Immigration officials held a cancer patient for four hours before they allowed him to enter the USA because one of his cancer drugs caused his fingerprints to disappear. His oncologist is now advising all cancer patients who are being treated with the commonly used drug, capecitabine, to carry a doctor`s letter with them if they want to travel to the USA. The incident is highlighted in a letter to...

A heart muscle protein can replace its missing skeletal muscle counterpart to give mice with myopathy a long and active life, show Nowak et al. The findings will be published online on May 25, 2009 and will appear in the June 1, 2009 print issue of the Journal of Cell Biology. The contraction machinery protein, actin, exists in different forms in the adult heart and skeletal muscles. The heart for...

Humans may be programmed by evolution to care about the future of the environment, suggests new research. Dr Peter Sozou suggests that individuals may have an innate tendency to care about the long-term future of their communities, over timescales much longer than an individual’s lifespan. This in turn may help to explain people’s wish to take action over long-term environmental proble...

A synoptic view of European shipping routes can be seen for the first time thanks to a new map created using seven years of radar data from ESA’s Envisat satellite. Earth observation satellites have been providing ship-detecting services for several years, but this is the first time this amount of data collected over an extended period has been processed to produce an overview of ship traffi...

Pediatricians now have a new and simple way to diagnose a serious problem facing our nation`s children – thanks to David Kaelber, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., MetroHealth System pediatrician, internist, and chief medical informatics officer and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine researcher and faculty member. Nearly 75% of cases of hypertension and 90% of cases of prehypertension in...

Music is social communication between individuals — humming of lullabies attach infant to parent and singing or playing music adds croup cohesion. The neurobiology of music perception and production is likely to be related to the pathways affecting intrinsic attachment behavior, suggests a recent Finnish study. The study gives new information about genetic background of musical aptitude. In ...

Blood pressure lowering drugs should be offered to anyone old enough to be at risk of a heart attack or stroke (or who is otherwise known to be at risk), regardless of their blood pressure, according to the largest analysis of blood pressure trials to date, published on the British Medical Journal website. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death throughout the world. For 65 year olds ...

A new study published online in the journal Obesity provides further evidence that strict maternal control over eating habits – such as determining how much a child should eat and coaxing them to eat certain foods – during early childhood may not lead to significant future weight gain in boys or girls. Instead, this behavior may be a response to concerns over a child`s increasing weigh...

Potentially modifiable post-fracture complications, including pneumonia and pressure ulcers, are associated with an increased risk of death among nursing home residents who have suffered a hip fracture, according to a new study conducted by scientists at the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife. "Prevention strategies to reduce pressure ulcers and pneumonia may help reduce mortal...

New findings by researchers UT Southwestern Medical Center are accelerating efforts to eradicate worm infections that afflict a third of the world’s population. The new findings, available online and in an upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate that a biochemical system that controls development and reproduction of Caenorhabditis elegans, a common ...