dysprosium and other rare earths are used in almost every high-tech gadget and clean energy technology invented in the last 30 years, from smart phones to wind turbines to hybrid cars. Although the United States was self-sufficient in rare earths or obtained them on the free market until the early 2000s, the vast majority are now mined in China and the supply has been subject to fluctuations. The Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) aims to change the status quo by reviving the study of these critical materials to better understand how to extract them, use them more efficiently, reuse and recycle them and find substitutes for them.

In its 2011 Critical Material Strategy released last month, the DOE said that supply challenges for five rare earth metals (dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, europium and yttrium) may affect clean energy technology deployment in the years ahead. It also recommended enhanced training of scientists and engineers to address vulnerabilities and realize opportunities related to critical materials.

If we are going to achieve what we need to do in terms of managing climate change, we absolutely have to fix the materials problem-it's the linchpin for clean energy technologies, said Frances Houle, a Berkeley Lab scientist who is Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Chemical Sciences Division. Because Berkeley Lab is such a broad institution, many of the pieces required are already here. We have the chemistry, the earth science, the materials science, the theory. Not very many institutions can say that.

Like coal and gold, the rare earths are mined out of the ground. However, in any given ore, they are mixed together with other rare earths. So although they are not actually rare, they are difficult to mine. They're in low concentration, and it's very hard to mine them and separate them out, so it's challenging and extremely energy-intensive to produce rare earth materials ready for industrial manufacturers; it requires a lot of electricity, water and chemicals, said Berkeley Lab Senior Scientist David Shuh. This area of study has been ignored over the last two decades, largely due to insufficient research and development support.

Shuh is the lead investigator on a Berkeley Lab project that takes a multidisciplinary approach to the issues, reinvigorating the study of the fundamental chemistry and materials sciences while taking advantage of advances in nanoscience, earth sciences, genomics and energy analysis techniques to devise innovative solutions.

While the United States has some scientists working in the rare earth field, China has at least 100 times as many. The U.S. used to have the leadership in the chemistry and materials sciences of these materials, but now we are losing competitive advantages in these areas, Shuh said. We need to rev up rare earth science from top to bottom if we want to retain leadership in the use of these critical materials.

Batteries, photovoltaics and lighting are just a few of the industries that could be crippled without reliable access to materials such as cerium, neodymium and terbium. Dysprosium is used in high-performance magnets (for cars, wind turbines, disc drives and a myriad of other uses) essential for the implementation of many clean energy technologies. In addition to the rare earths, there are a number of other so-called energy critical elements in other parts of the periodic table, including lithium, helium, cobalt and rhenium, that are crucial to a clean energy economy and are currently found in a limited number of places.

The resources devoted to studying the rare earths have not changed much since around the time the color television was invented. But in the meantime, their price has skyrocketed, increasing by nearly a factor of 1,000 in some cases, and scientists and engineers continue to rely on decades old science to address the energy challenge today. Moreover, new ways to use rare earths are being developed all the time.

More advanced study of the chemical and materials properties of the energy critical elements would not only aid in mining, separating, processing, and using them in current applications more efficiently but would also allow scientists to better understand-and thus find-substitutes for them. Plus, it should accelerate technological breakthroughs. With better science, you'll have better discovery and better technology, Houle said. It's not feasible to go on a fishing expedition any more. You must have theory to guide the discovery effort.

The Chemical Sciences Division of Berkeley Lab is world renowned in the study of actinides, a close neighbor of the lanthanides (rare earths) and which bear some chemical similarities. One goal of Shuh's project is to improve understanding of their fundamental interactions by coupling theory to spectroscopic results, paving the way for the design of more efficient element-specific separations and development of new applications in fields such as lighting and biotechnology.

Complementing this approach, Berkeley Lab's Materials Science Division will focus on basic research into understanding the properties of materials to come up with new alternatives that mimic those properties. For example, certain wind turbines and motors rely on neodymium magnets. A better microscopic understanding may point toward new replacement materials containing elements that are more environmentally friendly or abundant, said Jeff Neaton, deputy director of the division. It may be that replacements draw on a combination of materials, a composite or assembly, or reduced dimensionality, as in nanostructures.

Neaton added that recent advances in nanoscience, which allows researchers to synthesize and control materials at the level of atoms and molecules and a few tens of nanometers, has potential to play a large role in the process. Also, new nanoscale characterization tools and theory could bring breakthroughs in understanding that will be important in guiding the search for replacement materials.

Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division has deep experience in the modeling of subsurface chemical processes and in geochemical analysis of mineral surface structure and pore chemistry, expertise that will be useful in studying new ways to recover rare earth elements. Another approach would take advantage of -omics methods (which includes genomics and proteomics) to identify microorganisms that could aid in releasing rare earths from minerals.

At the other end of the process but encompassing the overall use of rare earth materials, researchers Jim McMahon and Eric Masanet of Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division specialize in analyzing industrial processes and quantifying the environmental and energy implications. Their lifecycle analysis of critical materials will focus on how to reuse and recycle them in efficient and environmentally acceptable ways.

Currently, the rare earth elements in computers, smart phones and other electronic gadgets are often either thrown away or sent abroad to be recovered-typically using low-cost labor and environmentally hazardous means. Today's cell phones use 40 different elements; a Toyota Prius contains approximately 30 pounds of rare earth material.

The materials are not designed to be easily recovered from the product, so we would look at the entire process of how something is manufactured, such as car batteries, and see if the battery can be designed and manufactured in a way to get the same performance but so that not only do we not waste anything but also puts the metal in a form that we can get it back, said McMahon.

The analysis and modeling adds two other dimensions missing from many other lifecycle analyses: place and time. If you look at a plant in California versus Wyoming, there's different weather, different water availability, different pollutants, so it matters where you are, McMahon said. It also matters when you do it: things like photovoltaics are evolving, so five years from now, it will be different materials and different technologies.

Many factors ranging from political events to environmental trends to changes in markets for products influence the availability of resources for manufactured goods. A critical material today wasn't a critical material 20 or 30 years ago, Houle said. Who knows what the crisis is going to be in 30 years. The main goal should be to be more resilient to shortages. Having alternatives and good reuse and recycling programs is essential.

Tapping the body's own defenses, researchers look to cutting-edge gene therapy for bladder cancer

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) CLEVELAND -- Bladder cancer, most frequently caused by smoking and exposure to carcinogens in the workplace, is one of the top 10 most common forms of cancer in menand women in the U.S. More than 70 percent of bladder cancers are diagnosed in stage T1 or less and have not invaded the muscle layer. At these early stages, standard treatment is surgery (transurethral resection) and the burning away of tumors with high energy electricity (fulguration). Many patients also may receive subsequent intravesical chemotherapy because there is often a high-risk for cancer recurrence.

The prognosis for recurrent cancer is poor, which drives clinician-scientists like William Larchian, MD, Urologic Oncologist, University Hospitals Urology Institute at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, and Associate Professor of Surgery, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and his colleagues to develop an immunotherapy for bladder cancer that will stimulate the body's own natural defense mechanisms to cure the disease and prevent recurrence.

What is interesting is that our bodies are capable of identifying, responding to and killing tumor cells naturally, explained Dr. Larchian. We are developing a vaccination system to enhance this response and drive an effective immune response against existing and future bladder tumor cells in patients diagnosed with bladder cancer.

IL-2, a cytokine-signaling molecule, stimulates the T-cell immune response to cancer cells in the bladder. Dr. Larchian and his colleagues have developed a system that reliably introduces multiple copies of IL-2 DNA into bladder cancer cells.

This method allows for more gene copies to enter the cells, he said, and we are able to see higher rates of transfection compared to retroviral methods.

The enhanced IL-2 protein expression has been shown to successfully stimulate T-cell response and eliminate bladder tumors in a mouse model, particularly when followed by transfection with B7.1 gene. The addition of the B7.1 gene, which encodes an immuneco-stimulatory molecule, enhanced T-cell production logarithmically and produced a 70 percent cure rate. Rechallenge with new cancer cells was also prevented. Clinical translation of this research has been submitted for Institutional Review Board approval at UH Case Medical Center.

Other research by Dr. Larchian and his colleagues aims to leverage this work to develop a gene-therapy system that can be utilized to deliver other key defense genes.

Our future pursuits, he said, will include using this system with very specific biological response modifiers, including anti-angiogenesis factors, and with the tumor suppressor gene, MCP3. Dr. Larchian also is developing a targeted drug delivery system using nanoparticles for bladder cancer treatment.

The path less traveled: Research is driving solutions to improve unpaved roads

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University graduate student sees the unpaved road ahead, and it's filled with biomaterial.

Wilson Smith, master's student in civil engineering, Independence, Mo., is working with lignin, a plant-based sustainable material that can be added to improve the quality of unpaved roads throughout Kansas.

More than 70 percent of the 98,000 miles of roads in Kansas are unpaved, Smith said.

One of the problems with unpaved roads is that they are made from loose granular soils with particles that are not bound to each other on the road surface, Smith said. This limits the speed of vehicles and often generates a lot of dust, denigrating the quality of the road.

But possible solutions could come from lignin, a biomass product that is present in all plants, including wheat straw, sugar cane and corn stover. Lignin is a waste product from other industries, including the production of biofuel and paper. These industries take plant mass and use the process of hydrolysis to separate useful materials, including cellulose and hemicellulose, from lignin.

What we're trying to do is find new uses for this lignin co-product, which ties into sustainability, Smith said.

Several properties make lignin a valuable material. It is adhesive when it becomes moist, making it good for binding soil particles together and providing cohesion. As a result, lignin works very well on unpaved roads by providing better support for vehicles and protecting the road from erosion.

Because Kansas is an agricultural state, lignin is an abundant resource and has the potential to improve unpaved roads, leading to less maintenance costs throughout the state, Smith said.

Lignin can be extracted from many types of crop residue, and it can also be an extra source of income to farmers and the agricultural community if there is a demand for this crop residue, Smith said. Lignin is a sustainable product. It's 100 percent nontoxic, unlike traditional soil stabilizers such as flash or cement, which do have some heavy materials in them that could contaminate soil.

Smith is working under the direction of Dunja Peric, associate professor of civil engineering.

Kansas is strategically positioned for using lignin to stabilize unpaved roads, Peric said. Kansas is located in the midst of the Great Plains, which is one of the largest wheat producing areas in the world. In addition, the construction of the nation's first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant has recently begun in Hugoton.

For his research, Smith takes soil and mixes it with different amounts of water and lignin. He is testing five different lignin concentrations -- 2 percent, 4 percent, 6 percent, 9 percent and 14 percent -- to understand how different levels of lignin affect the soil cohesion and, consequently, road erosion.

Smith then lets the mixture dry in a controlled environment for different periods of time to understand how much it increases the strength of the samples. Other members of Peric's research team have been testing the strength of lignin samples immediately after they are mixed rather than allowing them to dry.

Once the materials are dry, Smith uses a direct shear device to determine the strength of the different mixtures. The direct shear device simulates the stress that unpaved roads experience when cars and heavy machinery drive on them.

When vehicles drive on unpaved roads, there is a lot of dust that is thrown into the air, Smith said. In addition, travel is impaired because of raveling and washboarding, which are forms of soil collapse on the top surface of the road. These are all things that can be mitigated by lignin because it holds the soil particles together and in place.

Based on early results, the materials with lignin concentrations of 4 percent, 6 percent and 9 percent show the highest strength benefits. Smith will spend the spring semester further testing all of the different concentrations and how their strength develops with the amount of elapsed time.

We want to get an exhaustive analysis of how the cohesion varies when you change the concentration of lignin, the water content and the compaction, Smith said. That will determine in the field, what percentage of lignin is the best concentration to stabilize the soil.

Smith will give a research presentation titled Feasibility of Using Lignin: Plant Derived Material for Stabilization of Unpaved Roads at the Capitol Graduate Research Summit in Topeka in February.

New book looks at 'Esalen and the Rise of Spiritual Privilege'

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) EUGENE, Ore. -- Fifty years ago the Esalen Institute near Big Sur, Calif., opened its doors to people seeking spiritual growth and personal transformation, attracting psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, futurists and movie stars. Today, Esalen marches on with workshops, personal retreats and professional massage classes, all designed to help its visitors find restoration and realize their full potential.

University of Oregon sociologist Marion S. Goldman, also a professor of religious studies, has taken a long look, as an outsider, at Esalen -- its roots and where it may be going -- and presents the institute's impacts on the American consciousness in a deeply researched, just-published book: The American Soul Rush: Esalen and the Rise of Spiritual Privilege (New York University Press).

During its glory days, from the early 1960s until the mid-1970s, famous figures like Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey, the LSD experts, Abraham Maslow, the father of humanistic psychology, and international celebrities like Cary Grant and Jane Fonda flocked to the institute, Goldman said. Few nationally known figures now gather in Big Sur, but Esalen's influence continues. When Oprah Winfrey and her guests discuss living their best lives, or when Morrie Stein talked about death in 'Tuesdays with Morrie,' they sustain Esalen's mission to deliver ah-ha experiences.

In her introduction, Goldman -- whose research focuses on new religious movements, including cults, and religious violence -- writes that Esalen has been called an esoteric think tank, a sacred retreat, a spa, a center for humanistic group psychology, a place for psychedelic trips, a massage school, or an intentional community. The Institute continues to be all of those things and more.

Through the rest of the book, Goldman documents how the institute has evolved -- adapting to societal changes and refocusing its approaches -- and how it has left lasting marks throughout American society, including university campuses, churches and synagogues, therapists' offices, health spas and other personal growth centers.

Although it no longer has a dramatic public presence, the institute continues to be important to the thriving shadow culture where individuals pursue alternative spirituality and emotional fulfillment, Goldman writes.

Esalen's historical significance, Goldman concluded, rests on the ways that it made the prerogatives of spiritual privilege widely known, meaningful, and accessible throughout the United States. Spiritual privilege is an individual's ability to devote time and resources to select, combine, and revise his or her personal religious beliefs and practices over the course of a lifetime.

The book, in fact, introduces a new theoretical construct: spiritual privilege, which, Goldman said, helps to explain the growth and spread of alternative spirituality in contemporary America.

Esalen transformed spiritual privilege into a human right, she said, building on four attributes: affinities for supernatural meanings, experiences and explanations; religious and cultural knowledge, participation in supportive social networks and economic resources. But, she added: Its leaders assumed, somewhat erroneously, that almost every American possessed enough of all four elements to select and benefit from the varied practices that emerged in Big Sur.

What's ahead for Esalen? Some key staff and EMBA [Esalen Massage and Bodywork Association] members have begun to retire and move away or at least cut down their working hours, Goldman writes. The next decade can usher in Esalen's new beginning or its slow demise depending on whether there is a well-considered plan for succession and internal governance.

It may be time, she added, for Esalen's leadership to revisit the institute's long-running history, much in the same ways that workshop participants often examine their lives, to find new truths to help reach their constituencies. Esalen also may need to celebrate the elders who have lived and worked there for decades and reach out to younger generations in search of personal transformation.

Readers of the book also will find a bonus. Goldman provides seven different exercises that allow them to experience some of the emotions that make alternative spirituality a rewarding experience.

Send in the supplies: RoboCopters in Marines' future

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) ARLINGTON, Va. -- Marines running low on ammo may one day use an app on their digital handhelds to summon a robotic helicopter to deliver supplies within minutes, enabled by technologies from a new Office of Naval Research (ONR) program.

The Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) is a five-year, $98 million effort to develop sensors and control technologies for robotic vertical take-off and landing aircraft.

AACUS is a leap-ahead technology that allows the Navy and the Marine Corps to move beyond having a highly trained operator fly an unmanned aircraft, said Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, chief of naval research. The program will let us leverage advanced autonomy, but still maintain the central and critical role of the human operator as the supervisor.

Marines based at outposts or in the field will be able to request the autonomous cargo helicopters for rapid resupply of combat essentials.

We want to turn any helicopter into a logistics machine, said Dr. Mary Missy Cummings, program officer for AACUS, ONR's newest innovative naval prototype. In the near term, we want to succeed in fully-autonomous landings in austere locations, so Marines can get whatever they need on demand.

In the long term, this could be a real life saver and revolutionize first response, she added. While rapid resupply is the immediate focus for AACUS, long-term applications could include critical medical missions such as casualty evacuation.

Program officials are seeking researchers who will develop threat- and obstacle-detection and avoidance systems, as well as autonomous landing capabilities that can operate across different types of aircraft. They expect teams from industry and academia to join forces to compete for the contracts.

Proposals are due Feb. 22. Officials plan to award up to two contracts in April.

The effort follows the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory's successful program to develop an unmanned system capable of hauling cargo semi-autonomously to landing zones at bases. The prototype, called K-MAX, flew its first combat mission in Afghanistan in mid-December, resupplying Marines with cargo carried in a sling-load.

AACUS, on the other hand, is aimed at internal load-carrying capacity. It will be a major leap ahead in autonomy, said Cummings. While K-MAX requires a trained operator within line-of-sight to fly, any operator will be able to call for AACUS from any location.

It's going to be designed to work with people who have no flight experience, she said. An operator will pick up his iPad or Android and make an emergency supply request. He'll request that the helicopter come to him and land as close to him as possible.

The helicopter not only will take off by itself, but will plan its own flight path and navigate its way through the airspace, requiring little to no input from an operator other than to verify its proposed landing site. The concept will require improvement in data processing.

NSF grant to Wayne State aims to develop new ways to calculate odds of structural failure

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Current approaches to calculating failure probability in complex engineering structures can be inefficient and result in inconsistency, but a Wayne State University researcher is working to change that.

