ScienceDaily: Top News

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• How mouth cells resist Candida infection
• Following a Mediterranean diet not associated with delay to clinical onset of Huntington disease
• Maternal posttraumatic stress disorder associated with increased risk for child maltreatment
• Gap in earnings persists between male and female physicians, research letter suggests
• Costs of health care-associated infections: 9.8 billion annually in US
• Soot suspect in mid-1800s Alps glacier retreat
• Biologists show that generosity leads to evolutionary success
• Primate calls, like human speech, can help infants form categories
• Frogs that hear with their mouth: X-rays reveal a new hearing mechanism for animals without an ear
• The true raw material footprint of nations
• Prehistoric climate shift linked to cosmic impact
• Giant Triassic amphibian was a burrowing youngster
• Single tone alerts brain to complete sound pattern
• Salamanders under threat from deadly skin-eating fungus
• Red cedar tree study shows that clean air act is reducing pollution, improving forests
• A fly's hearing: Fruit fly is ideal model to study hearing loss in people
• Genetic reproductive barriers: Long-held assumption about emergence of new species questioned
• Between the water and fire of Peruvian volcanoes
• Peru: Liver cancer like no other
• Health of older women in developed countries continues to improve: Gap with developing countries grows
• Pacemaker for slow heart rhythm restores life expectancy, study suggests
• Women less likely to die after TAVI than men
• Metabolically healthy women have same CVD risk regardless of BMI
• Average height of European males has grown by 11 centimeters in just over a century
• Stomach bacteria switch off human immune defenses to cause disease
• Robotic IV insertion device means less pain for kids
• New test to predict women at risk of pregnancy complications?
• Next generation cures born from the sea?
• Paradox of polar ice sheet formation solved
• Modular battery concept for short-distance traffic
• HIV: Predicting treatment response more accurately
• Astronomy: World's first interferometric image at 500 GHz with ALMA Band 8 receivers
• Evidence of production of luxury textiles and the extraction of copper from an unknown part of a Cypriote Bronze Age city
• Surprising result: Risk factors for cardiovascular problems found to be inverse to disease and deaths
• Drug reduces hospitalizations and cost of treating young children with sickle cell anemia
• Heart attack patients: Preventive PCI results in better outcomes than culprit artery PCI alone in ST elevation MI
• Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival just 7 percent
• Quitting smoking drops heart attack risk to levels of never smokers
• Listening to favorite music improves endothelial function in CAD
• Physical activity decreases sudden cardiac death risk in unfit men
• Cold weather produces more heart attacks, researchers find
• Cardiovascular risk factors highest in winter and lowest in summer
• TASTE trial challenge current practice of blood clot aspiration after heart attack
• Big belly increases death risk in heart attack survivors

How mouth cells resist Candida infection Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:31 PM PDT Candida albicans is a common fungus found living in, and on, many parts of the human body. Usually this species causes no harm to humans unless it can breach the body's immune defenses, where can lead to serious illness or death. It is known as an opportunistic pathogen that can colonize and infect individuals with a compromised immune system. New research gives us a greater understanding of how mucosal surfaces in the body respond to C. albicans to prevent damage being done during infection.

Following a Mediterranean diet not associated with delay to clinical onset of Huntington disease Posted: 02 Sep 2013 03:10 PM PDT Adhering to a Mediterranean-type diet (MedDi) does not appear associated with the time to clinical onset of Huntington disease (phenoconversion), according to a new study.

Maternal posttraumatic stress disorder associated with increased risk for child maltreatment Posted: 02 Sep 2013 03:10 PM PDT Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in mothers appears to be associated with an increased risk for child maltreatment beyond that associated with maternal depression, according to a new study.

Gap in earnings persists between male and female physicians, research letter suggests Posted: 02 Sep 2013 03:10 PM PDT A gap in earnings between male and female U.S. physicians has persisted over the last 20 years, according to a new research.

Costs of health care-associated infections: 9.8 billion annually in US Posted: 02 Sep 2013 03:10 PM PDT A study estimates that total annual costs for five major health care-associated infections (HAIs) were $9.8 billion, with surgical site infections contributing the most to overall costs, according to a new report.

