The Tyrannosaurus rex and its fellow theropod dinosaurs that rampage across the screen in movies like Jurassic World were successful predators partly due to a unique, deeply serrated tooth structure that allowed them to easily tear through the flesh and bone of other dinosaurs, says new research from the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM). The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, was conducted by Kirstin Brink, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Biology at UTM; Professor Robert Reisz of the Department of Biology and the UTM vice-principal ...

Diseases like Alzheimer's are caused when proteins aggregate and clump together. In a world first, EPFL scientists have successfully distinguished between the disease-causing aggregation forms of proteins. The finding can help change pharmaceutical treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Because of our increasing lifespan, diseases like Parkinson's, Huntington's and Alzheimer's are on the rise. They are caused when certain proteins misfold and aggregate together, forming clumps that damage neurons in the brain and spinal cord. This aggregation evolves progressively through ...

PITTSBURGH, July 28, 2015 - By studying the yeast used in beer- and bread-making, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have uncovered the mechanism by which ancient proteins repair DNA damage and how their dysfunction could lead to the development of tumors. The findings, published online today in Nature Communications, could lead to new ways to tailor cancer therapies. In humans, protein mutations called RAD51 paralogues have been associated with breast and ovarian tumors, said senior investigator Kara Bernstein, Ph.D., assistant professor of ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- The light-sensing molecules that tell plants whether to germinate, when to flower and which direction to grow were inherited millions of years ago from ancient algae, finds a new study from Duke University. The findings are some of the strongest evidence yet refuting the prevailing idea that the ancestors of early plants got the red light sensors that helped them move from water to land by engulfing light-sensing bacteria, the researchers say. The results appear online in Nature Communications. "Much like we see the world through our eyes, plants 'see' ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. - Specific cardiovascular risk factors, such as alcohol consumption, smoking, obesity and diabetes, are associated with smaller regional brain volumes that may be early indicators of Alzheimer's disease and dementia according to a study published online in the journal Radiology. "We already know that vascular risk factors damage the brain and can result in cognitive impairment," said Kevin S. King, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "But our findings give us a more ...

Adding omega-3 fatty acids to anti-tumor medications may improve treatment response and quality of life for cancer patients according to a new study by researchers at the University Hospitals of Leicester in the United Kingdom. The study, published today in the OnlineFirst version of the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN), the research journal of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.), examined 50 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Patients were given 1,000 mg of gemcitabine weekly followed by up to 100 g of omega-3 ...

A new study finds that exogenous glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2) treatment may help fight neonatal parenteral nutrition-associated liver disease (PNALD). The study, published today in the OnlineFirst version of the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN), the research journal of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.), provided neonatal piglets with 17 days of parenteral nutrition therapy and either GLP-2 treatment or saline control. In a previous study, the researchers found that GLP-2 therapy improved bile flow and serum markers ...

Babies born very premature or severely underweight are at heightened risk of becoming introverted, neurotic, and risk averse as adults, indicates research published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood (Fetal & Neonatal Edition). This personality profile may help to explain the higher rates of career and relationship difficulties experienced by this group as adults, suggest the researchers. Very premature birth at less than 32 weeks and/or very low birthweight of less than 1500 g are known to be linked to a heightened risk of autistic spectrum behaviours, ...

Depression and personality disorders are the most common diagnoses among Belgian psychiatric patients requesting help to die, on the grounds of unbearable suffering, finds research published in the online journal BMJ Open. Drugs, given either by mouth or administered intravenously, are used to perform euthanasia in Belgium, where the practice has been legal since 2002. The researchers wanted to find out if there were any discernible patterns in requests for euthanasia among mentally ill patients in Belgium in a bid to inform recommendations for future research. So ...

1. Placebo delivery method affects patient response to "therapy" Free abstract: http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M15-0623 URLs go live when embargo lifts A systematic evidence review published in Annals of Internal Medicine finds that the way in which a placebo is delivered makes a difference in how patients respond to "therapy." Having a clinically significant response to the sham treatment could substantially affect outcomes in placebo-controlled trials. The data suggests that some placebos have a stronger effect than others. Placebo controls, ...

The University of Colorado Cancer Center and Loxo Oncology, Inc. (Nasdaq:LOXO), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of targeted cancer therapies, today announced the publication of a research brief in the online edition of the journal Cancer Discovery, describing the first patient with a tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) fusion cancer enrolled in the Phase 1 dose escalation trial of LOXO-101, the only selective TRK inhibitor in clinical development. Additional contributors to the paper include the Knight Cancer Institute ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- When it comes to installing solar cells, labor cost and the cost of the land to house them constitute the bulk of the expense. The solar cells -- made often of silicon or cadmium telluride -- rarely cost more than 20 percent of the total cost. Solar energy could be made cheaper if less land had to be purchased to accommodate solar panels, best achieved if each solar cell could be coaxed to generate more power. A huge gain in this direction has now been made by a team of chemists at the University of California, Riverside that has found an ingenious ...

A Johns Hopkins-led study of outcomes among 1,200 people with implanted defibrillators -- devices intended to prevent sudden cardiac death from abnormal heart rhythms -- shows that within a few years of implantation, one in four experienced improvements in heart function substantial enough to put them over the clinical threshold that qualified them to get a defibrillator in the first place. A report on the study, published in the Aug. 4 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, reveals these patients had markedly lower risk of dying and were far less ...

