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Hyperammonaemia Reduces Restorative Sleep for Patients with Cirrhosis
New Treatment May Reduce Opioid-Induced Constipation in Critical Care Patients
Older Adults Who Sleep Poorly React to Stress with Increased Inflammation
Winning makes people more aggressive toward the defeated
New study reveals more people surviving leukaemia and pancreatic cancer in Northern Ireland
New indicator diseases reveal hidden HIV
By looking at the Moon Very Large Telescope Rediscovers Life on Earth
Mitochondrial Dysfunction Present Early in Alzheimer’s, Before Memory Loss
How insects ‘remodel’ their bodies between life stages and how mechanisms may drive changes in puberty
Phosphorus and Groundwater: Scientists Establish Links Between Agricultural Use and Transport to Streams
An electrical switch for magnetic current
Researchers Find an Epigenetic Culprit of Memory Decline - HDAC2 enzyme
Meeting biofuel production targets could change agricultural landscape
Adapting personal glucose monitors to detect DNA
Who’s in the Know? To a Preschooler, the Person Doing the Pointing
University of Florida scientists name new ancient camels from Panama Canal excavation
Determinig biological sex of skeletal remains based on tarsal bone measurement in the feet
Young Stars Flicker Amidst Clouds of Gas and Dust
Ultrasound Technology Proves Accurate in Diagnosing Cirrhosis from Recurrent Hepatitis C
Gluten-free, casein-free diet may help some children with autism

Hyperammonaemia Reduces Restorative Sleep for Patients with Cirrhosis

Posted: 01 Mar 2012 07:40 AM PST

Italian and Swiss researchers confirm that induced hyperammonaemia significantly increases daytime sleepiness in patients with cirrhosis. The findings available in the March issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, show that higher blood levels of ammonia reduced the ability of cirrhotic patients to produce restorative sleep.

New Treatment May Reduce Opioid-Induced Constipation in Critical Care Patients

Posted: 01 Mar 2012 07:32 AM PST

Opioids are a mainstay of care in the critical care unit, but their use frequently causes constipation which can lead to adverse outcomes including delayed feeding and later discharge from the ICU. Researchers from London, UK, and Chicago, IL, have found that methylnaltrexone (MNTX), a peripheral opioid antagonist, may restore bowel function in critically ill patients. Their retrospective study appears in the March issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Older Adults Who Sleep Poorly React to Stress with Increased Inflammation

Posted: 01 Mar 2012 07:28 AM PST

Older adults who sleep poorly have an altered immune system response to stress that may increase risk for mental and physical health problems, according to a study led by a University of Rochester Medical Center researcher.

In the study, stress led to significantly larger increases in a marker of inflammation in poor sleepers compared to good sleepers—a marker associated with poor health outcomes and death.

Winning makes people more aggressive toward the defeated

Posted: 01 Mar 2012 07:09 AM PST

In this world, there are winners and losers – and, for your own safety, it is best to fear the winners.

A new study found that winners – those who outperformed others on a competitive task – acted more aggressively against the people they beat than the losers did against the victors.

“It seems that people have a tendency to stomp down on those they have defeated, to really rub it in,” said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.

New study reveals more people surviving leukaemia and pancreatic cancer in Northern Ireland

Posted: 01 Mar 2012 06:53 AM PST

L to R Dr Michael McBride, Professor Sir Peter Gregson, Dr Anna Gavin and Health Minister, Edwin Poots, MLA. The first audit of leukaemia treatment and survival in Northern Ireland by the Cancer Registry (NICR) at Queen’s University Belfast has shown that survival rates for the disease here are at the highest levels since data collection began in 1993.

For children with the disease, survival has improved dramatically from under 10 per cent in the 1960 to1970s, to the current level of over 80 per cent for five year survival.

New indicator diseases reveal hidden HIV

Posted: 01 Mar 2012 06:49 AM PST

Today, heterosexuals in Europe are at particular risk of carrying HIV for so long that they remain undiagnosed until their immune system starts to fail and they become ill.

An international study under the leadership of the HIV in Europe initiative has now revealed that a number of diseases, including herpes zoster and certain forms of cancer, should be on the list of indicators for having HIV - and thus serve to prompt health care professionals to suggest an HIV-test to their patients.

By looking at the Moon Very Large Telescope Rediscovers Life on Earth

Posted: 01 Mar 2012 06:21 AM PST

By observing the Moon using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have found evidence of life in the Universe — on Earth. Finding life on our home planet may sound like a trivial observation, but the novel approach of an international team may lead to future discoveries of life elsewhere in the Universe. The work is described in a paper to appear in the 1 March 2012 issue of the journal Nature.

