As part of the study, the researchers analyzed 518 quadrupedal walking strides from several videos of people with various forms of UTS, including footage from the BBC2 documentary of the five Turkish siblings, "The Family That Walks on All Fours." They compared these walking strides to previous studies of the walking patterns of healthy adults who were asked to move around a laboratory on all fours.
Body
In a world-first study published today, researchers say dredging activity near coral reefs can increase the frequency of diseases affecting corals.
"At dredging sites, we found more than twice as much coral disease than at our control sites," says the lead author of the study, Joe Pollock, a PhD candidate from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University (JCU) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).
A new study may provide evidence that our prehistoric ancestors understood plant consumption and processing long before the development of agriculture, according to a study published July 16, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Stephen Buckley from University of York and colleagues.
Evans' team injected doses of FGF1 into obese mice with diabetes to assess the protein's potential impact on metabolism. Researchers were stunned by what happened: they found that with a single dose, blood sugar levels quickly dropped to normal levels in all the diabetic mice.
"Many previous studies that injected FGF1 showed no effect on healthy mice," says Michael Downes, a senior staff scientist and co-corresponding author of the new work. "However, when we injected it into a diabetic mouse, we saw a dramatic improvement in glucose."
Scientists may be able to entomb the malaria parasite in a prison of its own making, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report July 16 in Nature.
As it invades a red blood cell, the malaria parasite takes part of the host cell's membrane to build a protective compartment. To grow properly, steal nourishment and dump waste, the parasite then starts a series of major renovations that transform the red blood cell into a suitable home.
Research led by the University of York has highlighted the potential cancer risk in non-smokers – particularly young children – of tobacco smoke gases and particles deposited to surfaces and dust in the home.
Until now, the risks of this exposure known as 'third hand tobacco smoke' have been highly uncertain and not considered in public policy.
Irvine, Calif., July 16, 2014 – The common pencil squid (Loliginidae) may hold the key to a new generation of medical technologies that could communicate more directly with the human body. UC Irvine materials science researchers have discovered that reflectin, a protein in the tentacled creature's skin, can conduct positive electrical charges, or protons, making it a promising material for building biologically inspired devices.
PORTLAND, Ore. (July 16, 2014)—Thirteen scientists received a total of $1.05 million in funding from the National Psoriasis Foundation for projects that aim to identify new treatments and a cure for psoriasis—an autoimmune disease that appears on the skin, affecting 7.5 million Americans—and psoriatic arthritis—an inflammatory arthritis that affects the joints and tendons, occurring in up to 30 percent of people with psoriasis.
Rapidly accumulating data on the molecular sequences of animal genes are overturning some standard zoological narratives about how major animal groups evolved. The turmoil means that biologists should adopt guidelines to ensure that their evolutionary scenarios remain consistent with new information—which a surprising number of scenarios are not, according to a critical overview article to be published in the August issue of BioScience and now available with Advance Access.
CHICAGO – A new study authored by Northwestern Medicine® researchers found that reviewing electronic health records (EHRs) using algorithms can successfully identify patients with previously undiagnosed hypertension, or high blood pressure, with a high rate of accuracy. Of the 1,033 patients that were identified with the EHR algorithms and evaluated, 361 were formally diagnosed with the hypertension and 290 others were diagnosed with related blood pressure conditions such as prehypertension, white-coat hypertension or elevated blood pressure.
LIVERPOOL, UK – 17 July 2014: An untreatable and deadly neurodegenerative disease has been modelled and treated in worms by University of Liverpool researchers, suggesting a cure could be found for humans.
The scientists studied adult onset neuronal lipofuscinosis (ANCL) which usually strikes around 1 in 100,000 people in Europe and North America in their 30s and results in death by the mid-40s. There is currently no known treatment for this disease, though it has recently been identified as being caused by mutations in the gene called DNAJC5.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – July 16, 2014 – Heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of death and disability among people with Type 2 diabetes. In fact, at least 65 percent of people with diabetes die from some form of heart disease or stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
However, a new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center suggests that the use of cholesterol-lowering statins may help prolong the lives of people with diabetic cardiovascular disease.
CHICAGO (July 16, 2014) – Thousands of critically ill patients on life support develop ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) each year. A new document released today by a consortium of professional organizations helps prioritize strategies to prevent this potentially fatal infection.
HOUSTON – (July 16, 2014) – Being a part of a business group and participating in capital markets can have a significant positive impact on an Indian company's performance in the stock market, according to a new study on Indian entrepreneurship by emerging-economy experts at Rice University, the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India, and the graduate business school INSEAD Singapore.
CHICAGO (July 16, 2014) – Cases of the highly contagious, drug-resistant bacteria, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), have increased fivefold in community hospitals in the Southeastern United States, according to a new study published in the August issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.