Optimal adjuvant radiation therapy associated with improved survival, meta-analysis shows
... report, "It seems like such a simple idea. It is surprising that no one has ever done it before." Prosnitz and Marks suggest that, despite the limitations of the meta-analysis format used, the results show that the quality of radiation therapy positively affects survival outcomes. They write, "The evidence ...In bacterial diversity, Amazon is a 'desert'; Desert is an 'Amazon'
...ike methane. "Given this importance, it was really surprising to us that no one had tried to systematically explore the pattern of diversity of soil bacteria on a continent-wide scale. Part of the reason is such a survey is technologically challenging, and it's logistically challenging as well," he said. In the...Advanced genomics and proteomics improve the diagnosis and treatment of a deadly lung disease
...l T-cell activation and immune responses." Another surprising finding came when the investigators compared these gene expression patterns to those exhibited by biopsies from the eight patients diagnosed with nonspecific interstitial pneumonia. Two of the eight cases exhibited interstitial pulmonary fibrosis-lik......ganic gases are emitted from plants. They made the surprising discovery that plants release methane, a greenhous...his goes against all previous assumptions. Equally surprising was that methane formation is not hindered by the presence of oxygen. This discovery is important no...Author of new book on evolution that solves Darwin's dilemma to speak at NY Academy of Sciences
...latest genetic research, the researchers came to a surprising conclusion: complex living systems are plausible only if evolution can generate them, and it is life by design that is implausible....New possibilities to fight pests with biological means
...cing plants. The experiments led to an additional, surprising result: in order to react this way, the wasps needed a first exposure to both the corn scent and the caterpillar which led them to associate the two. Young, "naive" wasps without this experience could not distinguish between scent-producing plants an...Public support for environmental protection on the decline
... for the environmental justice movement, it is not surprising that support has increased among non-Hispanic blacks. "The traditional non-Hispanic white, college-educated suburban population's attachment to environmental protection has shrunk," Greenberg said. "If this decline continues, it will be difficult to ...Patterns in genome organization may partially explain how microbial cells work
...neering at the University of Virginia. He said the surprising organization begs the question of what it means. The sequence order of bacterial genomes most likely affects the way in which the DNA is compressed, often more than 1,000-fold, to fit within the confines of the cell. "In some cases, it might suggest ...Underdogs in the understory: Study suggests nature favors rarer trees
...and value of biodiversity. "This research has the surprising finding that biodiversity in tropical rain forests and Minnesota prairies arises from the same kinds of underlying processes. It brings us a step closer to understanding the causes of the world's amazing biodiversity," Tilman said. Muller-Landau con...Contagious obesity? Identifying the human adenoviruses that may make us fat
...s "Eat less," and "Exercise." But here's a new and surprising piece of advice based on a promising area of obesity research: "Wash your hands." There is accumulating evidence that certain viruses may cause obesity, in essence making obesity contagious, according to Leah D. Whigham, the lead researcher in a new ...JCI table of contents, February 1, 2006
...leagues from the University of Kentucky report the surprising finding that VEGF-A can be anti-angiogenic and reduce CNV. Using an experimental model, the authors found that CNV lesions in the eyes of mice could be reduced by VEGF-A treatment after injury, and that this reduction occurs due to activation of a pr...Biologists build better software, beat path to viral knowledge
...mponents of the viral particle possesses qualities surprising to researchers accustomed to seeing only symmetric viruses up close. "Epsilon 15's tail, for example, has six 'spikes' in it, but they aren't arranged in a neat hexagonal ring. They're highly deviant," Jiang said. "Because they're so off-kilter, only...A cancer promoting protein shows up in an unexpected place in the cell
...n of apoptosis," says Dr. Philips. "That was very surprising because ras is usually thought of as an oncogene. Oncogenes generally promote uncontrolled growth and block cell death. And here we were seeing a situation where ras was promoting cell death." The most intriguing aspect of the study is that it...Mathematics in fact and fiction discussed at AAAS Annual Meeting
... other industrialized countries. They have found a surprising ally in a popular television series, NUMB3RS, which airs on CBS on Fridays. The show features a young mathematician, played by David Krumholtz, who helps his brother, an FBI agent, solve crimes using mathematical methods. In the initial episode, the ......for spawning. One key line of evidence was in the surprising numbers of several fish species collected, such as tubeshoulders, which spurt bioluminescent liquid. Past deep-sea work has suggested the fish are rare and widely scattered. "We're used to ones and twos," says Sutton, but we were getting tens, twenti...Hens' teeth not so rare after all
...red were teeth similar to those of crocodiles not surprising as birds are the closest living relatives of the reptile." The discovery led the team to wonder whether healthy chickens might still maintain the genetic pathways to re-grow teeth. "We found we were able to induce teeth to grow in normal chickens by ...Taste gene may play role in smoking
...ter taste were less likely to smoke for taste. A surprising result, which must be replicated for scientific accuracy, was the discovery that smokers with a different, less common genetic variant for taste were the least likely to smoke. "Nicotine dependence is likely to be the result of many genes and comple...Surprising genetic differences id-ed in southern house mosquito
...r encephalitides, avian malaria and poxvirus. "The surprising thing is that there is actually structure in this mosquito. Researchers had thought that all populations of this mosquito were the same," explained Fonseca, who was the first to examine the genetic makeup of this important disease transmitter....Study implicates potassium channel mutations in neurodegeneration and mental retardation
... disease or mental retardation. The findings were surprising because mice lacking the KCNC3 gene have only mild behavioral changes, Dr. Pulst says. It is not yet clear exactly how the potassium channel mutations cause neurodegeneration. One theory is that the mutations might increase the amount of calcium th......r different conditions. What they found was quite surprising sexual reproduction itself can lead to the evolution of a special feature of the genetic architecture known as negative epistasis that, in turn, confers an evolutionary advantage to sexually reproducing organisms. In other words, sexual reproductio...