A special type of synthetic sugar could be the latest weapon in the fight against superbugs. A team of scientists from The University of Queensland and Queensland biotechnology company Alchemia have discovered a potential new class of antibiotics inspired by sugar molecules produced by bacteria. New antibiotics to which bacteria are unlikely to develop resistance are urgently needed to combat the rise of superbugs - drug resistant bacteria. The research, led by Professor Matt Cooper and Dr Johannes Zuegg from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) in partnership ...

Swedish researchers at Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institute have found that genes that control the biological clocks in cells throughout the body are altered after losing a single night of sleep, in a study that is to be published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. "Previous research has shown that our metabolism is negatively affected by sleep loss, and sleep loss has been linked to an increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Since ablation of clock genes in animals can cause these disease states, our current results indicate that ...

TORONTO, ON - When Julie compares her husband George to her friend's husband Sam, she can't help but notice that Sam is better is better at helping his children with homework. But rather than be upset about George's shortcomings in the children's homework arena, Julie reasons that since she enjoys doing homework with their children, it's not that important that George do it. What Julie has just done is protect her partner (and their relationship!) from the negative implications of her own comparison. But not all members of a couple engage in these justifying explanations ...

Information embedded within DNA has long contributed to biodiversity conservation, helping to reconstruct the past history of species, assess their current status, and guide strategies for their protection. A new study shows that the entire genome of hard to study species may now be available to scientists without the need to handle or even see their study organism, opening up the field of conservation genomics to the use of non-invasive sampling techniques. Endangered and elusive species by definition may be both rare and difficult to locate. As a result, conservation ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - If there's one thing advertisers think they know, it is that sex and violence sell. A new analysis, however, provides some of the best evidence to date that this widely accepted adage just isn't true. Researchers analyzed the results of 53 different experiments (a so-called meta-analysis) involving nearly 8,500 people, done over 44 years. All of these experiments examined some facet of the question of whether sexual or violent media content could help sell advertised products. When all the results are considered together, the overall conclusion, with ...

'Fatherhood effect' is average weight gain of 3.5 to 4.5 pounds Non-fathers lose weight during same time period Key time for pediatricians to counsel fathers, who often don't have their own doctors CHICAGO --- All those leftover pizza crusts you snatch from your kids' plates add up. Men gain weight after they become fathers for the first time whether or not they live with their children, reports a large, new Northwestern Medicine study that tracked the weight of more than 10,000 men from adolescence to young adulthood. The typical 6-foot-tall man who lives ...

Juvenile inmates are much more likely to be hospitalized for mental health problems than children and teenagers who are not incarcerated, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. In addition, the hospital stays of these inmates are longer, suggesting that their underlying mental health problems are worse. The new study, which will be published online July 21 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, examined almost 2 million hospitalizations of California boys and girls over a 15-year period. Mental health diagnoses were responsible for ...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (JULY 21, 2015). French researchers used clinical examinations and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies to determine whether retired professional rugby players experience more serious symptoms of cervical spine degeneration than people in the general population. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the largest study of its kind covering any professional contact sport, and it confirms greater cervical spine degeneration in former rugby players. The research findings are reported and discussed in the article, "Clinical and radiological cervical ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- It's a tale of two tests: one for early signs of cervical cancer, the other for a sexually transmitted disease. But a new study suggests that a change in the recommended schedule for one may have dramatically lowered the chances that young women would get the other. Results published by a University of Michigan team shows the unintended consequences of changes to national health test guidelines: the potential for doctors to fall behind on ordering other tests that screen for serious health problems. In this case, the two tests are Pap smears and ...

What you're reading now secretly tells you whether your country will be skinnier or fatter in three years. After analyzing 50 years of all the food words mentioned in major newspapers like the New York Times and London Times, a new Cornell study shows that the food words trending today in 2015 will predict a country's obesity level in three years - in 2018. "The more sweet snacks are mentioned and the fewer fruits and vegetables that are mentioned in your newspaper, the fatter your country's population is going to be in 3 years, according to trends we found from the past ...

(PHILADELPHIA) -- African American men are more likely to develop prostate cancer than European American men, and are also more than twice as likely to die from it. Although there are many reasons that contribute to this health disparity, new research shows that African American men may have a distinctly different type of prostate cancer than European American men, according to new genomic fingerprinting results. "This study, this line of research, is about finding better and more appropriate therapies for African American men," says corresponding author of the study, ...

Both prescription and illegal drugs that are abused have been found in Canadian surface waters. New research shows that wastewater discharges flowing downstream have the potential to contaminate sources of drinking water with these drugs at relatively low concentrations. The concentrations of cocaine, morphine, and oxycodone did not decline with distance downstream from the wastewater treatment plant discharge, and many of the drugs were not removed effectively by drinking water treatment plants. The research is part of a special section on pharmaceuticals in the journal ...

Researchers are developing instruments and methods for measuring the ages of rocks encountered during space missions to the Moon or other planets. Many of the techniques used to date rocks on Earth are not practical in spaceflight, but a technique called laser ablation resonance ionization mass spectrometry can avoid the need for sophisticated sample preparation. A team led by Dr. F. Scott Anderson has now demonstrated that this technique can successfully date an Earth rock--the Duluth Gabbro--that is analogous to the rocks that cover one-third of the lunar nearside. ...

