Looking across evolutionary time and the genomic landscapes of humans and mice, an international group of researchers has found powerful clues to why certain processes and systems in the mouse - such as the immune system, metabolism and stress response - are so different from those in people. Building on years of mouse and gene regulation studies, they have developed a resource that can help scientists better understand how similarities and differences between mice and humans are written in their genomes. Their findings - reported by the mouse ENCODE Consortium online ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY - An international team of researchers led by Professor Thomas R. Gingeras of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and Roderic Guigo (Centre For Genomic Regulation, Barcelona) has identified some 6600 genes whose level of expression varies within a comparatively restricted range in humans and mice. This constraint in expression, they found, is unrelated to the degree of similarity of their gene sequences. The 6600 genes represent about one-third of the total set of genes that are typically active in cells across tissues in both species, irrespective ...

This news release is available in Spanish. A group of international researchers has just discovered the keys to explaining why certain processes and systems in mice, like the immune system, metabolism and stress response, are so different to those in humans. The scientists have detailed the functional parts of the mouse genome and have compared them with those in humans. A whole set of data has come out of this - which is now to available to the scientific community - which will be significant for research into mammalian biology as well as the study of human illness ...

Washington, DC--The Endocrine Society today issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for the diagnosis and treatment of Paget's disease of the bone, a condition where one or more bones in the body become oversized and weak. The CPG, entitled "Paget's Disease of Bone: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline," will appear in the December 2014 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of the Endocrine Society. As part of its normal processes, the body breaks down old bone tissue and replaces it with new bone. When someone ...

CINCINNATI - Conclusive data show that hydroxyurea therapy offers safe and effective disease management of sickle cell anemia (SCA) and reduces the risk of stroke, prompting early termination by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of a key clinical trial studying the drug's efficacy. NHLBI officials issued the announcement today, about one year before the study was originally scheduled to end. Going by the title TWiTCH (TCD With Transfusions Changing to Hydroxyurea), the Phase III randomized clinical trial at 25 medical centers in the U.S. and Canada compared ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Youth who enter puberty ahead of their peers are at heightened risk of depression, although the disease develops differently in girls than in boys, a new study suggests. Early maturation triggers an array of psychological, social-behavioral and interpersonal difficulties that predict elevated levels of depression in boys and girls several years later, according to research by led by psychology professor Karen D. Rudolph at the University of Illinois. Rudolph and her colleagues measured pubertal timing and tracked levels of depression among more than ...

The intense farming practices of the "Green Revolution" are powerful enough to alter Earth's atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate, boosting the seasonal amplitude in atmospheric carbon dioxide to about 15 percent during the last five decades. That's the key finding of a new atmospheric model that estimates that on average, the amplitude of the seasonal oscillation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing at the rate of 0.3 percent every year. A report on the results of the model, called VEGAS, is published today in the journal Nature. "What we are seeing ...

Each year in the Northern Hemisphere, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide drop in the summer as plants "inhale," then climb again as they exhale after the growing season. During the last 50 years, the size of this seasonal swing has increased by as much as half, for reasons that aren't fully understood. Now a team of researchers has shown that agricultural production may generate up to a quarter of the increase in this seasonal carbon cycle, with corn playing a leading role. "This study shows the power of modeling and data mining in addressing potential sources ...

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which proposes regulations to implement reporting requirements for clinical trials that are subject to Title VIII of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA). The proposed rule clarifies requirements to clinical researchers for registering clinical trials and submitting summary trial results information to ClinicalTrials.gov, a publicly accessible database operated by the National Library of Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health. A ...

Geologists in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences have recently figured out what has caused the Alaska Range to form the way it has and why the range boasts such an enigmatic topographic signature. The narrow mountain range is home to some of the world's most dramatic topography, including 20,320-foot Mount McKinley, North America's highest mountain. Professor Paul Fitzgerald and a team of students and fellow scientists have been studying the Alaska Range along the Denali fault. They think they know why the fault is located where it is and what accounts ...

It's hard to believe, but there are similarities between bean sprouts and human cancer. In bean sprouts, a collection of amino acids known as a protein complex allows them to grow longer in the darkness than in the light. In humans, a similar protein complex called CSN and its subunit CSN6 is now believed to be a cancer-causing gene that impacts activity of another gene (Myc) tied to tumor growth. Somehow the same mechanisms that result in bigger bean sprouts, also cause cancer metastasis and tumor development. A study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer ...

Human-wildlife conflict resolution near protected areas critical for tiger survival Stripe-matching software and individual histories inform decisions on handling conflict-prone big cats NEW YORK (November 18, 2014)--Researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society and other partners in India are using high-tech solutions to zero in on individual tigers in conflict and relocate them out of harm's way for the benefit of both tigers and people. In recent tiger-conflict cases involving both a human fatality and the predation of livestock, both occurring near two of ...

Nearly 30,000 people become living kidney donors worldwide each year, and many are young women. Researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), Lawson Health Research Institute and Western University set out to determine if being a living donor has any effect on future pregnancies. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found living kidney donors were more likely to be diagnosed with gestational hypertension (high blood pressure) or preeclampsia than non-donors. Preeclampsia is a pregnancy complication characterized by high ...

