In a potential breakthrough against ovarian cancer, University of Guelph researchers have discovered how to both shrink tumours and improve drug delivery, allowing for lower doses of chemotherapy and reducing side effects. Their research appears today in the FASEB Journal, one of the world's top biology publications. "We hope that this study will lead to novel treatment approaches for women diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer," said Jim Petrik, a Guelph biomedical sciences professor. He worked on the study with Guelph graduate student Samantha Russell and cancer ...

LAWRENCE -- Like hedonistic rock stars that live by the "better to burn out than to fade away" credo, certain galaxies flame out in a blaze of glory. Astronomers have struggled to grasp why these young "starburst" galaxies -- ones that are very rapidly forming new stars from cold molecular hydrogen gas up to 100 times faster than our own Milky Way -- would shut down their prodigious star formation to join a category scientists call "red and dead." Starburst galaxies typically result from the merger or close encounter of two separate galaxies. Previous research had revealed ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Researchers have identified two proteins that appear crucial to the development -- and patient relapse -- of acute myeloid leukemia. They have also shown they can block the development of leukemia by targeting those proteins. The studies, in animal models, could lead to new effective treatments for leukemias that are resistant to chemotherapy, said Reuben Kapur, Ph.D., Freida and Albrecht Kipp Professor of Pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The research was reported today in the journal Cell Reports. "The issue in the field for ...

Plants all over the world are more sensitive to drought than many experts realized, according to a new study by scientists at UCLA and China's Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden. The research will improve predictions of which plant species will survive the increasingly intense droughts associated with global climate change. The research is reported online by Ecology Letters, the most prestigious journal in the field of ecology, and will be published in an upcoming print edition. Predicting how plants will respond to climate change is crucial for their conservation. ...

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. -- A new study by researchers at Washington State University shows that mechanical harvesting of cider apples can provide labor and cost savings without affecting fruit, juice, or cider quality. The study, published in the journal HortTechnology in October, is one of several studies focused on cider apple production in Washington State. It was conducted in response to growing demand for hard cider apples in the state and the nation. Quenching a thirst for cider Hard cider consumption is trending steeply upward in the region surrounding the food-conscious ...

As our society ages, a University of Montreal study suggests the health system should be focussing on comorbidity and specific types of disabilities that are associated with higher health care costs for seniors, especially cognitive disabilities. Comorbidity is defined as the presence of multiple disabilities. Michaël Boissonneault and Jacques Légaré of the university's Department of Demography came to this conclusion after assessing how individual factors are associated with variation in the public costs of healthcare by studying disabled Quebecers over ...

The scientists showed that the Parkin protein functions to repair or destroy damaged nerve cells, depending on the degree to which they are damaged People living with Parkinson's disease often have a mutated form of the Parkin gene, which may explain why damaged, dysfunctional nerve cells accumulate Dublin, Ireland, November 13th, 2014 - Scientists at Trinity College Dublin have made an important breakthrough in our understanding of Parkin - a protein that regulates the repair and replacement of nerve cells within the brain. This breakthrough generates a new perspective ...

There are no approved treatments or preventatives against Ebola virus disease, but investigators have now designed peptides that mimic the virus' N-trimer, a highly conserved region of a protein that's used to gain entry inside cells. The team showed that the peptides can be used as targets to help researchers develop drugs that might block Ebola virus from entering into cells. "In contrast to the most promising current approaches for Ebola treatment or prevention, which are species-specific, our 'universal' target will enable the selection of broad-spectrum inhibitors ...

In a study of middle-aged men who were overweight, researchers found that if a man's parents were older at the time of his birth, he was more likely to have lower blood pressure, more favorable cholesterol levels, and improved glucose metabolism. It's unknown whether the beneficial effect was due to having an older mother, an older father, or both. Additional studies are necessary to help shed light on the effects of parental age at childbirth on the metabolism of men and women. "In particular, more research is required to understand whether these effects are due to ...

In a study that looked at what factors might affect whether or not a patient receives intensive medical procedures in the last 6 months of life, investigators found that older age, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, living in a nursing home, and having an advance directive were associated with a lower likelihood of undergoing an intensive procedure. In contrast, living in a region with higher hospital care intensity and black race each doubled a patient's likelihood of undergoing an intensive procedure. "It's pretty striking the extent to which nonclinical factors--such as ...

Preeclampsia, a late-pregnancy disorder that is characterized by high blood pressure and organ damage, may be caused by problems related to meeting the oxygen demands of the growing fetus, experts say in a new Anaesthesia paper. Left untreated, preeclampsia can lead to serious--even fatal--complications for a pregnant woman and her baby. The new theory challenges the current view that pre-eclampsia is caused by a problem with the placenta. "When the fetus is not getting enough oxygen and nutrients for its growth--due to conditions in the mother, conditions in the placenta ...

Investigators recently set out to consider whether homicides involving social networking sites were unique and worthy of labels such as 'Facebook Murder', and to explore the ways in which perpetrators had used such sites in the homicides they had committed. The cases they identified were not collectively unique or unusual when compared with general trends and characteristics--certainly not to a degree that would necessitate the introduction of a new category of homicide or a broad label like 'Facebook Murder'. "Victims knew their killers in most cases, and the crimes ...