In Eastern Australia, the ocean has been warming at a rate that's 4-times that of the global average. Many marine species have been appearing further south than they ever have before, while others have stayed put. A new study identifies which characteristics seem to be important for species to shift their ranges so quickly. As expected, swimming ability is important, as fish are stretching their ranges south faster than organisms such as starfish and crustaceans. Researchers also found that animals that already have large range sizes are the most responsive and shift ...

California-grown almonds dominate the global market, providing over 80% of the world's commercial almonds. Two new articles published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology examine the environmental impacts of California's almond production, focusing on greenhouse gas emissions and energy. Investigators noted that certain practices reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use substantially, including strategic utilization of co-products and the choice of water source and irrigation technology. Both of these may be influenced by regional variability in resources. "Our ...

Studies that have assessed the effects of total knee replacement on quality of life are scarce and have been almost exclusively limited to patients with osteoarthritis, even though rheumatoid arthritis is the most common inflammatory arthritis for which the surgery is indicated. In a new study that assessed the effects of total knee replacement in rheumatoid arthritis patients versus osteoarthritis patients, researchers found that the surgery is highly effective in reducing knee pain and also provides benefits in other subjective quality of life indices in patients with ...

Examining post-mortem tissue from the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease, Stanford University School of Medicine investigators identified what appear to be iron-containing microglia -- specialized scavenger cells that sometimes become inflammatory -- in a particular part of the hippocampus, a key brain structure whose integrity is critical to memory formation. In post-mortem brain tissue from people not diagnosed with Alzheimer's, neither the iron deposits nor the scavenger cells engulfing them were present in that brain region. The findings, recounted in a ...

In a new study, women considered the position and shape of the urethral opening to be the least important aspects of a penis' appearance. They also perceived the genitals of men who underwent surgery to treat distal hypospadias--a congenital condition in which the opening of the urethra is on the underside of the penis--to be as normal-looking as nonaffected, circumcised genitals. "The information may help prevent the development of shame or impaired genital perceptions about penile appearance," said Dr. Norma Ruppen, lead author of The Journal of Sexual Medicine study. INFORMATION: ...

In a study of 2239 individuals with chronic widespread pain, the key feature of fibromyalgia, those who regularly consumed alcohol had lower levels of disability than those who never or rarely drank. Those who drank 21 to 35 units of alcohol per week were 67% less likely than never drinkers to experience disability. (One unit of alcohol is a half pint of average strength beer/lager, one small glass of wine, or one single measure of spirits.). "Although we cannot say that alcohol consumption causes less disability among people with chronic widespread pain, the observed ...

New research provides mathematical evidence that Michelangelo used the Golden Ratio of 1.6 when painting The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The Golden Ratio is found when you divide a line into two parts so that the longer part divided by the smaller part is equal to the whole length divided by the longer part. The Golden Ratio has been linked with greater structural efficiency and has puzzled scientists for centuries due to its frequent occurrence in nature--for example in snail shells and flower petals. The Golden Ratio can also be found in a ...

Fossil fuel emissions could soon make it impossible for radiocarbon dating to distinguish new materials from artefacts that are hundreds of years old. Carbon released by burning fossil fuels is diluting radioactive carbon-14 and artificially raising the radiocarbon 'age' of the atmosphere, according to a paper published today (Monday 20 July 2015) in the journal PNAS. Radiocarbon measurements have a range of uses, from analysing archaeological finds, to detecting fraudulent works of art, to identifying illegal ivory trading, to assessing the regeneration of brain cells ...

Music enhances the teenage brain's response to sound; sharpens language skills Band class had larger effect on brain than fitness-based ROTC training Results highlight music's place in the high school curriculum Kraus: 'Music may engender what educators refer to as learning to learn' EVANSTON, Ill. --- Music training, begun as late as high school, may help improve the teenage brain's responses to sound and sharpen hearing and language skills, suggests a new Northwestern University study. The research, to be published the week of July 20 in the Proceedings ...

Scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center's Center for Cognitive Neurology have evidence that monoclonal antibodies they developed may provide the blueprint for effective treatments for Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease. A team led by Fernando Goni, PhD, an adjunct associate professor of Neurology, and Thomas Wisniewski MD, director of the Center for Cognitive Neurology at NYU Langone, showed that a novel class of monoclonal antibodies successfully targeted proteins that change shape and misfold, becoming toxic and triggering ...

Infants can use their expectations about the world to rapidly shape their developing brains, researchers have found. A series of experiments with infants ages 5 to 7 months has shown that portions of babies' brains responsible for visual processing respond not just to the presence of visual stimuli, but also to the mere expectation of visual stimuli, according to the researchers from Princeton University, the University of Rochester and the University of South Carolina. That type of sophisticated neural processing was once thought to happen only in adults and not infants, ...

Washington, DC - July 20, 2015 - Biofilms are tough, opportunistic, highly antibiotic resistant bacterial coatings that form on catheters and on medical devices implanted within the body. University of Maryland investigators have now shown that a "messenger molecule" produced by the opportunistic human pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, encourages bacteria to colonize catheters in the bladders of laboratory mice, where they form biofilms. The research appears July 20th in the Journal of Bacteriology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. Normally, in ...