Diabetes mellitus (DM) appears to increase the risk for head and neck cancer (HNC). Evidence suggests certain cancers are more common in people with DM, but the risk of HNC in patients with DM has not been well explored. Overall, head and neck cancer is the sixth most common type of cancer. It accounts for about 6 percent of all cases and for an estimated 650,000 new cancer cases and 350,000 cancer deaths worldwide each year. The authors used Taiwan's Longitudinal Health Insurance Research Database to examine the risk of HNC in patients with DM. The authors compared 89,089 ...

Only 8.2% of human DNA is likely to be doing something important – is 'functional' – say Oxford University researchers. This figure is very different from one given in 2012, when some scientists involved in the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) project stated that 80% of our genome has some biochemical function. That claim has been controversial, with many in the field arguing that the biochemical definition of 'function' was too broad – that just because an activity on DNA occurs, it does not necessarily have a consequence; for functionality you need to demonstrate ...

Invertebrate numbers have decreased by 45% on average over a 35 year period in which the human population doubled, reports a study on the impact of humans on declining animal numbers. This decline matters because of the enormous benefits invertebrates such as insects, spiders, crustaceans, slugs and worms bring to our day-to-day lives, including pollination and pest control for crops, decomposition for nutrient cycling, water filtration and human health. The study, published in Science and led by UCL, Stanford and UCSB, focused on the demise of invertebrates in particular, ...

Vouchers to buy fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets increase the amount of produce in the diets of some families on food assistance, according to research led by NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. The study, which appears online in Food Policy, suggests that farmers market vouchers can be useful tools in improving access to healthy food. This finding validates a new program created by the Agricultural Act of 2014, or farm bill, that incentivizes low-income families to buy produce at farmers markets. "In terms of healthy ...

BOSTON -- A new study has shown that it is possible to predict long-term cancer risk from a chemical exposure by measuring the short-term effects of that same exposure. The findings, which currently appear in the journal PLOS ONE, will make it possible to develop simpler and cheaper tests to screen chemicals for their potential cancer causing risk. Despite an overall decrease in incidence of and mortality from cancer, about 40 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime, and around 20 percent will die of it. Currently fewer than two percent ...

Less than 1% of research funding awarded by public and charitable bodies to UK researchers in 2008 was awarded for research on antibiotics, according to new research published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The study, which is the first detailed assessment of public and charitable funding to UK researchers focusing on bacteriology and antibiotic research, suggests that present levels of funding for antibiotic research in the UK are inadequate, and will need to be urgently increased if the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance is to be tackled effectively by UK ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Scientists have long been concerned that global warming may push Earth's climate system across a "tipping point," where rapid melting of ice and further warming may become irreversible -- a hotly debated scenario with an unclear picture of what this point of no return may look like. A newly published study by researchers at Oregon State University probed the geologic past to understand mechanisms of abrupt climate change. The study pinpoints the emergence of synchronized climate variability in the North Pacific Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean a few ...

Metastasis, the strategy adopted by tumor cells to transform into an aggressive form of cancer, are often associated with a gloomy prognosis. Managing to block the metastasis or, even better, prevent their formation would be a giant step towards the fight against cancer. Researchers at Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) successfully performed this world first on models of human tumors in mice. The results of their study are published online on 24 July in the prestigious journal Cell Reports. The work by Professor Pierre Sonveaux's team, at Université catholique ...

Acoustic disturbance has different effects on different species of fish, according to a new study from the Universities of Bristol and Exeter which tested fish anti-predator behaviour. Three-spined sticklebacks responded sooner to a flying seagull predator model when exposed to additional noise, whereas no effects were observed in European minnows. Lead author Dr Irene Voellmy of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences said: "Noise levels in many aquatic environments have increased substantially during the last few decades, often due to increased shipping traffic. ...

Parts of the primordial soup in which life arose have been maintained in our cells today according to scientists at the University of East Anglia. Research published today in the Journal of Biological Chemistry reveals how cells in plants, yeast and very likely also in animals still perform ancient reactions thought to have been responsible for the origin of life – some four billion years ago. The primordial soup theory suggests that life began in a pond or ocean as a result of the combination of metals, gases from the atmosphere and some form of energy, such as a lightning ...

Insecticides similar to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, were found commonly in streams throughout the Midwest, according to a new USGS study. This is the first broad-scale investigation of neonicotinoid insecticides in the Midwestern United States and one of the first conducted within the United States. Effective in killing a broad range of insect pests, use of neonicotinoid insecticides has dramatically increased over the last decade across the United States, particularly in the Midwest. The use of clothianidin, one of the chemicals studied, on corn in Iowa alone ...

New York, NY - July 24, 2014 -- Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:KERX) (the "Company") announced the publication of results from the long-term, randomized, active control Phase 3 study of Zerenex (ferric citrate), the Company's investigational oral ferric iron-based phosphate binder, for the treatment of hyperphosphatemia in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on dialysis. The PERFECTED study (PhosphatE binding and iRon delivery with FErric CiTrate in EsrD) was published online today in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). This Phase ...

