A desert at the bottom of the sea? Although the waters of the North Sea exchange about every two to three years, there is evidence of decreasing oxygen content. If lower amounts of this gas are dissolved in seawater, organisms on and in the seabed produce less energy – with implications for larger creatures and the biogeochemical cycling in the marine ecosystem. Since nutrients, carbon and oxygen circulate very well and are processed quickly in the permeable, sandy sediments that make up two-thirds of the North Sea, measurements of metabolic rates are especially difficult ...

To make a decision for or against adjuvant chemotherapy, a test to measure the concentrations of the biomarkers uPA and PAI-1 in the tumour tissue is available for breast cancer patients. However, as suitable studies are lacking, it remains unclear for patients with an intermediate risk of recurrence which benefit or harm a treatment strategy based on this test may have for them. This is the result of the final report published by the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) on 20 October 2014. Adjuvant systemic treatments aim to prolong survival Even ...

Individuals who are genetically predisposed to obesity may soon have a therapeutic solution to combat their condition. A research team led by scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has identified several potent inhibitors that selectively target FTO, the common fat mass and obesity-associated gene. These FTO-specific inhibitors pave the way for the development of novel anti-obesity drugs and treatments. The research, led by Assistant Professor Esther Woon from the Department of Pharmacy at the NUS Faculty of Science, along with colleagues from the ...

In a world of matinee idols and cover girls it's easy to assume that humans want their men to be manly and their women womanly. But a groundbreaking new study suggests that, rather than being a preference passed down through a long process of social and sexual selection, it's a relatively new habit that has only emerged in modern, urbanised societies. A team of psychologists, anthropologists and biologists, led by Brunel University London, surveyed 12 populations around the world, from the primitive to the highly developed. Surprisingly, only in the most industrialised ...

Iron is the most abundant trace element in humans. As a cofactor of certain proteins, it plays an essential role in oxygen transport and metabolism. Due to the major importance of iron in a wide variety of cellular processes, and the harm caused by its uncontrolled accumulation in the body, its uptake and storage is strictly regulated. In mammals, iron is imported into cells by the membrane transport protein DMT1. Mutations of DMT1, which affect its transport properties, lead to iron-related metabolic disorders such as anemia and the iron storage disease hemochromatosis. Ines ...

How did life originate? And can scientists create life? These questions not only occupy the minds of scientists interested in the origin of life, but also researchers working with technology of the future. If we can create artificial living systems, we may not only understand the origin of life - we can also revolutionize the future of technology. Protocells are the simplest, most primitive living systems, you can think of. The oldest ancestor of life on Earth was a protocell, and when we see, what it eventually managed to evolve into, we understand why science is so fascinated ...

The drug combination umeclidinium/vilanterol (trade name Anoro) has been approved since May 2014 for adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether this drug combination offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy. According to the findings, an added benefit is not proven: For patients with moderate COPD severity and patients with fewer than ...

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) have discovered a new molecule which can join together chains of amino acids – the building blocks of protein. Only three other known molecules have been discovered to be able to perform this function, which is an important process in the development of new drugs. A key difference is that the new molecule is able to do the same process 10,000 times faster than the other three and "cleanly" without leaving any residue behind. This new molecule, which is a type of catalyst or enzyme, was derived from ...

Researchers at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the University of Turku and the University of Oslo have discovered a previously unknown molecular-level mechanism that may partly explain the increased growth of cancer cells. The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, showed that high levels of miRNA-378a-5p molecule cause cell division anomalies. This renders the number of chromosomes in cancer cells abnormal, which is known to promote growth and the spread of cancer. In addition, the researchers discovered that elevated miRNA378a-5p levels in breast ...

Laser physicists have built a tractor beam that can repel and attract objects, using a hollow laser beam that is bright around the edges and dark in its centre. It is the first long-distance optical tractor beam and moved particles one fifth of a millimetre in diameter a distance of up to 20 centimetres, around 100 times further than previous experiments. "Demonstration of a large scale laser beam like this is a kind of holy grail for laser physicists," said Professor Wieslaw Krolikowski, from the Research School of Physics and Engineering at The Australian National ...

What does a 1980s experimental aircraft have to do with state-of-the art quantum technology? Lots, as shown by new research from the Quantum Control Laboratory at the University of Sydney, and published in Nature Physics today. Over several years a team of scientists has taken inspiration from aerospace research and development programs to make unusually shaped experimental aircraft fly. "It always amazed me that the X-29, an American airplane that was designed like a dart being thrown backwards, was able to fly. Achieving this, in 1984, came through major advances ...

A pilot study testing a new type of drug in patients with chronic diarrhoea has shown promising effects on reducing their symptoms. Bile acid diarrhoea (BAD) is a common cause of chronic diarrhoea that is estimated to affect one in 100 adults in western countries, but is often mistaken for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) by doctors. Many patients are not diagnosed correctly and undergo repeated unnecessary tests. The study at Imperial College London found that the drug obeticholic acid (OCA) could provide relief for patients with BAD. OCA is the first in a new class ...

Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center conclude new drug in development may offer first alternative to standard chemotherapy for T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere say that blocking the action of an enzyme "switch" needed to activate tumor growth is emerging as a practical strategy for treating T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. An estimated quarter of the 500 U.S. adolescents and young adults diagnosed each year with this aggressive disease fail to respond to standard chemotherapy drugs that target cancer ...

