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	<title>Digimati Science News</title>
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	<link>http://digimati.com</link>
	<description>The Edge of Science, Health and Technology</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:02:19 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Research suggests that Diabetes may start in the intestines</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/research-suggests-diabetes-start-intestines/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/research-suggests-diabetes-start-intestines/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:36:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Deep Med]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blood sugar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diabetes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[synthase]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=837</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have made a surprising discovery about the origin of diabetes. Their research suggests that problems controlling blood sugar — the hallmark of diabetes — may begin in the intestines. The new study, in mice, may upend long-held theories about the causes of the disease. Because insulin is produced in the pancreas and sugar is stored in the liver, many scientists have looked to those organs for the underlying causes of diabetes. In the new research, scientists studied mice that are unable to make fatty acid synthase (FAS) in the intestine. FAS, an enzyme crucial for the production of lipids, is regulated by insulin, and people with diabetes have defects in FAS. Mice without the enzyme in the intestines develop chronic inflammation in the gut, a powerful predictor of diabetes. &#8220;Diabetes may indeed start in your gut,&#8221; says principal investigator Clay F. Semenkovich, MD. &#8220;When people become resistant to insulin, as happens when they gain weight, FAS doesn&#8217;t work properly, which causes inflammation that, in turn, can lead to diabetes.&#8221; First author Xiaochao Wei, PhD, and Semenkovich, the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine, professor of cell biology and physiology and [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Extreme summer temperatures occur more frequently</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/extreme-summer-temperatures-occur-frequently/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/extreme-summer-temperatures-occur-frequently/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:31:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Surviving Earth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Extreme summer temperature]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global warming]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=833</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[by Anne M Stark  -  Extreme summer temperatures are already occurring more frequently in the United States, and will become normal by mid-century if the world continues on a business as usual schedule of emitting greenhouse gases. By analyzing observations and results obtained from climate models, a study led by Phil Duffy of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory showed that previously rare high summertime (June, July and August) temperatures are already occurring more frequently in some regions of the 48 contiguous United States. &#8220;The observed increase in the frequency of previously rare summertime-average temperatures is more consistent with the consequences of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations than with the effects of natural climate variability,&#8221; said Duffy, who is the lead author of a report in a recent edition of the journal, Climatic Change. &#8220;It is extremely unlikely that the observed increase has happened through chance alone.&#8221; The geographical patterns of increases in extreme summer temperatures that appear in observations are consistent with those that are seen in climate model simulations of the 20th century, Duffy said. Duffy and colleague Claudia Tebaldi, a senior scientist at the nonprofit news and research group Climate Central, showed that the models project that previously rare summer [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Foods containing organic rice may be an unsuspected source of dietary arsenic</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/foods-organic-rice-unsuspected-source-dietary-arsenic/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/foods-organic-rice-unsuspected-source-dietary-arsenic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:26:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Better Living]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dartmouth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dietary arsenic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[organic rice]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=830</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As people seek healthier dietary regimens they often turn to things labeled &#8220;organic.&#8221; Lurking in the background, however, is an ingredient that may be a hidden source of arsenic—an element known to be both toxic and potentially carcinogenic. Organic brown rice syrup has become a preferred alternative to using high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener in food. High fructose corn syrup has been criticized as a highly processed substance that is more harmful than sugar and is a substantial contributor to epidemic obesity. Unfortunately, organic brown rice syrup is not without its faults. Dartmouth researchers and others have previously called attention to the potential for consuming harmful levels of arsenic via rice, and organic brown rice syrup may be the latest culprit on the scene. With the introduction of organic brown rice syrup into food processing, even the savvy consumer may unknowingly be ingesting arsenic. Recognizing the danger, Brian Jackson and other Dartmouth researchers conducted a study to determine the concentrations of arsenic in commercial food products containing organic brown rice syrup including infant formula, cereal/energy bars, and high-energy foods used by endurance athletes. The results were alarming. One of the infant formulas had a total arsenic concentration of [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Robots to continuously map their environment</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/robots-continuously-map-environment/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/robots-continuously-map-environment/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:05:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In