Babies conceived by women who drink alcohol around the time of conception face dramatically increased risks of type 2 diabetes and obesity in early middle age, a University of Queensland study has found. The discovery was made by School of Biomedical Sciences scientist Associate Professor Karen Moritz during research into how events - particularly alcohol consumption - before and during pregnancy affect the long-term health of offspring. Using a laboratory rat model, Dr Moritz and PhD student Ms Emelie Gardebjer discovered that the equivalent of five standard drinks ...

Precise targeting biological molecules, such as cancer cells, for treatment is a challenge, due to their sheer size. Now ,Taiwanese scientists have proposed an advanced solution, based on a novel combination of previously used techniques, which can potentially be applied to thermal cancer therapy. Pei-Chang Tsai from the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, at the Academia Sinica, Taipei, and colleagues just published in EPJ QT an improved sensing technique for nanometre-scale heating and temperature sensing. Using a chemical method to attach gold nanorods to the ...

Nanoscale worlds sometimes resemble macroscale roller-coaster style hills, placed at the tip of a series of hexagons. Surprisingly, these nanohills stem from the self-organisation of particles - the very particles that have been eroded and subsequently redeposited following the bombardment of semi-conductors with ion beams. Now, a new theoretical study constitutes the first exhaustive investigation of the redeposition effect on the evolution of the roughening and smoothing of two-dimensional surfaces bombarded by multiple ions. The results demonstrate that the redeposition ...

Using ultracold atoms trapped in light crystals, scientists from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich, the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, and the Weizmann Institute observe a novel state of matter that never thermalizes. What happens if one mixes cold and hot water? After some initial dynamics, one is left with lukewarm water--the system has thermalized to a new thermal equilibrium. This is true not only when we pour cold milk into our hot coffee, but it is also what happens for almost all interacting systems we know in nature: in the long run ...

Several rare upland bird species are being put at risk together with other ecosystem functions by the effects of climate change on the UK's blanket bogs, ecologists at the University of York have discovered. Most of our drinking water comes from these upland peats and several iconic bird species such as the dunlin, golden plover and red grouse depend on these wetland habitats for nesting and feeding. The scientists warn that climate change threatens these habitats, not only from rising temperatures increasing peat decomposition, but also via altered rainfall patterns ...

Messenger (mRNA) molecules are a key component of protein biosynthesis. They are first transcribed as a "working copy" of the DNA and then translated into protein molecules. RNA-binding proteins such as RC3H1 (also known as ROQUIN) regulate the degradation of the mRNA molecules and thus prevent the production of specific proteins. Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) have now shown that ROQUIN binds several thousand mRNA molecules. They demonstrated that ROQUIN also influences the gene regulator NF-kappaB, ...

Parents' estimations of their children's happiness differ significantly from the child's own assessment of their feelings, a study has shown. Research by psychologists at Plymouth University showed parents of 10 and 11-year-olds consistently overestimated their child's happiness, while those with 15 and 16-year-olds were inclined to underestimate. Published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, the study attributed the discrepancies to an "egocentric bias" through which parents rely too heavily on their own feelings in assessing the happiness of the family ...

The humble butterfly could hold the key to unlocking new techniques to make solar energy cheaper and more efficient, pioneering new research has shown. A team of experts from the University of Exeter has examined new techniques for generating photovoltaic (PV) energy - or ways in which to convert light into power. They showed that by mimicking the v-shaped posture adopted by Cabbage White butterflies to heat up their flight muscles before take-off, the amount of power produced by solar panels can increase by almost 50 per cent. Crucially, by replicating this 'wing-like' ...

Main Finding(s): Women who participated in exercise as adolescents had a reduced risk of death from cancer and all causes in their middle and older ages. Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research Author: Sarah J. Nechuta, MPH, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center and Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tennessee Background: Understanding the long-term impact of modifiable lifestyle factors such as exercise in adolescence ...

More time spent standing rather than sitting could improve your blood sugar, fats in the blood and cholesterol levels, according to a new study published today (Friday) in the European Heart Journal [1]. The study also shows that replacing time spent sitting with time walking could have additional benefits for your waistline and body mass index (BMI). Researchers in Australia gave activity monitors to 782 men and women, aged 36-80 years, who were taking part in the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study. The monitors were capable of determining, very accurately, ...

China needs to reduce its dependence on coal and improve the range of fuels it uses if it is to have long term energy security, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). The study, published in the journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change, looks at the future of electricity supply in China and the issues it faces in reducing its carbon emissions - nationally China's electricity sector accounts for more than half its total greenhouse gas emissions. The country's electricity sector is the largest in the world and energy security ...

If it takes more than three trips to the GP to be referred for cancer tests, patients are more likely to be dissatisfied with their overall care, eroding confidence in the doctors and nurses who go on to treat and monitor them. These worrying levels of dissatisfaction are based on further analysis of survey data from more than 70,000 cancer patients, by Cancer Research UK scientists at UCL (University College London) and the University of Cambridge, published today (Friday) in the European Journal of Cancer Care.* Of the nearly 60,000 survey respondents diagnosed through ...

On the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a three-part Series published in The Lancet looks at the enduring radiological and psychological impact of nuclear disasters, including the most recent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan in 2011. The Series provides vital information for the public health planning of future disasters to protect the millions of people who live in areas surrounding the 437 nuclear power plants that are in operation worldwide. Although nuclear power plant accidents are uncommon, during the ...

