Melbourne researchers have overturned a 40-year-old theory on when and how cells divide, showing that 'parent' cells program a cell division time for their offspring that is different from their own. Scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have shown that both phases of the cell cycle contribute to the overall change in division time rather than one staying fixed in duration as previously thought. They have developed these findings into a new model that helps scientists predict how a population of cells has divided. Their research could impact our understanding ...

A low-carbohydrate diet, but not a low-fat diet, reduces inflammation in patients with type 2 diabetes, according to research at Linköping University in Sweden. It is known that patients with type 2 diabetes have higher levels of inflammation than those who do not have the disease, and it is believed that this may contribute to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and other complications. In a clinical trial at Linköping University a low-carbohydrate diet was compared with a traditional low-fat diet in 61 patients with type 2 diabetes. Only patients in the low-carbohydrate ...

A majority of the UK general public perceive alcohol adverts to breach the Advertising Standards Authority's Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) Code suggesting that the current regulatory system for UK television is inadequate, research from The University of Manchester shows. Researchers surveyed 373 adults, aged 18-74 years, showing them one of seven adverts that had been broadcast in the previous month on leading commercial television channels. Overall 75 per cent of the participants rated the adverts as breaching at least one rule from the BCAP Code ...

Almost all herbivorous insects are specialized to feed on specific host plants and have adapted to their chemical defenses. Flea beetles are important pests of cabbage and other cruciferous plants, such as mustard, horseradish and rapeseed. These plants use a sophisticated defense system, known as the mustard oil bomb, to get rid of their enemies : If plant tissues are wounded, glucosinolates and an enzyme known as myrosinase come into contact, and, as a result, toxic metabolites are formed which deter most insects. This defensive mechanism, however, has no negative effect ...

Ground breaking research by an international team of scientists has resulted in greater understanding of the effects of pesticides on aquatic invertebrates such as shrimps and snails. Research published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology by a team of scientists from the UK, Switzerland and Finland provides an important new approach for systematically measuring and modelling the sensitivity of aquatic invertebrates to various pesticides. Aquatic invertebrate species are abundant in European freshwaters and play an important role in the decomposition of organic ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A research team using tunable luminescent nanocrystals as tags to advance medical and security imaging have successfully applied them to high-speed scanning technology and detected multiple viruses within minutes. The research, led by Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia and Purdue University, builds on the team's earlier success in developing a way to control the length of time light from a luminescent nanocrystal lingers, which introduced the dimension of time in addition to color and brightness in optical detection technology. Detection ...

LOS ANGELES (May 7, 2014) – Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute researchers have found that a commonly prescribed drug restores blood flow to oxygen-starved muscles of boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic muscle-wasting disease that rarely is seen in girls but affects one in 3,500 male babies, profoundly shortening life expectancy. It is the most common fatal disease that affects children. Muscle weakness begins in early childhood, often causing deformity of the arms, legs and spine. Heart and respiratory muscles often begin to fail before children reach early teen ...

A new study suggests that people who survived the medieval mass-killing plague known as the Black Death lived significantly longer and were healthier than people who lived before the epidemic struck in 1347. Caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, the Black Death wiped out 30 percent of Europeans and nearly half of Londoners during its initial four-year wave from 1347 – 1351. Released Wednesday (May 7) in the journal PLOS ONE, the study by University of South Carolina anthropologist Sharon DeWitte provides the first look at how the plague, called bubonic plague today, ...

Women who received collaborative care for depression at an obstetrics and gynecology clinic showed fewer symptoms after treatment than women receiving usual depression care in the same setting, recent University of Washington research found. The collaborative approach comprises counseling and greater patient engagement than is typical of mental health care at specialty clinics. It involves psychiatrists, clinicians, specialists and depression care managers. The team meets weekly to review patient progress and provide treatment recommendations. The care manager follows ...

MOSS LANDING, CA — Thousands of shipping containers are lost from cargo vessels each year. Many of these containers eventually sink to the deep seafloor. In 2004, scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) discovered a lost shipping container almost 1,300 meters (4,200 feet) below the surface of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. In the first-ever survey of its kind, researchers from MBARI and the sanctuary recently described how deep-sea animal communities on and around the container differed from those in surrounding areas. In February ...

New research suggests that certain types of brain cells may be "picky eaters," seeming to prefer one specific energy source over others. The finding has implications for understanding the cognitive decline seen in aging and degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis. Studying mice, investigators from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis showed that a specific energy source called NAD is important in cells responsible for maintaining the overall structure of the brain and for performing complex cognitive functions. NAD (nicotinamide ...

Reducing air pollution in New York City would result in substantial economic gains for children as a result of increasing their IQs. The study is the first to estimate the costs of IQ loss associated with exposure to air pollution, and is based on prior research on prenatal exposure to air pollutants among low-income children by Frederica Perera, PhD, lead author of the current study, and colleagues at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health. The researchers made their calculation using a hypothesized modest reduction ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A smartphone app that monitors subtle qualities of a person's voice during everyday phone conversations shows promise for detecting early signs of mood changes in people with bipolar disorder, a University of Michigan team reports. While the app still needs much testing before widespread use, early results from a small group of patients show its potential to monitor moods while protecting privacy. The researchers hope the app will eventually give people with bipolar disorder and their health care teams an early warning of the changing moods that ...

