Healthy eating, not supplements, is the best way to keep the good bacteria in your gut healthy, says a dietitian and researcher. As with vitamins, it`s best to get the bacteria you need from healthy food rather than taking often expensive and potentially ineffective supplements, says Gail Cresci, Medical College of Georgia dietitian and researcher. "Consumers are buying stuff like crazy that ...

A compelling University of Michigan Health System study debunks assumptions about the role of complications in distinguishing good and bad hospitals. The report in Thursday`s New England Journal of Medicine confirms that serious complications are common after major surgery – about 1 in 6 patients – but the study shows what drives hospital mortality is failure to rescue. Low mortality h...

Sometimes people can gain influence by expressing uncertainty, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "These days, you can easily find recommendations from experts or even other consumers about any product or service you might be interested in," write authors Uma R. Karmarkar and Zakary L. Tormala (Stanford University). "But what are the factors that can make ...

The xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) which has previously been linked to prostate cancer has been found to have a dramatically lower prevalence among German prostate cancer patients, if any. Contrary to some reports, which have found XMRV in 40% of cases in patients in the US with familial prostate cancer, research published today in BioMed Central`s open access journal, Retro...

People with high levels of a protein called C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker for inflammation in the blood, may be at higher risk for heart attack and death but not stroke, according to a study published in the October 20, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study involved 2,240 people from the Northern Manhattan Study who were 40 ye...

New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated. "Our work suggests that while West Antarctica is still losing significant amounts of ice, the loss a...

A mysterious basin off the coast of India could be the largest, multi-ringed impact crater the world has ever seen. And if a new study is right, it may have been responsible for killing the dinosaurs off 65 million years ago. Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University and a team of researchers took a close look at the massive Shiva basin, a submerged depression west of India that is intensely mine...

Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Nanotechnology, Canadian engineers suggest that research is needed into the risks associated with the growing field of nanotechnology manufacture so that appropriate protective equipment can be developed urgently. Patricia Dolez of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, at the École de technologie supérieure, in Montr&...

The evolution of altruism has long puzzled researchers and has mainly been explained previously from ultimate perspectives—"I will help you now because I expect there to be some long-term benefit to me". However, a new study by researchers at the Primate Research Institute (PRI) and the Wildlife Research Center (WRC) of Kyoto University shows that chimpanzees altruistically help co...

The raptor-like Archaeopteryx has long been viewed as the archetypal first bird, but new research reveals that it was actually a lot less "bird-like" than scientists had believed. In fact, the landmark study led by paleobiologist Gregory M. Erickson of The Florida State University has upended the iconic first-known-bird image of Archaeopteryx (from the Greek for "ancient wing")...