Parents are top influence on soft-drink consumption among kids
... often they drank soft drinks and the factors that influence soft drink consumption. Among other findings, res...found: Parental soft drink intake has a stronger influence than children's peers. Parents who consume soft drinks on a regular basis may relax soft drink consu...Spring through fall, cities are greener longer than neighboring rural regions
...an heat island effect. The researchers found this influence to be far-reaching. Taken together, the heat isla...n areas but that urban climate shows a substantial influence on vegetation growing up to 10 km. beyond the edge of urban land cover. This greenup difference is ...Study finds anti-HIV protein evolved millions of years before the emergence of AIDS
...at overcoming HIV infection than others, which may influence whether a person's disease advances rapidly, said ...ncreasingly, human genes are being discovered that influence viral progression. Apobec3G is a good candidate to be one of these genes." The findings are a striki...Urban heat islands make cities greener
...rs discovered that city climates have a noticeable influence on plant growing seasons up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from a city's edges. Growing seasons in 70 cities in eastern North America were about 15 days longer in urban areas compared to rural areas outside of a city's influence. "If you live in a...Scientists suggest framework for epigenetics in common disease
...to figure out when and where epigenetic changes do influence health and disease," says Andrew Feinberg, M.D., K...ditions. "The epigenetic marks a person has could influence disease directly, but they also could affect whether an underlying genetic mutation or genetic varia...Hunt for a new plant hormone points to carotenoids
...ade in the roots is able to travel up the plant to influence branching in the shoot, suggesting that it may play a role in balancing root and shoot growth. In this issue of Current Biology, Ottoline Leyser and co-workers describe the identification of a gene that is essential for the synthesis of this novel ho...Insecticide resistance: A constraint on evolutionary change
...to a class of pesticides but also to significantly influence the ability of an organism to evolve such resistance at all. Identifying such specific and strong constraints on short-term evolutionary change are likely to help ecologists and public-health experts understand, and potentially predict, the ability o...Good bacteria trigger proteins to protect the gut
...hitov. Additionally, the findings may also influence the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. "We know that bacteria play a detrimental role in these diseases, inducing a pathological inflammatory response. Often antibiotics are used in such cases as Crohn's disease, to eliminate gut bacteria. Howe...Study by Tufts biologist provides window into progression of some degenerative diseases
...cy. This means the checkpoint status of a cell can influence repeat stability. "This is interesting because it still isn't understood why the repeat doesn't change size in some cell types, but is very unstable in others," Freudenreich said. For example, in Huntington's disease the repeat is prone to expansion ...Researchers uncover surprising degree of large-scale variation in the human genome
...In addition, some CNPs identified genes with known influence on 'normal' human phenotypes including oneneuropeptide-Y4 receptorthat is directly involved in the regulation of food intake and body weight. According to the study, a relationship between CNPs and susceptibility to health problems such as neuro...What are babies thinking before they start talking?
... require speakers to convey, and these differences influence what speakers of a language readily hear and think about," Spelke said. "Our research asked how these differences arise: Does the experience of learning to speak English or Korean make you aware of the categories your language honors?" The example t...Why some neonates need caffeine
...ral chemoreceptors and (2) determine the potential influence of sleep states. The mechanism of caffeine's action on the peripheral chemoreflex was assessed by monitoring immediate changes in the respiratory pattern in response to a 30-s hyperoxic test performed during active sleep or quiet sleep. The authors o...A pathway to blocking autoimmunity
...insight into how signals from outside the cell can influence differentiation and gene expression and is an entry point for intervention into autoimmunity by modulating CD1d expression, and NKT cell activation. "We think PPAR-gamma is capable of orchestrating a coordinated response whether endogenous ligands ar...Molecular traffic cop directs cellular signals
...s on the extracellular stimulus. ERK activity can influence molecules in the cell cytoplasm or it can influence whether target genes in the nucleus are turned on or off. It is not known exactly how a particular ...Brain serotonin enzyme finding might explain psychiatric disorders
...icit hyperactivity disorder. The enzyme might also influence patients' responses to the class of drugs known as...me Zoloft) and fluoxetine (trade name Prozac). The influence of the serotonin enzyme raises the possibility that a genetic test to distinguish which version of t...OHSU scientists find gene influencing drug withdrawal
...complex manner throughout the addictive process to influence drug use or abuse. We think that physical dependen...ious OHSU studies have shown that genetics greatly influence alcohol and drug addiction and withdrawal. "There are a lot of reasons why people drink or use othe......opportunistic herbivores and that induced defenses influence herbivore community composition (Sciencexpress, 1 ...opportunistic herbivores and that induced defences influence herbivore community composition. Plants growing in natural habitats are under relentless pressure f...Climate may play role in lynx's hunting ability
... there may be something climate-related that would influence the lynx's ability to prey on snow hares and their propensity to move between regions." In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, part of a series of papers already published, the team demonstrated that differe...Articles on forest fire risks published in BioScience
...is inappropriate. Fuel types and amounts have less influence over the spread of fire in high-elevation (subalpi... forests, for example. Climate has relatively more influence on spread of fire in subalpine forests. The authors, noting that previous fire suppression had only ...... sciences. Indeed, a detailed understanding of the influence of human activities on the spread of pathogens, the report notes, is limited to only a few diseases. In the northeastern United States, for example, studies have documented that forest fragmentation, urban sprawl and the erosion of biodiversity have ...