Singapore, 18 March 2015- A multi-disciplinary team of doctors and scientists from Singapore has characterised the genetic changes associated with the spread of colorectal cancer to the liver. This finding is significant in helping to develop personalised diagnostic tests for patients with colorectal cancer based on the genetic changes present in each individual's colon tumour. The research team comprises representatives from National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), Singapore General Hospital (SGH), Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS), A*STAR's Genome Institute ...

Across a number of faiths and cultures, people tend to date and marry others who share their religious beliefs. Now, new psychology research from New Zealand's University of Otago suggests this phenomenon--known as 'religious homogamy'--is partially a result of inferences about religious people's personalities. The researchers measured how religious and non-religious individuals perceive the 'openness'--a primary dimension of personality associated with intellectual curiosity--of potential religious and non-religious mates. They found that non-religious participants in ...

This news release is available in French. Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition (APrON) is a birth cohort involving over two thousand women and their infants from Calgary and Edmonton that was funded by Alberta Innovates Health Solutions and includes researchers at the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary. The main objective of APrON is to understand the relationship between maternal nutrient status during pregnancy and maternal mental health and child health and development. As part of the project, the APrON team studied the first 600 women in the ...

Lifestyle-related cardiometabolic risk factors cluster already in children in the same way as in adults, according to research from the University of Eastern Finland. A cardiometabolic risk score was used to evaluate cardiometabolic risk in different age groups. The results show that risk factor levels even lower than those generally accepted as risk factor thresholds for type 2 diabetes and atherosclerotic vascular disease are harmful when several risk factors cluster. In addition, a common mutation on the PNPLA3 gene associated with fatty liver in adults was found to ...

CRISPR-Cas9 is a powerful new tool for editing the genome. For researchers around the world, the CRISPR-Cas9 technique is an exciting innovation because it is faster and cheaper than previous methods. Now, using a molecular trick, Dr. Van Trung Chu and Professor Klaus Rajewsky of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and Dr. Ralf Kühn, MDC and Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), have found a solution to considerably increase the efficiency of precise genetic modifications by up to eightfold (Nature Biotechnology: doi:10.1038/nbt.3198)**. "What ...

Noisy and cramped conditions in trains, planes and airports are discouraging many commuters and business people from working while travelling, new research shows. Sociologist Dr Donald Hislop and psychologist Dr Carolyn Axtell found that the most popular place to work was in vehicles in the car park of a motorway service station. In a paper in the journal Work, Employment and Society, Dr Hislop, of Loughborough University, and Dr Axtell, of the University of Sheffield, say "significant variations" in noise and lack of space "inhibited people's ability to work" on ...

A new study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine revealed that 44 percent of adults with sickle cell disease who report trouble sleeping actually have a clinical diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing, including sleep apnea, which lowers their oxygen levels at night. "Previous research identified pain and sleep disturbance as two common symptoms of adult sickle cell disorder," said Sunil Sharma, M.D., Associate Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University and first author on the study. "We wanted ...

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) periodically releases Assessment Reports in order to inform policymakers and the public about the latest scientific evidence on climate change. The publication of each report is a key event in the debate about climate change, but their reception and coverage in the media has varied widely. A study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, has for the first time analysed how Twitter, TV and newspapers reported the IPCC's climate evidence. Understanding how media coverage varies is important because people's ...

New findings from an international team of archaeological researchers highlight the complexity of geopolitics in Aztec era Mesoamerica and illustrate how the relationships among ancient states extended beyond warfare and diplomacy to issues concerning trade and the flow of goods. The work was done by researchers from North Carolina State University, the Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional-Unidad Mérida, El Colegio de Michoacán and Purdue University. The researchers focused on an independent republic ...

DENVER, March 25, 2015 -- The sweet taste and smell of antifreeze tempts children and animals to drink the poisonous substance, resulting in thousands of accidental poisonings in the United States every year. But today researchers will describe a new, nontoxic product based on a common food additive that could address this health issue and help the environment at the same time. The presentation will take place here at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting features nearly 11,000 ...

DENVER, March 25, 2015 -- Water-borne algal blooms from farm fertilizer runoff can destroy aquatic life and clog rivers and lakes, but scientists will report today that they are working on a way to clean up these environmental scourges and turn them into useful products. The algae could serve as a feedstock for biofuels, and the feedstock leftovers could be recycled back into farm soil nutrients. A multi-pronged nutrient bio-remediation system is the goal of a team of scientists who will present their research at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American ...

New research presented today at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) identifies nicotine dependence, obesity, alcohol abuse and depressive disorders as risk factors for low back pain, a common condition causing disability, missed work, high medical costs and diminished life quality. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) 2012 National Health Survey, nearly one-third of U.S. adults reported that they had suffered from low back pain during the previous three months. For many adults, low back pain ...

A new study presented today at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) found that 53 percent of the parents/caregivers of youth baseball pitchers are unaware of safe pitching practices designed to prevent overuse injuries--common tears or damage, most often to the elbow (ulnar collateral ligament) or shoulder--which can cause pain, lost play time and, if not treated appropriately, arthritis, deformity and disability. Between 2 and 8 percent of youth pitchers will suffer an overuse injury from throwing too hard, too often, too young, ...

