New findings by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggest that an evolutionary arms race between rival elements within the genomes of primates drove the evolution of complex regulatory networks that orchestrate the activity of genes in every cell of our bodies. The arms race is between mobile DNA sequences known as "retrotransposons" (a.k.a. "jumping genes") and the genes that have evolved to control them. The UC Santa Cruz researchers have, for the first time, identified genes in humans that make repressor proteins to shut down specific jumping ...

The first direct comparison of treating non-squamous lung cancer with either pemetrexed or docetaxel in addition to cisplatin has shown that the two combinations achieve similar progression-free survival, although docetaxel was associated with more frequent adverse events. At the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid, Dr Young-Chul Kim from Chonnam National University Medical School, South Korea, reported the results of an open-label phase III trial that included 149 patients with non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) conducted at 14 centres in South Korea. "We wanted ...

Measuring the expression levels of an enzyme involved in DNA synthesis can help predict the response of lung cancers to certain treatments, a Korean study has shown at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid. In a randomized phase II study, researchers showed that patients whose lung cancers expressed low levels of an enzyme called thymidylate synthase experienced a greater benefit from treatment with the combination of pemetrexed and cisplatin than those whose tumours expressed high levels. "Thymidylate synthase is one of the proteins that is targeted by pemetrexed which ...

The introduction of biennial colorectal cancer screening in a region of France increased the rate of diagnosis of high risk pre-cancerous adenomas (sometimes called polyps) by 89%, researchers have reported at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid. Dr Vanessa Cottet from INSERM Unité 866 in Dijon, France, and colleagues studied the region of Côte-d'Or, where a registry has been collecting data on adenomas since 1976. They wanted to evaluate the rate of diagnosis of adenomas before and after the initiation of a screening program using fecal occult blood testing that began ...

Treatment with the targeted therapy drug crizotinib effectively halts the growth of lung tumors driven by rearrangements of the ROS1 gene. In an article receiving Online First publication in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with a presentation at the European Society for Medical Oncology meeting, an international research team reports that crizotinib treatment led to significant tumor shrinkage in 36 of 50 study participants and suppressed tumor growth in another 9. "Prior to this study, there were a handful of reports describing marked responses to crizotinib ...

Children who are exposed to chemotherapy or radiotherapy while in the womb suffer no negative impacts on mental or cardiac development, international studies presented at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid have shown. "When chemotherapy is administered after the first trimester of pregnancy, we cannot discern any problems in the children," says lead author Dr Frederic Amant, KU Leuven and University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium. "Fear about the risks of chemotherapy administration should not be a reason to terminate a pregnancy, delay cancer treatment for the mother, or ...

A new drug, anamorelin, improves appetite and body mass in patients with advanced lung cancer who are suffering cancer anorexia and cachexia, according to phase III data presented at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid, Spain. "Anorexia and cachexia are among the most troubling and distressing symptoms of advanced cancer, for both patients and their families," says the study's principal investigator, Dr Jennifer Temel from the Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA. Symptoms of the wasting syndrome can include a loss of weight and muscles, ...

The tyrosine kinase inhibitor afatinib significantly improved progression-free survival compared to methotrexate in patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck after failure of platinum-based chemotherapy, the results of a phase III trial show. Presented at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid, the Lux-Head & Neck 1 trial showed that patients who received treatment with 40 mg/day oral afatinib had a 20% reduction in risk of progression or death compared to patients who received methotrexate, with a median progression-free survival of ...

Rolapitant reduces nausea and vomiting in patients receiving cisplatin-based chemotherapy, according to the results of a phase III trial presented for the first time today at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid, Spain. Dr Martin Chasen, lead author and medical director, Palliative Care, Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, Canada, said: "This agent makes a significant difference in the way people tolerate their chemotherapy. Patients experienced no loss in quality of life and, in fact, many saw meaningful improvements. One of the patients in the rolapitant cohort reported that ...

The author of new research into organ trafficking has called for a concerted international effort to confront the problem. Dr Ana Manzano, of the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, says a combination of factors means nobody knows definitively how many organs are being traded across the world. She said: "Unless these issues are addressed and countries work together to take firm action against the traffickers, more people who have their organs trafficked will die. "Even in the UK, although the World Health Organization has identified us ...

Over 96,004 acres have been burned by the King Fire since it began on September 13, 2014. The fire is currently 68% contained, and the cause of the fire is arson. Just a few days ago, (Sept. 23) the fire was only 38% contained so progress on extinguishing it continues. Over 7,700 personnel are battling this fire. A Pacific system came through the fire area yesterday (9/25) bringing 0.6-0.9 inches of rain. The observed fire activity was minimal with smoldering in interior pockets of the heavier fuels. A low pressure system will become the dominate feature today (9/26) ...

The skies over Indonesian Borneo were filled with the smoke from hundreds of fires set deliberately to clear farmland. A shroud of thick, gray smoke hung over the area when the Aqua satellite captured this image on September 25, 2014. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Aqua satellite detected dozens of fires (locations outlined in red) across the entire region from Central Borneo to South Borneo and even on East Laut Island. Widespread burning in lowland forests on Borneo is an annual, manmade occurrence. People use fires ...

