http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. There will be some very interesting passengers on the final mission of the NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis scheduled to launch July 8, 2011: thousands of bacteria. http://phys.org/news228122082.html Biology Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:15:28 EST news228122082 Mexican officials said Wednesday they have confirmed the first mutation of the A(H1N1) flu virus in a girl who survived the infection. http://phys.org/news186864915.html Medicine & Health Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:55:50 EST news186864915 A clinical trial of a vaccine against a major cause of pneumonia and meningitis has shown that it can prevent three out of four cases of re-infection in HIV-infected adults in Africa. http://phys.org/news186859294.html Medicine & Health Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:10:01 EST news186859294 Patients hospitalized with even mild to moderate community-acquired pneumonia who develop acute kidney injury (AKI) are more likely to die after discharge than pneumonia patients whose kidneys remain healthy, according to a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study in the February issue of Kidney International. The study also found a strong relationship between AKI and levels of inflammatory biomarkers. http://phys.org/news186751602.html Medicine & Health Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:00:01 EST news186751602 (AP) -- Pfizer says the Food and Drug Administration has approved an updated version of its best-selling infection vaccine for children. http://phys.org/news186230362.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:39:31 EST news186230362 The costs that hospitals incur in treating patients vary widely and do not appear to be strongly associated either with the quality of care patients receive or their risk of dying within 30 days, according to a report in the February 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. http://phys.org/news186078396.html Medicine & Health Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:20:04 EST news186078396 Two common conditions caused by hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) killed 48,000 people and ramped up health care costs by $8.1 billion in 2006 alone, according to a study released today in the Archives of Internal Medicine. http://phys.org/news186078329.html Medicine & Health Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:50:01 EST news186078329 Revisional bariatric surgery appears to be associated with a higher risk of complications than the initial procedure, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. http://phys.org/news185475755.html Medicine & Health Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:10:01 EST news185475755 A new report, Adult Immunization: Shots to Save Lives, released today by the Trust for America's Health (TFAH), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) found that more than 30 percent of adults ages 65 and older had not been immunized against pneumonia in 36 states as of 2008. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other experts recommend that all seniors should be vaccinated against pneumonia, which is a one-time shot for most individuals, since seniors who get the seasonal flu are at risk for developing pneumonia as a complication. http://phys.org/news184512254.html Medicine & Health Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:00:04 EST news184512254 Researchers from Johns Hopkins University determined that immune responses to the tetanus vaccine were not changed when rituximab in combination with methotrexate (MTX) was compared with MTX alone in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Responses to a pneumococcal vaccination (Pneumovax® pneumonia vaccine), however, were reduced in RA patients with rituximab. Complete findings of this study are published in the January 2010 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism. http://phys.org/news182004280.html Medicine & Health Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:40:01 EST news182004280 Even the simplest cell appears to be far more complex than researchers had imagined. In a series of three articles in the journal Science, researchers including Vera van Noort at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, have provided a complete picture of a single cell for the first time. The study has provided important new insights for bacterial biology. For instance, prokaryotes - cellular organisms without a cell nucleus - seem to be more similar to eukaryotes than was previously thought. Without this type of basic knowledge about the operation of single cells, it is impossible to understand biology at the smallest levels. http://phys.org/news181239259.html Biology Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:14:48 EST news181239259 Older adults with long-term exposure to higher levels of pollution are at higher risk for hospitalization for pneumonia, according to researchers in Canada. http://phys.org/news180768309.html Medicine & Health Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:40:02 EST news180768309 (AP) -- As Congress gets closer to a final health care bill, many Americans want to know: What's in it for me? http://phys.org/news180507778.html Medicine & Health Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:04:17 EST news180507778 (AP) -- Thousands of Army recruits in training must line up at least once more before heading home for the holidays, this time for mass inoculations by the hundreds against swine flu. http://phys.org/news179768184.html Medicine & Health Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:50:05 EST news179768184 Doctors may soon be able to quickly and accurately diagnose the cause of pneumonia-like symptoms by examining the chemicals found in a patient's urine, suggests a new study led by UC Davis biochemist Carolyn Slupsky. http://phys.org/news179573450.html Medicine & Health Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:40:03 EST news179573450 (PhysOrg.com) -- New research from Yale School of Public Health shows that blacks are admitted to the hospital at a significantly younger age than their white peers for a host of preventable medical conditions, an