More than one-quarter of young adults with the most common form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have a high-risk subtype with a poor prognosis and may benefit from drugs widely used to treat other types of leukemia that are more common in adults, according to multi-institutional research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators. The study appears in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. ALL is the most common childhood cancer. The research focused on a subtype of ALL known as Philadelphia chromosome-like ALL (Ph-like ALL). In ...

Biologists claim that humans can perceive and distinguish a trillion different odors, but little is known about the underlying chemical processes involved. Biochemists at The City College of New York have found an unexpected chemical strategy employed by the mammalian nose to detect chemicals known as aldehydes. According to a team led by CCNY Associate Professor of Chemistry Kevin Ryan and Columbia biologist Stuart Firestein, some of the nose's many aldehyde receptors don't detect the aldehyde by its structure and shape directly. Rather, the aldehyde is recognized by ...

Gaining just five pounds can increase your blood pressure, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's High Blood Pressure Research Scientific Sessions 2014. Many people understand the health dangers of large amounts of extra body weight, but reasearchers in this study wanted to see the impact of a small weight gain of about five to 11 pounds. "To our knowledge, for the first time, we showed that the blood pressure increase was specifically related to increases in abdominal visceral fat, which is the fat inside the abdomen," said Naima ...

Using plant leaves to produce and deliver a key enzyme may improve treatment for life-threatening high blood pressure in the lungs, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's High Blood Pressure Research Scientific Sessions 2014. "Current therapies for pulmonary hypertension don't cure the underlying disorder and the long-term prognosis is poor, even with treatment," said Vinayak Shenoy, Ph.D., the study's lead author and an assistant research scientist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "There is an urgent need to discover potential ...

— Restricting calories may improve obstructive sleep apnea and reduce high blood pressure in obese adults, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's High Blood Pressure Research Scientific Sessions 2014. People with sleep apnea may experience pauses in breathing five to 30 times per hour or more while sleeping. It prevents restful sleep and is associated with high blood pressure, arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythm), stroke and heart failure. In a 16-week ramdomized clinical trial, researchers analyzed 21 obese people 20-55 years old with a history ...

MINNEAPOLIS – People with blood type AB may be more likely to develop memory loss in later years than people with other blood types, according to a study published in the September 10, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. AB is the least common blood type, found in about 4 percent of the U.S. population. The study found that people with AB blood were 82 percent more likely to develop the thinking and memory problems that can lead to dementia than people with other blood types. Previous studies have shown that people ...

RICHLAND, Wash. -- Researchers have been trying to increase the efficiency of solid oxide fuel cells by lowering the temperatures at which they run. More efficient fuel cells might gain wider use in vehicles or as quiet, pollution-free, neighborhood electricity generating stations. A serendipitous finding has resulted in a semiconducting material that could enable fuel cells to operate at temperatures two-thirds lower than current technology, scientists reported August 18 in Nature Communications. In an attempt to create a metal oxide with the properties of metal, researchers ...

Lower rates of suicide are associated with more daily sunshine in the prior 14 to 60 days. Light interacts with brain serotonin systems and possibly influences serotonin-related behaviors. Those behaviors, such as mood and impulsiveness, can play a role in suicide. The authors examined the relationship between suicide and the duration of sunshine after mathematically removing seasonal variations in sunshine and suicide numbers. They analyzed data on 69,462 officially confirmed suicides in Austria between January 1970 and May 2010. Hours of sunshine per day were ...

Vitiligo (depigmentation of the skin) and alopecia areata (AA, patchy or complete hair loss) in patients with chronic graft-vs-host disease (GvHD) following a stem cell transplant appear to be associated with having a female donor and the sex mismatch of a female donor and male recipient. GvHD is a frequent complication of donor stem cell transplants because donor cells can attack the recipient's body and cause death and other illnesses. The skin is the most commonly affected organ. The underlying biology of chronic GvHD has not been fully explained. The authors ...

Ithaca, N.Y.—Migratory songbirds enjoy the best of both worlds—food-rich summers and balmy winters—but they pay for it with a tough commute. Their twice-a-year migrations span thousands of miles and are the most dangerous, physically demanding parts of their year. Surprisingly, for many North American species the best route between summer and winter homes is not a straight line, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. In spring, the study shows, birds follow areas of new plant growth—a so-called "green wave" of new leaves and numerous ...

TORONTO, Sept. 10, 2014 - Serena Williams won her third consecutive US Open title a few days ago, thanks to reasons including obvious ones like physical strength and endurance. But how much did her brain and its egocentric and allocentric functions help the American tennis star retain the cup? Quite significantly, according to York University neuroscience researchers whose recent study shows that different regions of the brain help to visually locate objects relative to one's own body (self-centred or egocentric) and those relative to external visual landmarks (world-centred ...

The 790 Fire in Oregon began as a lightning strike on July 31, 2014. Over 3,000 acres have been affected by this fire which is 54% contained. In the next 12 to 48 hours there is a potential risk to Sky Lakes Wilderness and natural resources including the Northern Spotted Owl habitat, Coho habitat, water quality, the Pacific Crest Trail, and Cherry Creek Research Natural Area. Area and trail closures exist on the Pacific Crest Trail. The weather is not helping the fire fighters with gusty winds and low relative humidity. The operational objectives include keeping the ...