Stanching the free flow of blood from an injury remains a holy grail of clinical medicine. Controlling blood flow is a primary concern and first line of defense for patients and medical staff in many situations, from traumatic injury to illness to surgery. If control is not established within the first few minutes of a hemorrhage, further treatment and healing are impossible. At UC Santa Barbara, researchers in the Department of Chemical Engineering and at Center for Bioengineering (CBE) have turned to the human body's own mechanisms for inspiration in dealing with the ...

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, in collaboration with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), Baylor College of Medicine and the Georgia Regents University, report for the first time that the cholesterol-lowering drug simvastatin inhibits the growth of human uterine fibroid tumors. These new data are published online and scheduled to appear in the January print edition of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Statins, such as simvastatin, are commonly prescribed to lower high cholesterol levels. Statins ...

A study from the Institute of Food Research has shown that Campylobacter's persistence in food processing sites and the kitchen is boosted by 'chicken juice.' Organic matter exuding from chicken carcasses, "chicken juice", provides these bacteria with the perfect environment to persist in the food chain. This emphasises the importance of cleaning surfaces in food preparation, and may lead to more effective ways of cleaning that can reduce the incidence of Campylobacter. The study was led by Helen Brown, a PhD student supervised by Dr Arnoud van Vliet at IFR, which is ...

The strains of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) that infect adults and children in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, have notably similar toxins and virulence factors, according to research published ahead of print in the Journal of Bacteriology. That bodes well for vaccine development, says corresponding author Åsa Sjöling, now of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. ETEC infects 400 million people annually, or 5.3 percent of the world's population, killing 400,000. In the study, Sjöling et al. set out to determine whether the heat labile ...

Frightening experiences do not quickly fade from memory. A team of researchers under the guidance of the University of Bonn Hospital has now been able to demonstrate in a study that the bonding hormone oxytocin inhibits the fear center in the brain and allows fear stimuli to subside more easily. This basic research could also usher in a new era in the treatment of anxiety disorders. The study has already appeared in advance online in the journal "Biological Psychiatry". The print edition will be available in a few weeks. Significant fear becomes deeply entrenched in memory. ...

The liver stores excess glucose, sugar, in the form of glycogen--chains of glucose--, which is later released to cover body energy requirements. Diabetic patients do not accumulate glucose well in the liver and this is one of the reasons why they suffer from hyperglycemia, that is to say, their blood sugar levels are too high. A study headed by Joan J. Guinovart at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) demonstrates that high hepatic glucose stores in mice prevents weigh gain. The researchers observed that in spite of having free access to an appetizing ...

PISCATAWAY, N.J. (November 13, 2014) - Rutgers University Chemistry Associate Professor Ki-Bum Lee has developed patent-pending technology that may overcome one of the critical barriers to harnessing the full therapeutic potential of stem cells. One of the major challenges facing researchers interested in regenerating cells and growing new tissue to treat debilitating injuries and diseases such as Parkinson's disease, heart disease, and spinal cord trauma, is creating an easy, effective, and non-toxic methodology to control differentiation into specific cell lineages. ...

(Boston) - The Alzheimer's drug memantine may perform double-duty helping binge eaters control their compulsion. Researchers have demonstrated that memantine, a neuroprotective drug, may reduce the addictive and impulsive behavior associated with binge eating. The Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) study, which appears online in Neuopsychopharmacology, also found that a specific area in the brain, the nucleus accumbens, which is responsible for addictive behaviors, facilitates the effects of memantine. Binge-eating disorder is a prevalent illness in America, ...

The Earth's oceans are thought to have taken up about one quarter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that humans pumped into the atmosphere in the past 2 decades. While this drives acidification and has consequences for sea life, it also moderates the rate of climate change. Researchers recently set out to create a global model of CO2 uptake using fine-scale observations on a global scale. Between 1998 and 2011, they found strong interannual variations, with the Pacific Ocean dominating the global flux variability. "Shipboard surface water CO2 measurements are the backbone ...

The ocean is warming steadily and setting up the conditions for stronger El Niño weather events, a new study has shown. A team of US, Australian, and Canadian researchers sampled corals from a remote island in Kiribati to build a 60-year record of ocean surface temperature and salinity. "The trend is unmistakeable, the ocean's primed for more El Niño events," says lead-author Dr Jessica Carilli, now based at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Team member Dr Helen McGregor from the Research School of Earth Sciences at The Australian National University ...

HOUSTON - (Nov. 13, 2014) - While feelings of disgust can increase behaviors like lying and cheating, cleanliness can help people return to ethical behavior, according to a recent study by marketing experts at Rice University, Pennsylvania State University and Arizona State University. The study highlights the powerful impact emotions have on individual decision-making. "As an emotion, disgust is designed as a protection," said Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business. "When people feel disgusted, they tend to ...

Half a million objects, including debris, satellites, and the International Space Station, orbit the planet in the thermosphere, the largest layer of Earth's atmosphere. To predict the orbits--and potential collisions--of all this stuff, scientists must forecast the weather in the thermosphere. Researchers who analyzed the role that gravitational effects of the Moon have on the thermosphere found that satellites taking different paths around the planet--circling over the poles, around the equator, or any route in between--will experience different levels of lunar-induced ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC - Researchers from the UNC School of Medicine and colleagues at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a new approach to block the KRAS oncogene, one of the most frequently mutated genes in human cancer. The approach, led by Chad Pecot, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at UNC, offers another route to attack KRAS, which has proven to be an elusive and frustrating target for drug developers. The new method relies upon a specifically sequenced type of small interfering RNA - or siRNA. The findings, published in the journal ...