Christopher Eamon, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, recently received a three-year, $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop an accurate and efficient method for calculating failure probability (reliability analysis) for computationally and probabilistically complex structural engineering problems, with the goal of achieving greater levels of consistency within a structure.

He believes his work will advance structural safety analysis for a variety of complex, high-fidelity problems such as crash, impact and blast analysis; metal forming; and complex structural system evaluation in various engineering disciplines.

Some current approaches, based on simulation, can yield accurate results for difficult problems, Eamon said. However, computational costs can be severe for highly complex problems, which often require many simulations to run an analysis and can be very time consuming, depending on the complexity level. One such approach, known as Monte Carlo simulation, might take over a million simulations or computations to accurately determine failure probability.

Even if a computation takes a minute, that adds up to a lot of time, he said.

For example, car crash models that project material deformation levels are very computationally intensive, he said, and can run for hours and hours, if not days. If uncertainty analysis is introduced as well, Eamon said, repeating the analysis many, many times is often unfeasible, even on a supercomputer.

Another approach involves beta-based methods, which yield approximate solutions for most problems and exact ones for a very small set of theoretical problems. The advantage to such methods is that they are extremely fast, Eamon said, but often give very poor results for complicated problems.

A beta-based, analytical approach might take about 100 computations for a moderately complex problem. Eamon's approach will involve somewhere near 1,000 computations, depending on the structure, but hopefully approach the accuracy of the Monte Carlo method.

What's needed, he said, is a method that can produce reasonably accurate solutions while still having feasible computational costs. That way, engineers can better assess the safety levels of structures in order to avoid inconsistencies.

If you don't get the safety factors right, you can get very inconsistent results in terms of safety level from one structure to the next because of different levels of uncertainty, different loads, components and so on, Eamon said. If you're expending limited resources, it makes no sense to have one structure 10 times as safe as another if they're the same level of importance. We're trying to get the level of safety to be more evenly distributed and more consistent.

A side benefit of Eamon's work is that in addition to increased efficiency, it could serve to increase the number of students who become involved in research as undergraduates. Because much of that work involves monitoring computer calculations, he said, it can be done by students who are relatively new to the research experience, inspiring their interest in continuing on to graduate education.

As computational power increases, Eamon said, researchers can come up with more and more sophisticated models.

We then need some way to evaluate the uncertainties with those models, Eamon said, and that's another layer of complexity. We're looking for a better-than-approximate solution.

The hope with this particular method I'm investigating is that we can actually solve these complex kinds of problems and get some feasible result.

Those results could have wide-ranging implications, he said. While most failure analysis tends to take place within the civil engineering realm, Eamon said, his work potentially could be applied to any electrical, mechanical, computing or medical problem where such analysis is needed.

There are lots of different possibilities, he said.

VLBA, RXTE team up to pinpoint black hole's outburst

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Astronomers have gained an important clue about a ubiquitous cosmic process by pinpointing the exact moment when gigantic bullets of fast-moving material were launched from the region surrounding a black hole. They made this breakthrough by using the ultra-sharp radio vision of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline (VLBA), along with NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite, to study an outburst from a system including a black hole and its companion star in 2009.

Black holes in such binary-star systems can pull material from their companions. That material forms a rapidly-rotating disk of material around the black hole, and jets of material are thrown outward perpendicular to the disk. Most of the time, the jets show a steady flow of material, but occasionally the steady jets disappear and superfast bullets of material are ejected at speeds approaching that of light. Such an outburst can produce as much energy in an hour as the Sun emits in five years.

Until now, we've never been able to determine the exact time when the superfast ejection occurred. With this new result, we can clearly see how the change in jet behavior is accompanied by dramatic changes in the X-ray emission coming from around the black hole, said Gregory Sivakoff, of the University of Alberta. Sivakoff presented the findings of a research team to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Austin, Texas.

The new clue will help scientists understand the physics of such exotic and complicated objects. Similar disk-jet engines are seen in a variety of objects throughout the Universe, from young stars to the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, and the energy pumped out by the jets can have a significant impact on their surrounding cosmic environments. However, the exact mechanisms behind these engines remain enigmatic.

The astronomers studied a black hole system called H1743-322, about 28,000 light-years from Earth. This system has had several outbursts since its discovery in 1977. They observed an outburst from May to August, 2009, gathering data with the VLBA, the Very Large , the Australia Telescope Compact , and RXTE. This collection of telescopes revealed changes in the system's X-ray and radio emission as the outburst progressed.

The extremely-detailed images with the VLBA showed a pair of the bullets separating from the object's core and moving outward along the jet path.

By measuring the motion of this ejected material, we were able to work backwards and calculate the exact time of its ejection. Our result has changed some previous assumptions about where in the sequence of such events the ejection occurs, said James Miller-Jones, of ICRAR -Curtin University in Australia. Pinpointing the ejection time was only possible by simultaneously using RXTE and the VLBA, added Miller-Jones, who was leader of the research team on H1743-322.

In addition to identifying the ejection time, the observation campaign was able to trace the entire cycle of changes in the system's X-ray emission and correlate them to changes in its radio emission. While this clue is important, the astronomers caution that outbursts from similar systems may vary significantly in their characteristics.

To really understand how these things work, we need to perform the same type of simultaneous radio and X-ray observations on many more stellar-mass black holes with transient jets, said Diego Altamirano of the University of Amsterdam.

Sivakoff, Miller-Jones, and Altamirano worked with a large collaboration of astronomers from around the world.

The VLBA, dedicated in 1993, uses ten, 25-meter-diameter dish antennas distributed from Hawaii to St. Croix in the Caribbean. It is operated from the NRAO's Domenici Science Operations Center in Socorro, NM. All ten antennas work together as a single telescope with the greatest resolving power available to astronomy. This unique capability has produced landmark contributions to numerous scientific fields, ranging from Earth tectonics, climate research, and spacecraft navigation to cosmology.

Ongoing upgrades in electronics and computing have enhanced the VLBA's capabilities. With improvements now nearing completion, the VLBA will be as much as 5,000 times more powerful as a scientific tool than the original VLBA of 1993.

OU researchers to test 'quad porosity simulation' model for shale gas reservoirs

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A University of Oklahoma interdisciplinary research team will field test a newly developed 'quad porosity model' for shale gas reservoirs in the next few months. The three-year, $1.5 million project was funded by the Research for Partnership to Secure Energy for America and a consortium of nine oil and gas producing companies.

The challenge for the team at the outset was to understand shale gas reservoirs in order to develop a predictive tool for better forecasting and economics, says Deepak Devegowda, professor and lead investigator in the Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering. Shale gas reservoirs are complex systems unlike conventional reservoirs.

Just a year into the project, the OU research team has made a number of discoveries, which has led to a greater understanding of gas and liquids transport in shale gas reservoirs and the development of the quad porosity model. A previous OU research effort led to the development of the quad porosity model by using scanning electron microscopy, which indicated that gas shales can be characterized by four porosity systems.

Notably, however, the key pore spaces influencing both storage and transport of fluids are the inorganic and organic pore space. The texture, fabric and constituents of gas-bearing shale formations containing various pore types in the nanometer sizes are intriguingly complicated, states Faruk Civan, OU professor and co-investigator on the project.

Developing a realistic simulator is an exciting challenge, he said. Our work focuses on understanding and testing the theoretical description of mechanisms of gas storage and fluid (gas/liquid) transfer in such an intricate system of inorganic and organic pores and natural and induced fractures. OU is pioneering permeability measurement, which incorporates all flow regimes, remarks Civan. We can also determine properties of shale rock.

The OU research team had to rethink the physics of fluid flow and storage, which are very different in these nanoporous inorganic and organic pores. Additional complexity arises due to adsorption of gas in the organics in a high-density layer adjacent to the pore walls. While current numerical reservoir simulators are sophisticated in terms of their gridding algorithms and computational efficiency, they are restricted to modeling viscous flow. Adapting these to model transport in nanoporous shale gas reservoirs, where up to four different flow regimes may be observed, is challenging.

The small pore size in shales has been shown to have considerable impact on gas and liquids transport. Pore proximity effects, which are negligible in conventional reservoirs, exert forces that lead to substantial enhancement in the ability of the rock to flow and modify the behavior of the molecules themselves.

Standard equations used to describe gas transport cannot be applied to the small pores in the organic material where a significant portion of the gas is stored. The OU research team has shown permeability enhancement effects of up to two orders of magnitude in very small pores and this, in part, explains how gas is produced from these extremely tight formations.

One of the key developments of the research team over the last year is predicting the phase behavior of gas condensates in nanopores. As development activity, spurred by low gas prices, is focusing on the liquids-rich regions of shale gas plays, a concern of immediate significance is how to model gas condensates in nanopores. In conventional reservoirs, at low pressures, a phenomenon called condensate dropout occurs, which restricts the available pore space for gas to flow, thereby impairing well performance.

The OU research team has been able to show that in very small organic and inorganic nanopores, the influence of pore walls on fluid behavior is such that gas condensates tend to behave as dry or wet gases leading to a considerable decrease in condensate dropout. This development further explains the prolific production of rich gas-condensate fluids from these extremely tight reservoirs while conventional knowledge tends to indicate higher well productivity impairment.

Not only do these nanopores favorably modify phase behavior and the permeability to gas, but the apparent viscosity and interfacial tension also change for the better under the influence of pore walls, causing Civan to remark, Nanopores are our friends and OU is the first to model this phenomenon.

One of the key advantages of their formulations to account for these diverse and complex phenomena in shale gas reservoirs is that they can easily be incorporated into commercial simulators. Ongoing research work is attempting to answer questions, such as the location and distribution of frac water following stimulation. The OU research team has already developed some flow models to answer these questions.

Future work will also include the effect of these mixed wettability systems where the organic material is predominantly gas wetting while the inorganics are water-wetting, thereby meriting new formulations for multiphase transport and relative permeability. For more project information and publications related to the development of the quad porosity simulation model for shale gas reservoirs, visit

Johns Hopkins Medicine announces collaboration with Healthways

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Building on the success of recent Hopkins research showing obese participants were able to lose significant weight and keep it off for two years using telephone coaching and a specially designed website, Johns Hopkins Medicine is collaborating with Healthways to help bring the innovative weight-loss program to many more who could benefit from it.

Hopkins and Healthways, a global health and well-being improvement company, have developed Innergy TM, a commercially available version of the call center-directed weight-loss program pioneered and studied by Lawrence J. Appel, M.D., a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The results of the study were published in November in the New England Journal of Medicine. Under the agreement between Hopkins and Healthways, Hopkins will advise Healthways on the design and implementation of Innergy, continuously evaluate the program, and oversee future enhancements. Several Hopkins faculty members will also serve on Innergy's scientific advisory board.

Healthways will be responsible for the sale and delivery of Innergy to physicians and health systems, employers, health plans and governments. Healthways is a provider of specialized programs to help people maintain or improve their health and well-being and, as a result, reduce overall health care costs.

This collaboration with Healthways reflects our commitment to providing health solutions to the marketplace that are solidly based on the best science, says Patricia M.C. Brown, president of Johns Hopkins HealthCare, the managed care and population health arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine. Through our participation, we will be advancing the objectives of Johns Hopkins Medicine to foster intellectual discovery, develop innovative care delivery models and improve human health.

Obesity is an important and growing public health problem in the United States, where one in three adults is obese and thus at increased risk of mortality, especially from cardiovascular disease. Obesity by some estimates costs the United States more than $250 billion a year in health care and lost productivity costs, and is rising by $50 billion per year.

In the POWER (Practice-Based Opportunities for Weight Reduction) trial, Appel and his colleagues found that roughly 40 percent of obese patients enrolled in the telephone-based weight-loss program lost at least five percent of their body weight, an amount associated with real health benefits, such as lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol and better diabetes control. Participants received weekly phone calls from health coaches for three months and then monthly thereafter. They were also encouraged to regularly sign in to an interactive website with tools to track weight and provide regular feedback by email. Another arm of the trial used in-person instead of telephone coaching, with similar results.

As part of the POWER trial, Healthways developed the data collection and intervention websites, provided the lifestyle coaches who delivered the intervention over the phone, and provided unrestricted funds in support of the trial.

In most weight-loss studies, there is a lot of emphasis on frequent, in-person counseling sessions, but from a logistical perspective, in-person interventions are challenging for both patients and counselors, Appel says. Patients start off strong but then stop attending in-person sessions. The telephonic coaching and web-based program, on the other hand, is convenient to individuals and can be done anywhere. Obesity is a major national public health problem, and Hopkins' expertise in this program can hopefully have a tremendous positive impact on this growing problem.

Frederick L. Brancati, M.D., M.H.S., a professor of medicine and chief of the division of general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says that the findings of the POWER trial are exciting because they were able to show a practical way to keep the weight off for a long period of time.

Most other studies show maximal effect at six months but few demonstrate maintenance over one year, let alone two years as in POWER, says Brancati, who was involved in the trial. Our objective now is to share this proven tool with thousands more who struggle with their weight. Historically, the translation of population health science to practice can take many years to accomplish. With this collaboration, we will quickly be able to make this intervention available to large numbers of people who can benefit.

Commenting on the collaboration and its objective, Ben Leedle, president and CEO of the Tennessee-based Healthways, says: We believe that Innergy now offers a proven solution to the obesity challenge, particularly given the recent decision of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to provide reimbursement for physician-directed weight-management counseling services. We are pleased to be able to offer this scientifically validated program to so many more people who can benefit from it.

A 'friend' request from al-Qaida

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Hackers invading databases is just the tip of the iceberg in online terrorist activity: International terrorist organizations have shifted their Internet activity focus to social networks and today a number of Facebook groups are asking users to join and support Hezbollah, Hamas and other armed groups that have been included in the West's list of declared terror organizations. This has been shown in a new study conducted by Prof. Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa.

Today, about 90% of organized terrorism on the Internet is being carried out through the social media. By using these tools, the organizations are able to be active in recruiting new friends without geographical limitations, says Prof. Weimann.

Over the past ten years, Prof. Weimann has been conducting a study of encoded and public Internet sites of international terror organizations, groups supporting these organizations, forums, video clips, and whatever information relating to global terrorism is running through the network.

According to Prof. Weimann, the shift to social media, and especially Facebook and Twitter, has not bypassed the terrorist organizations, who are keenly interested in recruiting new support in the new media's various arenas - Facebook, chat rooms, YouTube, Myspace, and more. The social media is enabling the terror organizations to take initiatives by making 'Friend' requests, uploading video clips, and the like, and they no longer have to make do with the passive tools available on regular websites, he notes.

Facebook's popularity is being utilized by the terror organizations and besides recruiting new friends, they use this platform as a resource for gathering intelligence. A statement originating from Lebanon has reported that Hezbollah is searching for material on the Israeli army's Facebook activity, while many countries such as the USA, Canada and the UK have instructed their soldiers to remove personal information from this network as a precaution in case Al Qaeda is monitoring it. Facebook has become a great place to obtain intelligence. Many users don't even bother finding out who they are confirming as 'Friend' and to whom they are providing access to a large amount of information on their personal life. The terrorists themselves, in parallel, are able to create false profiles that enable them to get into highly visible groups, he says.

For terror organizations, the social media is also providing a platform to maximize sharing 'professional' information. The following correspondence, for example, could easily be found on the open, non-coded forum belonging to Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades: I have a kilogram of acetone. I want to know how to make an explosive with it to blow up a military jeep. A forum member promptly responded with descriptive instructions on how to turn the explosive liquid into a destructive tool.

The most advanced of Western communication technology is, paradoxically, what the terror organizations are now using to fight the West, Weimann concluded.

Personalized gene therapies may increase survival in brain cancer patients

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Personalized prognostic tools and gene-based therapies may improve the survival and quality of life of patients suffering from glioblastoma, an aggressive and deadly form of brain cancer, reports a new University of Illinois study funded by the NIH National Cancer Institute.

We confirmed known biomarkers of glioblastoma survival and discovered new general and clinical-dependent gene profiles, said Nicola Serao, a U of I Ph.D. candidate in animal sciences with a focus in statistical genomics. We were able to compare biomarkers across three glioblastoma phases that helped us gain insight into the roles of genes associated with cancer survival.

Glioblastoma is a complex, multifactorial disease that has swift and devastating consequences, Serao said. Although some genes have been associated with the presence of glioblastoma, few have been identified as prognostic biomarkers of glioblastoma survival and fewer have been confirmed in independent reports.

You can't just find one gene that is related to this cancer and fix it, he said. This is one of the aspects of our research that makes it unique. We were able to look at several genes at the same time and relate our findings to this cancer.

Using genomic information from more than 22,000 genes, Serao took this huge piece of information and began slicing away at it, one gene at a time, until he ended up with a group of genes related to brain cancer.

He studied different survival variables, including length of survival from birth to death, from diagnosis to death, and from diagnosis to progression of the cancer.

We studied different variables, but they were complementary, and allowed us to learn more about those genes, he said. We understand that some genes have much more impact in cancer than others. And we also discovered that some genes only appeared in one variable, so they were specific for a given phase of cancer.

This study not only evaluated genes influencing survival, but also took into consideration clinical factors such as age, race and gender.

Our research suggests you can't treat all patients the same, Serao said. For example, we found gene expression patterns that have different, and sometimes opposite, relationships with survival in males and females and concluded that treatments affecting these genes will not be equally effective. Personalized therapy dependent on gender, race and age is something that is possible today with our advanced genomic tools.

