Futurity.org » University of California at Irvine

Fiber-optic implants stop seizures

Tom Vasich-UC Irvine — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:20:20 +0000

UC IRVINE (US) — Neuroscientists have developed a way to stop epileptic seizures in mice with fiber-optic light signals.

The new approach could potentially lead to better epilepsy treatment options, particularly for people who have the most severe symptoms.

New infection from deer ticks shows up in US

Michael Greenwood-Yale — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:54:51 +0000

YALE (US) — A new tick-borne infection that shares many similarities with Lyme disease has been discovered in 18 patients in southern New England and neighboring New York.

It is the first time that the disease—so new that it does not yet have a name—has been confirmed in humans in the United States.

X-rays find weak spot in ulcer bacteria

Bjorn Carey-Stanford — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:15:52 +0000

STANFORD / UC IRVINE (US) — Powerful X-rays have revealed a potential way to attack Helicobacter pylori, a stomach bacteria harbored by at least half the world’s population.

In 1982, Australian scientists extracted bacteria from a person’s stomach, grew them in a petri dish, and identified them as the cause of ulcers and gastritis.

Babies with skull defect share ‘snip’ genes

Phyllis Brown-UC Davis — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:05:59 +0000

UC DAVIS (US) — Two areas of the human genome appear to be associated with the most common form of a condition that causes the bony plates in a baby’s skull to close too soon.

“We have discovered two genetic factors that are strongly associated with the most common form of premature closure of the skull,” says Simeon Boyadjiev, professor of pediatrics and genetics at the University of California, Davis, and the principal investigator for the study.

Body’s ‘pre-feelings’ may detect the future

Hilary Hurd Anyaso-Northwestern — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:57:38 +0000

NORTHWESTERN (US) — Your body may anticipate what’s going to happen—even before your brain has an inkling of what’s to come, researchers report.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if our bodies prepared us for future events that could be very important to us, even if there’s no clue about what those events will be?

Adult health suffers from infant poverty

Syl Kacapyr-Cornell — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:09:22 +0000

CORNELL (US) — Children who are poor from birth to age two are twice as likely to have arthritis and high blood pressure as young adults.

A new study says the diseases may materialize as early as age 30, causing patients to work fewer hours and earn less than their peers.

Sea slug neurons reveal memory creation

James Devitt-NYU — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:16:25 +0000

NYU (US) — Neuroscientists have isolated the “when” and “where” of molecular activity that occurs in the formation of short-, intermediate-, and long-term memories.

Their findings, which appear in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer new insights into the molecular architecture of memory formation and, with it, a better roadmap for developing therapeutic interventions for related afflictions.

Grade nursing home end-of-life care, study says

Mark Michaud-Rochester — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:04:58 +0000

U. ROCHESTER (US) — Evaluating hospital transfers and hospice care could help assess the quality of end of life care provided by nursing homes.

While nursing homes are the place where an estimated 30 percent of Americans die, there currently exists no way to compare which institutions do a better job at managing end of life care.

A new study appearing this week in the Journal of Palliative Medicine is starting a discussion over the need to create end of life quality measures in order to both inform consumers and provide nursing homes with incentive to improve care.

To uncover stem cell fates, pinpoint genes

Kimm Fesenmaier-Caltech — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:18:10 +0000

CALTECH (US) — New research traces the steps by which stem cells become T cells—key components of the immune system that help destroy invading pathogens.

What happens to a stem cell at the molecular level that causes it to become one type of cell rather than another? At what point is it committed to that cell fate, and how does it become committed? The answers to these questions have been largely unknown.

But now, in studies that mark a major step forward in our understanding of stem cells’ fates, a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has traced the stepwise developmental process that ensures certain stem cells will become T cells.

Is being nice a nudge from our genes?

Patricia Donovan-Buffalo — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:03:40 +0000

U. BUFFALO (US) — Researchers have found that some people are kind and generous in part because their genes nudge them toward it.

Michel Poulin, assistant professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo, is the principal author of the study “The Neurogenics of Niceness,” published in this month in Psychological Science.

The study, co-authored by Anneke Buffone at University at Buffalo and E. Alison Holman of the University of California, Irvine, looked at the behavior of study subjects who have versions of receptor genes for two hormones that, in laboratory and close relationship research, are associated with niceness.