Asked to name one way people have changed the environment, many people would probably say "global warming." But that's really just the start of it. People burn fossil fuels, but they also mine and manufacture. It's who we are: Homo fabricus: man the maker. And as a side effect of our ingenuity and craft we have taken many metals originally buried safely in Earth's depths and strewn them about the surface. Does it matter? Yehuda Ben-Shahar and Eirik Søvik, biologists at Washington University in St. Louis, together with colleagues from Andrew Barron's lab at Macquarie ...

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (25 MARCH 2015)--Amidst fears that global warming could zap a vital source of protein that has sustained humans for centuries, bean breeders with the CGIAR global agriculture research partnership announced today the discovery of 30 new types, or lines as plant breeders refer to them, of "heat-beater" beans that could keep production from crashing in large swaths of bean-dependent Latin America and Africa. "This discovery could be a big boon for bean production because we are facing a dire situation where, by 2050, global warming could reduce areas ...

A survey of almost 400,000 British residents has highlighted significant differences in personalities between regions. Amongst its finding, it shows Scots to be amongst the friendliest and most co-operative residents, Londoners the most open and Welsh people the least emotionally stable. Researchers from the University of Cambridge used the data to analyse a sample of just under 400,000 people from England, Wales or Scotland (Northern Ireland was excluded as sample sizes were too small), around two-thirds of whom were female. The results of their study are published today ...

Air pollution is linked to a higher risk of stroke, particularly in developing countries, finds a study published in The BMJ today. In a second article, new research also shows that air pollution is associated with anxiety. Stroke is a leading cause of death and kills around 5 million people each year worldwide. Common risk factors include obesity, smoking and high blood pressure. But the effect of the environment, such as, air pollution is uncertain because evidence is lacking. In a systematic review and meta analysis, a team of researchers from Edinburgh University ...

The sale of human breast milk on the internet poses serious risks to infant health and needs urgent regulation, argue experts in The BMJ today. The nutritional benefits of breast milk for babies are widely documented, but many new mothers find it difficult or are unable to breastfeed. In addition to social pressure, this pushes some mothers to purchase human breast milk on the internet - a market that has been growing rapidly. Despite appearing as healthy and beneficial products, many new mothers and even some healthcare workers are not aware that this market is "dangerous" ...

More research is needed to identify how athletes sustain brain injury from American football, and also to develop strategies to protect them, write experts in The BMJ today. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive neurodegenerative syndrome that can affect athletes. It is thought to result from concussion and brain injury following repeated blows to the head. But the topic of brain damage in football is controversial. The National Football League, for example, does not acknowledge any association between football and brain injury. CTE symptoms include ...

The Department of Health's interim evaluation of an alcohol industry pledge to remove one billion alcohol units from the market is flawed, argue researchers in The BMJ this week. Dr John Holmes and colleagues at the University of Sheffield's Alcohol Research Group say key assumptions within the analysis are "simplistic" and call for the report to be withdrawn and revised targets set. In 2012, the UK government announced an industry pledge to remove a billion units of alcohol from the market by December 2015, as part of the Public Health Responsibility Deal, the government's ...

Scientists from the University of Michigan have grown the first 3D mini lungs from stem cells. The study, published in eLife, compliments other developments in the field such as growing mainly 2D structures and building lung tissue from the scaffold of donated organs. The advantage of growing 3D structures is that their organisation bears greater similarity to the human lung. The scientists succeeded in growing structures resembling both the large proximal airways and the small distal airways Lead author Dr Jason Spence says: "We expected different cells types to ...

(Boston) - The marketing, prescribing and selling of testosterone and growth hormone as panaceas for aging-associated problems is disease mongering. So assert Thomas Perls, MD, MPH, FACP, a geriatrician at Boston Medical Center and professor of Geriatrics and Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine; and David Handelsman, MB BS, FRACP, PhD, professor of Reproductive Endocrinology and Andrology, director of the ANZAC Research Institute, University of Sydney and Andrology Department, Concord Hospital. Their editorial is published in this month's Journal of the American ...

WASHINGTON -- When we look at a known word, our brain sees it like a picture, not a group of letters needing to be processed. That's the finding from a Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, which shows the brain learns words quickly by tuning neurons to respond to a complete word, not parts of it. Neurons respond differently to real words, such as turf, than to nonsense words, such as turt, showing that a small area of the brain is "holistically tuned" to recognize complete words, says the study's senior author, Maximilian ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers at Mayo Clinic have shown that it is possible to detect endometrial cancer using tumor DNA picked up by ordinary tampons. The new approach specifically examines DNA samples from vaginal secretions for the presence of chemical "off" switches -- known as methylation -- that can disable genes that normally keep cancer in check. The finding is a critical step toward a convenient and effective screening test for endometrial cancer, which is the most common gynecologic malignancy in the United States. The results are published in the journal ...

At any given moment, our sun emits a range of light waves far more expansive than what our eyes alone can see: from visible light to extreme ultraviolet to soft and hard X-rays. Different wavelengths can have different effects at Earth and, what's more, when observed and analyzed correctly, those wavelengths can provide scientists with information about events on the sun. In 2012 and 2013, a detector was launched on a sounding rocket for a 15 minute trip to look at a range of sunlight previously not well-observed: soft X-rays. Each wavelength of light from the sun inherently ...