Recognizing that genes seldom act alone, this team of researchers took several genes into consideration at the same time and uncovered networks of genes related to glioblastoma survival.

Sandra Rodriguez Zas, co-researcher and U of I professor of animal science and bioinformatics, said they looked at commonalities between the genes linked to glioblastoma survival and progression, too.

If a large number of genes linked to survival belong to a particular pathway, this pathway is considered enriched, Rodriguez Zas said. Depending on whether the pathway and genes have tumor suppressor or oncogenic characteristics, we should be able to use that information to support or attack that pathway with targeted therapies.

Gaining a deeper understanding of the biological meaning, or roles, for these genes will provide researchers with even more ammunition to fight this deadly form of brain cancer.

Because of the innovative approach we used, we believe we can more confidently predict whether a patient will have a shorter or longer survival rate and select the most adequate therapies, she said.

This study, Cell cycle and aging, morphogenesis, and response to stimuli genes are individualized biomarkers of glioblastoma progression and survival, was published in

KalVista and JDRF form research partnership for novel treatment of diabetic eye disease

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Southampton, UK and New York, USA 09 January 2012 - KalVista Pharmaceuticals (KalVista) and JDRF have formed a research partnership focused on a novel approach being developed by KalVista to preserve vision and slow the progression of diabetic eye disease. Diabetic eye disease is one of the most common and most serious complications in people with type 1 diabetes (T1D). JDRF will provide up to $2.2 million in milestone-based financial support and research expertise to KalVista. The goal of this partnership is to advance KalVista's lead pre-clinical candidate, a plasma kallikrein inhibitor, into human proof-of-concept clinical trials and to generate clinical data that would highlight its potential as an entirely new approach to treat diabetic macular edema (DME). DME is a leading cause of visual loss for people with T1D that involves swelling of the retina, which can lead to blurred vision and blindness.

Plasma kallikrein is an enzyme (a serine protease) that has been identified as a potential therapeutic target in people with diabetic retinopathy. Research has shown that it contributes to increases in blood vessel leakage and thickening of the retina. Previous JDRF-funded studies led by one of KalVista's co-founders, Edward Feener, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Joslin Diabetes Center, demonstrated that plasma kallikrein is increased and activated in the vitreous fluid of people with DME . This data suggests that chronic activation of plasma kallikrein increases blood vessel inflammation and permeability by generating the production of a hormone called bradykinin, which causes blood vessels to dilate or enlarge. Plasma kallikrein inhibitors are believed to reduce retinal vessel leakage by suppressing the chronic and excessive production of bradykinin.

Diabetic eye disease is a high priority research area for JDRF. Our support of Dr. Feener's academic research over the years at the Joslin Diabetes Center on validating plasma kallikrein as a potential therapeutic target for diabetic macular edema underscores JDRF's commitment to developing innovative approaches to prevent and treat this condition to save vision before it deteriorates, said Aaron Kowalski, Ph.D., assistant vice president of Treatment Therapies for JDRF.

KalVista's candidate will be selected from a series of novel small molecule plasma kallikrein inhibitors, which are advancing through pre-clinical development for the treatment of DME by delivery via intravitreal (IVT) injection into the eye. The pre-clinical studies being co-funded by JDRF will test whether administration of plasma kallikrein inhibitors by injection are likely to be safe and effective in improving symptoms of DME as well as in preserving visual acuity and slowing disease progression.

JDRF is the leading global organization focused on research into diabetes and its complications and we are delighted it has recognized the potential of our novel approach to treating diabetic macular edema based on plasma kallikrein inhibitors, said Andrew Crockett, KalVista's CEO. This is an exciting collaboration and we look forward to the added expertise they will contribute to the development of our lead programme.

JDRF's goal is to have the greatest and fastest positive impact on individuals with type 1 diabetes, which is why we are working to accelerate the translation of novel discoveries in the lab, through clinical evaluation of safety and efficacy, and into commercial development, added Kowalski. What makes our collaboration with KalVista so exciting is that we are gradually seeing this novel therapy, which could represent a whole new approach to treating DME, move from basic research discovery into a potential commercially viable drug with the help of JDRF funding.

Estrogen-targeting drug combo may help prevent lung cancer

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) SAN DIEGO -- A combination of drugs that target estrogen production significantly reduced the number of tobacco carcinogen-induced lung tumors in mice, according to results from a preclinical study.

Antiestrogens have been shown to prevent breast cancer in some women, said Jill M. Siegfried, Ph.D., professor in the department of pharmacology and chemical biology at University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. If antiestrogens can prevent lung cancer as well, this would be a major advance, because these drugs are safe to give for long periods and there are no approved ways to prevent lung cancer.

Siegfried presented the results at the AACR-IASLC Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer: Biology, Therapy and Personalized Medicine, held Jan. 8-11, 2012.

Most lung cancers are positive for a type of estrogen receptor that makes lung tumors grow when exposed to estrogen. In addition, an enzyme in the lung called aromatase produces estrogen. Siegfried and colleagues hoped that by blocking this estrogen receptor and the aromatase enzyme, they might be able to prevent estrogen-sensitive lung tumors.

To test this theory, they conducted a study on two groups of female mice: one group that was currently being exposed to a tobacco carcinogen and one that had past exposure to a tobacco carcinogen and in which some precancerous cells had already formed. The mice were assigned to treatment with a placebo, the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole, the antiestrogen fulvestrant or a combination of anastrozole and fulvestrant.

The first model asks whether the treatments inhibit the process by which cancer is first started before it is even detectable under the microscope, and the second asks whether the treatments inhibit the process by which microscopic precancers develop into visible tumors, Siegfried said.

In the first model, the combination treatment given during carcinogen exposure resulted in significantly fewer lung cancer tumors compared with placebo or either treatment alone. The tobacco carcinogen was stopped once treatment began to maximize its ability to halt lung cancer development. Combination treatment also resulted in maximum antitumor effects in the second model, where precancerous cells were already present.

According to Siegfried, these results suggest that antiestrogen treatment combined with an aromatase inhibitor prevents lung cancer development during tobacco carcinogen exposure and after carcinogen damage to the airways has already occurred.

Siegfried said that ultimately, the hope is that this research could lead to an approved treatment that could greatly reduce the risk for an ex-smoker to develop lung cancer.

We may be able to prevent lung cancer in people who have been previously exposed to tobacco carcinogens using some of the same antiestrogen drugs that can prevent breast cancer, Siegfried said. A lot of work needs to be done to determine who would benefit from this therapy, and these drugs would need to be tested in clinical trials in those at high risk for lung cancer.

Chemical measurements confirm official estimate of Gulf oil spill rate

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) By combining detailed chemical measurements in the deep ocean, in the oil slick, and in the air, NOAA scientists and academic colleagues have independently estimated how fast gases and oil were leaking during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The new chemistry-based spill rate estimate, an average of 11,130 tons of gas and oil compounds per day, is close to the official average leak rate estimate of about 11,350 tons of gas and oil per day (equal to about 59,200 barrels of liquid oil per day).

This study uses the available chemical data to give a better understanding of what went where, and why, said Thomas Ryerson, Ph.D., a NOAA research chemist and lead author of the study. The surface and subsurface measurements and analysis provided by our university colleagues were key to this unprecedented approach to understanding an oil spill.

The NOAA-led team did not rely on any of the data used in the original estimates, such as video flow analysis, pipe diameter and fluid flow calculations. We analyzed a completely separate set of chemical measurements, which independently led us to a very similar leak estimate, Ryerson said.

The new study, Chemical data quantify Deepwater Horizon hydrocarbon flow rate and environmental distribution, was published online today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

The new analysis follows on another NOAA-led study published last year, in which Ryerson and colleagues estimated a lower limit to the Deepwater Horizon leak rate based on two days of airborne data collected during the spill and the chemical makeup of the reservoir gas and oil determined before the spill. The new analysis adds in many other sources of data, including subsurface and surface samples taken during six weeks of the spill and including a direct measure of the makeup of the gas and oil actually leaking into the Gulf.

Ryerson and his colleagues found that the leaking gas and oil quickly separated into three major pools: the underwater plume of droplets about 3,300-4,300 feet below the surface, the visible surface slick, and an airborne plume of evaporating chemicals. Each pool had a very different chemical composition.

The underwater plume was enhanced in gases known to dissolve readily in water, the team found. This included essentially all of the lightweight methane (natural gas) and benzene (a known carcinogen) present in the spilling reservoir fluid. The surface oil slick was dominated by the heaviest and stickiest components, which neither dissolved in seawater nor evaporated into the air. And the airborne plume of chemicals contained a wide mixture of intermediate-weight components of the spilled gas and oil.

The visible surface slick represented about 15 percent of the total leaked gas and oil; the airborne plume accounted for about another 7 percent. About 36 percent remained in a deep underwater plume, and 17 percent was recovered directly to the surface through a marine riser. The location of the balance, about 25 percent of the total, is not directly accounted for by the chemical data.

This information about the transport and fate of different components of the spilled gas and oil mixture could help resource managers and others trying to understand environmental exposure levels.

The chemical measurements made from mid-May through June showed that the composition of the atmospheric plume changed very little, suggesting little change in the makeup of the leaking gas and oil.

The team of researchers also used the detailed chemical measurements to calculate how much gas and oil, in total, was spilling from the breached reservoir deep underwater.

The new chemistry-based estimate of 11,130 tons per day has an estimated range of 8,900 to 13,300 tons per day. By comparison, the official estimated range was 10,000 to 12,700 tons per day.

Abiraterone has been approved for men with metastatic prostate cancer that is no longer responsive to therapy with hormones and docetaxel

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:23:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Abiraterone (trade name: Zytiga®) has been approved since September 2011 for men with metastatic prostate cancer that is no longer responsive to hormone therapy and progresses further during or after therapy with the cytostatic drug docetaxel. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the "Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products" (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether abiraterone offers an added benefit compared with the present standard therapy.

IQWiG finds an indication of a considerable added benefit of abiraterone in patients who are not eligible for further treatment with docetaxel. In contrast, an added benefit is not proven in patients who can still be treated with docetaxel, as the dossier submitted by the drug manufacturer provides inadequate information for this group of patients.

Separate assessment for two groups of patients

In accordance with the specifications of the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), IQWiG separately assessed abiraterone in two groups of patients. The G-BA has specified different appropriate comparator therapies for the two groups.

The "best supportive care population" contains patients who are not eligible for further treatment with docetaxel. The appropriate comparator therapy for this group is palliative treatment with dexamethasone, prednisone, prednisolone or methylprednisolone, as well as "best supportive care".

"Best supportive care" means the therapy that provides the patient with the best possible individually optimized supportive treatment to alleviate symptoms (e.g. adequate pain therapy) and improve quality of life.

The "docetaxel-retherapy population" comprises patients who are still eligible for further treatment with docetaxel. The appropriate comparator therapy for this patient population is docetaxel in combination with prednisone or prednisolone.

Indication of increase in survival and delay in consequences of disease

One study (COU-AA-301), which considers patient-relevant outcomes and provides relevant data, was included in the assessment of added benefit in the "best supportive care population". This study compared treatment with abiraterone versus placebo, in each case combined with prednisone and "best supportive care".

IQWiG finds an indication of an added benefit in patients treated with abiraterone: the above study provides indications that abiraterone can prolong survival and delay consequences of prostate cancer, such as fractures or operations due to bone metastases. In addition, the "time to pain progression" was prolonged in study participants receiving abiraterone.

IQWiG classifies the extent of this added benefit as "considerable". The corresponding legal ordinance has specified three grades to determine the extent of added benefit: "minor", "considerable" and "major".

The study data presented on health-related quality of life assessments cannot be used; an added benefit of abiraterone is therefore not proven for this outcome.

The indications of advantages for abiraterone are not accompanied by proof of greater harm.

Added benefit in the docetaxel-retherapy population not proven

The manufacturer presented inadequate data for the "docetaxel-retherapy population". The required search in trial registries was missing in the dossier. Moreover, studies presented by the manufacturer, such as indirect comparisons and one-arm studies, cannot be used due to deficits in methods and content. An added benefit in this patient group is therefore not proven.

G-BA decides on the extent of added benefit

The procedure for inferring the overall conclusion on the extent of added benefit is a proposal from IQWiG. The G-BA, which has opened a formal commenting procedure, decides on the extent of added benefit.

New strategies for treatment of disease of protein unfolding

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:11:09 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Two related studies from Northwestern University offer new strategies for tackling the challenges of preventing and treating diseases of protein folding, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cancer, cystic fibrosis and type 2 diabetes.

To do its job properly within the cell, a protein first must fold itself into the proper shape. If it doesn't, trouble can result. More than 300 diseases have at their root proteins that misfold, aggregate and eventually cause cellular dysfunction and death.

The new Northwestern research identifies new genes and pathways that prevent protein misfolding and toxic aggregation, keeping cells healthy, and also identifies small molecules with therapeutic potential that restore health to damaged cells, providing new targets for drug development.

The genetic screening study is published by the journal PLoS Genetics. The small molecule study is published by the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

"These discoveries are exciting because we have identified genes that keep us healthy and small molecules that keep us healthy," said Richard I. Morimoto, who led the research. "Future research should explain how these two important areas interact."

Morimoto is the Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biology in the department of molecular biosciences and the Rice Institute for Biomedical Research in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He also is a scientific director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium.

The genetic study reported in PLoS Genetics was conducted in the transparent roundworm C. elegans, which shares much of the same biology with humans. The small animal is a valued research tool because of this and also because its genome, or complete genetic sequence, is known.

In the work, Morimoto and his team tested all of the approximately 19,000 genes in C. elegans. They reduced expression of each gene one at a time and looked to see if the gene suppressed protein aggregation in the cell. Did the gene increase aggregation or lessen it or have no effect at all?

The researchers found 150 genes that did have an effect. They then conducted a series of tests and zeroed in on nine genes that made all proteins in the cell healthier. (These genes had a positive effect on a number of different proteins associated with different diseases.)

These nine genes define a core homeostastis network that protects the animal's proteome (the entire set of proteins expressed by the organism) from protein damage. "These are the most important genes," Morimoto said. "Figuring out how nine genes -- as opposed to 150 -- work is a manageable task."

In the Nature Chemical Biology study, Morimoto and his colleagues screened nearly one million small molecules in human tissue culture cells to identify those that restore the cell's ability to protect itself from protein damage.

They identified seven classes of compounds (based on chemical structure) that all enhance the cell's ability to make more protective molecular chaperones, which restore proper protein folding. The researchers call these compounds proteostasis regulators. They found that the compounds restored the health of the cell and resulted in reduction of protein aggregation and protection against misfolding. Consequently, health was restored when diseased animals were treated with the small molecules.

Morimoto and his team then conducted detailed molecular analyses of 30 promising small molecules, representing all seven classes. They discovered some compounds were much more effective than others.

"We don't yet know the detailed mechanisms of these small molecules, but we have identified some good drug targets for further development," Morimoto said.

2011 Digging Into Data Challenge winners announced

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Eight international research funders from four countries today jointly announced the 14 winners of the second Digging Into Data Challenge, a competition to promote innovative humanities and social science research using large-scale data analysis.

Winning teams representing Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States will receive a total of about about $4.8 million in grants to investigate how data processing, analysis and transmission techniques can be applied to big data to change the nature of humanities and social sciences research.

Each team represents collaborations among scholars, scientists and librarians from leading universities worldwide.

Four international funders sponsored the first round of the Digging Into Data Challenge in 2009. That round led to breakthrough projects that received coverage in the New York Times, Nature, the Globe and Mail and Times Higher Education.

We're excited to continue our involvement in the Digging Into Data Challenge as it has proven an excellent opportunity to leverage our resources through partnering with a number of other agencies, both in the U.S. and abroad, said Elizabeth Tran, an associate program officer for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va., one of three federal agencies supporting the challenge.

Digging Into Data has helped reduce some of the barriers to international research by making collaboration among the scholars as seamless as possible through a single review process and joint-decision making, she said.

First round projects included digging into a body of 53,000 18th-century letters to analyze the degree to which the effects of the Enlightenment could be observed in the letters of people with various occupations; creating tools to enable rapid and flexible access and linguistic analysis of more than 9,000 hours of spoken audio files from leading British and American spoken word corpora; and integrating a vast collection of textual, geographical and numerical data to allow the visual presentation of American railroads and their impact on society over time, among others.

Projects in the current round cover a wide variety of topics, for example: using information retrieval techniques to investigate changes in Western music; using high resolution medical imaging scanning to study Egyptian mummies; using data-mining technology to shed light on the impact of economic opportunity and spatial mobility on social structure; and using natural language processing to analyze large bodies of textual materials to study human rights abuses.

Trading spaces: Biosecurity Research Institute to house Plum Island's pathogen studies

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Consider it a changing of the guard.

New York's aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center -- a major biosafety level 3 animal disease research facility -- is preparing to be phased out by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, NBAF, currently being built in Manhattan, Kan.

While NBAF is not projected to be fully operational until 2018, the pathogen work at Plum Island will not stop. Instead much of it will transition to Kansas State University's Biosecurity Research Institute at Pat Robert's Hall before eventually transitioning to NBAF.

Stephen Higgs, research director at the Biosecurity Research Institute, or BRI, and the associate vice president for research at the Kansas State University, spent two weeks at Plum Island in September 2011, in part to discuss the Plum Island-BRI transition process.

Essentially the BRI is going to be a springboard to get NBAF research going as soon as possible after it opens, Higgs said. As Plum Island ramps down, we are making sure that there is not a drop-off in research and training on these pathogens. That's important because we cannot afford to have a period where there's not work being done on these diseases should one of them happen to come to America.

