LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 28, 2016) -- In a surprising reversal, researchers have determined that a particular protocol providing physical therapy to ICU patients with acute respiratory failure did not shorten hospital length of stay.

Secondary measures of physical function and health-related quality of life were split.

The study, which is the largest to-date on this topic, was not able to confirm the findings from earlier pilot and quality improvement studies.

SILVER SPRING, Md. - The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) and collaborators at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School have completed a promising preclinical study of two Zika vaccine candidates that suggests that an effective human vaccine will be achievable. Findings from the study were published today in the journal Nature.

In the preclinical study, WRAIR and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center tested two Zika virus vaccine candidates: a DNA vaccine developed at Harvard based on a Zika virus strain isolated in Brazil, and a purified inactivated virus vaccine developed at WRAIR based on a Zika virus strain isolated in Puerto Rico.

A single dose of either of two experimental Zika vaccines fully protected mice challenged with Zika virus four or eight weeks after receiving the inoculations. The research, conducted by investigators supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, suggests that similar vaccines for people could be similarly protective.

Species across the world are rapidly going extinct due to human activities, but humans are also causing rapid evolution and the emergence of new species. A new study published today summarises the causes of manmade speciation, and discusses why newly evolved species cannot simply replace extinct wild species. The study was led by the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen.

A common close partnership which sees baby fish sheltering from predators among the poisonous tentacles of jellyfish will be harmed under predicted ocean acidification, a new University of Adelaide study has found.

Published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the researchers say that modification of this baby fish-jellyfish symbiotic relationship is likely to lead to higher mortality among the affected fish species which include some of the common commercial fish. A well-known example of marine symbiosis is the relationship between anemones and clown-fish, popularised in the animated movie, Finding Nemo.

A period of intense debate about statins, covered widely in the mainstream media, was followed by a substantial rise in the proportion of people in the UK stopping taking the drug, according to a new study by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and funded by the British Heart Foundation, the study by Anthony Matthews and colleagues is the first to attempt to quantify how the controversy questioning the risk-benefit balance for statins, reflected by the UK media, may have affected the use of the drug in primary care.