Washington, D.C.— Hydrogen—the most abundant element in the cosmos—responds to extremes of pressure and temperature differently. Under ambient conditions hydrogen is a gaseous two-atom molecule. As confinement pressure increases, the molecules adopt different states of matter—like when water ice melts to liquid and then heats to steam. Thus far, at extreme pressures hydrogen has four known solid phases. Now scientists, including Carnegie's Alexander Goncharov, have combined hydrogen with its heavier sibling deuterium—which has an added neutron ...

This issue of Health Affairs was supported by CVS Health. Do specialty drugs offer value that offsets their high costs? James D. Chambers of Tufts Medical Center and coauthors conducted a cost-value review of specialty versus traditional drugs by analyzing incremental health gains associated with each. This first-of-its-kind analysis is timely because the majority of drugs now approved by the Food and Drug Administration are specialty drugs produced using advanced biotechnology and requiring special administration, monitoring, and handling—all of which result ...

Philadelphia, PA (October 20, 2014)–Promising new research in the area of hepatitis C (HCV) therapy that suggests more patients, including those with cirrhosis, will be cured from this common cause of potentially fatal viral liver disease; as well as a number of abstracts that advance understanding of the safety and effectiveness of fecal microbiota transplantation for Clostridium difficile, are among the highlights of the American College of Gastroenterology's (ACG) 79th Annual Scientific Meeting , which will be held this week in Philadelphia. More than 4,000 ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Scientists have developed new geochemical tracers that can identify hydraulic fracturing flowback fluids that have been spilled or released into the environment. The tracers, which were created by a team of U.S. and French researchers, have been field-tested at a spill site in West Virginia and downstream from an oil and gas brine wastewater treatment plant in Pennsylvania. "This gives us new forensic tools to detect if 'frac fluids' are escaping into our water supply and what risks, if any, they might pose," said Duke University geochemist Avner ...

CHICAGO – Oct. 20, 2014 – Using a tablet screening app could prove to be an effective method to aid in the effort to reduce the incidence of avoidable blindness in populations at high-risk for glaucoma with limited access to health care, according to a study released today at AAO 2014, the 118th annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. In this study, researchers from the University of Iowa, the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Michigan and the Tilganga Eye Institute in Nepal used a free peripheral vision assessment ...

CHICAGO – Oct. 20, 2014 – Researchers have developed a fast and inexpensive way to make facial prostheses for eye cancer patients using facial scanning software and 3-D printing, according to findings released today at AAO 2014, the 118th annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Their novel process can create more affordable prosthetics for any patients who have hollow sockets resulting from eye surgery following cancer or congenital deformities. In the United States, more than 2,700 new cases of eye cancer are diagnosed each year, according ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — One of the few studies to examine gender differences among patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has found that males with the condition experience more interpersonal difficulties than do females with the condition. The findings challenge what had been predicted by the University at Buffalo investigator and his colleagues. The study, "Understanding gender differences in IBS: the role of stress from the social environment," is being presented during the Oct. 19 poster session at the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) annual meeting in ...

Being depressed is depressing in itself and makes you feel even worse. That is one reason why it is so hard to break out of depressive conditions. New research out of Queen's University offers a new approach to do just that. Nikolaus Troje (Psychology, Biology and School of Computing) along with clinical psychologists from the University of Hildesheim, Germany, have shown that walking in a happy or sad style actually affects our mood. Subjects who were prompted to walk in a more depressed style, with less arm movement and their shoulders rolled forward, experienced worse ...

A drug being studied as a fast-acting mood-lifter restored pleasure-seeking behavior independent of – and ahead of – its other antidepressant effects, in a National Institutes of Health trial. Within 40 minutes after a single infusion of ketamine, treatment-resistant depressed bipolar disorder patients experienced a reversal of a key symptom – loss of interest in pleasurable activities – which lasted up to 14 days. Brain scans traced the agent's action to boosted activity in areas at the front and deep in the right hemisphere of the brain. "Our ...

Ever wondered how people figure out what is fair? Look to the brain for the answer. According to a new Norwegian brain study, people appreciate fairness in much the same way as they appreciate money for themselves, and also that fairness is not necessarily that everybody gets the same income. Economists from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) and brain researchers from the University of Bergen (UiB) have worked together to assess the relationship between fairness, equality, work and money. Indeed, how do our brains react to how income is distributed? More precisely, ...

Microscopic particles that bind under low temperatures will melt as temperatures rise to moderate levels, but re-connect under hotter conditions, a team of New York University scientists has found. Their discovery points to new ways to create "smart materials," cutting-edge materials that adapt to their environment by taking new forms, and to sharpen the detail of 3D printing. "These findings show the potential to engineer the properties of materials using not only temperature, but also by employing a range of methods to manipulate the smallest of particles," explains ...

The health and environmental implications of fossil fuel exploitation, nuclear waste or mining-related pollution are some of the more well-known effects of the increasing energy and material use of the global economy. One way to confront environmental injustice is to use economic evaluation tools. Environmental Justice Organisations (EJOs) are conducting cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) and multi-criteria analyses (MCA) with the support of academics, in order to explore and reveal the un-sustainability of environmentally controversial projects. In some cases, that strategy ...