EurekAlert!

Eighty-four percent of children 18 and younger had successful clinical outcomes during an eight year follow-up to repair a torn meniscus (cartilage that provides cushioning to distribute your body weight across the knee joint) at the same time as reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament, according to a new study presented today at the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine's Specialty Day in New Orleans.

A new study presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Specialty Day in New Orleans, found that 95 percent of skeletally mature high school pitchers were satisfied with their "Tommy John" elbow reconstruction surgery. Almost as many, (94.7 percent) returned to competitive baseball.

Seventy percent of healthy professional and collegiate hockey players had abnormal hip and pelvis MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging), even though they had no symptoms of injury, according to a study presented today at the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine's Specialty Day in New Orleans. The study's surprising findings could serve as a warning for surgeons to not depend excessively on imaging when diagnosing patients.

A new minimally invasive sports hernia repair gets athletes back in the game 3 times faster than the traditional repair, according to a new study presented today at the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine's Specialty Day in New Orleans. Sports hernias were often difficult to diagnose and prior to this new repair had a lengthy rehabilitation time.

A new mathematical model developed by Indiana University Bloomington and Arizona State University geographers could help communities that are in the midst of passing or reforming sex offender laws. The researchers describe the model and report its first test in an early view edition of Papers in Regional Science.

Eighty-four percent of males who had ACL knee (anterior cruciate ligament) reconstruction with a patellar tendon (the tendon that attaches the knee to the front of the tibia or shin bone) graft continue at a high level of activity 15 years later, according to a study presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Specialty Day in New Orleans, Louisiana (March 13). Additionally, these patients have not developed severe osteoarthritis and their knees remain stable.

Rice students put calculations by German physicist Gustav Mie, made in 1908, to the test when they decided to look at the optical properties of single nanoparticles.

A research team led by Mayo Clinic has found a national trend toward younger, more diverse patients having total knee replacement surgery.

NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Tropical Storm Ului during the morning hours (Eastern Time) on March 12 and noticed a large area of strong convection in the storm's center, indicating strengthening.

The second-ever known tropical cyclone in the South Atlantic Ocean can't escape satellite eyes, and today, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-12 captured a visible image of Tropical Storm 90Q now located off the coast of Argentina.

WWF and TRAFFIC welcome a World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies statement urging its members not to use tiger bone or any other parts from endangered wildlife.

Using green algae to produce hydrocarbon oil for biofuel production is nothing new; nature has been doing so for hundreds of millions of years, according a Texas AgriLife Research scientist.

Nanocages that efficiently convert light to heat are the basis for a targeted form of phototherapy that would destroy tumors without making cancer patients sick.

Tropical Storm Tomas is on a southern track in the South Pacific Ocean, and residents of Nadi, Fiji will be watching it as it approaches the eastern side of the island late this weekend. A tropical cyclone alert is in effect for all of Fiji this weekend.

One of the oldest available anti-seizure medications, ethosuximide, is the most effective treatment for childhood absence epilepsy, according to initial outcomes published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine

In an attempt to explain away invisible dark matter and dark energy, some theorists have offered modified theories of gravity that try to improve on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. A new study based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and inspired by the work of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory cosmologist Uros Seljak indicates that at least one of these alternate theories is wrong.

According to a U-M study, it is common for patients 65 and older to receive potentially inappropriate medications when treated in an emergency room. Nearly 19.5 million older patients, or 16.8 percent of eligible emergency visits from 2000-2006, received one or more of these medications.

A team led by Princeton University scientists has tested Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity to see if it holds true at cosmic scales. And, after two years of analyzing astronomical data, the scientists have concluded that Einstein's theory, which describes the interplay between gravity, space and time, works as well in vast distances as in more local regions of space.

The American Thoracic Society has released a new official clinical policy statement on congenital central hypoventilation syndrome, a disorder of respiratory and autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation. The ANS regulates reflexive acts, including heart rate and blood pressure, digestion, body temperature and pain perception.

New findings that shed light on how genetic damage to muscle cell proteins can lead to the development of the rare muscle-wasting disease, nemaline myopathy, are reported today, March 15, in the Biochemical Journal.