Mitochondrial Dysfunction Present Early in Alzheimer’s, Before Memory Loss

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 09:18 PM PST

Mitochondria -- subunits inside cells that produce energy -- have long been thought to play a role in Alzheimer’s disease. Now Mayo Clinic researchers using genetic mouse models have discovered that mitochondria in the brain are dysfunctional early in the disease. The findings appear in the journal PLoS ONE.

How insects ‘remodel’ their bodies between life stages and how mechanisms may drive changes in puberty

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 01:12 PM PST

It’s one of life’s special moments: a child finds a fat caterpillar, puts it in a jar with a twig and a few leaves, and awakens one day to find the caterpillar has disappeared and an elegant but apparently lifeless case now hangs from the twig.

Then, when the jar has been forgotten, soft beating against its glass walls calls attention to a new wonder: the jar now holds a fragile-winged butterfly or dusky moth with fringed antennae.

Phosphorus and Groundwater: Scientists Establish Links Between Agricultural Use and Transport to Streams

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 12:57 PM PST

Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey have, for the first time, demonstrated how aquifer composition can affect how excessive levels of phosphorous (an essential nutrient contained in fertilizers) can be carried from fertilized agricultural fields via groundwater to streams and waterways. This finding will allow for more informed management of agriculture, ecosystem, and human water needs.

An electrical switch for magnetic current

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 12:27 PM PST

A new mechanism will make it possible to switch data storage in the future. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle use a short electric pulse to change the magnetic transport properties of a material sandwich consisting of a ferroelectric layer between two ferromagnetic materials. It could be assumed that an electric pulse only influences the electric transport properties. With the help of the new switching mechanism, information can be placed in four instead of just two states of a storage point. This consequently increases storage density.

Researchers Find an Epigenetic Culprit of Memory Decline - HDAC2 enzyme

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 12:09 PM PST

In a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, memory problems stem from an overactive enzyme that shuts off genes related to neuron communication, a new study says.

When researchers genetically blocked the enzyme, called HDAC2, they ‘reawakened’ some of the neurons and restored the animals’ cognitive function. The results, published February 29, 2012, in the journal Nature, suggest that drugs that inhibit this particular enzyme would make good treatments for some of the most devastating effects of the incurable neurodegenerative disease.

Meeting biofuel production targets could change agricultural landscape

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 11:31 AM PST

Almost 80 percent of current farmland in the U.S. would have to be devoted to raising corn for ethanol production in order to meet current biofuel production targets with existing technology, a new study has found. An alternative, according to a study in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology, would be to convert 60 percent of existing rangeland to biofuels.

Adapting personal glucose monitors to detect DNA

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 11:22 AM PST

An inexpensive device used by millions of people with diabetes could be adapted into a home DNA detector that enables individuals to perform home tests for viruses and bacteria in human body fluids, in food and in other substances, scientists are reporting in a new study. The report on this adaptation of the ubiquitous personal glucose monitor, typically used to test blood sugar levels, appears in ACS’ journal Analytical Chemistry.

Who’s in the Know? To a Preschooler, the Person Doing the Pointing

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 09:12 AM PST

If you want a preschooler to get the point, point. That’s a lesson that can be drawn from a new study in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. As part of their investigation of how small children know what other people know, the authors, Carolyn Palmquist and Vikram K.

University of Florida scientists name new ancient camels from Panama Canal excavation

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 09:08 AM PST

The discovery of two new extinct camel species by University of Florida scientists sheds new light on the history of the tropics, a region containing more than half the world's biodiversity and some of its most important ecosystems.

Determinig biological sex of skeletal remains based on tarsal bone measurement in the feet

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 08:41 AM PST

Law enforcement officials who are tasked with identifying a body based on partial skeletal remains have a new tool at their disposal. A new paper from North Carolina State University researchers details how to determine the biological sex of skeletal remains based solely on measurements of the seven tarsal bones in the feet.

Young Stars Flicker Amidst Clouds of Gas and Dust

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 07:37 AM PST

Astronomers have spotted young stars in the Orion nebula changing right before their eyes, thanks to the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The colorful specks -- developing stars strung across the image -- are rapidly heating up and cooling down, speaking to the turbulent, rough-and-tumble process of reaching full stellar adulthood.

Ultrasound Technology Proves Accurate in Diagnosing Cirrhosis from Recurrent Hepatitis C

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 07:23 AM PST

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic confirm that ultrasound-based transient elastography (TE) provides excellent diagnostic accuracy for detecting cirrhosis due to recurrent infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection following liver transplantation.

Gluten-free, casein-free diet may help some children with autism

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 07:18 AM PST

A gluten-free, casein-free diet may lead to improvements in behavior and physiological symptoms in some children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to researchers at Penn State. The research is the first to use survey data from parents to document the effectiveness of a gluten-free, casein-free diet on children with ASD.