In a project spearheaded by investigators at UC San Francisco, scientists have devised a new strategy to precisely modify human T cells using the genome-editing system known as CRISPR/Cas9. Because these immune-system cells play important roles in a wide range of diseases, from diabetes to AIDS to cancer, the achievement provides a versatile new tool for research on T cell function, as well as a path toward CRISPR/Cas9-based therapies for many serious health problems. Using their novel approach, the scientists were able to disable a protein on the T-cell surface called ...

Use of gene therapy to deliver a protein that suppresses the development of female reproductive organs may improve the survival of patients with ovarian cancer that has recurred after chemotherapy, which happens 70 percent of the time and is invariably fatal. In their report receiving online publication in PNAS Early Edition, a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team describes how a single injection of a modified version of Mullerian Inhibiting Substance, a protein critical to sexual development, carried on a commonly used viral vector suppressed the growth ...

As many as 20 percent of people may have a benign cyst or tumor in their pituitary gland. The vast majority of pituitary tumors are noncancerous, but can cause headaches and profound fatigue, and can also disrupt hormone function. Currently, surgeons rely on radiologic images and MRIs to gather information about the size and shape of the tumor, but the resolution of such imaging technologies is limited, and additional surgeries to remove more of the tumor may be needed if a patient's symptoms persist. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy ...

Estimates of how much nitrous oxide, a significant greenhouse gas and stratospheric ozone-depleting substance, is being emitted in the central United States have been too low by as much as 40 percent, a new study led by University of Minnesota scientists shows. The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, measured how much nitrous oxide is emitted from streams in an agriculturally dense area in southern Minnesota. Agriculture, and specifically nitrogen fertilizers used in row-crop farming, is a major contributor to nitrous ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - July 27, 2015 - Two new studies presented today at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery 12th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, report that Mobile Stroke Treatment Units (MSTUs) can significantly reduce the time it takes to diagnose and treat patients for stroke, greatly improving survival rates and enhancing a patient's chance of recovery. There are currently four MSTUs in use worldwide. Two are in Germany and two are in the United States (U.S.) - one in Cleveland and one in Houston. MSTUs resemble ambulances on the outside, but contain ...

LAWRENCE -- Providing two years of free community college to qualifying students is expected to be a hot topic during the 2016 presidential campaign. President Barack Obama introduced the plan earlier this year, aimed at boosting educational attainment and workforce opportunities of thousands of students -- especially those from low-income families. Support for expanded education is not the purview of one party, however; President George W. Bush also frequently referenced the significance of two-year colleges. Tennessee and Oregon are offering free community college to ...

MADISON, Wis. - Ten thousand years ago, a golden grain got naked, brought people together and grew to become one of the top agricultural commodities on the planet. Now, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have found that just a single letter change in the genetic script of corn's ancestor, teosinte, helped make it all possible. Publishing in the journal Genetics this month, UW-Madison professor John Doebley and a team of researchers describe how, during the domestication of corn, a single nucleotide change in the teosinte glume architectural gene (tga1) stripped ...

WASHINGTON (July 27, 2015) - The improved survival rate of HIV patients in sub-Saharan Africa due to effective treatment programs is increasing the ability of researchers in Africa to study the impacts of cardiovascular disease in HIV patients, according to a guest editor page published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. According to guest editor Pravin Manga, M.B.B.C.H., Ph.D., of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, like South Africa, have created highly active antiretroviral treatment programs ...

Scientific experiments with the herpes virus strain that causes Marek's disease in poultry have confirmed, for the first time, the highly controversial theory that some types of vaccines allow for the evolution and survival of increasingly virulent versions of a virus, putting unvaccinated individuals at greater risk of severe illness. The research has important implications for food-chain security and food-chain economics, as well as for other diseases that affect humans and agricultural animals. The new research, which will be published in the Open Access journal PLOS ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - July 27, 2015 - Use of mechanical thrombectomy on qualifying stroke patients could result in major savings to the healthcare economy in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and other western countries with a similar healthcare structure, according to a new study presented at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery 12th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The study, Developing an Interventional Stroke Service: Improving Clinical Outcomes and Reducing Cost and Delivering Great Cost Savings Benefits to Health Economy, conducted at the University Hospital of ...

Postpartum depression is a debilitating disorder that affects nearly 20 percent of new mothers, putting their infants at increased risk for poor behavioral, cognitive and social development. Researchers know that the hormone oxytocin, which plays a positive role in healthy birth, maternal bonding, relationships, lower stress levels, mood and emotional regulation, also is associated with postpartum depression when a mother has lower levels of the hormone. A University of Virginia researcher and a team from several institutions in the United States and England have now ...

For children with a common middle-ear problem, a simple procedure with a nasal balloon can reduce the impact of hearing loss and avoid unnecessary and ineffective use of antibiotics, according to a randomized controlled trial published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). It is very common for young children to develop otitis media with effusion, also known as "glue ear," in which the middle ear fills with thick fluid that can affect hearing development. There are frequently no symptoms, and parents often seek medical help only when hearing difficulties occur. "Unfortunately, ...