Scientists at The Marine Mammal Center - the world's largest marine mammal hospital - have found that viral-caused cancer in adult California sea lions is significantly increased by their exposure to toxins in the environment. The study is the result of over 20 years of research and examination of nearly 400 California sea lion patients by The Marine Mammal Center. The Marine Mammal Center has been on the forefront of researching and understanding cancer in California sea lions and its connection to both ocean and human health. Since the cancer in sea lions was first discovered in 1979, between 18-23 percent of adult sea lions admitted to the Center's hospital have died of the fatal disease - the ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - Fortune 500 firms with strong growth profiles are more susceptible to "cooking the books" than smaller, struggling companies, according to a recent study published in Justice Quarterly. Researchers from Washington State University, Pennsylvania State University and Miami University examined the characteristics of more than 250 U.S. public corporations that were involved in financial securities fraud identified in Securities and Exchange Commission filings from 2005-2013. They were then compared to a control sample of firms that were not named in SEC fraud filings. Clear trends emerged in the risk of fraud including corporations that were listed in the Fortune 500, traded on the New York Stock Exchange and had strong growth expectations. ...

(LOS ANGELES) - There are many mechanisms by which the body responds to foreign invaders. One of these involves the T-cells of the immune system, which have a number of different proteins on their surface called "checkpoint proteins." These checkpoint proteins bind to proteins on the surface of other cells and can result in either stimulation or suppression of T-cell activity. Normally, surface proteins on foreign or invading cells will produce a stimulation of T-cell activity against these cells, while T-cell suppression is a built-in mechanism to prevent the immune system from attacking the body's own normal cells. Tumor cells, ...

Australia's and New Zealand's first set of clinical guidelines for children's head injuries has been created by a network of specialists based at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI). The guidelines, developed by the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) and published in Emergency Medicine Australasia, will allow emergency department clinicians to best diagnose and treat children's head injuries while reducing unnecessary exposure to radiation from CT scans. They also address head injuries in children with underlying problems, such as a bleeding disorder. Matthew ...

PITTSBURGH, 2 February, 2021 - Researchers seeking to develop on-demand and behaviorally congruent HIV prevention options for people who practice anal sex are reporting the results of three early phase clinical trials of rectal microbicides at this week's HIV Research for Prevention (HIV R4P) Virtual Conference. The Phase I studies, led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN), found both of two gel-based products well-tolerated, with higher doses of the active drugs likely required to provide protection from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The results are being presented ...

Hydrocarbons and petroleum are almost synonymous in environmental science. After all, oil reserves account for nearly all the hydrocarbons we encounter. But the few hydrocarbons that trace their origin to biological sources may play a larger ecological role than scientists originally suspected. A team of researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution investigated this previously neglected area of oceanography for signs of an overlooked global cycle. They also tested how its existence might impact the ocean's response to oil spills. "We demonstrated that there is a massive and rapid hydrocarbon cycle that occurs in the ocean, and that it is distinct from the ocean's capacity to respond to petroleum input," said Professor David Valentine(link ...

A new Veterans Affairs study finds that delays in undergoing colonoscopy following an abnormal stool test increase the risk of a colorectal cancer diagnosis and cancer-related death. The results appeared online in the journal Gastroenterology in January 2021. In a retrospective study of more than 200,000 Veterans, the researchers found that patients who received colonoscopy more than 13 months after an abnormal stool blood test were up to 1.3 times more likely to have colorectal cancer, compared with those who had colonoscopy up to three months after the stool test. Odds of an advanced stage of cancer at diagnosis were up to 1.7 times higher when colonoscopy was delayed beyond 16 months. The findings also ...

The complex mechanics determining how galaxies spin, grow, cluster and die have been revealed following the release of all the data gathered during a massive seven-year Australian-led astronomy research project. The scientists observed 13 galaxies at a time, building to a total of 3068, using a custom-built instrument called the Sydney-AAO Multi-Object Integral-Field Spectrograph (SAMI), connected to the 4-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales. The telescope is operated by the Australian National University. Overseen by the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics ...