Motion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[GPS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIT]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Robots]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Willow]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=825</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Robots could one day navigate through constantly changing surroundings with virtually no input from humans, thanks to a system that allows them to build and continuously update a three-dimensional map of their environment using a low-cost camera such as Microsoft’s Kinect. The system, being developed by researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), could also allow blind people to make their way unaided through crowded buildings such as hospitals and shopping malls. To explore unknown environments, robots need to be able to map them as they move around — estimating the distance between themselves and nearby walls, for example — and to plan a route around any obstacles, says Maurice Fallon, a research scientist at CSAIL who is developing these systems alongside John J. Leonard, professor of mechanical and ocean engineering, and graduate student Hordur Johannsson. But while a large amount of research has been devoted to developing one-off maps that robots can use to navigate around an area, these systems cannot adjust to changes in the surroundings over time, Fallon says: “If you see objects that were not there previously, it is difficult for a robot to incorporate that into its map.” The new approach, based [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Researchers make living model of brain tumor</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/researchers-living-model-brain-tumor/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/16/researchers-living-model-brain-tumor/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:56:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Biomatics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[3-D model]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brain tumors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brown University]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=820</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Scientists have created the first three-dimensional living tissue model, complete with surrounding blood vessels, to analyze the effectiveness of therapeutics to combat brain tumors. The 3-D model gives medical researchers more and better information than Petri dish tissue cultures. The researchers created a glioma, or brain tumor, and the network of blood vessels that surrounds it. In a series of experiments, the team showed that iron-oxide nanoparticles ferrying the chemical tumstatin penetrated the blood vessels that sustain the tumor with oxygen and nutrients. The iron-oxide nanoparticles are important, because they are readily taken up by endothelial cells and can be tracked by magnetic resonance imaging. Previous experiments have shown that tumstatin was effective at blocking endothelial cell growth in gliomas. The tests by the Brown researchers took it to another level by confirming, in a 3-D, living environment, the iron-oxide nanoparticles&#8217; ability to reach blood vessels surrounding a glioma as well as tumstatin&#8217;s ability to penetrate endothelial cells. &#8220;The 3-D glioma model that we have developed offers a facile process to test diffusion and penetration into a glioma that is covered by a blood vessel-like coating of endothelial cells,&#8221; said Don Ho, a graduate student in the lab of chemistry [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Even moderate air pollution can raise stroke risks</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/14/moderate-air-pollution-raise-stroke-risks/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/14/moderate-air-pollution-raise-stroke-risks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:44:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Surviving Earth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Air pollution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[air quality index]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=817</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Air pollution, even at levels generally considered safe by federal regulations, increases the risk of stroke by 34 percent, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center researchers have found. Researchers who studied more than 1,700 stroke patients in the Boston area over a 10-year period found exposure to ambient fine particulate matter, generally from vehicle traffic, was associated with a significantly higher risk of ischemic strokes on days when the EPA&#8217;s air quality index for particulate matter was yellow instead of green. Researchers focused on particles with a diameter of 2.5 millionths of a meter, referred to as PM2.5. These particles come from a variety of sources, including power plants, factories, trucks and automobiles and the burning of wood. They can travel deeply into the lungs and have been associated in other studies with increased numbers of hospital visits for cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks. &#8220;The link between increased stroke risk and these particulates can be observed within hours of exposure and are most strongly associated with pollution from local or transported traffic emissions,&#8221; says Murray A. Mittleman, MD, DrPH, the study&#8217;s senior author, a physician in the CardioVascular Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Associate Professor of [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Heart failure patients have new hope</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/14/heart-failure-patients-hope/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/14/heart-failure-patients-hope/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:37:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Biomatics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cardiovascular medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[heart failure]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=814</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[More than six million American adults suffer from heart failure. But, while the prevalence of this disease has increased over time, there are signs that deaths from it have not and hospitalization rates may be stabilizing as well. Healthcare professionals say this is good news and the future looks even more promising. “Despite the increasing number of people affected, the prognosis for patients with heart failure has steadily improved,” said Gregg C. Fonarow, M.D, chairman of American Heart Association Hospital Accreditation Science Committee and professor of cardiovascular medicine of the University of California, Los Angeles. “This is testament in part to better therapies and systems for treating this condition. There has been so much research and advancement in this area that what used to be a very dismal diagnosis is no longer the norm. Used appropriately, available medical and device therapies are even more effective than originally believed and best practices of care have now been shown to save lives.” Heart failure is a chronic, progressive condition in which the heart muscle is unable to pump enough blood through the heart to meet the body&#8217;s needs for blood and oxygen. Basically, the heart can&#8217;t keep up with its workload. The [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://digimati.com/2012/02/14/heart-failure-patients-hope/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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		<item>