indication that they have received inadequate care for the underlying conditions in the years leading up to their hospitalization. The study appears online this week and will be published in the January issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. http://phys.org/news178912231.html Medicine & Health Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:50:57 EST news178912231 Influenza, particularly H1N1, has understandably captured the attention of public health officials, the media and the public. However, an analysis from Children's Hospital Boston, based on patients seen in its emergency department (ED) during several recent flu seasons, shows that another virus - respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) -- takes a substantially greater disease toll among young children than does seasonal flu. http://phys.org/news178209160.html Medicine & Health Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:33:27 EST news178209160 (AP) -- Babies squirmed and wailed as needles plunged into their chubby thighs at a public health clinic on the outskirts of Hanoi on Friday. Like little ones everywhere, the reaction to the sting was never pretty. http://phys.org/news177919877.html Medicine & Health Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:50:03 EST news177919877 (AP) -- Federal health officials on Monday questioned whether to approve an updated version of Pfizer's best-selling anti-infection vaccine for children, despite company studies that failed to meet certain goals. http://phys.org/news177616461.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:55:07 EST news177616461 Almost a third of the children under age five who die each year could be saved if governments rebalance health spending to ensure low-cost, simple interventions such as safe water and hygiene, bed nets and basic maternal and newborn care, leading aid agency World Vision said today. Currently, 8.8 million children a year die before age five, most of preventable causes. http://phys.org/news177597101.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:10:04 EST news177597101 (AP) -- Federal health officials now say that 4,000 or more Americans likely have died from swine flu - about four times the estimate they've been using. http://phys.org/news177186728.html Medicine & Health Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:50:01 EST news177186728 (AP) -- To fight pneumonia, the world's top killer of children, United Nations officials say they need $39 billion (euro26.35 billion) over the next six years. http://phys.org/news176353905.html Medicine & Health Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:40:01 EST news176353905 As the nation copes with a shortage of vaccines for H1N1 influenza, a team of Alabama researchers have raised hopes that they have found an Achilles' heel for all strains of the flu—antioxidants. In an article appearing in the November 2009 print issue of the FASEB Journal they show that antioxidants—the same substances found in plant-based foods—might hold the key in preventing the flu virus from wreaking havoc on our lungs. http://phys.org/news176042573.html Biology Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:43:55 EST news176042573 An epidemiological study on pneumonia and influenza (P&I) in adults age 65 and over reports that patients with dementia are diagnosed with flu less frequently, have shorter hospital stays, and have a fifty percent higher rate of death than those without dementia. The three-pronged study, which analyzed geographic and demographic patterns of P&I and the relationship between P&I and health care accessibility, was published online in advance of print in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. http://phys.org/news175873717.html Medicine & Health Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:00:03 EST news175873717 (PhysOrg.com) -- Medical clinics the world over could benefit from new software* created at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where a team of scientists has found a way to improve the efficiency of a pneumonia vaccine testing method developed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). http://phys.org/news175281412.html Medicine & Health Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:17:23 EST news175281412 (AP) -- As the swine flu outbreak strikes the U.S. early and hard, health officials note a worrisome number of child deaths and warn that supplies of vaccine will remain scarce for at least the next couple of weeks. http://phys.org/news174916185.html Medicine & Health Sat, 17 Oct 2009 06:14:08 EST news174916185 Many people who have died from swine flu in the United States were also infected with other bacteria, including one which can cause pneumonia or meningitis, US health officials said Wednesday. http://phys.org/news173560770.html Medicine & Health Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:50:02 EST news173560770 A popular stomach-acid reducer used to prevent stress ulcers in critically ill patients needing breathing machine support increases the risk of those patients contracting pneumonia threefold, according to researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. http://phys.org/news172145946.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:30:01 EST news172145946 (AP) -- The U.N. unveiled a multimillion dollar strategy a dozen years ago to save children worldwide, but a new study has found the program had surprisingly little effect in Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries. http://phys.org/news168240841.html Medicine & Health Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:50:02 EST news168240841 (PhysOrg.com) -- Infections of wounds, pneumonia, etc. in hospitals in particular are often caused by bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Once they reach a certain density, colonies of Pseudomonas aeruginosa produce virulence factors and can enter into a slimy state, a biofilm, which prevents antibiotics from penetrating. The process of quorum sensing, which cells use to “sense” cell density, is triggered when the concentration of certain signaling compounds generated by the bacteria reaches a threshold level. http://phys.org/news166425730.html Chemistry Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:46:13 EST news166425730