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.

A large international study aimed at improving the care of muscular dystrophy patients worldwide is being launched by physicians, physical therapists, and researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center, along with counterparts at 41 other institutions around the world. The study will compare treatments for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most common form of the disease that affects children.

Researchers at Queen's University have found that people with Parkinson's disease can perform automated tasks better than people without the disease, but have significant difficulty switching from easy to hard tasks.

Dr. Dariusz Malinowski is seeing blue, and he is very excited. For four years, Malinowski, an AgriLife Research plant physiologist and forage agronomist in Vernon, has been working with collaborators Steve Brown of the Texas Foundation Seed and Dr. William Pinchak and Shane Martin with AgriLife Research on a winter-hardy hibiscus breeding project.

Three NASA aircraft carrying 15 instruments are busy criss-crossing Earl as part of the agency's Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes mission, or GRIP, which continues through Sept. 30. GRIP is designed to help improve our understanding of how hurricanes such as Earl form and intensify rapidly.

Hurricane Earl lashed the North Carolina coast last night and this morning, September 3, and is now headed for Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This morning's image from the GOES-13 satellite saw Hurricane Earl's clouds covering most of the northeastern US.

Martin McKee, Professor of European Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has contributed one of three commentaries appearing today in the journal Health Policy and Planning, each of which take a different perspective on the World Health Report 2000 on health systems.

Only about one in every six Americans who have ever been overweight or obese loses weight and maintains that loss, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

Desmond Lun, an associate professor of computer science at Rutgers University-Camden, is researching how to alter the genetic makeup of E. coli to produce biodiesel fuel derived from fatty acids.

ESA's Envisat satellite has been tracking the progression of the giant iceberg that calved from Greenland's Petermann glacier on August 4, 2010.

The first clinical trials on a new investigational drug being developed to treat infections caused by hepatitis C virus have been successfully completed.Completion of the initial phase (phase 1a) of trials of INX-189, discovered and first prepared by researchers at Cardiff University's Welsh School of Pharmacy in 2008, means the chances of it becoming an approved medicine have significantly improved.

In 2005 an outbreak of the H5N1 "bird flu" virus in South East Asia led to widespread fear with predictions that the intercontinental migration of wild birds could lead to global pandemic. Such fears were never realized, and now research published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology reveals why the global spread of bird flu by direct migration of wildfowl is unlikely, while also providing a new framework for quantifying the risk of avian-borne diseases.

Phosphorus, a mineral element found in rocks and bone, is a critical ingredient in fertilizers, pesticides, detergents and other industrial and household chemicals. Once phosphorus is mined from rocks, getting it into these products is hazardous and expensive, and chemists have been trying to streamline the process for decades.