Although no definitive date has been set for when projects will begin transferring to the Biosecurity Research Institute, Higgs said that university and Manhattan-based U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers are already working on some research projects related to the current disease studies at Plum Island, and are procuring the necessary approvals in order to soon begin on others -- including African swine fever and high-path avian influenza.

Additionally, an insectary was recently completed at the Biosecurity Research Institute that will help its scientists work on insect-spread diseases like Rift Valley fever and blue tongue viruses. The insectary is something Plum Island is not equipped with, but may be a part of the research at NBAF.

While visiting Plum Island, Higgs also met with researchers about transboundary animal diseases, those occurring in multiple counties and capable of being carried to new ones. Higgs taught classes on Rift Valley fever virus and on mosquito-virus interactions, and gave talks on the Biosecurity Research Institute and NBAF.

Moving these projects from Plum Island to the BRI really opens up new possibilities for infectious disease research at K-State that hasn't been possible in the past, Higgs said. These are high priority pathogens of major concern because they are a threat to our agricultural system. I really see this as being a whole new era at Kansas State University.

School pupils learn about practical philosophy

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Children could learn valuable lessons in responsible citizenship, such as making moral judgements and informed choices, through taking part in philosophical dialogue, according to researchers at the University of Strathclyde.

A study of more than 130 primary and secondary pupils found that taking part in practical philosophy sessions improved the children's listening skills, gave them greater respect for other people, encouraged them to consider other perspectives and ideas they may not otherwise have thought about and helped them analyse problems so that they are thought through before making decisions.

The sessions, following an approach known as Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI), involved pupils being given a stimulus such as a picture, a piece of writing or a piece of music and being asked to come up with questions prompted by it. A question was chosen and a structured dialogue followed, facilitated by a teacher trained in CoPI.

Dr Claire Cassidy, a Lecturer in Education at Strathclyde, led the research. She said: Doing practical philosophy in this way provides children with tools to enable them to participate as active citizens.

Teachers in Scotland are being encouraged, through Curriculum for Excellence, to foster responsible citizenship in pupils, although discussions are continuing on what citizenship actually means. We wanted to assess how effective the Community of Philosophical Inquiry approach can be in supporting children towards achieving the aims of the curriculum. While doing philosophy doesn't necessarily guarantee citizenship, it goes some way towards providing the necessary tools that a citizen requires.

When pupils taking part in the study were asked what they thought citizenship meant, they emphasised that it related to representing the views of others, being environmentally aware, being law-abiding and sitting on committees, as well as having good manners and being respectful to others and their views.

They found they were able to debate and discuss reasoned argument without conflict and often continued their discussions after their sessions had finished. They felt CoPI got them thinking deeply- as one pupil put it, thinking like they had never thought before.

The study involved more than 130 primary and secondary pupils around Scotland being presented with a series of scenarios in which people faced moral choices, including what to do with money they have found and choosing which charity to give funds they have raised.

They were asked what course of action the people might take, what they would have done themselves and their reasons for their decisions.

After taking part in a series of CoPI sessions over eight to 10 weeks, the pupils were presented with similar scenarios. Their answers this time tended to be considerably more detailed and offered far more justification for their responses.

American Mathematical Society to award prizes

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Providence, RI---On January 5, 2012, the American Mathematical Societywill award several major prizes at the Joint Mathematics Meetings inBoston. The AMS prizes are among the world's most important honorsgiven for outstanding contributions to mathematics.

Included are two prizes that are given jointly with two othermathematics organizations, the Mathematical Association of America(MAA) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM),as well as one award given by the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics(JPBM).

AMS Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement: IVO M. BABUSKA, Universityof Texas at Austin, for his many pioneering advances in the numericalsolution of partial differential equations over the last half century.

AMS Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition: MICHAEL ASCHBACHER,California Institute of Technology; RICHARD LYONS, Rutgers University;STEPHEN SMITH, University of Illinois at Chicago; and RONALD SOLOMON,Ohio State University: for their paper The Classification of FiniteSimple Groups: Groups of Characteristic 2 Type (Mathematical Surveysand Monographs, 172, American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI,2011), which offers to the general mathematical public an articulateand readable exposition of one aspect of the classification of finitesimple groups.

AMS Steele Prize for a Seminal Contribution to Research: WILLIAMP. THURSTON, Cornell University, for his work in low dimensionaltopology, particularly his series of highly original papers thatstarted with Hyperbolic structures on 3-manifolds. I. Deformation ofacylindrical manifolds (ANNALS OF MATHEMATICS (2) 124 (1986), no. 2,203-246).

AMS-SIAM George David Birkhoff Prize in Applied Mathematics: BJORNENGQUIST, University of Texas at Austin: for his contributions to awide range of powerful computational methods over more than threedecades.

AMS Cole Prize in Algebra: ALEXANDER MERKURJEV, University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles: for his work on the essential dimension ofgroups, particularly the following 3 papers: Canonical p-dimension ofalgebraic groups (with N. Karpenko), ADVANCES IN MATHEMATICS 205(2006), no. 2, 410-433; Essential dimension of finite p-groups (withN. Karpenko), INVENTIONES MATHEMATICAE 172 (2008), no. 3, 491-508);Essential p-dimension of PGL(p^2) JOURNAL OF THE AMERICANMATHEMATICAL SOCIETY 23 (2010), no. 3, 693-712.

AMS Conant Prize: PERSI DIACONIS, Stanford University, for his articleThe Markov chain Monte Carlo revolution (BULLETIN OF THE AMS 46(2009), no. 2, 179-205).

AMS Whiteman Prize: JOSEPH W. DAUBEN, City University of New York: forhis contributions to the history of Western and Chinese mathematics,and for deepening and broadening the international mathematicalcommunity's awareness and understanding of its history and culture.

AMS Award for Distinguished Public Service: WILLIAM MCCALLUM,University of Arizona: for his extraordinary energy in promotingimprovement of mathematics education in the national and internationalarenas, and in particular for founding the Institute for Mathematicsand Education at the University of Arizona.

AMS-MAA-SIAM Morgan Prize: JOHN PARDON, a senior mathematics major atPrinceton University: for solving a problem on distortion of knotsposed in 1983 by Mikhail Gromov.

JPBM Communications Award: DANA MACKENZIE, freelance writer andeditor: for a remarkably broad and deep body of writing for expertsand nonexperts alike, focusing largely on mathematics itself, but alsotouching geology, climate change, astronomy, academic mathematics as aprofession, and even the game of chess.

Cognitive decline can begin as early as age 45, warn experts

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The brain's capacity for memory, reasoning and comprehension skills (cognitive function) can start to deteriorate from age 45, finds research published on bmj.com today.

Previous research suggests that cognitive decline does not begin before the age of 60, but this view is not universally accepted.

Researchers, led by Archana Singh-Manoux from the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health in France and University College London in the UK, argue that understanding cognitive ageing will be one of the challenges of this century, especially as life expectancy continues to rise.

They add that it is important to investigate the age at which cognitive decline begins because medical interventions are more likely to work when individuals first start to experience mental impairment.

Therefore the authors observed 5,198 men and 2,192 women over a 10-year period from 1997. They were all civil servants aged between 45 and 70 and were part of the Whitehall II cohort study established in 1985.

Participants' cognitive functions were assessed three times over the study period. Individuals were tested for memory, vocabulary and aural and visual comprehension skills. The latter include recalling in writing as many words beginning with S (phonemic fluency) and as many animal names (semantic fluency) as possible.

Differences in education level were taken into account.

The results show that cognitive scores declined in all categories (memory, reasoning, phonemic and semantic fluency) except vocabulary and there was faster decline in older people.

The findings also reveal that over the 10-year study period there was a 3.6% decline in mental reasoning in men aged 45-49 and a 9.6% decline in those aged 65-70. The corresponding figures for women were 3.6% and 7.4%.

The authors argue that robust evidence showing cognitive decline before the age of 60 has important ramifications because it demonstrates the importance of promoting healthy lifestyles, particularly cardiovascular health, as there is emerging evidence that what is good for our hearts is also good for our heads.

They add that targeting patients who suffer from one or more risk factors for heart disease (obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels) could not only protect their hearts but also safeguard them from dementia in later life.

In an accompanying editorial, Francine Grodstein, Associate Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, says the study has profound implications for prevention of dementia and public health.

She adds that more creative research, perhaps using telephone and computer cognitive assessments, needs to be undertaken.

Rilonacept significantly reduced acute gout flares during uric acid-lowering therapy

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:37:46 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A phase II clinical trial, published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), found that rilonacept, an inhibitor of the protein interleukin-1 (IL-1), significantly reduced acute gout flares that occur when initiating uric acid-lowering therapy.
Patients with gout—a type of inflammatory arthritis caused by the crystallization of urates in soft tissues—experience severe pain and swelling, often affecting the feet. A recent study also published in Arthritis & Rheumatism reported that doctor-diagnosed gout has risen over the past twenty years and now affects 8.3 million individuals in the U.S. Previous research shows that while gout attacks typically resolve spontaneously over several days, urate crystals remain in the joint, which can lead to recurrent attacks and if left untreated may permanently damage joints.

"To reduce deposits of crystals in the joints, we advise patients to initiate treatment with medications that lower levels of uric acid in the blood," said lead investigator Dr. H. Ralph Schumacher, Jr., Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The authors explain that in the early months of urate-lowering therapy, as crystal deposits are broken up, patients may experience gout attacks that are proposed to be due to the release of crystals from softened deposits. These urate crystals interact with cells that release interleukin-1 (IL-1) which can lead to a cascade of inflammation and acute joint pain flares.

Previous research has found that acute gout attacks brought on by uric acid-lowering therapy may make patients less likely to continue treatment. "Well tolerated drugs that reduce the risk of gout flares when initiating uric-acid lowering therapy could make patients more likely to continue important long-term treatments that control gout," added Dr. Schumacher.

Rilonacept—marketed under the brand name ARCALYST® to treat another disease—is designed to neutralize the protein IL-1 before it produces signals that can trigger inflammation. Thus, researchers looked to test the effectiveness of rilonacept in preventing gout flares and enrolled 83 patients at 27 study centers across the U.S. for a phase II clinical trial. Participants were 18 years of age or older and had gout, including a history of two or more gout flares within the prior year, as well as elevated blood levels of uric acid. Participants were randomized in a double blind fashion, with 41 administered rilonacept via subcutaneous injection (a double dose [320 mg], followed by (160 mg weekly for 16 weeks) and 42 administered weekly placebo. All patients were started on allopurinol (300mg/day) to reduce uric acid levels.

Trial results revealed a significantly lower number of gout flares in participants taking rilonacept with only 6 flares in the rilonacept arm compared with 33 in the placebo group. Researchers also observed fewer flares in patients treated with rilonacept as early as four weeks following the start of therapy. At the 12-week study point, only 15% of patients taking rilonacept had experienced gout flares compared to 45% of those in the placebo group. No deaths or serious infections occurred in either group. Common adverse events included infections reported in 15% of the rilonacept group compared with 26% with the placebo.

"This trial provides well-controlled evidence that this IL-1 blocker is effective in preventing acute gout flares in this setting," confirmed Dr. Schumacher. "Rilonacept appears safe and well tolerated and could increase patient adherence to long-term urate-lowering therapy." The authors recommend further evaluation of rilonacept in patients with gout.

QUT research to help safer emergency aircraft landings

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Queensland University of Technology (QUT) aviation researchers are developing an information system to help Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) make safer emergency landings and better enable their wider commercial use.

Aerospace Engineering lecturer at the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA), Dr Luis Mejias Alvarez, said UAVs could not fly in commercial airspace over populated areas because they lacked the ability to sense and avoid other air traffic, and had no ability to make a safe landing in an emergency.

UAV flight plans are set pre-flight, and if something goes wrong and they need to land they have no way to determining where the safest landing spot is, he said. In most cases they just drop.

We expect the system we're developing will fit UAVs with a higher level of intelligence so that they can both sense and avoid other traffic and determine appropriate landing spots should the need arise.

If we can do that we will have gone a long way towards enabling UAVs to fly in commercial airspace and enable their wider use.

Dr. Mejias said the research would also be applicable to commercial aviation.

He said during emergencies pilots focussed on regaining as much control of their aircraft as possible and there was a need for a system to help them choose appropriate landing sites.When things go wrong with an aircraft while it's in flight a pilot has to try to manipulate a lot of instruments to gain control of their aircraft.

The focus of their attention is on the instruments within the cockpit. It's very difficult to also visually scout around the surrounding area to find the best possible places to land, particularly when the terrain below may be unfamiliar to the pilot.

At QUT we're working on a GPS-based system that will incorporate a camera to pinpoint to the pilot any larger, vacant spaces that would provide landing options.This might be a field or farm, or even a road or river.

It will help the pilot navigate away from populated areas and find the safest landing spot.

Dr Mejias said the landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009 was going down in history as the 'Miracle on the Hudson'.

The aircraft lost power in both engines when it struck a flock of geese shortly after take-off and the pilot managed to land the aircraft safely in the Hudson River with all 155 people on board surviving.

The performance of the pilot in this scenario is exemplary, but in such situations the outcome relies heavily on the individual reactive abilities of each human pilot.Dr Mejias said if pilots could be alerted to potential landing spots on a simple screen as well as the best way to approach them it would help ease a very stressful situation and assist pilots to choose the best landing spots.

The project called Developing novel concepts for improved safety in aircraft emergency situations has been awarded $375,000 from the Australian Research Council and is expected to take three years to complete.

New forms of torture leave 'invisible scars,' say researchers

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Use of torture around the world has not diminished but the techniques used have grown more complex and sophisticated, according to new research from Queen Mary, University of London.

The study* suggests that these emerging forms of torture, which include various types of rape, bestiality and witnessing violent acts, are experienced by people seeking asylum in the UK.

In many cases the techniques cause no visible effect but are responsible for a variety of serious mental health problems. The researchers say that their findings are vital for understanding what many asylum seekers have endured and for ensuring the correct medical treatments are available.

The majority of countries signed a UN convention banning all forms of torture almost thirty years ago but the new research joins a body of evidence showing that the use of torture not only persists but is also widespread.

The researchers, led by Dr Nasir Warfa, based their study on asylum seekers who were being detained at Oakington Immigration Centre in Cambridgeshire. They carried out an audit of reports of torture over a six-month period. The results showed that 17 per cent of people at the Centre reported that they were tortured in their home countries.

Some reported cases of physical methods of torture such as being beaten with blunt objects, barbed wire, or fire. Other physical torture included various types of stabbing, covering with sugar water then exposed to insects, burning, finger or toenail extraction and foreign objects placed under nails.

Others experienced sexual torture including rape, forced bestiality, genital mutilation and forced abortion. Others still were suffocated or immersed in water, or forced to witness rape, violence or murder.

The majority of those who reported such incidents were fleeing African countries. Others had come from Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

The torture reported by these people is horrific, said Kate Izycki, Senior Nurse who specialises in Transcultural Psychiatry. This highlights that the use of torture continues and that the perpetrators are finding more elaborate methods; some of which often leave no physical mark.

Dr Warfa's previous research has shown that victims of torture are highly likely to suffer from severe mental health problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and feeling suicidal.

He adds: Finding yourself in a foreign country where you must negotiate a difficult asylum system, where you cannot work and where you may not be able to speak the language would be difficult for anyone. Then add mental health problems caused by torture and the ever-present possibility of deportation.

This new study clearly shows that we need to identify and address the health needs of those who have fled to the UK following torture in their home countries.

A new sensor to detect lung cancer from exhaled breath

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Some illnesses such as lung and stomach cancer or liver diseases which, due to the difficulty of diagnosis, have symptoms that are often confused with routine disorders. Therefore, in most cases, the disease is only detected at an advanced stage. New methods for early detection are being investigated as an urgent need.

Tecnalia, through the Interreg project Medisen, is contributing to develop biosensors capable of detecting the presence of tumour markers of lung cancer in exhaled breath. This is possible because of the changes produced within the organism of an ill person, changes reflected in the exhaled breath of the patient and which enable determining the presence of this type of marker during the initial stages of the disease.

Patients with lung cancer, treated in the Section of Medical Oncology of the Institute of Onco-Haemathology of the Donostia Hospital (IDOH) have collaborated in this phase of the project. For that, the Ethic Committee of the Clinical Research of Euskadi (CEIC) gave the authorization to the Instituto Biodonostia for the clinical trials

Human breath, whether from a healthy or ill person, is comprised of a hundreds of organic compounds: acetone, methanol, butanol, hydrocarbons, amongst others. There is not a single specific component in the exhaled breath capable of acting as a marker for the diagnosis of lung cancer. A range of biomarkers and its combination should be selected. The compounds of interest are generally to be found at 1-20 parts per billion (ppb) in healthy human breath but can be increased 10-100-fold in the breath of sick patients. In order to be able to detect these changes the development of novel materials was required.

During the first phase of the project, breath samples were collected by the hospital staff by a breath collecting device. A detailed analysis of the most representative compounds present in the breath samples has been carried out and the family or families of compounds required to act as markers for the presence of lung cancer selected. Organic compounds have been analysed using gas chromatograph/mass spectrometry analysis (GC/MS). Then, the GC/MS results of breath tests have been analysed by statistical and structural algorithms to discriminate and identify "healthy and "cancerous" patterns that really provide information for the design of the sensor.