Drawing from his engineering background, Princeton University researcher Alexandre Persat had a notion as to why the bacteria Caulobacter crescentus are curved — a hunch that now could lead to a new way of studying the evolution of bacteria, according to research published in the journal Nature Communications. Commonly used in labs to study cell division, C. crescentus naturally take on a banana-like curve, but they also can undergo a mutation in which they grow to be perfectly straight. The problem was that in a laboratory there was no apparent functional difference ...

Amsterdam, 8 May 2014. Despite fears over cost, the wide-scale screening of young people to detect risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) is feasible and cost effective, according to a study presented at EuroPRevent 2014.(1) More than 12,000 people aged between 14 and 35 were screened at a cost of £35 (40 euro) each; rates of subsequent referral for further investigation were low and considered of "a relative low additional cost" to health services. The study was reported at the EuroPRevent congress 2014 in Amsterdam by Dr Rajay Narain, Clinical Research Fellow from the Department ...

CHICAGO --- Adults with an autism spectrum disorder, who may have trouble talking about themselves and interacting socially, don't always make good impressions in job interviews and have low employment rates. A new human simulation training program -- based on software originally used to train FBI agents -- helps adults with autism improve their job interview skills and confidence, reports a new Northwestern Medicine® study. The new interactive program was designed specifically for adults with psychiatric disorders and was also evaluated for use by adults with autism ...

Leesburg, VA, May 8, 2014—Prompt and accurate localization of the site of bleeding is critical for the management of patients with acute GI bleeding. Planar 99mTc-labeled RBC scintigraphy is sensitive for detection of acute gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding but its accuracy for localization of a bleeding source is arguable, particularly in patients with complex GI anatomy from prior surgeries. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic reviewed cases of GI bleeding in patients who had a concurrent hybrid SPECT–CT for evaluating equivocal 99mTc-labeled RBC activity on planar scintigraphy. ...

New experiments on mice show, that mouse mothers can protect their pups from developing type 1 diabetes by eating a gluten-free diet. According to preliminary studies by reseachers at the University of Copenhagen, the findings may apply to humans. More than 1% of the Danish population has type 1 diabetes, one of the highest incidence rates in the world. New experiments on mice now show a correlation between the health of the pups and their mothers eating a gluten-free diet. Our hope is that the disease may be prevented through simple dietary changes, the researchers say. "Preliminary ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Viewing partisan news reports from both the conservative and liberal viewpoints doesn't make people more accepting of citizens on the other side of the political fence, new research finds. A study of people in the United States and Israel examined citizens' media consumption: specifically, how often they viewed liberal and conservative news outlets and how often they viewed mainstream, relatively neutral news sites. Results showed that people who consumed a greater amount of partisan media content were more polarized – even if they viewed partisan content ...

A Virginia Tech team of researchers has proven that homemade, inexpensive stink bug traps crafted from simple household items outshine pricier models designed to kill the invasive, annoying bugs. This discovery comes just as warm weather is coaxing the critters out of crevices of homes they were hiding in during the cold winter and homeowners will be looking for a way to get rid of the pest. Researchers in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences found that the best way to get rid of the little buggers is to fill a foil roasting pan with water and dish soap and ...

A new study by sports scientists at Coventry University and Staffordshire University shows that anxiety about a competitive situation makes even the most physically active of us more likely to slip-up. The research, which is set to be presented at the British Psychological Society's flagship annual conference this week, tested the anticipation and coordination abilities of 18 active and healthy young adults during two sets of identical physical tests – one ostensibly a practice, the other a competition. In the 'competitive' trials, researchers found that the participants' ...

Research by the University of Liverpool has found that brief musical training can increase the blood flow in the left hemisphere of our brain. This suggests that the areas responsible for music and language share common brain pathways. Researchers from the University's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society carried out two separate studies which looked at brain activity patterns in musicians and non-musicians. The first study looking for patterns of brain activity of 14 musicians and 9 non-musicians whilst they participated in music and word generation tasks. The ...

People who use antipsychotic medication (such as clozapine or risperidone) to treat psychiatric illness are nearly half as likely to commit a violent crime compared to when they are not using such medication, according to new results published in The Lancet. The use of mood stabilising drugs (such as lithium or carbamazepine) is also associated with a reduced rate of violent crime, although the reduction is less pronounced, and only in patients with bipolar disorder. Antipsychotic and mood stabilising medication are used to treat a variety of disorders, but are most commonly ...

Human mortality and survival may have improved in the generations following the Black Death, according to results published May 7, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Sharon DeWitte from University of South Carolina. As one of the most devastating epidemics in human history, the medieval Black Death (c. 1347-1351) killed tens of millions of Europeans. Previous studies have shown that the disease targeted elderly adults and sick or stressed people; however, not much is known about any substantial changes in the population, like overall health and mortality, before ...

Scientists studying the role of room ventilation in tuberculosis transmission found that students in Cape Town, South Africa, spend almost 60 percent of their day in poorly ventilated rooms, at risk of transmission, according to results published May 7, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Eugene Richardson from Stanford University School of Medicine and colleagues. The researchers propose an increase in low-cost, WHO-compliant natural ventilation to facilitate healthy indoor environments and reduce risks. Despite biomedical improvements to treat tuberculosis ...