Soot suspect in mid-1800s Alps glacier retreat Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:27 PM PDT Scientists have uncovered strong evidence that soot, or black carbon, sent into the air by a rapidly industrializing Europe, likely caused the abrupt retreat of mountain glaciers in the European Alps.

Biologists show that generosity leads to evolutionary success Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:27 PM PDT With new insights into the classical game theory match-up known as the "Prisoner's Dilemma," biologists offer a mathematically based explanation for why cooperation and generosity have evolved in nature.

Primate calls, like human speech, can help infants form categories Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:27 PM PDT Human infants' responses to the vocalizations of non-human primates shed light on the developmental origin of a crucial link between human language and core cognitive capacities, a new study reports. Previous studies have shown that even in infants too young to speak, listening to human speech supports core cognitive processes, including the formation of object categories. Researchers documented that this link is initially broad enough to include the vocalizations of non-human primates.

Frogs that hear with their mouth: X-rays reveal a new hearing mechanism for animals without an ear Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:27 PM PDT Gardiner's frogs from the Seychelles islands, one of the smallest frogs in the world, do not possess a middle ear with an eardrum yet can croak themselves, and hear other frogs. An international team of scientists using X-rays has now solved this mystery and established that these frogs are using their mouth cavity and tissue to transmit sound to their inner ears.

The true raw material footprint of nations Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:27 PM PDT Using a new modelling tool and more comprehensive indicators, researchers were able to map the flow of raw materials across the world economy with unprecedented accuracy to determine the true "material footprint" of 186 countries over a two-decade period (from 1990 to 2008). The results confirm that pressures on raw materials do not necessarily decline as affluence grows and demonstrates the need for policy-makers to consider new accounting methods that more accurately track resource consumption.

Prehistoric climate shift linked to cosmic impact Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:27 PM PDT For the first time, a dramatic global climate shift has been linked to the impact in Quebec of an asteroid or comet, Dartmouth researchers and their colleagues report in a new study. The cataclysmic event wiped out many of the planet's large mammals and may have prompted humans to start gathering and growing some of their food rather than solely hunting big game.

Giant Triassic amphibian was a burrowing youngster Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:27 PM PDT During the Triassic Period Krasiejów, Poland had a warm climate and was populated by giant amphibians, such as Metoposaurus diagnosticus. Like modern amphibians, Metoposaurus needed water, but an extremely long dry season drove this species to burrow underground and go dormant. This recently discovered burrowing behavior was explored in a new study examining the overall structure Metoposaurus' skeleton and the microscopic structure of its bones.

Single tone alerts brain to complete sound pattern Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:26 PM PDT The processing of sound in the brain is more advanced than previously thought. When we hear a tone, our brain temporarily strengthens that tone but also any tones separated from it by one or more octaves.

Salamanders under threat from deadly skin-eating fungus Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:26 PM PDT A new species of fungus that eats amphibians' skin has ravaged the fire salamander population in the Netherlands, bringing it close to regional extinction.

Red cedar tree study shows that clean air act is reducing pollution, improving forests Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:25 PM PDT Ecologist have shown that the Clean Air Act has helped forest systems recover from decades of sulfur pollution and acid rain. The research team spent four years studying centuries-old eastern red cedar trees, or Juniperus virginiana, in the Central Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia.

A fly's hearing: Fruit fly is ideal model to study hearing loss in people Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:25 PM PDT Researchers say that the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an ideal model to study hearing loss in humans caused by loud noise. The reason: The molecular underpinnings to its hearing are roughly the same as with people.

Genetic reproductive barriers: Long-held assumption about emergence of new species questioned Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:25 PM PDT Darwin referred to the origin of species as "that mystery of mysteries," and even today, more than 150 years later, evolutionary biologists cannot fully explain how new animals and plants arise. For decades, nearly all research in the field has been based on the assumption that the main cause of the emergence of new species, a process called speciation, is the formation of barriers to reproduction between populations. But now researchers are questioning the long-held assumption that genetic reproductive barriers, also known as reproductive isolation, are a driving force behind speciation.