In parallel, novel materials for the detection of the selected organic compounds have been developed by Tecnalia in order to increase the sensitivity of the devices. Participating together with Tecnalia in this project were the Instituto de Tecnologías Químicas Emergentes de La Rioja (Inter-Química) designing the sensor device and the University of Perpignan (France) testing the novel materials.

As a conclusion, the biosensors will facilitate the diagnosis of certain diseases; mainly those located in the lungs, at the initial stages of the illness, which could increase considerably the chances of survival.

Time for a change?

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University have discovered a way to make time stand still -- at least when it comes to the yearly calendar.

Using computer programs and mathematical formulas, Richard Conn Henry, an astrophysicist in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and Steve H. Hanke, an applied economist in the Whiting School of Engineering, have created a new calendar in which each new 12-month period is identical to the one which came before, and remains that way from one year to the next in perpetuity.

Under the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar, for instance, if Christmas fell on a Sunday in 2012 (and it would), it would also fall on a Sunday in 2013, 2014 and beyond. In addition, under the new calendar, the rhyme 30 days hath September, April, June and November, would no longer apply, because September would have 31 days, as would March, June and December. All the rest would have 30. (Try creating a rhyme using that.)

Our plan offers a stable calendar that is absolutely identical from year to year and which allows the permanent, rational planning of annual activities, from school to work holidays, says Henry, who is also director of the Maryland Space Grant Consortium. Think about how much time and effort are expended each year in redesigning the calendar of every single organization in the world and it becomes obvious that our calendar would make life much simpler and would have noteworthy benefits.

Among the practical advantages would be the convenience afforded by birthdays and holidays (as well as work holidays) falling on the same day of the week every year. But the economic benefits are even more profound, according to Hanke, an expert in international economics, including monetary policy.

Our calendar would simplify financial calculations and eliminate what we call the 'rip off' factor,' explains Hanke. Determining how much interest accrues on mortgages, bonds, forward rate agreements, swaps and others, day counts are required. Our current calendar is full of anomalies that have led to the establishment of a wide range of conventions that attempt to simplify interest calculations. Our proposed permanent calendar has a predictable 91-day quarterly pattern of two months of 30 days and a third month of 31 days, which does away with the need for artificial day count conventions.

According to Hanke and Henry, their calendar is an improvement on the dozens of rival reform calendars proffered by individuals and institutions over the last century.

Attempts at reform have failed in the past because all of the major ones have involved breaking the seven-day cycle of the week, which is not acceptable to many people because it violates the Fourth Commandment about keeping the Sabbath Day, Henry explains. Our version never breaks that cycle.

Having epilepsy is not linked to committing violent crime

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Despite current public and expert opinion to the contrary, having the neurological condition epilepsy is not directly associated with an increased risk of committing violent crime. However, there is an increased risk of individuals who have experienced previous traumatic brain injury going on to commit violent crime according to a large Swedish study led by Seena Fazel from the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues at the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and Swedish Prison and Probation Service, and published in this week's PLoS Medicine.

The authors say: The implications of these findings will vary for clinical services, the criminal justice system, and patient charities.

In their study, the authors identified all people with epilepsy and traumatic brain injury recorded in Sweden between 1973 and 2009 and matched each case with ten people without these brain conditions from the general population. The investigators linked these records to subsequent data on all convictions for violent crime using the personal identification numbers that identify Swedish residents in national registries.

Using these methods, the authors found that 4.2% of people with epilepsy had at least one conviction for violence after their diagnosis compared to 2.5% of the general population. However, after controlling for the family situation (in which individuals with epilepsy were compared with their unaffected siblings), the association between being diagnosed with epilepsy and being convicted for violent crime disappeared. In contrast, the authors found that after controlling for substance abuse or comparing individuals with brain injury to their unaffected siblings, there remained an association between experiencing a traumatic brain injury and committing a violent crime.

The authors say: With over 22,000 individuals each for the epilepsy and traumatic brain injury groups, the sample was, to our knowledge, more than 50 times larger than those used in previous related studies on epilepsy, and more than seven times larger than previous studies on brain injury.

They continue: In conclusion, by using Swedish population-based registers over 35 years, we reported risks for violent crime in individuals with epilepsy and traumatic brain injury that contrasted with each other, and appeared to differ within each diagnosis by subtype, severity, and age at diagnosis.

The authors suggest that the lack of a causal association with epilepsy and violent crime may be valuable for patient charities and other stakeholders in tackling one of the causes of stigma associated with this condition. In contrast, improved screening and management of some patients and prisoners with traumatic brain injury may reduce offending rates,

Fluoride acts on plaque-causing bugs: Study

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:10:27 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Dec 23 - Regular use of fluoride toothpaste and mouthwash, known to toughen teeth enamel, also acts on plaque-causing bugs. Conversely, these bugs try to fend off fluoride as a toxic substance, according to a new study led by Ronald Breaker, a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute -.

The bacterial response indicates that fluoride itself has antimicrobial properties, Breaker said.

'Our data not only help explain how cells fight the toxicity of fluoride, but it also gives us a sense of how we might be able to enhance the antimicrobial properties of fluoride,' says Breaker.

'In the future we might be able to use this knowledge to make fluoride even more toxic to bacteria,' he adds.

Blocking the fluoride channel, for example, makes cells 200 times more sensitive to fluoride, the researchers showed.

Go to work on a Christmas card

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) If all the UK's discarded wrapping paper and Christmas cards were collected and fermented, they could make enough biofuel to run a double-decker bus to the moon and back more than 20 times, according to the researchers behind a new scientific study.

The study, by scientists at Imperial College London, demonstrates that industrial quantities of waste paper could be turned into high grade biofuel, to power motor vehicles, by fermenting the paper using microorganisms. The researchers hope that biofuels made from waste paper could ultimately provide one alternative to fossil fuels like diesel and petrol, in turn reducing the impact of fossil fuels on the environment.

According to some estimates 1.5 billion cards and 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper are thrown away by UK residents over the Christmas period. They currently go to landfill or are recycled in local schemes. This amount of paper could provide 5-12 million litres of biofuel, say the researchers, enough to run a bus for up to 18 million km.

If one card is assumed to weigh 20g and one square metre of wrapping paper is 10g, then around 38,300 tonnes of extra paper waste will be generated at Christmas time, said study author Dr Richard Murphy from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London. Our research shows that it would be feasible to build waste paper-to-biofuel processing plants that give energy back as transport fuel.

Co-author and PhD student Lei Wang, also from Imperial's Department of Life Sciences, said: The fermentation process could even cope with festive paper and card which has been 'contaminated' with the likes of glitter and sellotape. The cellulose molecules in sellotape would be broken down into glucose sugars and then fermented into ethanol fuel, just like the paper itself. Insoluble items like glitter are easy to filter out as part of the process.

Dr Murphy added: People should not stop recycling their discarded paper and Christmas cards because at the moment there is no better solution. However, if this technology can be developed further, waste paper might ultimately provide a great, environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. There's more work to do to assess the effectiveness and benefits of the technology, but we think it has significant potential.

In the study, published this month in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Energy and Environmental Science, the researchers describe how they fermented different types of paper and cardboard in the laboratory to assess how chemically and economically feasible it is to turn them into ethanol fuel. They found that it is not only possible in laboratory experiments but should be economically viable on a large scale as well.

Across the year, around 60 per cent of the UK's waste paper is collected for recycling or other waste management schemes, which equates to around 8 million tonnes. The scientists say that using a well-tested fermentation method and a novel cocktail of efficient and cheap chemical enzymes, their system could be scaled up to the size of existing industrial processing plants and be used to convert 2000 tonnes of waste paper per day into biofuels.

There is already an urgent need for councils to prevent reusable materials like cardboard and paper being sent to landfill sites, saving money and avoiding unnecessary waste, a message echoed by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson in a speech about Recycle for London's Nice Save campaign this week. This new research shows that in addition to recycling, waste materials can be used to generate energy, and some of that can be as valuable vehicle fuel.

High grade ethanol, such as that made in this study, can be (and already is) blended with fossil-based petrol to make a fuel with lower greenhouse gas balance than conventional petrol for cars and vans, and can also be used to power large diesel vehicles like buses and trucks, if modifications are made to their engines. This approach is already used in Brazil, the USA and the EU, among other regions, where ethanol biofuels are being made from sugar cane, grain and other crops. Most of the UK's biofuel is currently imported from abroad.

The authors of this study are now analysing the environmental performance of bioethanol made from waste paper using life cycle assessment (LCA) and comparing it with the conventional transport fuel petrol. LCA is an environmental management tool that evaluates the 'cradle-to-grave' effects of a product for its influence on a range of environmental impact categories, including its ability to contribute to climate change or soil acidification or to cause algal blooms in fresh water.

Self-affirmation may break down resistance to medical screening

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) People resist medical screening, or don't call back for the results, because they don't want to know they're sick or at risk for a disease. But many illnesses, such as HIV/AIDS and cancer, have a far a better prognosis if they're caught early. How can health care providers break down that resistance?

Have people think about what they value most, finds a new study by University of Florida psychologists Jennifer L. Howell and James A. Shepperd. If you can get people to refocus their attention from a threat to their overall sense of wellbeing, they are less likely to avoid threatening information, says Howell. Do that, and people are more likely to face a medical screening even if it means undertaking onerous treatment and even if the disease is uncontrollable. The findings will appear in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

The researchers undertook three studies, each with about 100 students of both sexes. In all three studies, they asked the participants to think of a trait they valued; they chose traits such as honesty, compassion, and friendliness. Participants then wrote either about how they demonstrated the trait (expressing self-affirmation) or a friend (not affirming themselves) demonstrated the trait.

Next participants watched a video about a (fictional) disorder called thioamine acetlyase (TAA) deficiency that ostensibly impairs the body's ability to process nutrients and can lead to severe medical complications. They then completed an online risk calculator for the disease and decided either to receive their risk feedback or not.

In the first study, fewer participants who wrote self-affirming essays avoided learning their risk than did participants who wrote non-affirming essays. In studies 2 and 3 researchers investigated the effects of affirmation on two conditions known to increase avoidance of risk feedback. In the second study, participants learned that testing at high risk for TAA deficiency would either require an easy or onerous follow-up examination process. Participants who were not affirmed avoided learning their risk more when they thought it might necessitate an onerous, as compared to an easy, follow up. However, affirmed participants showed little avoidance regardless of the difficulty of follow up. In the third study, participants learned either that TAA could be managed with a pill; or that there was no effective treatment. Again, the non-affirmed group avoided learning their risk almost twice as often when hearing they had no control over the illness. By contrast, affirmed participants were unlikely to avoid the news, regardless of the possibility of treatment.

The researchers acknowledge it’s sometimes rational to choose not to know about an incurable disease you might (or might not) get. “But when it is important to prepare for negative events—getting your affairs in order, finding the coping resources you’ll need,” Howell suggests, going through with that screening might wise.

Scientists identify cell death pathway involved in lethal sepsis

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Sepsis, a form of systemic inflammation, is the leading cause of death in critically ill patients. Sepsis is linked with massive cell death; however, the specific mechanisms involved in the lethality of sepsis are unclear. Now, a new study published by Cell Press in the December 23rd issue of the journal Immunity finds that inhibition of a specific cell death pathway called necroptosis protected mice from lethal inflammation. The research may lead to new therapeutic interventions for fatal inflammatory conditions that are notoriously hard to control.

Systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) is a body-wide inflammatory response that can be caused by an infection, such as in the condition sepsis, or by some sort of physical trauma, such as a severe burn. Sepsis and SIRS are thought to be caused by the cytokine tumor necrosis factor (TNF). However, although research has shown that TNF functions in inflammation, cell death, and survival, the specific mechanisms linking TNF with SIRS are not well understood.

Engagement of TNF receptor 1 activates two diametrically opposed pathways: survival/inflammation and cell death, explains senior study author, Dr. Peter Vandenabeele, from Ghent University and Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) in Belgium. An additional switch decides, depending on the cellular context, between apoptosis and necroptosis, two different cell death pathways. In our study, we explored the involvement of both of these cell death pathways in SIRS.

Dr. Vandenabeele and colleagues found that while disruption of molecules required for apoptosis had no impact on lethal SIRS, inhibition or genetic deletion of RIPK molecules, which are required for necroptosis, provided complete protection against SIRS lethality. Basically, inhibition of one type of cell death did not protect mice from lethal inflammation while disruption of a different cell death pathway improved survival. The researchers went on to confirm their findings in a clinically relevant setting by demonstrating that RIPK deficiency provided protection in a mouse model of peritonitis.

Taken together, the results demonstrate a crucial role for RIPK in sepsis-mediated lethality and uncover potential therapeutic targets for treatment of SIRS and sepsis. Selectively targeting the necroptosis process may be more advantageous than globally blocking TNF because it leaves space for the important anti-infectious functions of TNF, concludes Dr. Vandenabeele. New insight into the precise regulatory pathways associated with necroptosis and the molecular interactions involved in the RIPK pathways will provide additional targets for intervention in these high mortality pathological conditions, which have previously been classified as uncontrollable.

New device could bring optical information processing

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have created a new type of optical device small enough to fit millions on a computer chip that could lead to faster, more powerful information processing and supercomputers.

The passive optical diode is made from two tiny silicon rings measuring 10 microns in diameter, or about one-tenth the width of a human hair. Unlike other optical diodes, it does not require external assistance to transmit signals and can be readily integrated into computer chips.

The diode is capable of nonreciprocal transmission, meaning it transmits signals in only one direction, making it capable of information processing, said Minghao Qi (pronounced Chee), an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University.

This one-way transmission is the most fundamental part of a logic circuit, so our diodes open the door to optical information processing, said Qi, working with a team also led by Andrew Weiner, Purdue's Scifres Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The diodes are described in a paper to be published online Thursday (Dec. 22) in the journal Science. The paper was written by graduate students Li Fan, Jian Wang, Leo Varghese, Hao Shen and Ben Niu, research associate Yi Xuan, and Weiner and Qi.

Although fiberoptic cables are instrumental in transmitting large quantities of data across oceans and continents, information processing is slowed and the data are susceptible to cyberattack when optical signals must be translated into electronic signals for use in computers, and vice versa.

This translation requires expensive equipment, Wang said. What you'd rather be able to do is plug the fiber directly into computers with no translation needed, and then you get a lot of bandwidth and security.

Electronic diodes constitute critical junctions in transistors and help enable integrated circuits to switch on and off and to process information. The new optical diodes are compatible with industry manufacturing processes for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors, or CMOS, used to produce computer chips, Fan said.

These diodes are very compact, and they have other attributes that make them attractive as a potential component for future photonic information processing chips, she said.

The new optical diodes could make for faster and more secure information processing by eliminating the need for this translation. The devices, which are nearly ready for commercialization, also could lead to faster, more powerful supercomputers by using them to connect numerous processors together.

The major factor limiting supercomputers today is the speed and bandwidth of communication between the individual superchips in the system, Varghese said. Our optical diode may be a component in optical interconnect systems that could eliminate such a bottleneck.

Infrared light from a laser at telecommunication wavelength goes through an optical fiber and is guided by a microstructure called a waveguide. It then passes sequentially through two silicon rings and undergoes nonlinear interaction while inside the tiny rings. Depending on which ring the light enters first, it will either pass in the forward direction or be dissipated in the backward direction, making for one-way transmission. The rings can be tuned by heating them using a microheater, which changes the wavelengths at which they transmit, making it possible to handle a broad frequency range.

NIST special publication expands government authentication options

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A newly revised publication from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) expands the options for government agencies that need to verify the identity of users of their Web-based services. Electronic Authentication Guideline (NIST Special Publication 800-63-1) is an extensive revision and update of the original document, released in 2006, and it recognizes that times, and technologies, have changed.

Changes made to the document reflect changes in the state of the art, explains NIST computer security expert Tim Polk, Cryptographic Technology Group manager at NIST. There are new techniques and tools available to government agencies, and this provides them more flexibility in choosing the best authentication methods for their individual needs, without sacrificing security.

When SP 800-63 was first released, its authors assumed that most agencies would handle the business of figuring out if users were who they claimed to be in-house. But since that time, an industry has grown around providing authentication services, and it is often in the best interest of agencies to take advantage of commercial systems or those of other government entities. And while passwords are still the leading mechanism for authenticating user identity, a growing number of systems rely on cryptographic keys or physical tokens.

The revision broadens the discussion of technologies available to agencies and gives a more detailed discussion of these technologies. The guideline applies whether agencies choose to handle authentication directly or leverage services provided by other parties, including commercial companies.

Government agencies have the option of using the services of companies that have had their authentication systems certified through the Federal Chief Information Officer Council's Trust Framework Provider Adoption Process (TFPAP). This program assesses credentialing processes against federal requirements, including those established in 800-63. To ensure consistency and avoid redundant analysis, NIST strongly encourages agencies to leverage the TFPAP process.

SP 800-63-1 is the official implementation guidance for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum 04-04, E-Authentication Guidance for Federal Agencies.* Polk stresses that the revised NIST guideline may inform but is not intended to restrict or constrain the development or use of standards for implementation of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). NIST SP 800-63-1 is specifically designated as a guideline for use by federal agencies for electronic authentication. NSTIC, in contrast, has a broader charge: the creation of an Identity Ecosystem, an online environment where individuals and organizations will be able to trust each other because they follow agreed upon standards to obtain and authenticate their digital identities.

Do you hear what I hear? Noise exposure surrounds us

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Nine out of 10 city dwellers may have enough harmful noise exposure to risk hearing loss, and most of that exposure comes from leisure activities.

Historically, loud workplaces were blamed for harmful noise levels.