Hunting from a distance of 27,000 light years, astronomers have discovered an unusual carbon-based molecule – one with a branched structure – contained within a giant gas cloud in interstellar space. Like finding a molecular needle in a cosmic haystack, astronomers have detected radio waves emitted by isopropyl cyanide. The discovery suggests that the complex molecules needed for life may have their origins in interstellar space. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, known as the ALMA Observatory, a group of radio telescopes funded partially through ...

A bright orange poison dart frog with a unique call was discovered in Donoso, Panama, and described by researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Universidad Autónoma de Chiriquí in Panama, and the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. In the species description published this week in Zootaxa, it was named Andinobates geminisae for Geminis Vargas, "the beloved wife of [coauthor] Marcos Ponce, for her unconditional support of his studies of Panamanian herpetology." Every new species name is based on a representative specimen. The specimen for ...

DALLAS – Sept. 26, 2014 – Lung cancer clinical trials exclude a substantial proportion of patients due to a history of prior cancer, as shown in an analysis by cancer researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Among more than 50 lung cancer clinical trials examined, more than 80 percent excluded patients with prior cancer from participating, according to the study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The exclusion criterion was even applied in more than two-thirds of trials in which survival was not the primary endpoint. "Our research demonstrates ...

The strikingly rapid spread of the Tree Bumblebee in Britain could be occurring because the bees readily live alongside humans in towns and villages – according to research from the University of East Anglia. A new study published today shows that Tree Bumblebees are associated with built-up areas and that these areas form a large part of their habitat use. These markedly different habitat and foraging preferences set this species apart from other common British bumblebee species – which could explain how Tree Bumblebees have managed to colonise much of the UK while ...

Policies put into place by major funding agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and to a lesser extent by scientific journals, appear to be meeting the goal of increasing the sharing of scientific resources among life science investigators. As reported in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, 65 percent of surveyed investigators at major U.S. research institutions believed that NIH policies instituted in recent years had markedly improved the sharing of scientific data. But the survey also identified some unexpected problems, including the number of researchers ...

An article released by Social Forces titled, "The Scarring Effects of Primary-Grade Retention? A Study of Cumulative Advantage in the Educational Career" by Megan Andrew explores the effect of scarring in the educational career in the case of primary-grade retention. Just as is the case for labor-market careers, events early in the educational career can leave lasting scars. Through the study, Andrew finds that primary-grade retention has lasting effects on educational attainments well after a student is initially retained: Retaining a child in early primary school reduces ...

Anti-odour clothing may not be living up to its promise, and an ALES researcher is saying it could all be a matter of how the product was tested. In two separate experiments, Human Ecology researcher Rachel McQueen and her team found that some antimicrobial textiles were far more effective at performing their advertised tasks in the lab than in testing on humans. In one experiment, the fabrics were designed to help lower the risk of infection; in the second, the fabric was treated with a silver compound, which can be marketed preventing odour in clothing. "We aren't ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new Oregon State University study of children with autism found that they are more sedentary than their typically-developing peers, averaging 50 minutes less a day of moderate physical activity and 70 minutes more each day sitting. The small study of 29 children, some with autism and some without, showed that children with autism perform as well as their typical peers on fitness assessments such as body mass index, aerobic fitness levels and flexibility. The results warrant expanding the study to a larger group of children, said Megan MacDonald, an ...

As a child in southern California, Ryan Rykaczewski spent a fair amount of time on his grandfather's boat, fishing with him off the Pacific coast near Los Angeles. At the time, he didn't think there was much rhyme or reason to their luck on the water. "Sometimes we'd catch a lot of fish and sometimes we didn't," he says. "I just thought it was chaotic, that we could never understand what was going on." But education changed his mind. Now an oceanographer and assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, he's working to understand the many factors that determine ...

Each year 2.5 million children die worldwide because they do not receive life-saving vaccinations at the appropriate time. Anil Jain, Michigan State University professor, is developing a fingerprint-based recognition method to track vaccination schedules for infants and toddlers, which will increase immunization coverage and save lives. To increase coverage, the vaccines must be recorded and tracked. The traditional tracking method is for parents to keep a paper document. But in developing countries, keeping track of a baby's vaccine schedule on paper is largely ineffective, ...

September 26, 2014 – Decision analysis techniques can help surgeons and patients evaluate alternatives for breast reconstruction—leading to a "good decision" that reflects the woman's preferences and values, according to an article in the October issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The special topic article by Mia K. Markey, PhD, and colleagues of The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, introduces plastic surgeons to the ...

September 26, 2014 – A new standardized assessment provides a useful tool for tracking surgeons' progress as they develop the skills needed to perform robot-assisted microsurgery, reports a study in the October issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). "The Structured Assessment of Robotic Microsurgical Skills (SARMS) is the first validated instrument for assessing robotic microsurgical skills," according to the report by ASPS Member Surgeon Dr Jesse C. Selber of the University of Texas ...

In a paper published this week online in Global Society, researchers with University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Urban Studies and Planning Program, also at UC San Diego, present a bioregional guide that merges place-based (territorial) city planning and ecosystem management along the United States-Mexico border as way to improve human and environmental health. Issues like climate change, economic crisis, natural disasters and disease outbreaks do not stop at national borders, compelling public health officials, academics and researchers to think ...