Health News

Repeal of Missouri's background check law associated with increase in state's murders

Date: Feb-18-2014
Missouri's 2007 repeal of its permit-to-purchase (PTP) handgun law, which required all handgun purchasers to obtain a license verifying that they have passed a background check, contributed to a sixteen percent increase in Missouri's murder rate, according to a new study from researchers with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.The study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Journal of Urban Health, finds that the law's repeal was associated with an additional 55 to 63 murders per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012.

Discussion of social class improves grades of first-generation students

Date: Feb-18-2014
Americans don't like to talk about social class. But new research from Northwestern and Stanford universities suggests that, at least in college and university settings, they should do just that.An upcoming article in Psychological Science describes a novel one-hour intervention that closed by 63 percent the persistent academic achievement gap between first-generation college students and continuing-generation students. (Continuing-generation students are defined as those with at least one parent with a four-year college degree.

What women want may depend on the time of the month

Date: Feb-18-2014
If she loves you and then she loves you not, don't blame the petals of that daisy. Blame evolution.UCLA researchers analyzed dozens of published and unpublished studies on how women's preferences for mates change throughout the menstrual cycle. Their findings suggest that ovulating women have evolved to prefer mates who display sexy traits - such as a masculine body type and facial features, dominant behavior and certain scents - but not traits typically desired in long-term mates.

Understanding plant and animal nutrient evolution through metabolism

Date: Feb-18-2014
For the ancient ancestors of plants and animals, a partnership with other microbes was once formed during an endosymbiotic event to give rise to eukaryotes. Plants and animals, over billions of years of trial and error, made efficient use of different energy sources in the environment, namely carbon dioxide and oxygen.In the advanced online edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution, authors Maurino, et. al., explore the evolution of a family of enzymes, called 2-hydroxy acid oxidase, or 2-HAOX, that break down fats in both plant and animals.

To ensure correct number of chromosomes, epigenetic regulation essential

Date: Feb-18-2014
Abnormal number of chromosomes is often associated with cancer development. In a new study published in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have shown that a subtle epigenetic change plays an important role in the correct segregation of chromosomes.Normally when a cell divides, the chromosomes are segregated equally to two daughter cells. However, tumour cells frequently have either too few or too many chromosomes, leading to the incorrect expression of a number of genes.

Mobile compression device recommended to prevent blood clots after joint surgery

Date: Feb-18-2014
Research from The Shiley Center for Orthopaedic Research and Education at Scripps Clinic could change how patients are treated to prevent blood clots after joint replacement surgery. A study recently published as the lead article in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery determined that after lower extremity joint replacement surgery a mobile compression device was just as effective as blood thinners in preventing deep vein thrombosis (DVT), but without negative side effects including bleeding complications.

Money makes parenting less meaningful - another reason to not mix work and family

Date: Feb-18-2014
Money and parenting don't mix. That's according to new research that suggests that merely thinking about money diminishes the meaning people derive from parenting. The study is one among a growing number that identifies when, why, and how parenthood is associated with happiness or misery."The relationship between parenthood and well-being is not one and the same for all parents," says Kostadin Kushlev of the University of British Columbia.

Scientists seek to unlock mysteries of the brain

Date: Feb-18-2014
Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest challenges facing 21st century science. If we can rise to this challenge, we will gain profound insights into what makes us human, develop new treatments for brain diseases, and build revolutionary new computing technologies that will have far reaching effects, not only in neuroscience.Scientists at the European Human Brain Project - set to announce more than a dozen new research partnerships worth Eur 8.

Shedding light on how tularemia, 'rabbit fever' may persist in the environment and cause disease

Date: Feb-18-2014
Tularemia, aka "rabbit fever," is endemic in the northeastern United States, and is considered to be a significant risk to biosecurity -- much like anthrax or smallpox -- because it has already been weaponized in various regions of the world.At the 58th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting, which takes place Feb. 15-19, 2014, in San Francisco, Calif., Geoffrey K.

3-D structure of antibiotic-resistance protein, described, may lead to new tools for fighting MRSA

Date: Feb-18-2014
A research team from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., is the first to decipher the 3-D structure of a protein that confers antibiotic resistance from one of the most worrisome disease agents: a strain of bacteria called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which can cause skin and other infections. The Vanderbilt team's findings may be an important step in combating the MRSA public health threat over the next 5 to 10 years.By deciphering the shape of a key S.