But researchers at the University of Michigan found that noise from MP3 players and stereo use has eclipsed loud work environments, said Rick Neitzel, assistant professor in the U-M School of Public Health and the Risk Science Center. Robyn Gershon, a professor with the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco is the principal investigator on the study.

This proved true even though MP3 player and stereo listening were just a small fraction of each person's total annual noise exposure.

Neitzel said he was surprised by the findings. As an occupational hygienist, he expected regular users of trains and buses along with work-related activities to be the chief culprits in excessive noise exposure.

They found that one in 10 transit users had noise exposures exceeding the recommended limits from transit use alone. But when they estimated the total annual exposure from all sources, 90 percent of transit users and 87 percent of nonusers exceeded the recommended limits, primarily due to MP3 and stereo usage.

That two out of three people get the majority of noise exposure from music is pretty striking, Neitzel said. I've always viewed the workplace as a primary risk for noise exposure. But this would suggest that just focusing our efforts on the workplace isn't enough, since there's lots of noise exposure happening elsewhere.

The implications are startling, said Neitzel.

I do think it's a serious problem, there aren't really any other experiences where we would tolerate having nine out of 10 people exposed at a level we know is hazardous. We certainly wouldn't tolerate this with another agent, such as something that caused cancer or chronic disease. Yet for some reason we do for noise.

Researchers initially set out to examine the contribution of common noise sources to total annual noise exposures among urban residents for mass transit usage; occupational and non-occupational activities, MP3 player and stereo use; and time at home doing other miscellaneous activities. They looked at what caused the majority of potentially harmful exposures in 4,500 residents in New York City who used public transportation.

With any environmental exposure, until scientists know the length of exposure, the exposure level means nothing. The average New York transit user spends about 380 or so hours either waiting for or riding transit, which has average noise levels of 72-81 decibels. For comparison, the average speaking level is 60 decibels, a busy street corner is 80, a circular saw is 90, a baby crying 115. The threshold for pain is about 125, and even a brief, one-time exposure above that level can cause permanent hearing loss.

Lots of people appear to be exposed at hazardous levels, he said. A growing number of studies show noise causes stress, sleep disturbance, and heart disease. It may be the noise which we haven't historically paid much attention to is actually contributing to some of the top health problems in developed countries today. This begs for a public health education program.

Electronics made of plastic

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) When the concept was first proposed, it was dismissed as being unrealizable: It'll never work, commented one expert assessor of an application for research funding. Today, 15 years later, the physicist Professor Karl Leo and two of his colleagues have been presented with the Deutscher Zukunftspreis, one of Germany's most prestigious research awards, for what was once a highly controversial idea. Leo, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Dresden, has devoted most of his career to organic electronics. Until now, most electronic components have been made of inorganic silicon. The brittle material is a good semiconductor, but its manufacture requires a highly sophisticated process. It involves growing large crystals at high temperatures and then cutting them into thin slices known as wafers.

The more elegant solution is to use an organic material, a type of dye commonly used in the production of road signs. Such materials have the advantage that they can be applied as a coating on flexible films and other substrates. This gives rise to endless new possibilities, such as displays that can be rolled up and carried in a vest pocket or switchable window panes that light up at night to illuminate rooms while hardly consuming any electricity. On the other hand, organic dyes are poor electrical conductors. But this is where the once-mocked ingenious idea comes into play: their less-than-satisfactory conductivity can be increased by doping, i.e. adding a small amount of another chemical substance. After years of experiments, the researchers have succeeded in creating materials with an electrical conductivity a million and more times greater than the original dyes, with a doping ratio of no more than one percent.

The Deutscher Zukunftspreis, endowed with 250,000 euros, has been awarded by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany every year since 1997. It honors outstanding innovations that have made the transition from the research laboratory to industrial practice, thus helping to create jobs. Fraunhofer is a frequent winner of this prize, no doubt because it operates precisely at this interface between the world of research and the commercial market. This time, the jury chose to honor organic electronics, which Leo describes as a technology that will revolutionize our lives.

The ultrathin semiconductor coatings have already made their way into mass production. They are equally versatile as the silicon chips that preceded them, for instance converting electrical energy into light just as easily as they convert sunlight into electricity. Novaled AG has adopted the first approach, using the technology to produce materials for displays and lamps, while Heliatek GmbH has chosen to focus on photovoltaics. Both of these companies are spinoffs created by former members of Professor Leo's research team. By now they employ a total of nearly 200 people, and work closely together with other Dresden-based companies in a technology network. This year's Future Prize is shared by the founders of these two spinoffs, Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth (Novaled) and Martin Pfeiffer (Heliatek), and their mentor Professor Leo. Novaled AG is slightly further ahead in terms of marketing: the company is already mass-producing materials for cellphone displays. In two or three years' time, it intends to start supplying materials for ultraflat TV screens that display true-to-life colors and consume a minimum of energy. OLED displays combine the best qualities of LED and plasma screens, the two technologies currently available, says Blochwitz-Nimroth. They are more energy-efficient than plasma TVs and deliver sharper images than LED technology, because they don't need backlighting.

Quotas for women in local politics brings surge in documented crimes against women in India

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) An increase in female representation in local politics has caused a significant rise in documented crimes against women in India, new research has found.

That is good news, say the authors of the study carried out at the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) at the University of Warwick in the UK, Harvard Business School and the IMF, who argue that the increase is down to greater reporting of crimes against women, rather than greater incidence of crimes against them.

The research examined the impact of the Panchayati Raj reform passed in 1993, which required Indian states to set aside one third of all member and leader positions in local government councils for women.

Panchayati Raj was implemented in different years by different states given their own election cycles, and is one of the largest experiments with quotas for female political representation anywhere in the world.

The researchers found that documented crimes against women rose by an average of 44 per cent after women entered local government, while rapes rose by 23 per cent and kidnapping of women showed a 13 per cent increase in the post-reform period up until 2004.

However there has been no significant effect on crimes not specifically targeted against women, such as kidnapping of men, theft or public order offences.

The researchers believe there are two reasons behind the surge in reported crimes against women.

Firstly, greater numbers of female politicians make the police more responsive to crimes against women.

Since the quota legislation, the number of arrests has also increased significantly, particularly for cases dealing with kidnapping of women.

And women victims who encounter more sympathetic women leaders would feel more encouraged to report crimes.

Dr Anandi Mani, associate professor of economics at CAGE, said: The first thing we want to point out is that this is good news.

The reason it's happening is because more crimes are being documented than were before the reforms - it's not an increase in incidences of crime.

From what we can see in our data, when you have more women political leaders it has a motivating effect on the police to take crimes against women more seriously.

We see that both in the arrest data and also in terms of women's satisfaction in their interaction with the police in areas where they have women leaders.

And consistent with our reporting hypothesis, areas with longer exposure to women in local government show an eventual decline in the crime rate against women, so there is a deterrent effect over time.

Dr Mani added that it was the presence of women in the broad base of political representatives, rather than solely in leadership positions at the higher levels of politics, that generates the powerful impact.

Our results imply that the presence of women at the lowest level of governance, where they are closer to potential crime victims, is more important in giving voice to women than their presence in higher level leadership positions.

What are the prospects for sustaining high-quality groundwater?

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Intensive agriculture practices developed during the past century have helped improve food security for many people but have also added to nitrate pollution in surface and groundwaters. New research has looked at water quality measurement over the last 140 years to track this problem in the Thames River basin.

The NERC-funded study, led by the University of Bristol's Department of Civil Engineering, has looked at nitrate transport from agricultural land to water in the Thames basin. The team used a simple model to estimate the amount of nitrate able to leach from soils to the groundwater based on land use practices along with an algorithm that determined the route nitrate would take to reach surface or groundwater from agricultural areas.

The Thames River catchment provides a good study example because the water quality in the river, which supplies drinking water to millions of people, has been monitored for the past 140 years, and the region has undergone significant agricultural development over the past century.

The study found that nitrate concentrations in the Thames rose significantly during and after World War II to about double their previous level, then increased again in the early 1970s. Nitrite concentrations have remained at that high level even though nitrate from inputs from agriculture declined from the late 1970s to early 2000s.

The researchers observed it takes some time for nitrate to reach the river, and their analysis suggests that the jump in nitrate concentrations from 1968 to 1972 is due to the delayed groundwater response to ploughing of permanent grasslands during World War II.

Dr Nicholas Howden, Senior Lecturer in Water in the Department of Civil Engineering, who led the research, said: Balancing the needs for agriculture and clean groundwater for drinking requires understanding factors such as the routes by which nitrate enters the water supply and how long it takes to get there.

Our results suggest it could take several decades for any reduction in nitrate concentrations of river water and groundwater, following significant change in land management practices.

Co-author of the research paper, Dr Fred Worrall in the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University, added: The 60s and 70s saw a gradual intensification of food crop production and consequent nitrate release from the land. If your input is dispersed, your output is dispersed; if your input is sharp, your output is sharp. The aquifer is just transporting it; it's not processing it. The nitrate comes through as a pulse.

Co-author, Professor Tim Burt in the Department of Geography at Durham University, said: You can work out the budget, and there is a phenomenal amount of nitrogen accumulating somewhere in the Thames basin. We don't know where and we don't know in what form, but it represents a potential legacy for a long time. The effects of land-use changes can take decades to filter through the river basin and this has major implications for policies to manage rivers.

The researchers found that any solution to the nitrate issue will require a long-term vision for water-quality remediation. In terms of sustainable groundwater, there seem to be no ''quick fixes'' and if groundwater nitrate concentrations continue to rise in the UK the worst may be yet to come.

The study could help water and land management planners identify practices that best preserve both agricultural production and water quality.

Chinese Academy of Sciences names CMU's Veloso an Einstein Chair Professor

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) PITTSBURGH -- The Chinese Academy of Sciences has named Manuela Veloso, the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, as an Einstein Chair Professor for 2012. She is one of 20 prominent international scientists so honored.

As an Einstein Chair Professor, Veloso will present a lecture at the University of Science and Technology of China, a national research university in Hefei, China, and at another Chinese university.

The Einstein Professorship Program is a key initiative of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Its goals are to strengthen exchanges between the Einstein chairs and Chinese scientists and to enhance the training of future generations of Chinese scientists.

Veloso, who this summer will become president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), is the only AI and robotics researcher among this year's Einstein Chair Professors. Her lectures will focus on symbiotic autonomy, a concept she is pioneering in which robots are aware of their perceptual, physical, and reasoning limitations and proactively ask for help from humans.

Symbiotic autonomy is employed by several robots, called CoBots, that her research group has deployed on the Carnegie Mellon campus. The CoBots can navigate on their own through hallways while delivering or fetching messages and packages, but must ask people for help when confused or for performing manipulation tasks such as opening doors or pushing elevator buttons.

Veloso is well known for her work on robot soccer, which is an important research tool for studying how autonomous agents can work cooperatively in complex, uncertain environments. She is past president of the International RoboCup Federation, which sponsors annual world championships in robot soccer.

Other 2012 recipients of Einstein Chair Professorships include Johann Deisenhofer, a Nobel laureate in chemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Wing Hung Wong, a computational chemist at Stanford University; Toshihide Masukawa, a Nobel laureate in physics at Kyoto University in Japan; Rick Battarbee, a freshwater ecologist at University College London, and Rob Van der Voo, a geophysicist at the University of Michigan.

Veloso is a Fellow of the IEEE, AAAI and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is a recipient of the Autonomous Agents Research Award from the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence, as well as a National Science Foundation Career Award and the university's Allen Newell Medal for Excellence in Research. She received her doctor's degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in 1992.

Legumes give nitrogen-supplying bacteria special access pass

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A 125-year debate on how nitrogen-fixing bacteria are able to breach the cell walls of legumes has been settled. A paper to be published on Monday by John Innes Centre scientists reports that plants themselves allow bacteria in.

Once inside the right cells, these bacteria take nitrogen from the air and supply it to legumes in a form they can use, ammonia. Whether the bacteria breach the cell walls by producing enzymes that degrade it, or the plant does the work for them, has been contested since an 1887 paper in which the importance of the breach was first recognised.

Our results are so clear we can unequivocally say that the plant supplies enzymes to break down its own cell walls and allow bacteria access, said Professor Allan Downie, lead author from the John Innes Centre, which is strategically funded by BBSRC.

The findings form part of research at JIC to fully understand the symbiosis that enables legumes to be the largest producers of natural nitrogen fertilizer in agriculture. Manufacturing nitrogen fertilisers for non-legume crops uses more fossil fuels than any other agricultural process. Once they have been applied, they release nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas about 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Legumes bypass both problems via their symbiosis with rhizobial bacteria from soil. The ultimate aim is to enable non-legumes, and possibly even cereals such as wheat and rice, to develop the symbiosis and source their own nitrogen from the air like legumes.

The fact that legumes themselves call the shots is a great finding but it also shows the complexity of the challenge to try to transfer the process to non-legumes, said Downie.

Plants give rhizobial bacteria a pass, but only allow a controlled invasion, not access all areas.

A plant cell wall is hard to penetrate, constructed from carbohydrates including pectin. It is like a room with no doors or windows. Rhizobial bacteria signal to the legume that they are there and the plant produces pectate lyase, an enzyme that breaks down pectin and allows rhizobia through one wall.

But this is not an open door for pathogenic bacteria and there are strict controls on entry.

The bacteria induce the plant to build a tunnel through to the next cell wall and the next until the bacteria reach the root where they will reside. As they grow along the tunnel and from wall to wall, they are not allowed beyond the tunnel's confines, ensuring the plant guards itself from them taking advantage. The tunnel also provides a barrier against rogue bacteria getting into plant cells disguised as rhizobia.

When the rhizobia reach the right type of cell, they are allowed to break out of the tunnel. The plant forms nodules on its roots to house the bacteria, from where they convert atmospheric nitrogen for the plant. The plant takes this essential nutrient to the leaves where it promotes growth and photosynthesis.

There are two major challenges to understanding how plants promote nitrogen fixation, said Downie.

Firstly, how does the plant make the nodules that contain cells to which the bacteria can be delivered, and secondly how do the bacteria get into these nodule cells?

The findings published in PNAS contribute to understanding the latter.

There will be many more hurdles to overcome, but our findings reveal a key step in the development of nitrogen fixation symbioses.

New predictor of heart attack or stroke

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) CHICAGO --- A hike in your blood pressure during middle age significantly raises the risk of having a heart attack or a stroke during your lifetime, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. The study offers a new understanding on the importance of maintaining low blood pressure early in middle age to prevent heart disease later in life.

Men and women who developed high blood pressure in middle age or who started out with high blood pressure had an estimated 30 percent increased risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared to those who kept their blood pressure low.

Previous estimates of a person's risk of cardiovascular disease were based on a single blood pressure measurement. The higher the blood pressure reading, the greater the risk. The new Northwestern Medicine study expands on that by showing a more accurate predictor is a change in blood pressure from age 41 to 55.

The study is published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

We found the longer we can prevent hypertension or postpone it, the lower the risk for cardiovascular disease, said lead author Norrina Allen, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Even for people with normal blood pressure, we want to make sure they keep it at that level, and it doesn't start increasing over time.

There hasn't been as much of a focus on keeping it low when people are in their 40's and 50's, Allen added. That's before a lot of people start focusing on cardiovascular disease risk factors. We've shown it's vital to start early.

People that maintain or reduce their blood pressure to normal levels by age 55 have the lowest lifetime risk for a heart attack or a stroke.

The study used data from 61,585 participants in the Cardiovascular Lifetime Risk Pooling Project. Starting with baseline blood pressure readings at age 41, researchers measured blood pressure again at age 55, then followed the patients until the occurrence of a first heart attack or stroke, death or age 95.

Men who developed high blood pressure in middle age or who started out with high blood pressure had a 70 percent risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared to a 41 percent risk for men who maintained low blood pressure or whose blood pressure decreased during the time period. Women who developed high blood pressure had almost a 50 percent risk of a heart attack or stroke compared to a 22 percent risk for those who kept their blood pressure low or saw a decrease.

Men generally have a 55 percent risk of cardiovascular disease in their lifetimes; women have a 40 percent risk.

Our research suggests people can take preventive steps to keep their blood pressure low early on to reduce their chances of a heart attack or stroke, said Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, MD, study co-author, chair of preventive medicine at Northwestern's Feinberg School and a cardiologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Maintaining a healthy diet, combined with exercise and weight control, can help reduce blood pressure levels and, consequently, your risk for cardiovascular disease later in life.

Northwestern scientist gets mentoring award at White House

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) CHICAGO --- Teresa Woodruff, the Thomas J. Watkins Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, received the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring at the White House from President Barack Obama Monday, Dec. 12.

The award was for a Northwestern Medicine program called the Women's Health Science Program for High School Girls and Beyond. The program mentors urban minority high-school girls for college and careers in science and health.

Meeting President Obama in the Oval Office was a true honor and humbling event, said Woodruff, also director of the Institute for Women's Health Research. In his remarks, the president affirmed his deep commitment to science and engineering and the role that basic science plays in the health of our nation. He made time to congratulate us on our efforts and comment on the critical role that science mentorship plays in the development of the next generation of innovators on whom we count to solve our world's most pressing needs.

This award is for the hundreds of faculty, staff and students throughout Northwestern University and Northwestern Memorial Hospital who donate their time to mentorship, Woodruff added. Our program focuses on the next generation of female leaders. Our goal is to ensure that the future is filled with a diverse group of problem solvers ready to meet the world's challenges.