Between the water and fire of Peruvian volcanoes Posted: 02 Sep 2013 09:39 AM PDT Water and fire coexist under volcanoes to generate "hydrothermal" systems: complex "steam engines" producing white smoke called "fumaroles" that is sometimes observed at the surface. Scientists have just demonstrated why these reservoirs are not always found under the volcanic peaks. For certain structures such as the Ticsani and Ubinas in Peru, where the volcanologists conducted their study, resurgences occur more than 10 km from the top of the dome. Their numerical model shows that the position of the hydrothermal systems depends on regional topography, which may significantly deviate subsurface flows.

Peru: Liver cancer like no other Posted: 02 Sep 2013 09:39 AM PDT Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and the third most deadly. It mainly affects men over the age of 40, most often with cirrhosis or hepatitis B or C. But in Peru, it also uncharacteristically affects young people, even children, who do not have the identified related risk factors. Scientists have highlighted a disturbing fact: these patients, with an average age of 25, come from the same geographical area in the Andes.

Health of older women in developed countries continues to improve: Gap with developing countries grows Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:20 AM PDT Measures taken in developed countries to reduce noncommunicable diseases -- the leading causes of death globally -- have improved the life expectancy of women aged 50 years and older over the last 20 to 30 years. But, according to a study the gap in life expectancy between such women in rich and poor countries is growing.

Pacemaker for slow heart rhythm restores life expectancy, study suggests Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:18 AM PDT The FollowPace study provides detailed documentation of current standard pacemaker care in a large representative sample of western pacemaker clinics. The results can therefore be considered a new benchmark of life expectancy of patients treated with today's cardiac pacing.

Women less likely to die after TAVI than men Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:18 AM PDT Women are 25 percent less likely to die one year after TAVI than men, according to new research. The findings suggest that TAVI might be the preferred treatment option for elderly women with symptomatic severe aortic stenosis.

Metabolically healthy women have same CVD risk regardless of BMI Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:18 AM PDT A Danish study followed 261,489 women with no prior history of cardiovascular disease for an average of five years.

Average height of European males has grown by 11 centimeters in just over a century Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:17 AM PDT The average height of European males increased by an unprecedented 11 centimeters between the mid-nineteenth century and 1980, according to a new article. Contrary to expectations, the study also reveals that average height actually accelerated in the period spanning the two World Wars and the Great Depression.

Stomach bacteria switch off human immune defenses to cause disease Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:17 AM PDT Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that establishes a life-long stomach infection in humans, which in some cases can lead to duodenal ulcers or stomach cancer. New research gives us a clearer understanding of how these bacteria can manipulate the human immune system to survive in the mucosal lining of the stomach.

Robotic IV insertion device means less pain for kids Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:17 AM PDT A new prototype device for rapid and safe IV insertion reduces pain in hospitalized children. The semi-automatic handheld device, called SAGIV, identifies veins, inserts a needle and withdraws it in a single movement.

New test to predict women at risk of pregnancy complications? Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:17 AM PDT Researchers have identified proteins in the blood that could be used to predict whether a woman in her first pregnancy is at increased risk of developing pre-eclampsia. Pre-eclampsia is a complication of pregnancy where the mother develops high blood pressure and protein is present in the urine. In some cases, this can develop into a serious condition for both mother and baby and the only cure is delivery of the baby, often prematurely.

Next generation cures born from the sea? Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:16 AM PDT The life that inhabits the world's oceans has almost infinite variety. It remains an untapped source of diversity.

Paradox of polar ice sheet formation solved Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:15 AM PDT The beginning of the last glacial period was characterized in the Northern hemisphere by significant accumulation of snow at high latitudes and the formation of a huge polar ice sheet. For climatologists this was paradoxical, since snowfall is always associated with high humidity and relatively moderate temperatures. Now, scientists have solved this paradox.

Modular battery concept for short-distance traffic Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:15 AM PDT Electric mobility may be economically efficient today. Battery-based electric drives can be applied efficiently in urban buses, for instance. Frequent acceleration and slow-down processes as well as a high utilization rate in short-distance traffic make their use profitable even when considering current battery costs.

HIV: Predicting treatment response more accurately Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:15 AM PDT HIV is feared, not least, because of its great adaptability. If the virus mutates at precisely the point targeted by a drug, it is able to neutralize the attack and the treatment fails. To minimize these viral defense mechanisms, doctors treat patients with modern combination therapies involving the simultaneous administration of several drugs. This approach forces the virus to run through a series of mutations before it becomes immune to the drugs.