New research at the University of Adelaide has opened the way for the development of new lines of barley with resistance to powdery mildew. In Australia, annual barley production is second only to wheat with 7-8 million tonnes a year. Powdery mildew is one of the most important diseases of barley. Senior Research Scientist Dr Alan Little and team have discovered the composition of special growths on the cell walls of barley plants that block the penetration of the fungus into the leaf. The research, by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls in the University's ...

Neuregulin 1 (NRG1) is a pleiotropic factor characterized by the existence of numerous isoforms arising from alternative splicing of exons that confer to the protein deeply different characteristics. NRG1 plays an important role for both the myelination occurring during development and the different phases occurring after injury in the peripheral nerve: axon degeneration, axon regrowth, remyelination and target reinnervation Researchers at the University of Western Australia have discovered that the soluble NRG1 upregulation observed in Schwann cells immediately after ...

Spina bifda (SB) is a complex congenital central nervous system disease that is caused by the incomplete closing of the neural tubes during the embryonic phase. Many patients have varying degrees of spasticity, urinary and fecal incontinence and neurocognitive retardation. Such problems decrease the patients' functional independence and their quality of life. Researchers at Ankara Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Education and Research Hospital, Turkey investigate the functional performance in children with SB, using the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory ...

After development of diffusion tensor tractography (DTT), which is derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), three-dimensional reconstruction and estimation for three motor tracts, such as the corticospinal tract, the rubrospinal tract, and the corticoreticular pathway became possible. The corticospinal tract is known to be a major neural tract for motor function in the human brain. Several studies have reported on injury of the corticospinal tract by transtentorial herniation. In addition, some studies have demonstrated recovery of a corticospinal tract injured by transtentorial ...

For the first time, Spanish researchers have detected an unknown interaction between microorganisms and salt. When Escherichia coli cells are introduced into a droplet of salt water and is left to dry, bacteria manipulate the sodium chloride crystallisation to create biomineralogical biosaline 3D morphologically complex formations, where they hibernate. Afterwards, simply by rehydrating the material, bacteria are revived. The discovery was made by chance with a home microscope, but it made the cover of the Astrobiology journal and may help to find signs of life on other ...

A new study by researchers from the University of Leicester has furthered our understanding of how tiny nanosystems function, unlocking the potential to create new materials using nanosized 'building blocks'. The study, which has been published in the prestigious academic journal Physical Review Letters, used a novel laser technique to examine in rich detail the structure and internal atomic motion of a small cluster containing an acetylene molecule and a single helium atom. The technique excited single clusters and generated rotational wavepackets, which are composed ...

The National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) in Japan, has achieved an electrical current of 100,000 amperes, which is by far the highest in the world, by using the new idea of assembling the state-of-the-art yttrium-based high-temperature superconducting tapes to fabricate a large-scale magnet conductor. NIFS is undertaking the development of a high-temperature superconducting coil that is appropriate for the fusion reactor magnet. Using the state-of-the-art yttrium-based high-temperature superconducting tapes ...

There have been numerous cases of cultural changes throughout history. Either by imposition or assimilation, cultural traits are transmitted between neighbouring regions and often one replaces the original cultural traits of the other. Physicists Joaquim Fort, from the University of Girona (UdG), and Neus Isern, from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), are experts in modelling these phenomena by adequately representing a reality, as they have demonstrated with their previous projects. In this occasion, the researchers applied their expertise to the area of language ...

Much artificial-intelligence research addresses the problem of making predictions based on large data sets. An obvious example is the recommendation engines at retail sites like Amazon and Netflix. But some types of data are harder to collect than online click histories —information about geological formations thousands of feet underground, for instance. And in other applications — such as trying to predict the path of a storm — there may just not be enough time to crunch all the available data. Dan Levine, an MIT graduate student in aeronautics and astronautics, and ...

BOSTON—A novel study shows that the age girls reach puberty is influenced by 'imprinted genes'—a subset of genes whose activity differs depending on which parent contributes the gene. This is the first evidence that imprinted genes can control the rate of development after birth and details of this study were published today in the journal Nature. Age of the first period, known as menarche, is a marker for the timing of puberty in females. Medical evidence shows that the onset of menses varies between girls, is an inherited trait, and is linked to breast cancer, diabetes ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have identified the functions of two classes of pheromone receptors, and found pheromones crucial to triggering the mating process in mice. They found one class of receptors helps a male mouse detect pheromones that indicate when a female is present. The other class of receptors lets him know if the female mouse is ovulating and ready to mate. Both sets of pheromones are critical to trigger mating. Stowers' researchers believe mice developed this system through evolution to maximize the chance of ...

Early life experiences, such as childhood socioeconomic status and literacy, may have greater influence on the risk of cognitive impairment late in life than such demographic characteristics as race and ethnicity, a large study by researchers with the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center and the University of Victoria, Canada, has found. "Declining cognitive function in older adults is a major personal and public health concern," said Bruce Reed, professor of neurology and associate director of the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center. "But not all people lose cognitive ...

People's emotional reactions and desires in initial romantic encounters determine the fate of a potential relationship. Responsiveness may be one of those initial "sparks" necessary to fuel sexual desire and land a second date. However, it may not be a desirable trait for both men and women on a first date. Does responsiveness increase sexual desire in the other person? Do men perceive responsive women as more attractive, and does the same hold true for women's perceptions of men? A study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin seeks to answer those questions. ...