Highlights Blood levels of TMAO, a byproduct generated from intestinal bacterial as they metabolize dietary nutrients, progressively increase with advancing severity of kidney disease. TMAO levels are dramatically reduced when kidney function is restored following kidney transplantation. High TMAO levels are linked with an increased risk of atherosclerosis and premature death in patients with chronic kidney disease. Washington, DC (July 30, 2015) -- In patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), atherosclerosis is exceedingly common and contributes to the ...

PHILADELPHIA -- Working with yeast and worms, researchers found that incorrect gene expression is a hallmark of aged cells and that reducing such "noise" extends lifespan in these organisms. The team published their findings this month in Genes & Development. The team was led by senior author Shelley Berger, PhD, a Daniel S. Och University Professor in the departments of Cell & Developmental Biology, Biology & Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Weiwei Dang, PhD, a former Penn postdoctoral fellow who is now an assistant professor ...

(BOSTON) -- Gene drives are genetic elements - found naturally in the genomes of most of the world's organisms - that increase the chance of the gene they carry being passed on to all offspring, and thus, they can quickly spread through populations. Looking to these natural systems, researchers around the world, including some Wyss Institute scientists, are developing synthetic gene drives that could one day be leveraged by humans to purposefully alter the traits of wild populations of organisms to prevent disease transmission and eradicate invasive species. These synthetic ...

Numerous genes that regulate the activity of a neurotransmitter in the brain have been found to be abundant in brain tissue of depressed females. This could be an underlying cause of the higher incidence of suicide among women, according to research at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Studying postmortem tissue from brains of psychiatric patients, Monsheel Sodhi, assistant professor of pharmacy practice at UIC, noted that female patients with depression had abnormally high expression levels of many genes that regulate the glutamate system, which is widely distributed ...

Washington, DC - July 30, 2015 - In research that could lead to protective probiotics to fight the "chytrid" fungus that has been decimating amphibian populations worldwide, Jenifer Walke, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, and her collaborators have grown bacterial species from the skin microbiome of four species of amphibians. The research appears July 10 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. In the study, the investigators swabbed the four species, all of which inhabit Virginia. ...

PHILADELPHIA -- The importance of a diet rich in fish oils - now a billion dollar food-supplement industry -- has been debated for over half a century. A few large clinical trials have supported the idea that fish oils confer therapeutic benefits to patients with cardiovascular disease. Researchers think that hearts and blood vessels may benefit in part from their anti-inflammatory properties. Synthetic versions of marine fish lipid-derived molecules called specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs) show anti-inflammatory properties in cell cultures and live animal models. ...

Not every mom and dad agree on how their offspring should behave. But in genetics as in life, parenting is about knowing when your voice needs to be heard, and the best ways of doing so. Typically, compromise reigns, and one copy of each gene is inherited from each parent so that the two contribute equally to the traits who make us who we are. Occasionally, a mechanism called genomic imprinting, first described 30 years ago, allows just one parent to be heard by completely silencing the other. Now, researchers at the University of Utah School of Medicine report on a ...

If the technical features of a new camera delight the tech experts but leave consumers scratching their heads, how should a retailer's website present those views and what sales results could it expect? A paper to be published in the September issue of the Journal of Retailing provides insights on the relatively new phenomenon of online user reviews. In "User Reviews Variance, Critic Reviews Variance, and Product Sales: An Exploration of Customer Breadth and Depth Effects," Feng Wang of Hunan University, Xuefeng Liu of Loyola University Maryland, and Eric Fang of ...

A national coalition of experts that includes two University of Washington researchers has a bold plan to reduce behavioral health problems such as violence and depression among young people across the country by 20 percent in a decade. And their proposal rests on one simple principle: prevention. The group's paper, recently published on the National Academy of Medicine website, recommends implementing evidence-based prevention programs on a national scale to reduce a host of problems ranging from drinking to delinquent behavior, anxiety and risky driving. It notes ...

Many physicians are pushing back against or debating new requirements for maintaining medical board certifications, which affect more than 250,000 physicians nationwide. Now, a new study by UC San Francisco and Stanford University researchers concludes that the cost of implementing the most recent requirements will be an estimated $5.7 billion over the next 10 years. In their study, published online on July 27, 2015, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the researchers found that most costs of the latest maintenance-of-certification (MOC) requirements implemented for ...

Athens, Ga. - An international team of researchers led by scientists at the University of Georgia has discovered how parasitic plants, which steal their nutrients from another living plant, evolved the ability to detect and attack their hosts. Their findings, published recently in the journal Science, could lead to new techniques to control the thieving weeds. There are thousands of parasitic plant species, but the most burdensome for humans are those that infiltrate farmland and destroy crops. Parasite infestations reduce crop yields by billions of dollars each year, ...

In cells with latent HIV infection, the virus is dormant, and such cells are therefore not attacked by the immune system or by standard antiretroviral therapy. To eradicate the virus from the human body and truly cure a patient, reservoirs of latently infected cells need to be activated and eliminated "the so-called "kick-and-kill" approach. Two studies published on July 30th in PLOS Pathogens report encouraging results on the use of a combination of several drugs to efficiently reactivate HIV in cells with latent infection. Please contact plospathogens@plos.org if you ...