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UVALDE – Texas AgriLife Research scientists have recently completed a two-year study on the impact of deficit irrigation and plant density on the growth, yield and quality of short-day onions.

Deficit irrigation is a strategy in which water is applied to a crop during its drought-senstitive stages of development and is either applied sparingly or not at all during other growth stages, particularly if there is sufficient rainfall, reducing the overall amount of irrigation through the crop cycle.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – New research shows how old people are when they first develop Parkinson's disease is one of many clues in how long they'll survive with the disease. The research is published in the October 5, 2010, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Re-opening a blocked heart artery isn't the only procedure that concerns doctors when they thread instruments through an opening in a thigh artery and into a heart artery. Closing up the thigh artery is also a concern.

Arteriotomy — the process of creating a hole in an "access artery" through which instruments are inserted — is the first step in procedures like angiography (to visualize blockage in the heart or neck arteries) or percutaneous coronary intervention (to re-open blocked heart arteries).

According to a consensus statement by the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks (ISHIB), high blood pressure in African-Americans is such a serious health problem that treatment should start sooner and be more aggressive. The ISHIB statement is published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Complications related to high blood pressure such as stroke, heart failure and kidney damage occur much more frequently in African-Americans compared with whites.

Babies whose mothers who receive influenza vaccines while pregnant appear less likely to be infected with flu or hospitalized for respiratory illnesses in their first six months of life, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the February 2011 print issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Household investigations for suspected child maltreatment by Child Protective Services may not be associated with improvements in common, modifiable risk factors including social support, family functioning, poverty and others, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

A school-based, six-session program targeting sexual risk behaviors appeared to reduce rates of unprotected sex and sex with multiple partners among South African sixth-graders, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Young children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) appear to be at greater risk for adolescent depression and/or suicide attempts five to 13 years after diagnosis, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Individual therapy and family-based treatments both appear effective in treating anorexia nervosa in teens, although adolescents in family-based programs may be more likely to achieve full remission six or 12 months after treatment, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Children whose mothers are genetically predisposed to have impaired production of serotonin appear more likely to develop attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later in life, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Headed by the Kiel zoologist Professor Thomas Bosch, a team of scientists from Germany and Russia succeeded in deciphering the mechanisms, for the first time, with which embryos of the freshwater polyp Hydra protect themselves against bacterial colonization. The paper will be published this coming Monday (4 October 2010, press embargo 3pm US Eastern Time) in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Using ice cream, candy bars and energy drinks to help volunteers gain weight, Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered the mechanisms of how body fat grows. Increased abdominal fat seems to heighten risk for metabolic disease, while fat expansion in the lower body -- as in the thighs -- seems to lower the risk. The findings, appearing in today's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), help explain why.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 4, 2010 -- Supercomputer simulations at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are helping scientists unravel how nucleic acids could have contributed to the origins of life.

A research team led by Jeremy Smith, who directs ORNL's Center for Molecular Biophysics and holds a Governor's Chair at University of Tennessee, used molecular dynamics simulation to probe an organic chemical reaction that may have been important in the evolution of ribonucleic acids, or RNA, into early life forms.

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston have identified a new type of cell in mice that dampens the immune system and protects the animal's own cells from immune system attack.

This "suppressor" cell reduces the production of harmful antibodies that can drive lupus and other autoimmune diseases in which the immune system mistakenly turns on otherwise healthy organs and tissues.