Experiencing diverse communities by hearing different languages at the park, on a bus or in the grocery store may make babies more open-minded in their social learning, a new study finds. While previous research has shown that direct interactions with parents and caregivers shape early cognitive development, the influence of the broader community beyond those direct experiences has not been as carefully examined. In a new study published by the journal Cognition, University of Chicago Psychology Department researchers investigated whether the variety of languages in infants' ...

PRINCETON, N.J.—America's unemployment rate — most recently reported as 6.1 percent — has long been used to gauge the country's economic well-being. But a new working paper released by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs highlights the difficulty in estimating the exact unemployment rate, though changes in the official measure still signal important movements in the economy. The research, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, finds that the true unemployment rate may be higher or lower than recent reports ...

PORTLAND, Ore. — A team led by an Oregon Health & Science University researcher has sequenced and annotated the genome of the only ape whose DNA had yet to be sequenced — the gibbon, an endangered small ape that inhabits the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. The team's work, published in the Sept. 11 edition of Nature, gives scientists new insight into the evolution of the gibbon genome and its extraordinary number of chromosomal rearrangements. Chromosomal rearrangements are structural changes in the DNA that are often problematic in other species — including causing ...

BATON ROUGE – LSU's Mark Batzer, LSU Boyd Professor and Dr. Mary Lou Applewhite Distinguished Professor, along with Research Assistant Professor Miriam Konkel and Research Associate Jerilyn Walker in Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Science, contributed to an article featured on the cover of the scientific journal Nature, titled "Gibbon Genome and the Fast Karyotype Evolution of Small Apes." An abstract of the article can be found at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7517/full/nature13679.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20140911. The issue of Nature will ...

The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 1:48 p.m. EDT on Sept. 10, 2014. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured images of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground. However -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. To see how this event may affect Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's ...

Employing a measure rarely used in sleep apnea studies, researchers at the UCLA School of Nursing have uncovered evidence of what may be damaging the brain in people with the sleep disorder — weaker brain blood flow. In the study, published Aug. 28 in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, researchers measured blood flow in the brain using a non-invasive MRI procedure: the global blood volume and oxygen dependent (BOLD) signal. This method is usually used to observe brain activity. Because previous research showed that poor regulation of blood in the brain might be a problem ...

Sharks in no-fishing zones in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Marine Park are more abundant when the coral is healthy, according to a study published September 10, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Mario Espinoza from James Cook University, Australia and colleagues. Shark species that use coral reefs may be under pressure from fishing, habitat degradation, and climate change. The authors of this study were interested in understanding the factors that affect the distribution and abundance of shark populations in the GBR, including fishing and habitat quality. To ...

Gulf killifish biological responses to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill detected by researchers in the field are similar to those in controlled laboratory studies, according to a study published September 10, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Whitney Pilcher from Louisiana State University and colleagues. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scientists monitored the impacts of oil on a local species of fish, the Gulf killifish. Changes in genome expression responses to oil exposure may provide insight into how the fish are affected by or adapt to environmental ...

The effect of movies featuring dogs on the popularity of dog breeds can last up to ten years and is correlated with the general success of the movies, according to new research from the University of Bristol, the City University of New York, and Western Carolina University. The study, published today in PLOS ONE, also found that movies' influence was strongest in the early twentieth century and has declined since. The researchers used data from the American Kennel Club, which maintains the world's largest dog registry totalling over 65 million dogs, and analysed a total ...

Comparison of 3D TEM imaging techniques reveals never-seen-before details of plant cell walls, according to a study published September 10, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Purbasha Sarkar from University of California, Berkeley and colleagues. Cost-effective production of plant material for biofuel requires efficient breakdown of plant cell wall tissue to retrieve the complex sugars in the cell wall required for fermentation and production of biofuels. In-depth knowledge of plant cell wall composition is therefore essential for improving the fuel production ...

(NEW YORK – September 10, 2014) With the longstanding debate over whether violent movies cause real world violence as a backstop, a study published today in PLOS One found that each person's reaction to violent images depends on that individual's brain circuitry, and on how aggressive they were to begin with. The study, which was led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the NIH Intramural Program, featured brain scans which revealed that both watching and not watching violent images caused different brain activity in people with different ...

Our ancient ancestors' ability to move around and find new sources of groundwater during extremely dry periods in Africa millions of years ago may have been key to their survival and the evolution of the human species, a new study shows. The research – published in the journal PLOS ONE – combines geological evidence from the Olduvai sedimentary basin in Northern Tanzania, which formed about 2.2 million years ago, and results from a hydrological model. It shows that while water in rivers and lakes would have disappeared as the climate changed due to variations in the ...

September 10, 2014 – A study using motion capture technology provides new information on the spinal strain produced by various sexual positions—suggesting that one position commonly recommended for all men with low back pain is not actually the best choice, reports a study in the journal Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The results provide a more scientific basis for making individualized recommendations regarding sexual positions for men with low back pain, according to Natalie Sidorkewicz, MSc, and Stuart ...