A combination of genetic mutations may explain the higher incidence of and poorer outcomes from pediatric leukemia in Hispanic and Latino children, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. They said a novel therapeutic drug combination - as well as testing for these mutations - may help address the disparity. Hispanic and Latino children are between 1.2 and 1.75 times more likely to develop B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), the most common childhood cancer, than non-Hispanic and Latino children. They also have a 40% higher death rate than their counterparts after correcting for socioeconomic factors. Dr. Sinisa Dovat, a researcher and pediatric ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - People who start adulthood with a body mass index (BMI) in the normal range and move later in life to being overweight - but never obese - tend to live the longest, a new study suggests. Adults in this category lived longer than even those whose BMI stayed in the normal range throughout their life. Those who started adulthood as obese and continued to add weight had the highest mortality rate. "The impact of weight gain on mortality is complex. It depends on both the timing and the magnitude of weight gain and where BMI started," said Hui Zheng, lead author of the study and associate ...

According to the Barker hypothesis (Hales and Barker 1992) (also referred to as "small baby syndrome"), infants with too low body weight have an increased risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes and chronic kidney diseases in adulthood. According to this hypothesis, fetal protective mechanisms enable adaptation to unfavorable intrauterine conditions (chronic oxygen or nutrient deficiency) and allow for fetal survival. At the same time, however, they lead to permanent structural and functional strains and changes into adulthood. The comprehensive study recently published in Nature Communications now clarifies central mechanisms of this phenomenon. Fetuin-A plays a key role Under the program of the Swiss National ...

ATLANTA - FEBRUARY 2, 2021 - A new study finds that long-term aspirin use before a diagnosis of colorectal cancer (CRC) may be associated with lower CRC-specific mortality. The report that appears in JNCI: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggests that the findings for pre-diagnosis aspirin use might help reduce CRC mortality in the overall population by limiting metastatic spread of colorectal tumors before diagnosis. Preventing distant metastases leads to fewer deaths from colorectal cancer. The study, led by Peter T. Campbell, PhD, of the American Cancer Society, used data from men and women enrolled in the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study-II (CPS-II) Nutrition Cohort who were cancer-free ...

A surgical procedure meant to counter ulcerative colitis, an immune disease affecting the colon, may trigger a second immune system attack, a new study shows. The study results revolve around the immune system, the cells and proteins that destroy invading bacteria and viruses. Activating it brings about inflammation, responses like swelling and pain that result from cells homing in on the site of infection or injury. Autoimmune diseases like ulcerative colitis occur when this system mistakenly damages the body's own tissues. Colon tissue damaged by the disease is routinely addressed with a "J-pouch" procedure wherein a pouch is surgically constructed from nearby, healthy ...

Toronto, ON - Results of a multi-centre, international, clinical trial co-led by Peter Munk Cardiac Centre (PMCC) cardiologist Dr. Dinesh Thavendiranathan point to the benefit of using a more sensitive test to detect heart function issues early, so cancer patients don't have to fight heart failure too. Unfortunately, for 1 in 20 high-risk patients, treating cancer with certain therapies means the added potential of developing heart failure. The one-year results of the highly anticipated trial compared heart function at the end of anthracycline-based chemotherapy, a treatment that can successfully treat cancer but ...

DALLAS, Feb. 2, 2021 — Young, Black adults are more than twice as likely to die in the first year after a heart transplant when compared to same-age, non-Black heart transplant recipients, according to new research published today in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal. Research has consistently shown that Black heart transplant recipients have a higher risk of death following heart transplantation compared to non-Black recipients. Black patients have higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease at younger ages, and therefore, they may need heart transplants at younger ...

Hormone therapy commonly is given as a targeted treatment for women whose cancer cells carry receptors for estrogen. But the therapy only works for about half of all patients. Until now, there hasn't been a good way to reliably predict who will benefit and who will not. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown they can distinguish patients likely or unlikely to benefit from hormone therapy using an imaging test that measures the function of the estrogen receptors in their cancer cells. In a small phase 2 clinical trial, the researchers showed that the cancers of all patients with working estrogen receptors remained stable or improved on hormone therapy, and progressed in all women with nonfunctional ...

