EurekAlert!

Researchers from across the US, as part of the Infantile Spasms Working Group, established guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of infantile spasms. The goal of the ISWG is to improve patient outcomes by creating protocols that educate pediatricians on early diagnosis and treatment options. Full details of this study appear online in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy.

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified unique metabolic properties that allow a specific type of stem cell in the body to survive and replicate in low-oxygen environments.

Researchers at the University of Western Ontario have provided the first direct evidence using a biological marker, to show chronic stress plays an important role in heart attacks. Drs. Gideon Koren and Stan Van Uum developed a method to measure cortisol levels in hair providing an accurate assessment of stress levels in the months prior to an acute event such as a heart attack. The research is published online in the journal Stress.

With governments across Latin America preparing to implement a new financial mechanism aimed at mitigating climate change by curbing carbon emissions from the destruction of tropical forests, experts gathering here today warned against a "one-size-fits-all" approach, calling instead for flexible, balanced solutions to the thorny dilemmas surrounding this new mechanism. Among the experts' chief worries is that the wealthy and powerful could capture many of the benefits, largely at the expense of rural communities, including indigenous groups.

Interim results from the first comprehensive evaluation of the implementation of electronic health records in secondary care in England have found delays and frustration with the system, according to research published on bmj.com today.

People who take oral bisphosphonates for bone disease over five years may be doubling their risk of developing esophageal cancer (cancer of the gullet), according to a new study published on bmj.com today.

More people are likely to believe scientific studies claiming that oil drilling is riskier, not safer, than was previously thought, according to a new study of attitudes in California. What's more the findings, which appear in the journal Public Understanding of Science, published by SAGE, show that scientists' efforts to influence public opinion have a limited effect.

Millions of patients with advanced disease in palliative care settings receive oxygen therapy to help them breathe more easily. But a new study from Duke University Medical Center says roughly half of them don't benefit from the intervention, and among those who do benefit, it doesn't make a bit of difference whether they get pure oxygen or just plain old room air -- both offer equal benefit.

Published this week in Science the findings demonstrate that the antimalarial candidate, spiroindolone NITD609, is effective against both strains of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium (P.) falciparum and P. vivax. Through a novel mechanism NITD609 rapidly clears plasmodium in a malaria mouse model and shows pharmacological properties compatible with a once-daily dosing regimen.

New models, reinforced by in vivo experimentation, show why 5-10 percent of bone fractures don't heal properly, and how these cases may be treated to restart the healing process. Results of the model, published Sept. 2 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, may benefit the ageing population in which the occurrence of bone fractures is expected to rise substantially in the near future.

Dr. Eric A. Cohen, director of the human retrovirology research unit at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montreal, and his team published yesterday, in the online open-access journal PLos Pathogens, the results of their most recent research on the role of the Vpr protein in HIV infection and AIDS.

Duke University Medical Center researchers have found two genes in mice which might help identify why some people are more susceptible than others to potentially deadly staph infections.

Kidney transplants that show a combination of fibrosis (scarring) and inflammation after one year are at higher risk of long-term transplant failure, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Individuals who received a non-kidney organ transplant in the past may be more likely to be listed for a kidney transplant prior to initiation of dialysis (preemptive listing) than other candidates, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology. The results indicate that the growth in the numbers of this group of kidney transplant candidates adds to the list of organ allocation challenges.

NASA's Terra satellite captured the changing Tropical Storm Kompasu over Korea and China very early today, as it makes its way east to northern Japan. It is becoming extratropical.

School children who consume foods purchased in vending machines are more likely to develop poor diet quality -- and that may be associated with being overweight, obese or at risk for chronic health problems such as diabetes and coronary artery disease, according to research from the University of Michigan Medical School.

Walter Trahanovsky, an Iowa State professor of chemistry, was trying to produce sugar derivatives from biomass using high-temperature chemistry. He was surprised when his research also produced significant yields of high-value chemicals.

Tropical Depression Nine strengthened yesterday into Tropical Storm Gaston, but today it ran into dry and stable air and weakened back into a depression again.

A new report by University of Maryland terrorism researchers concludes that the deadly hostage-taking incident at the Discovery Networks in suburban Washington, D.C. meets the criteria of a terrorist act - a rare one for media organizations and the nation's capital region. Hostage-taking, though, is a familiar pattern in D.C. terror cases, the researchers add. There has never been U.S. environmentally inspired suicide eco-terrorism, they say, but don't draw conclusions about whether that occurred at Discovery.

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology expressed its disapproval and disappointment this week in response to the Aug. 23 court ruling that temporarily bars federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.