The Women's Health Science Program for High School Girls and Beyond (WHSP), a four-year-old program, targets primarily African American and Latina girls from disadvantaged backgrounds in Chicago. The young women can study at four different Northwestern academies: cardiology, physical science, infectious disease and oncofertility. The science program is part of the Institute for Women's Health Research at the Feinberg School.

Carole LaBonne, an associate professor of molecular biosciences at Northwestern and faculty member in the mentoring program, emphasized the importance of increasing the representation of women and minorities in the STEM disciplines.

The program developed by Dr. Woodruff has had amazing impact and is truly transformative, said LaBonne, a member of Northwestern's diversity committee. It should be used as a model for how universities across the country can address the pipeline problem by helping to educate and excite students from underrepresented groups about science from an early age.

Of the 90 students who have participated in the Women's Health Science Program from the Young Women's Leadership Charter School in Chicago, 18 are seniors in high school, 70 are attending college and two have received undergraduate degrees. Of those attending college, 51 percent are pursuing science majors.

WSHP has grown beyond Chicago through Woodruff's efforts. Similar informal education programs based on the Chicago model have been running in San Diego, Oregon and Philadelphia. Plans also are underway to expand the program to other Chicago high schools.

Woodruff, a reproductive endocrinologist, researches female reproductive health and infertility and is chief of the division of fertility preservation at the Feinberg School. She also leads the Oncofertility Consortium, a national a team of oncologists, fertility specialists, social scientists, educators and policymakers to translate her research to the clinical care of women who will lose their fertility due to cancer treatment. In addition, she has been an advocate for sex and gender inclusivity and study in basic science, translational studies and clinical trials.

President Obama honored nine individuals and eight organizations as recipients of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

Through their commitment to education and innovation, these individuals and organizations are playing a crucial role in the development of our 21st century workforce, President Obama said when the award was first announced. Our nation owes them a debt of gratitude for helping ensure that America remains the global leader in science and engineering for years to come.

The White House award recognizes the crucial role mentoring plays in the academic and personal development of students studying science and engineering -- particularly those who belong to groups underrepresented in these fields. By offering their expertise and encouragement, mentors help prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers, while ensuring that tomorrow's innovators reflect and benefit from the diverse talent of the United States.

Wyss Institute founding director, Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., receives 2011 Holst Medal

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University announced today that its Founding Director, Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., has received the 2011 Holst Medal in recognition of his pioneering work exploring the cellular mechanisms that contribute to mechanical control of tissue and organ development, and his groundbreaking development of bioinspired technologies, ranging from Organ-on-Chip replacements for animal studies, to new engineering approaches for whole organ engineering.

Ingber is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a Senior Research Associate in the Vascular Biology Program at Children's Hospital Boston.

The prestigious annual award was presented today at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven in the Netherlands during a ceremony at the close of the 2011 Holst Symposium. This year's symposium, which focused on integrated heart repair, was organized by Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and Philips Research, a leading corporate research organization that helps introduce innovations that improve people's lives.

As the medal winner, Ingber also presented the 2011 Holst Memorial Lecture entitled From Cellular Mechanotransduction to Organ Engineering. Starting with an exploration of the role that cell structure and mechanics play in controlling tissue and organ development, Ingber's lecture extended to provide a more comprehensive overview of his most recent innovations, including development of Organ-on-Chip microsystems technologies that recapitulate human organ functions, bioinspired materials that promote whole tooth organ formation, and injectable programmable nanotherapeutics that restore blood flow to occluded blood vessels.

The Holst award and lecture were established in 1977 to commemorate TU/e's 21st anniversary by honoring the important contributions of Dutch physicist Gilles Holst (1886-1968) to research and technology. Holst was the first director of the Philips Physics Laboratory in Eindhoven.

Holst Medal winners are among the most eminent researchers who have made major contributions in the natural sciences for the benefit of industry and society. They are selected by a committee chaired by the Rector Magnificus of the TU/e and the CEO of Philips Research. Previous recipients include several Nobel Laureates and scientific luminaries from around the world.

Donald Ingber has made groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of the mechanobiology of cellular behavior, said Joep Huiskamp, Secretary of the Holst Memorial Lecture Award Committee 2011, on its behalf. Ingber's recent development of a breathing Lung-on-a-Chip concept is an outstanding example of convergent technologies.

This year's Holst events were dedicated to the global health issue of heart disease, in recognition of its enormous emotional, medical, economical, and societal implications. The symposium brought together a few select leading international experts, including Wyss Institute core faculty member Kevin Kit Parker, Ph.D., to discuss key facets of heart disease, regeneration, and repair. Parker's lecture addressed the issue of heart failure and described the microengineered beating heart tissues developed in his laboratory.

Parker is also an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University and Director of the Disease Biophysics Group, whose research focuses on mechanotransduction in neural and cardiovascular systems.

At the Wyss Institute, Ingber and Parker co-lead a project funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health to combine their technologies to develop a Heart-Lung Micromachine that will replicate the complex physiological functions and mechanical microenvironment of a human breathing lung and beating heart.

Such capabilities will enable the device to provide accurate and immediate measures of the efficacy and safety of inhaled drugs, nanotherapeutics, and other medical products on integrated lung and heart function. The micromachine will also provide a model to study the effects that pollutants and nanoparticles have on the heart after having entered the body through the lung. As an alternative to traditional animal testing methods, the technology could greatly shorten the time required to bring drugs to patients, increase their efficacy, decrease their costs, and improve clinical outcomes.

RTOG activates study to determine best treatment strategies for patients with glioma brain tumors

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Treatment remains controversial for patients diagnosed with a low-risk, low-grade glioma (LGG) brain tumor. These patients have significantly better prognosis than patients diagnosed with more aggressive high-grade glioma, and their clinical care often involves ongoing observation for tumor changes with imaging studies. Because low-risk LGG are slow growing tumors, concerns about the potential adverse effects of early treatment on patients' neurocognitive function (NCF) and quality of life (QOL) may outweigh treatment benefits in patients who are frequently young and highly functional.

Although a low-grade tumor, LGG has a significant potential for transforming into a high-grade glioma. Currently there is no consensus on when and how best to treat this tumor, says RTOG 0925 principal investigator Ali K. Choucair, M.D., Director of Neuro-oncology and Co-director of the Brain Tumor Center at the Neuroscience Institute, Norton Healthcare System, Louisville, KY. The RTOG 0925 study was designed with compilation of best available data from both prospective as well as retrospective studies in an effort to identify early clinical and neurocognitive changes that could precede changes observed on imaging scans and could trigger early and timely treatment, Choucair explains.

The study's goal is to better understand the affects of tumor progression on patients with low-risk LGG. The phase II trial will enroll 170 study participants with newly diagnosed LGG who are undergoing observation alone for clinical care. The study will compare NCF, QOL, and seizure control over time in patients who have evidence of tumor progression versus patients who have no evidence of progression as determined by magnetic imaging resonance (MRI) scans. Standardized and clinically meaningful definitions of tumor progression in low-risk LGG are clearly needed to further the examination and understanding of these tumors, says Walter J. Curran, Jr., MD, RTOG Group Chair, and Executive Director of the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University in Atlanta, It is hoped the study's findings will help guide future treatment decisions for these patients, Curran concludes.

The study also has an important translational research component that is expected to contribute much needed information to current limited knowledge about the role molecular markers in predicting LGG tumor progression. Tumor tissue from consenting study participants will be used to evaluate molecular correlates of NCF, QOL, seizure control, and progression-free survival. Such information has the potential to aid clinical decision-making and further the identification of individualized patient therapy approaches.

Patients who have disease progression while enrolled on RTOG 0925 may be eligible for entry on a trial available to RTOG members through the NCI Clinical Trials Support Unit (CTSU) sponsored by ECOG, E3F05/RTOG 1072, Phase III Randomized Study of Radiotherapy With Versus Without Temozolomide in Patients With Symptomatic or Progressive Low-Grade Gliomas.

Identify clinically relevant fungi confidently and accurately

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A new edition of the definitive practical resource for laboratory identification of fungal infections is now available. The fully revised Medically Important Fungi: A Guide to Identification, 5th Edition, published by ASM Press, offers step-by-step guidance and textual descriptions that allow both novice and experienced lab technologists to accurately distinguish between fungi that display similar characteristics.

Dr. Davise Larone clearly details the microscopic morphology of fungi in tissue as well as on culture, fungal colony morphology on routine media, and the possible pathogenicity of more than 150 fungi that may be encountered in the clinical laboratory.

Readers will find side-by-side comparisons of similar organisms using photomicrographs, the author's own exquisite line drawings, and comparative tables to illustrate critical characteristics and distinctions. Included are an illustrated glossary of mycologic terms, plus over 150 color photos illustrating tissue reactions to fungal infection and characteristic colony morphology when grown on agar plates.

The book also provides instructions on essential laboratory procedures, staining methods, and formulas and applications of useful media. Further, Medically Important Fungi covers the basics of the molecular approach to fungal identification, including definitions of molecular terminology, amplification and sequencing- and non-sequencing-based methods, applications of DNA sequencing, and commercial platforms and recently developed techniques.

I wrote the initial manuscript as a notebook to teach myself mycology by organizing the necessary information in the logical order in which it is actually used, and by drawing precise illustrations of the microscopic forms that contribute so greatly to identification. The first book and the subsequent editions were written to enable microbiology/mycology laboratory personnel to identify the fungi they encounter with confidence and accuracy and to find the task a rewarding and enjoyable undertaking, says Dr. Larone.

Given the practical, yet comprehensive, presentation of clinical laboratory mycology in this book, no laboratory interested in the identification and the medical significance of the many weird and wonderful fungi that cause disease should be without it, says Kevin C. Hazen, PhD, Director of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

This fully revised edition is the definitive practical resource for clinical laboratory mycological identification, says Thomas Walsh, MD, Director of the Transplantation-Oncology Infectious Diseases Program at Weill Cornell University Medical Center.

Davise Larone, PhD, is a Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Microbiology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, with more than 25 years of experience in directing clinical microbiology laboratories. Dr. Larone has developed and published improved methods for the isolation, examination, and identification of fungi, and has lectured widely in the United States and abroad, earning numerous awards and honors for her contributions to the field. Dr. Larone is the author of all previous editions of this book and has been perfecting its content since its inception in 1976.

U.S. Supreme Court petitioned to review AMP, et al. lawsuit on gene patents

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WASHINGTON, DC -- The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Association for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a case that challenges the validity of patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation originally filed the lawsuit on behalf of a coalition of professional organizations led by the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), and representing over 150,000 physicians and scientists, against licensees and patent holders Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation, as well as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Other plaintiffs included individual physicians and scientists, genetic counselors, women's groups and patients.

The lawsuit argued that as products of nature, genes are ineligible for patenting under Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act. In addition, the suit asserted that process claims involving comparison of mutated and normal sequences are also invalid. Finally, the plaintiffs challenged the issuance of the patents on Constitutional grounds, contending that the encumbrances placed by the patents on scientific inquiry and medical care violate Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 and the First Amendment.

In March, 2010 a district court granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs, ruling that human genes and the sequence comparison claims are not patent eligible under Section 101. A divided Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last July reversed in part, holding that the gene sequences at issue are patent eligible as isolated human DNA. However, the Appeals Court affirmed the lower court's finding of invalidity of the comparison, or correlation, claims as unpatentable mental processes.

The patents granted to Myriad give the company the right to exclude others from sequencing the genes or performing other diagnostic tests on BRCA1 and BRCA2. In effect they grant Myriad a monopoly on both medical and research testing for familial breast and ovarian cancer caused by these genes.

That pathologists can be excluded from 'looking at' or 'reading' a patient's DNA sequence to characterize or assess the risk for disease is akin to prohibiting a physician from taking a patient's pulse to see if his or her heart is beating, said Mary Steele Williams, Executive Director of the Association for Molecular Pathology. I think that the fact that patients can be prevented from accessing the information contained in their DNA would offend most people's conceptions of individual rights and personal liberty.

AMP is optimistic the Supreme Court will follow its precedents that render natural products, natural laws, and natural phenomena ineligible for patent protection. Only by upholding the prohibition on patenting laws of nature can the patent system foster competition and advancement in test development, and thereby usher in the era of personalized medicine.

Gene patents are a barrier to innovation in molecular testing because they grant monopolies in diagnostic testing for key biologic relationships in inherited diseases and cancer, said Roger D. Klein, MD, JD, AMP Professional Relations Committee Chair. One cannot invent around gene patents. Excluding medical practitioners from independently accessing the information contained within the genes of their patients, and the subsequent loss of competition this implies, results in higher test prices, decreased patient access, and diminished innovation in the development of new test methods. The overall effects on patient care are resoundingly negative.

AMP is deeply concerned about potential restrictions on physician and patient access to information that could inform care, and the chilling effect gene patents have on medical research.

Because information about gene sequences is so fundamental to elucidating the cause, progression and treatment of disease, patent holders can essentially gain ownership of the understanding of some diseases and of certain areas of patient care itself, said Iris Schrijver, AMP President. Even the possibility of enforcement by a patent holder creates a chilling effect, as pathologist s become reluctant to perform testing procedures that could benefit patients.

IOM report recommends stringent limits on use of chimpanzees in biomedical and behavioral research

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WASHINGTON -- Given that chimpanzees are so closely related to humans and share similar behavioral traits, the National Institutes of Health should allow their use as subjects in biomedical research only under stringent conditions, including the absence of any other suitable model and inability to ethically perform the research on people, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. In addition, use of these animals should be permissible only if forgoing their use will prevent or significantly hinder advances necessary to prevent or treat life-threatening or debilitating conditions, said the committee that wrote the report. Based on these criteria, chimpanzees are not necessary for most biomedical research.

NIH also should limit the use of chimpanzees in behavioral research to studies that provide otherwise unattainable insights into normal and abnormal behavior, mental health, emotion, or cognition, the report says. NIH should require these studies to be performed only on acquiescent animals using techniques that are minimally invasive and are applied in a manner that minimizes pain and distress. Animals used in either biomedical or behavioral studies must be maintained in appropriate physical and social environments or in natural habitats, the report adds.

The report's recommendations answer the need for a uniform set of criteria for assessing the scientific necessity of chimpanzees in biomedical, comparative genomics, and behavioral research, said committee chair Jeffrey Kahn, senior faculty member, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Baltimore. The committee concluded that research use of animals that are so closely related to humans should not proceed unless it offers insights not possible with other animal models and unless it is of sufficient scientific or health value to offset the moral costs. We found very few cases that satisfy these criteria.

Advances in the development of other research tools and methods, including cell-based tests and other animal models, have rendered chimpanzees largely nonessential as research subjects, the committee noted. It acknowledged two possible ongoing uses: the development of a limited number of monoclonal antibody therapies already in the pipeline, and development of a vaccine that would prevent infection by hepatitis C virus (HCV).

New methods such as recombinant technologies can replace the chimpanzee in efforts to develop monoclonal antibodies. While industry and academic laboratories are in the process of adopting these alternate approaches, there may be a few therapies in development that require continued use of chimpanzees to keep progress from stalling and slowing patients' access to needed new treatments. These cases should be assessed to ensure that they meet the criteria outlined in this report, and NIH should continue to support the development of and access to alternatives to make future use of chimpanzees unnecessary.

The committee did not reach a consensus decision on whether chimpanzees are essential to the development of a prophylactic HCV vaccine and if or how much the use of chimpanzees would accelerate or improve this work. Roughly 3.2 million Americans are chronically infected with HCV, and about 17,000 new infections occur each year in the United States alone. Persistent infection can lead to liver disease and cancer; it is the most common cause of liver failure and transplantation in the United States.

Chimpanzees and humans are the only two species that are susceptible to HCV infection, and no other suitable animal models currently exist to test a prophylactic vaccine. However, chimpanzees' immune systems clear HCV from their bodies more effectively, and they are less likely to develop liver damage. The committee members agreed that it would be possible and ethical to test a prophylactic vaccine candidate in humans without prior testing in chimpanzees, provided that it was first shown to be safe and to stimulate an immune response in other animals. However, the committee was evenly split on the necessity of testing various HCV vaccine candidates in chimpanzees before proceeding to human trials.

Goddard scientists selected as participating scientists in missions

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Five scientists from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. have been selected as Participating Scientists in NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and Cassini missions.

The new MSL Participating Scientists are Jennifer Eigenbrode, Daniel Glavin, and Michael Smith.

Jennifer Eigenbrode was selected for her proposal to study the effects of high-energy ionizing radiation on the organic chemistry in sediments that are analogous to those of the Gale Crater, the MSL landing site. The study will draw from MSL observations on the sediments, minerals, salt chemistry, and radiation in that environment. Results of the radiation tests will be used to help guide organic analyses on Mars by the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Eigenbrode will work primarily with the SAM and Radiation Assessment Detector teams on MSL.

Daniel Glavin was awarded a grant to investigate new Sample Analysis at Mars instrument protocols to search for amines of biological origin on Mars. Goddard team members include Jason Dworkin, Amy McAdam, Caroline Freissinet, and Millie Martin. The proposal was one of 22 U.S. investigations selected out of 149 total proposals submitted.

Michael Smith was selected for his proposal to study ozone, dust, and ice particles in the Martian atmosphere. He will determine the abundance and physical characteristics, such as size, of the particles using a combination of MSL instruments that operate at the visible, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelengths. From that, the illumination of Mars's surface from the sky will be calculated; this information is helpful for scientists who study processes at the surface and for identifying minerals using remote sensing.