A new method for constructing special solar cells could significantly increase their efficiency. Not only are the cells made up of thin layers, they also consist of specifically arranged nanoblocks. This has been shown in a new study by an international research team led by the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), which was published in the scientific journal Nano Letters. Commercially available solar cells are mostly made of silicon. "Based on the properties of silicon it's not feasible to say that their efficiency can be increased indefinitely," says Dr Akash Bhatnagar, a physicist from the Centre for Innovation Competence (ZIK) "SiLi-nano" at MLU. ...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (FEBRUARY 2, 2021). Researchers in the United Kingdom (UK) conducted a randomized controlled trial in 47 patients with lumbar spinal stenosis to compare treatment outcomes and costs of two competing surgical procedures: insertion of the X-Stop® (Medtronic) interspinous distractor device and open decompression surgery with laminectomy. Both procedures improved the patients' quality of life; however, overall, laminectomy gave patients a better quality of life and was also more cost-effective. Detailed findings of this study can be found in a new article, "A randomized controlled trial of the X-Stop interspinous ...

Abu Dhabi, UAE, February 2, 2021: Adolescent mothers often fall through the cracks of educational programming. This is highly problematic given that globally an estimated 12 million girls between the ages of 15-19, and 777,000 girls under the age of 15, give birth each year. In populations affected by conflict and displacement, adolescent girls have an increased likelihood of becoming mothers due to various factors, such as disruptions to schooling, the loss of family members, poverty, gender-based violence, and poor access to healthcare and sexual and reproductive services and resources. There is a lack of support programs for these young mothers, and a continuing need for educational programming. ...

Temperature rise due to climate change has negatively affected labour productivity in the past decades and will keep damaging it, potentially at a higher extent than what has been estimated in the literature up to now. In South Africa, a future scenario with severe climate change will feature a reduction of per capita GDP of up to 20% by the end of the century, compared to an idealized future without the impacts of a changing climate. This is what emerges from the study "Climate change and development in South Africa: the impact of rising temperatures on economic productivity and labour availability", coordinated by the ...

Many household products contain ingredients to protect them against sun damage. These UV filters are found in plastics, paints and textiles, as well as personal care products such as sunscreens and moisturizers. UV filters are entering the aquatic environment in rivers, lakes and oceans. Consider for a moment a beach goer swimming in the ocean or rain washing over plastic playground equipment and running into a stormwater drain - either directly or indirectly, UV filters end up making their way to a waterway. UV filters are chemicals that work by either physically blocking or absorbing UV rays. There are two main types of UV filters: inorganic forms, which contain metal particles, ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University innovators have created technology aimed at replacing Morse code with colored "digital characters" to modernize optical storage. They are confident the advancement will help with the explosion of remote data storage during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Morse code has been around since the 1830s. The familiar dots and dashes system may seem antiquated given the amount of information needed to be acquired, digitally archived and rapidly accessed every day. But those same basic dots and dashes are still used in many optical media to aid in storage. A new technology developed at Purdue is aimed at ...

As the U.S. confronts a bitter election season, political unrest and violence, a shaky economy, and a soaring death toll due to COVID-19, 84% of U.S. adults say the country has serious societal issues that we need to address, according to a new poll. At the same time, 9 in 10 adults say they hope that the country moves toward unity, according to Stress in AmericaTM: January 2021 Stress Snapshot, conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of the American Psychological Association. The survey found that the average reported stress level during the prior month was 5.6, (on a scale from 1 to 10 where ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (Feb. 2, 2021) - As the number of states increase where medical and recreational cannabis use is legal, so does the importance that physicians discuss with patients the effects of cannabis on those with asthma. A new survey in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, shows that of those who used cannabis, about half smoked it while a third vaped - both "inhalation routes" likely to affect one's lungs. "It surprised me that over half of the cannabis users in this study who have asthma were smoking it," said Joanna Zeiger, PhD, principal investigator for the study. "And further, of those with uncontrolled asthma, ...

A new study shows that the mating behaviour of crickets is significantly affected by traffic noise and other man-made sounds - a finding that could have implications for the future success of the species. The research, published in the journal Behavioral Ecology, was carried out at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), and involved studying the mating choices of female field crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus) under different acoustic conditions. When a female cricket is nearby, male crickets will perform a courtship song by rubbing their wings together. The song is energetically costly to produce and so contains ...