		<title>Sensing self and non-self: new research into immune tolerance</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/14/sensing-non-self-research-immune-tolerance/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/14/sensing-non-self-research-immune-tolerance/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:33:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Deep Med]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[immune tolerance]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=812</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At the most basic level, the immune system must distinguish self from non-self, that is, it must discriminate between the molecular signatures of invading pathogens (non-self antigens) and cellular constituents that usually pose no risk to health (self-antigens). The system is far from foolproof. Cancer cells can undergo unchecked proliferation, producing self-antigens that are tolerated by the immune system, rather than being targeted for destruction. At the opposite extreme, a range of so-called autoimmune disorders can result when healthy cells in the body are misidentified as hazards.  The immune system has developed a further line of protection against such autoimmune responses in order to limit the pathology that can result. Essentially, the immune system is programmed to ‘turn itself off’ after prolonged recognition of an antigen. In a new study appearing in the current issue of the journal Science, Dr. Joseph Blattman, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Biodesign InstituteÒ examines how CD8 T cells—critical weapons in the body’s defensive arsenal—are regulated when they transition from this tolerant state to an activated state and back.  “We have previously shown that prolonged stimulation of T cells in disseminated cancers or chronic viral infections results in a tolerant state to the tumor or pathogen. It [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://digimati.com/2012/02/14/sensing-non-self-research-immune-tolerance/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Odds of living a very long life lower than formerly predicted</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/07/odds-living-long-life-predicted/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/07/odds-living-long-life-predicted/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:28:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Surviving Earth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extreme age]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[living longer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[old age]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=810</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Research just published by a team of demographers at the social science research organization NORC at the University of Chicago contradicts a long-held belief that the mortality rate of Americans flattens out above age 80. It also explains why there are only half as many people in the U.S. age 100 and above than the Census Bureau predicted there would be as recently as six years ago. The research is based on a new way of accurately measuring mortality of Americans who are 80 years of age and older, an issue that has proven remarkably elusive in the past. The work will be significant in arriving at more accurate cost projections for programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which are based in part on mortality rates. The research, done by Leonid A. Gavrilov and Natalia S. Gavrilova, and published in the current edition of the North American Actuarial Journal, is based on highly accurate information about the date of birth and the date of death of more than nine million Americans born between 1875 and 1895. The data is publicly available in the Social Security Administration Death Master File. &#8220;It is a remarkable resource that allowed us to build what [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Metabolic &#8216;breathalyzer&#8217; reveals early signs of disease</title>
		<link>http://digimati.com/2012/02/07/metabolic-breathalyzer-reveals-early-signs-disease/</link>
		<comments>http://digimati.com/2012/02/07/metabolic-breathalyzer-reveals-early-signs-disease/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:23:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Digimati</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Biomatics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Metabolism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digimati.com/?p=807</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#160; The future of disease diagnosis may lie in a &#8220;breathalyzer&#8221;-like technology currently under development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. New research published online in February in the peer-reviewed journal Metabolism demonstrates a simple but sensitive method that can distinguish normal and disease-state glucose metabolism by a quick assay of blood or exhaled air. Many diseases, including diabetes, cancer, and infections, alter the body&#8217;s metabolism in distinctive ways. The new work shows that these biochemical changes can be detected much sooner than typical symptoms would appear – even within a few hours – offering hope of early disease detection and diagnosis. &#8220;With this methodology, we have advanced methods for tracing metabolic pathways that are perturbed in disease,&#8221; says senior author Fariba Assadi-Porter, a UW-Madison biochemist and scientist at the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison. &#8220;It&#8217;s a cheaper, faster, and more sensitive method of diagnosis.&#8221; The researchers studied mice with metabolic symptoms similar to those seen in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), an endocrine disorder that can cause a wide range of symptoms including infertility, ovarian cysts, and metabolic dysfunction. PCOS affects approximately 1 in 10 women but currently can only be diagnosed after puberty and by exclusion of all other [...]]]></description>
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