The new Cassini Participating Scientists are Carrie Anderson and Brigette Hesman. Both Anderson and Hesman will work with the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) team at Goddard.

Carrie Anderson's proposed work for the Cassini Data Analysis Program would investigate the organic particulates that make up the aerosol and the clouds in Titan's atmosphere. Titan is Saturn's largest moon. By studying how these particulates move through various layers of the atmosphere as well as around the globe, researchers can trace the global atmospheric currents and determine how these change with Titan's seasons. The study will use both CIRS and the Cassini Huygens Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer data to detect a wide variety of chemical species by looking at wavelengths from the near-infrared (IR) to the far-IR.

Brigette Hesman's proposed work for the Cassini Data Analysis Program involves studying the effects of storms in Saturn's atmosphere by looking at changes in the temperatures, winds, and the amounts of certain gases. The study will focus on prominent features such as the ovals that have been seen in storm alley and other areas of Saturn's southern hemisphere. Also of interest is a major storm in the northern hemisphere that has been going on for nearly a year and grew so large that it stretched all the way around the planet. By using CIRS data, the effects of these storms on the composition and chemistry of the atmosphere will be probed.

NASA's RXTE detects 'heartbeat' of smallest black hole candidate

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) An international team of astronomers has identified a candidate for the smallest-known black hole using data from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The evidence comes from a specific type of X-ray pattern, nicknamed a heartbeat because of its resemblance to an electrocardiogram. The pattern until now has been recorded in only one other black hole system.

Named IGR J17091-3624 after the astronomical coordinates of its sky position, the binary system combines a normal star with a black hole that may weigh less than three times the sun's mass. That is near the theoretical mass boundary where black holes become possible.

Gas from the normal star streams toward the black hole and forms a disk around it. Friction within the disk heats the gas to millions of degrees, which is hot enough to emit X-rays. Cyclical variations in the intensity of the X-rays observed reflect processes taking place within the gas disk. Scientists think that the most rapid changes occur near the black hole's event horizon, the point beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape.

Astronomers first became aware of the binary system during an outburst in 2003. Archival data from various space missions show it becomes active every few years. Its most recent outburst started in February and is ongoing. The system is located in the direction of the constellation Scorpius, but its distance is not well established. It could be as close as 16,000 light-years or more than 65,000 light-years away.

The record-holder for wide-ranging X-ray variability is another black hole binary system named GRS 1915+105. This system is unique in displaying more than a dozen highly structured patterns, typically lasting between seconds and hours.

We think that most of these patterns represent cycles of accumulation and ejection in an unstable disk, and we now see seven of them in IGR J17091, said Tomaso Belloni at Brera Observatory in Merate, Italy. Identifying these signatures in a second black hole system is very exciting.

In GRS 1915, strong magnetic fields near the black hole's event horizon eject some of the gas into dual, oppositely directed jets that blast outward at about 98 percent the speed of light. The peak of its heartbeat emission corresponds to the emergence of the jet.

Changes in the X-ray spectrum observed by RXTE during each beat reveal that the innermost region of the disk emits enough radiation to push back the gas, creating a strong outward wind that stops the inward flow, briefly starving the black hole and shutting down the jet. This corresponds to the faintest emission. Eventually, the inner disk gets so bright and hot it essentially disintegrates and plunges toward the black hole, re-establishing the jet and beginning the cycle anew. This entire process happens in as little as 40 seconds.

While there is no direct evidence IGR J17091 possesses a particle jet, its heartbeat signature suggests that similar processes are at work. Researchers say that this system's heartbeat emission can be 20 times fainter than GRS 1915 and can cycle some eight times faster, in as little as five seconds.

Astronomers estimate that GRS 1915 is about 14 times the sun's mass, placing it among the most-massive-known black holes that have formed because of the collapse of a single star. The research team analyzed six months of RXTE observations to compare the two systems, concluding that IGR J17091 must possess a minuscule black hole.

Just as the heart rate of a mouse is faster than an elephant's, the heartbeat signals from these black holes scale according to their masses, said Diego Altamirano, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands and lead author of a paper describing the findings in the Nov. 4 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The researchers say this analysis is just the start of a larger program to compare both of these black holes in detail using data from RXTE, NASA's Swift satellite and the European XMM-Newton observatory.

Until this study, GRS 1915 was essentially a one-off, and there's only so much we can understand from a single example, said Tod Strohmayer, the project scientist for RXTE at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Now, with a second system exhibiting similar types of variability, we really can begin to test how well we understand what happens at the brink of a black hole.

Launched in late 1995, RXTE is second only to Hubble as the longest serving of NASA's operating astrophysics missions. RXTE provides a unique observing window into the extreme environments of neutron stars and black holes.

New report identifies research needed on 'modified risk' tobacco products

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WASHINGTON -- A new Institute of Medicine report specifies the types of research that the Food and Drug Administration should require before allowing tobacco companies to sell or advertise 'modified risk' tobacco products as being capable of reducing the health risks of tobacco use. While modified risk tobacco products could be one part of a comprehensive strategy to lower tobacco-related death and disease in the U.S., especially among tobacco users who are unable or unwilling to quit entirely, little is currently known about the products' health effects and whether they pose less risk than traditional tobacco products. Examples of modified risk tobacco products may include e-cigarettes and tobacco lozenges.

Companies and other sponsors developing modified risk tobacco products should consider using FDA-approved independent third parties to oversee health and safety research on their products, adds the report, which was completed to fulfill a congressional mandate. Independent oversight would ensure that the data submitted to FDA are reliable and credible, and it could help re-engage the mainstream scientific community in research. Because of the tobacco industry's well-documented history of improper conduct, many institutions and scientists currently refuse to conduct or publish research supported by the tobacco industry.

Right now there's a shortage of scientific evidence on the health effects of modified risk tobacco products, and the tobacco industry currently lacks the trustworthiness, expertise, and infrastructure to produce it, said Jane Henney, chair of the committee that wrote the report, and professor of medicine and public health sciences at the University of Cincinnati. Having trusted third parties oversee the conduct of research could help re-engage scientists and enable generation of credible research data on the health effects of these products.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 requires that modified-risk tobacco products undergo a pre-market approval process similar to drugs and devices. According to the act, a company that wants to market a lower risk tobacco product in the U.S. must offer scientific proof to FDA that the marketing of the product will not only reduce harm to individual users, but also benefit the health of the population as a whole. The act also directed FDA to consult with IOM on how scientific studies of modified risk tobacco products should be designed and conducted.

The IOM's report says that the studies should examine all of the areas needed to forecast and monitor a proposed product's impact on public health, including its composition and addiction potential; the amount of human exposure to harmful components; perceptions about the product's effects and likelihood of addiction; and effects on human health. Studies should be generalizable to the whole population and should also include populations of special relevance, including current and former smokers, beginning smokers, adolescents, and populations at high risk for tobacco use.

While studies submitted to FDA to demonstrate products' safety are usually conducted or sponsored by the companies themselves, the tobacco industry at present lacks the capacity and expertise to conduct such research, the report says. The industry's history of improper manipulation of data undermined the credibility of its research and left it isolated from the mainstream scientific community. Many major universities have policies against acceptance of tobacco funding, for example, and many high-impact scientific and medical journals will not accept manuscripts supported by the tobacco industry.

Using independent, FDA-approved third parties to conduct, provide oversight of, and distribute funding for research could distance the influence and reputation of the tobacco industry from the scientists who are researching their products. Examples of third-party partnerships between industry and government include the Health Effects Institute and the Reagan-Udall Foundation. No similar organization currently exists for the tobacco industry.

Making data publicly available will also build public trust and will allow for independent analysis of data and methods, the report says. FDA should require sponsors of modified risk tobacco products to place all data generated during a product's development and marketing in a public repository selected by the agency.

FDA should also require that studies offered in support of an application to market modified risk tobacco products conform to established standards of good research governance, including appropriately qualified investigators, transparency, independent institutional review board or ethical review, and adherence to federal regulations that ensure the protection of human participants in biomedical research.

Cigarette and alcohol use at historic low among teens

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Cigarette and alcohol use by eighth, 10th and 12th-graders are at their lowest point since the Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey began polling teenagers in 1975, according to this year's survey results. However, this positive news is tempered by a slowing rate of decline in teen smoking as well as continued high rates of abuse of other tobacco products (e.g., hookahs, small cigars, smokeless tobacco), marijuana and prescription drugs. The survey results, announced today during a news conference at the National Press Club, appear to show that more teens continue to abuse marijuana than cigarettes; and alcohol is still the drug of choice among all three age groups queried.

MTF is an annual survey of eighth, 10th, and 12th-graders conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, under a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The survey was conducted in classrooms earlier this year.

That cigarette use has declined to historically low rates is welcome news, given our concerns that declines may have slowed or stalled in recent years, said NIDA director Dr. Nora D. Volkow. That said, the teen smoking rate is declining much more slowly than in years past, and we are seeing teens consume other tobacco products at high levels. This highlights the urgency of maintaining strong prevention efforts against teen smoking and of targeting other tobacco products.

The 2011 results showed that 18.7 percent of 12th-graders reported current (past-month) cigarette use, compared to a recent peak rate of 36.5 percent in 1997 and 21.6 percent five years ago. Only 6.1 percent of eighth-graders reported current smoking, compared to a recent peak of 21 percent in 1996 and 8.7 percent five years ago.

While it is good news that cigarette use has declined to historically low rates, we can and must do more to accelerate that decline, said Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH, assistant secretary for health. The actual decline is relatively small compared to the sharp declines we witnessed in the late nineties.

For alcohol, 63.5 percent of 12th-graders reported past year use, compared to a recent peak of 74.8 percent in 1997. Similarly, 26.9 percent of eighth-graders reported past year use of alcohol in 2011, compared to a recent peak rate of 46.8 percent in 1994. There also was a five-year decrease in binge drinking, measured as five or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks, across all three grades. Binge drinking was reported by 6.4 percent of eighth-graders, 14.7 percent of 10th-graders, and 21.6 percent of 12th-graders, down from the 2006 rates of 8.7 percent, 19.9 percent and 25.4 percent respectively.

Despite the declines noted in the report, use of marijuana has shown some increases in recent years and remains steady. Among 12th-graders, 36.4 percent reported past year use, and 6.6 percent reported daily use, up from 31.5 and 5 percent, respectively, five years ago. The upward trend in teens' abuse of marijuana corresponded to downward trends in their perception of risk. For example, only 22.7 percent of high school seniors saw great risk in smoking marijuana occasionally, compared to 25.9 percent five years ago. Similarly, 43.4 percent of eighth-graders reported that they saw great risk in smoking marijuana occasionally, compared to 48.9 percent five years ago. In addition, concerns about the use of synthetic marijuana, known as K2 or spice, prompted its inclusion in the survey for the first time in 2011. Surprisingly, 11.4 percent of 12th-graders reported past year use.

K2 and spice are dangerous drugs that can cause serious harm, said Gil Kerlikowske, director of National Drug Control Policy. We will continue to work with the public health and safety community to respond to this emerging threat but in the meantime, parents must take action. Parents are the most powerful force in the lives of young people and we ask that all of them talk to their teens today about the serious consequences of using marijuana, K2, or spice.

There was mixed news seen in the non-medical use of prescription drugs. Abuse of the opioid painkiller Vicodin was reported by 8.1 percent of 12th graders -- similar to 2010 and down from 9.7 percent in 2009. There was also a decline reported by 10th graders -- to 5.9 percent from 7.7 percent in 2010. However, no such declines were seen for the opioid painkiller OxyContin.

In 2011, the non-medical use of the ADHD medicines Adderall and Ritalin remained about the same as last year among 12th-graders, at 6.5 and 2.6 percent, respectively. There was, however, a significant decline in the abuse of over-the-counter cough medicine among eighth-graders, down to 2.7 percent in 2011 from 4.2 percent in 2006, when the survey first asked about its abuse. A similar decline in cough medicine abuse was seen among 12th-graders, to 5.3 percent from 6.9 percent five years ago.

To help educate teens about the dangers of prescription drug abuse, NIDA is launching an updated prescription drug section on our teen website, said Dr. Volkow. Teens can go to our PEERx pages to find interactive videos and other tools that help them make healthy decisions and understand the risks of abusing prescription drugs. We are also encouraging teens to provide feedback on these resources through NIDA's teen blog, Sara Bellum, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or email. PEERx can be seen at

'Green routing' can cut car emissions without significantly slowing travel time

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The path of least emissions may not always be the fastest way to drive somewhere. But according to new research from the University at Buffalo, it's possible for drivers to cut their tailpipe emissions without significantly slowing travel time.

In detailed, computer simulations of traffic in Upstate New York's Buffalo Niagara region, UB researchers Adel Sadek and Liya Guo found that green routing could reduce overall emissions of carbon monoxide by 27 percent for area drivers, while increasing the length of trips by an average of just 11 percent.

In many cases, simple changes yielded great gains.

Funneling cars along surface streets instead of freeways helped to limit fuel consumption, for instance. Intelligently targeting travelers was another strategy that worked: Rerouting just one fifth of drivers -- those who would benefit most from a new path -- reduced regional emissions by about 20 percent.

Sadek, a transportation systems expert, says one reason green routing is appealing is because it's a strategy that consumers and transportation agencies could start using today.

We're not talking about replacing all vehicles with hybrid cars or transforming to a hydrogen-fuel economy -- that would take time to implement, said Sadek, an associate professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering. But this idea, green routing, we could implement it now.

In the near future, GPS navigation systems and online maps could play an important role in promoting green routing, Sadek said. Specifically, these systems and programs could use transportation research to give drivers the option to choose an environmentally friendly route instead of the shortest route.

Sadek and Guo, a PhD candidate, presented their research on green routing at the 18th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems in October.

In the UB study on green routing, the researchers tied together two computer models commonly known as MOVES and TRANSIMS.

The Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES), created by the Environmental Protection Agency, estimates emissions. The Transportation Analysis and Simulation System (TRANSIMS) simulates traffic in great detail, taking into account information including the location and pattern of signals; the grade of the road; and the trips people take at different times of day.

After incorporating Buffalo-specific data into TRANSIMS, Sadek and Guo ran a number of simulations, rerouting travelers in new ways each time.

After running the models numerous times, the researchers reached a green-user equilibrium -- a traffic pattern where all drivers are traveling along optimal routes. With the system in equilibrium, moving a commuter from one path to another would increase a user's overall emissions by creating more congestion or sparking another problem.

The simulations were part of a broader study Sadek is conducting on evaluating the likely environmental benefits of green routing in the region. His project is one of seven that the U.S. Department of Transportation has funded through a Broad Agency Announcement that aims to leverage intelligent transportation systems to reduce the environmental impact of transportation.

Opioid abuse linked to mood and anxiety disorders

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:00:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Individuals suffering from mood and anxiety disorders such as bipolar, panic disorder and major depressive disorder may be more likely to abuse opioids, according to a new study led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They found that mood and anxiety disorders are highly associated with non-medical prescription opioid use. The results are featured in a recent issue of the Journal of Psychological Medicine.

Prescription opioids such as oxycontin are a common and effective treatment for chronic and acute pain. Non-medical use of prescription opioids has increased dramatically and, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, prescription opioids are the second most frequently used illegal drug in the U.S. after marijuana. Prescription opioids are highly addictive and prolonged use can produce neurological changes and physiological dependence. For the study, researchers examined the association between individuals with mood and anxiety disorders with non-medical prescription opioid use and opioid disorder.

Lifetime non-medical prescription opioid use was associated with the incidence of any mood disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and all anxiety disorders. Non-medical opioid-use disorder due to non-medical prescription opioid use was associated with any mood disorder, any anxiety disorder, as well as with several incident mood disorders and anxiety disorders, said Silvia Martins, MD, PhD, lead author of the study and an associate scientist with the Bloomberg School's Department of Mental Health. However, there is also evidence that the association works the other way too. Increased risk of incident opioid disorder due to non-medical use occurred among study participants with baseline mood disorders, major depressive disorder, dysthymia and panic disorder, reinforcing our finding that participants with mood disorders might use opioids non-medically to alleviate their mood symptoms. Early identification and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders might reduce the risk for self-medication with prescription opioids and the risk of future development of an opioid-use disorder.

Using data from the National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a longitudinal face-to-face survey of individuals aged 18 years and older between 2001 to 2002 and 2004 to 2005, researchers assessed participants for a history of psychiatric disorders. Non-medical use of prescription opioids was defined to participants as using a prescription opioid without a prescription or in greater amounts more often or longer than prescribed or for a reason other than a doctor's instruction to use them. Logistic regression was used to determine whether lifetime non-medical prescription opioid use and opioid disorders due to this use predicted incident mood and anxiety disorders and the reverse. Researchers believe these findings provide support for a bi-directional pathway between non-medical prescription opioid use and opioid-use disorder due to non-medical use and several mood and anxiety disorders.

With the current increased use of non-medical prescription drugs, especially among adolescents, the association with future psychopathology is of great concern. Using opioids, or even withdrawal from opioids, might precipitate anxiety disorders, suggesting that there is a subgroup of people who are vulnerable to future development of anxiety disorders, said Carla Storr, ScD, author of the study and an adjunct professor with the Bloomberg School's Department of Mental Health. Individuals using prescription opioids need to be closely monitored not only for the possibility of engaging in non-medical use, but also for the development of co-morbid psychiatric disorders.

Additional studies are needed to examine the relationship between non-medical prescription opioid use and prescription opioid-use disorder with mood and anxiety disorders since they could co-occur due to shared genetic or environmental risk factors, Martins adds.