South Asian boys are three times as likely to be overweight compared to their peers, according to a new Women's College Hospital study. The report, which was recently published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, was one of the first to look at ethnic group differences in overweight children living in Canada. "Our findings are alarming. From a young age, South Asian boys appear to be on a path towards developing serious health conditions," said Ananya Banerjee, PhD, lead researcher of the study. Previous work has established that, in Canada, type ...

Recently published research by U.S. Forest Service economist Jeff Prestemon supports the contention that the 2008 Lacey Act Amendment reduced the supply of illegally harvested wood from South America and Asia available for export to the United States. Using monthly import data from 1989 to 2013, Prestemon, Project Leader of the Forest Service Southern Research Station Forest Economics and Policy unit, applied alternative statistical approaches to evaluate the effects of the 2008 amendment. The Journal of Forest Policy and Economics recently published the results online. ...

CHICAGO - Women who take a common type of medication to control their blood pressure are not at increased risk of developing breast cancer due to the drug, according to new study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Murray, Utah. Researchers analyzed the records of more than 3,700 women who had no history of breast cancer, and who had long-term use of calcium channel blocker medications to control their blood pressure. Researchers found only a minimal increase in risk in one study and a 50 percent reduced risk in a second, leading them ...

Inspired perhaps by Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, scientists have recently developed several ways--some simple and some involving new technologies--to hide objects from view. The latest effort, developed at the University of Rochester, not only overcomes some of the limitations of previous devices, but it uses inexpensive, readily available materials in a novel configuration. "There've been many high tech approaches to cloaking and the basic idea behind these is to take light and have it pass around something as if it isn't there, often using high-tech or exotic ...

Attending to and caring about the emotions of employees and colleagues - that's for wimps, not for tough businesspeople and efficient performers, right? Wrong! An extensive international study has now shown: The "ability to recognize emotions" affects income. The corresponding author of the study is Professor Dr. Gerhard Blickle of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bonn. The results are published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior. "Although managing employees and dealing with people often involves reading their emotions and determining their moods, ...

A catastrophic landslide, one of the largest known on the surface of the Earth, took place within minutes in southwestern Utah more than 21 million years ago, reports a Kent State University geologist in a paper being to be published in the November issue of the journal Geology. The Markagunt gravity slide, the size of three Ohio counties, is one of the two largest known continental landslides (larger slides exist on the ocean floors). David Hacker, Ph.D., associate professor of geology at the Trumbull campus, and two colleagues discovered and mapped the scope of the ...

This news release is available in German. Because the skin and its function as a barrier are severely compromised in neurodermatitis patients, a large number of bacterial species are able to multiply - including the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. Many patients have nearly 200-times as many S. aureus bacteria living on their skin as healthy individuals, resulting in frequent infections. Prof. Tilo Biedermann and his team at the Allergology and Dermatology Clinic of Klinikum rechts der Isar and the University of Tübingen have now shown in an animal model how these ...

A plague of "aquatic osteoporosis" is spreading throughout many North American soft-water lakes due to declining calcium levels in the water and hindering the survival of some organisms, says new research from Queen's University. Researchers from Queen's, working with colleagues from York University and the University of Cambridge, as well as other collaborators, have identified a biological shift in many temperate, soft-water lakes in response to declining calcium levels after prolonged periods of acid rain and timber harvesting. The reduced calcium availability is hindering ...

Queen's University biologist Virginia Walker and Queen's SARC Awarded Postdoctoral Fellow Pranab Das have shown nanosilver, which is often added to water purification units, can upset your gut. The discovery is important as people are being exposed to nanoparticles every day. Nanosilver is also used in biomedical applications, toys, sunscreen, cosmetics, clothing and other items. "We were surprised to see significant upset of the human gut community at the lowest concentration of nanosilver in this study," says Dr. Das. "To our knowledge, this is the first time anyone ...

This news release is available in German. The research team also showed that the pathological changes of the astrocytes can be mitigated by pharmacological treatment. The triggering molecules turned out to be energy carriers of the cell such as ATP: These molecules can induce the astrocytes to switch into a hyperactive state, which is characterized by sudden fluctuations in the concentration of calcium. As the researchers describe in the scientific journal Nature Communications, their study suggests a novel potential approach for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. In ...

Residential treatment may be an appropriate first-line option for young adults who are dependent on opioid drugs - including prescription painkillers and heroin - that may result in higher levels of abstinence than does the outpatient treatment that is currently the standard of care. A study from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Addiction Services found that a month-long, 12-step-based residential program with strong linkage to community-based follow-up care, enabled almost 30 percent of opioid-dependent participants to remain abstinent a year later. ...

Pregnant women with histories of major depression are about 40 percent less likely to relapse into depression if they practice mindfulness techniques--such as meditation, breathing exercises and yoga--along with cognitive therapy, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. About 30 percent of pregnant women who have struggled with depression in the past will again become depressed in the months before and after birth, according to past research. In the new study, published in the journal Archives of Women's Mental Health, the research team found ...