Astronomy: World's first interferometric image at 500 GHz with ALMA Band 8 receivers Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:15 AM PDT ALMA opens another window to the universe in the 500 GHz frequency band. Astronomers successfully synthesized the distribution of atomic carbon around a planetary nebula NGC 6302 in test observations with the ALMA Band 8 receiver.

Evidence of production of luxury textiles and the extraction of copper from an unknown part of a Cypriote Bronze Age city Posted: 02 Sep 2013 07:15 AM PDT A Swedish archaeological expedition has excavated a previously unknown part of the Bronze Age city Hala Sultan Tekke (around 1600-1100 BC). The finds include a facility for extraction of copper and production of bronze objects, evidence of production of luxurious textiles, as well as ceramics and other objects imported from all over the Mediterranean but also from central Europe.

Surprising result: Risk factors for cardiovascular problems found to be inverse to disease and deaths Posted: 02 Sep 2013 06:56 AM PDT The international research team found risk factors for cardiovascular disease was lowest in low income countries, intermediate in middle income countries and highest in high income countries. However, the incidence of serious cardiovascular disease such as heart attacks, strokes, heart failure and deaths followed the opposite pattern: highest in the low income countries, intermediate in middle income countries and lowest in high income countries. Hospitalizations for less severe cardiovascular diseases were highest in the high income countries.

Drug reduces hospitalizations and cost of treating young children with sickle cell anemia Posted: 02 Sep 2013 06:56 AM PDT A new drug demonstrated to be effective for treatment of adults and children with sickle cell anemia reduced hospitalizations and cut annual estimated medical costs by 21 percent for affected infants and toddlers, according to a new analysis.

Heart attack patients: Preventive PCI results in better outcomes than culprit artery PCI alone in ST elevation MI Posted: 01 Sep 2013 12:41 PM PDT Heart attack patients with ST elevation who undergo a preventive procedure to unblock additional coronary arteries have significantly better outcomes than those whose treatment is confined to the culprit blockage only, according to new results.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival just 7 percent Posted: 01 Sep 2013 12:41 PM PDT The Paris Sudden Death Expertise Centre Registry is a population-based registry using multiple sources to collect every case of cardiac arrest in Greater Paris (population 6.6 million) according to the Utstein Style.1 Cases are continuously recorded (within hours of occurrence) and standardized follow-up is initiated on admission to the intensive care unit. Incidence, prognostic factors and outcomes are recorded.

Quitting smoking drops heart attack risk to levels of never smokers Posted: 01 Sep 2013 12:41 PM PDT Quitting smoking reduces the risk of heart attack and death to the levels of people who have never smoked, reveals new research.

Listening to favorite music improves endothelial function in CAD Posted: 01 Sep 2013 12:41 PM PDT Listening to favorite music improves endothelial function in patients with coronary artery disease, according to new research. Music and exercise training combined produced the most benefit.

Physical activity decreases sudden cardiac death risk in unfit men Posted: 01 Sep 2013 12:41 PM PDT Physical activity decreases the risk of sudden cardiac death in unfit men, reveals new research.

Cold weather produces more heart attacks, researchers find Posted: 01 Sep 2013 12:41 PM PDT Cold weather leads to more heart attacks, according to new research. The multifactorial study of nearly 16,000 patients found no relationship between heart attacks and air pollution.

Cardiovascular risk factors highest in winter and lowest in summer Posted: 01 Sep 2013 12:41 PM PDT Cardiovascular risk factors are highest in winter and lowest in summer, according to new research. The analysis included more than 100,000 subjects in seven countries.

TASTE trial challenge current practice of blood clot aspiration after heart attack Posted: 01 Sep 2013 12:41 PM PDT Aspiration of the blood clot or "thrombus" that causes a heart attack before re-opening a patient's artery with a balloon catheter does not improve survival compared to performing balloon dilation and stenting alone according to new results.

Big belly increases death risk in heart attack survivors Posted: 01 Sep 2013 12:40 PM PDT Findings from the FAST-MI 2005 registry suggest that lifestyle interventions in heart attack patients should focus on losing abdominal fat.

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