Body

A new Cochrane Review, published in the Cochrane Library today, suggests that yoga may have a beneficial effect on symptoms and quality of life in people with asthma, but effects on lung function and medication use are uncertain.

Asthma is a common chronic disease affecting about 300 million people worldwide. The many typical symptoms of asthma include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and shortness of breath.

Happiness. It's something we all strive for, but how do we measure it--as a country? A global community?

Researchers at the University of Iowa are turning to social media to answer these questions and more. In a study published in March in the journal PLOS One, UI computer scientists used two years of Twitter data to measure users' life satisfaction, a component of happiness.

The Zika virus was present in Haiti several months before the first Zika cases were identified in Brazil, according to new research by infectious-disease specialists at the University of Florida.

This finding confirms that the Zika virus was present in the Americas prior to March 2015, when the virus was first identified in Brazil, and suggests that the spread of Zika virus in the Americas was likely more complicated than early theories presumed.

The combination of cell and gene therapy is rapidly raising clinical interest, although their combination has been under investigation for several decades. This is mainly due to the availability and feasibility of clinically relevant gene delivery options. This review focuses on cell therapies for heart failure and their use combined with cardiac surgery as well as with gene therapy. The review also provides insight into how financial and authority-based decisions and restrictions influence research in this field.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- April 26, 2016 -- Using the latest in genomic analysis technologies, scientists at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) have tracked the likely origins and dispersal of the fungus that causes Valley Fever, according to a study published today in the journal mBio, the premiere journal for reporting high impact microbiological research.

Honey bee colonies in the United States are in decline, due in part to the ill effects of voracious mites, fungal gut parasites and a wide variety of debilitating viruses. Researchers from the University of Maryland and the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently completed the first comprehensive, multi-year study of honey bee parasites and disease as part of the National Honey Bee Disease Survey. The findings reveal some alarming patterns, but provide at least a few pieces of good news as well.

LA JOLLA--Salk Institute scientists showed how an FDA-approved drug boosts the health of brain cells by limiting their energy use. Like removing unnecessary lighting from a financially strapped household to save on electricity bills, the drug--called rapamycin--prolongs the survival of diseased neurons by forcing them to reduce protein production to conserve cellular energy.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - In 2004, research found that resumes submitted by people with distinctly sounding African-American names were less likely to get callbacks regarding the job. Now, new research from the University of Missouri finds no evidence of employer preferences for applicants from a particular race or gender at the initial stage of the hiring process.

Researchers at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) discovered single-walled carbon nanotube semiconductors could be favorable for photovoltaic systems because they can potentially convert sunlight to electricity or fuels without losing much energy.

While norovirus is often linked in the news to outbreaks on cruise ships, the highly contagious stomach bug sickens nearly 700 million around the world every year and results in roughly $4.2 billion in health care costs and $60.3 billion in societal costs annually, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

Pulling an all-nighter may seem like a good way to cram before a test, yet science tells us memory suffers when sleep is sacrificed.

A new study suggests that it doesn't have to.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania observed that sleep deprivation is tied to an impairment of protein production in the hippocampus, a brain region thought to be central to memory. By experimentally increasing the expression of a gene involved in regulating protein synthesis in mice, they were able to prevent these deficits.

The ITA.LI.CA prognostic system, a model integrating tumor staging, liver function, functional status, and alpha-fetoprotein level, builds on previous models of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) prognosis and shows superior survival prediction in Italian and Taiwanese cohorts, according to a study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Alessandro Vitale of Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria di Padova, Italy, and colleagues.

Confounding rather than causation may explain association between statin use and lower risk of colorectal cancer

Multiple dispersals of penguins reached Australia after the continent split from Antarctica, including 'giant penguins' that may have lived there after they went extinct elsewhere, according to a study published April 26, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Travis Park from Monash University, Australia, and colleagues.

PHILADELPHIA--Long-term use of the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins does not appear to decrease a patient's risk of colorectal cancer, suggests a new, large case-control study from Penn Medicine researchers published this week in PLOS Medicine. The observational analysis of over 100,000 patients' medical records suggests it is cholesterol levels that influence risk, not the much-debated statins, and that "indication bias" may explain the link between t