Biology News
Lab tests show arthritis drug effective against global parasite
| 5/20/2012 | A team of researchers from UCSF and UC San Diego has identified an approved arthritis drug that is effective against amoebas in lab and animal studies, suggesting it could offer a low-dose, low cost treatment for the amoebic infections that cause human dysentery throughout the world. Based on these results, the team has received Orphan Drug Status for the drug, known as auranofin, from th... [Comments] |
Songbirds' learning hub in brain offers insight into motor control
| 5/20/2012 | To learn its signature melody, the male songbird uses a trial-and-error process to mimic the song of its father, singing the tune over and over again, hundreds of times a day, making subtle changes in the pitch of the notes. For the male Bengalese finch, this rigorous training process begins around the age of 40 days and is completed about day 90, just as he becomes sexually mature and read... [Comments] |
Discovery of mechanisms predicting response to new treatments in colon cancer
| 5/20/2012 | Barcelona, 20 May 2012. The Stem Cells and Cancer Research Group headed by Dr Hctor G. Palmer at the Vall d'Hebrn Institute of Oncology (VHIO) has identified the molecular mechanisms that determine patients' response to certain drugs used in clinical trials for colon cancer treatment. The study led by VHIO also benefited from the collaboration with Professor Alberto Muozs laboratory at the I... [Comments] |
Good news for nanomedicine: Quantum dots appear safe in pioneering study on primates
| 5/20/2012 | BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A pioneering study to gauge the toxicity of quantum dots in primates has found the tiny crystals to be safe over a one-year period, a hopeful outcome for doctors and scientists seeking new ways to battle diseases like cancer through nanomedicine. The research, which will appear on May 20 in Nature Nanotechnology online, is likely the first to test the safety of quantum... [Comments] |
Healing Method from Australia Addresses the Human Genome
| 5/18/2012 | PHOENIX, May 18, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- With chronic diseases continuing to rise, health care costs spiraling out of sight, and research to find "cures" continuing to take in billions each year while acceptable solutions remain "a few years away," a small but growing sector is finding answers from an unlikely place: the human consciousness. A number of healing practices that rely such unl... [Comments] |
Pollution teams with thunderclouds to warm atmosphere
| 5/18/2012 | RICHLAND, Wash. -- Pollution is warming the atmosphere through summer thunderstorm clouds, according to a computational study published May 10 in Geophysical Research Letters . How much the warming effect of these clouds offsets the cooling that other clouds provide is not yet clear. To find out, researchers need to incorporate this new-found warming into global climate models. Pollution... [Comments] |
Stanford scientists document fragile land-sea ecological chain
| 5/18/2012 | Douglas McCauley and Paul DeSalles did not set out to discover one of the longest ecological interaction chains ever documented. But that's exactly what they and a team of researchers all current or former Stanford students and faculty did in a new study published in Scientific Reports .... [Comments] |  |
Hitting snooze on the molecular clock: Rabies evolves slower in hibernating bats
| 5/18/2012 | Athens, Ga. The rate at which the rabies virus evolves in bats may depend heavily upon the ecological traits of its hosts, according to researchers at the University of Georgia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Their study, published May 17 in the journal PLoS Pathogens , found that the host's geographical location was the mos... [Comments] |
Engineers use droplet microfluidics to create glucose-sensing microbeads
| 5/18/2012 | Cell cultures need glucose for energy, but too much sugar can create a diabetic-like environment in which cell proteins undergo unwanted structural changes. Standard methods to monitor glucose levels require invasive and time-consuming handling of the cell culture. A team of engineers at the National University of Singapore and Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics is developing an alterna... [Comments] |
A cell's first steps: Building a model to explain how cells grow
| 5/18/2012 | A collaboration between Lehigh University physicists and University of Miami biologists addresses an important fundamental question in basic cell biology: How do living cells figure out when and where to grow? The teams of Assistant Professor Dimitrios Vavylonis and Associate Professor F... [Comments] |  |
Using graphene, scientists develop a less toxic way to rust-proof steel
