Body

PITTSBURGH, April 5, 2016 - In the three years following bariatric surgery, the majority of patients experienced an improvement in pain and walking ability, as well as a lessening of the degree to which back or leg pain interfered with work, according a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health-led analysis of a multi-site clinical study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) does not recommend screening for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in persons who do not have symptoms suggestive of COPD. The report appears in the April 5 issue of JAMA.

This is a D recommendation, indicating that there is moderate or high certainty that screening has no net benefit or that the harms outweigh the benefits.

Among a group of patients with severe obesity who underwent bariatric surgery, a large percentage experienced improvement in pain, physical function, and walking capacity over 3 years, according to a study appearing in the April 5 issue of JAMA.

In a study appearing in the April 5 issue of JAMA, Philip Clarke, Ph.D., of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues analyzed individual and prescription-level data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to describe and compare trends in expenditure and price of anti-hyperglycemic medications in the United States from 2002 through 2013.

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 5, 2016 - Turn on an electric field, and a standard electrocaloric material will eject heat to its surroundings as its internal dipoles reorder themselves. Do the same thing, and a negative electrocaloric material will absorb heat, cooling the environment, thanks to the blend of ferroelectric polymers that make up each. While these materials have been investigated as a method of on-demand microclimate control for quite some time, there's a catch - the external field needs to remain active, which is energy-consuming and ends up heating the material.

RALEIGH, NC - Scientists are seeking to learn more about the many environmental and physiological factors that can influence how plants take in and transport water. A study in HortScience contains new information about methods for measuring water flow, and reports on ways in which substrates containing wood may affect plants' water uptake and transfer abilities.

Human malaria, uniquely transmitted by a handful of anopheline mosquitoes, continues to attack nearly 200 million people and claims the lives of 600,000 each year. Africa bears the biggest burden due to its dominant vector, Anopheles gambiae. Ever since the groundbreaking Anopheles gambiae genome sequencing project was published in 2002, efforts have been underway to harness genomics for novel vector-based malaria control strategies.

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- A naturally-occurring mutation in a rabbit-specific virus -- related to the smallpox virus --weakens the virus and may give insight to understanding pathogen evolution, according to a Kansas State University study.

"Our findings may help scientists predict which viruses can pose threats to humans," said Stefan Rothenburg, assistant professor in the Division of Biology and principal investigator for the study. "It is a big step toward understanding the molecular basis of host-virus interaction."

NORTH BRUNSWICK, NJ - A new study shows the impact of an organic lawn care training program designed for landscapers, including insights into landscapers' attitudes, lessons learned, and challenges. The results also suggest ways in which extension professionals can bring value to organic land management programs. The article, which appeared in the February 2016 issue of HortTechnology, assessed the impact of Rutgers University's Organic Land Care Certificate Program and includes recommendations for similar programs.

An international scientific team led by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Tel Aviv University has identified and characterized a novel virus behind massive die-offs of farmed tilapia in Israel and Ecuador, which threatens the $7.5 billion global tilapia industry. A paper in the journal mBio describes tilapia lake virus (TiLV) and provides information needed to fight the outbreak.

Washington, DC - April 5, 2016 - A compound found in red wine, resveratrol, reduces the risk of heart disease by changing the gut microbiome, according to a new study by researchers from China. The study is published in mBio, an open-access journal published by the American Society for Microbiology.

Washington, D.C. - April 4, 2016 - An international team of researchers has identified a new virus that attacks wild and farmed tilipia, an important source of inexpensive protein for the world's food supply. In work published this week in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, the team clearly shows that the Tilapia Lake Virus (TiLV) was the culprit behind mass tilapia die-offs that occurred in Ecuador and Israel in recent years. The work also provides a foundation for developing a vaccine to protect fish from TiLV.

Male fiddler crabs bluff their way through fights. They also adapt their combat strategies if they have lost their original enlarged claw and have regrown a more fragile, weaker one. These are some of the findings of wildlife researchers Daisuke Muramatsu of Kyoto University and Tsunenori Koga of Wakayama University in Japan, who spent time on a mudflat watching how fiddler crabs use deception to their favour. Their study is published in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

The idea that a sperm whale can use its massive head as a battering ram to sink ships has been hotly debated at least since Moby Dick was published in 1851.

University of Queensland researcher Dr Olga Panagiotopoulou, part of an international team researching the theory, says scientific evidence about the phenomenon remains scarce.

"The forehead of the sperm whale is one of the strangest structures in the animal kingdom," said Dr Panagiotopoulou, an expert in the anatomy, bone biology and mechanics of large animals, including elephants and non-human primates.

In their latest publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Tiago Paixao, Postdoc, and Nick Barton, Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria addressed the controversial role of gene interactions (or epistasis), where the effect of one gene is affected by the presence of other genes, in the response to selection for two extremely different scenarios of evolutionary mechanisms.