| 5/18/2012 | BUFFALO, N.Y. -- University at Buffalo researchers are making significant progress on rust-proofing steel using a graphene-based composite that could serve as a nontoxic alternative to coatings that contain hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen. In the scientists' first experiments, pie... [Comments] |  |
Medicine News
Scientists identify new target to battle rheumatoid arthritis
| 5/20/2012 | A new study led by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery identifies the mechanism by which a cell signaling pathway contributes to the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In addition, the study provides evidence that drugs under development for diseases such as cancer could poten... [Comments] |  |
Scientists discover distinct molecular subtype of prostate cancer
| 5/20/2012 | NEW YORK, CAMBRIDGE, Mass., AND BOSTON (May 20, 2012) -- A collaborative expedition into the deep genetics of prostate cancer has uncovered a distinct subtype of the disease, one that appears to account for up to 15 percent of all cases, say researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In the study, publishe... [Comments] |
'Bad' Fat May Hurt Brain Function Over Time
| 5/20/2012 | By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter FRIDAY, May 18 (HealthDay News) -- Women who eat a lot of "bad" saturated fat may hurt their overall brain function and memory over time, Harvard University researchers report. In contrast, eating more "good" monounsaturated fat improve... [Comments] |  |
Test Baby Boomers for Hepatitis C, Says CDC
| 5/20/2012 | By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter FRIDAY, May 18 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants all Americans born between 1945 and 1965 -- the baby boom generation -- tested for hepatitis C. Most cases of the potentially deadly disease occu... [Comments] |  |
Breathing Smog While Pregnant May Worsen Asthma in Offspring
| 5/20/2012 | SUNDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- Exposure to air pollution while in the womb might harm the lung-function development of children with asthma, a new study finds. Researchers conducted repeated evaluations of 162 asthmatic children between the ages of 6 and 15 in Fresno, Ca... [Comments] |  |
Study Ties Secondhand Smoke to Bladder Irritation in Kids
| 5/20/2012 | SUNDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- Parents who smoke may put their children at greater risk for bladder irritation, according to a small new study. Young children between the ages of 4 and 10 were at particular risk from exposure to secondhand smoke. Bladder irritation involv... [Comments] |  |
4 acute mushroom poisonings in 2 weeks
| 5/20/2012 | SAN DIEGO On September 12, 2011, a Springfield, Virginia man arrived at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital (MGUH) in the early stages of liver failure. The man had mistakenly eaten poisonous mushrooms, handpicked from his yard. He would be the first of four patients in the course of two weeks to seek treatment at MGUH for mushroom (amanitin) poisoning. Their clinical course, management,... [Comments] |
UW study: Sleep apnea associated with higher mortality from cancer
| 5/20/2012 | Madison, Wis. and San Francisco Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), commonly known as sleep apnea, is associated with an increased risk of cancer mortality, according to a new study. While previous studies have associated SDB with increased risks of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, depression, and early death, this is the first human study to link apnea with higher rate of cancer mor... [Comments] |
First, do no harm: Study finds danger in standard treatment for a serious lung disease
| 5/20/2012 | A combination of three drugs used worldwide as the standard of care for a serious lung disease puts patients in danger of death or hospitalization, and should not be used together to treat the disease, called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, according to the surprising results of a rigorous in... [Comments] |  |
Study examines treatments for relieving breathing difficulties among patients with lung effusions
| 5/20/2012 | Helen E. Davies, M.D., of the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, and colleagues compared the effectiveness of treatments to relieve breathing difficulties among patients with malignant pleural effusion (presence of fluid in the pleural cavity [space between the outside of the lungs and the inside wall of the chest cavity], as a complication of malignant disease). The treatments compared we... [Comments] |
Low-dose CT screening may benefit individuals at increased risk for lung cancer
| 5/20/2012 | Peter B. Bach, M.D., of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues conducted a systematic review to examine the evidence regarding the benefits and harms of low-dose computerized tomography (LDCT) screening for lung cancer, which is the leading cause of cancer death. "Most patients are diagnosed with advanced disease, resulting in a very low 5-year survival rate," the... [Comments] |