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Medicine20 Mar 2015

Stinging nettle chemical improves cancer drug

A cancer drug could be made 50 times more effective by a chemical found in stinging nettles and ants, new research finds. Researchers at the University of Warwick found that when the chemical, Sodium Formate, is used in combination with a metal-based cancer treatment it can greatly increase its ability to shut down cancer cells. Developed by Warwick's Department of Chemistry, the drug, a compound of the metal ruthenium called JS07, is capable of exploiting a cancer cell's natural weaknesses and disrupts its energy generation mechanism. Laboratory tests on ovarian ...

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Science20 Mar 2015

'Attract and kill:' Trapping malaria mosquito mums before they lay eggs

In a world first, researchers have found that a naturally occurring chemical attracts pregnant malaria-transmitting mosquitoes - a discovery which could boost malaria control efforts. The chemical, cedrol, found in mosquito breeding sites near Africa's Lake Victoria, could be used in traps that would 'attract and kill' the female mosquito, preventing reproduction before she lays hundreds of eggs. A child dies every minute from malaria, according to World Health Organization estimates. In Africa, malaria parasites carried by the female Anopheles gambiae mosquito are ...

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Medicine20 Mar 2015

Life-saving treatments learned from war being missed

Trauma is responsible for more global deaths annually than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Yet healthcare systems in many countries are missing out on life-saving treatments learnt on the battlefield, according to a review by King's College London and published today in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Medical advancements made by the military in times of conflict, are increasingly seen in the hospitals of high income countries but are being missed in poorer countries, where trauma is the leading cause of death in young people. Many innovations by ...

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Medicine19 Mar 2015

Study reports excellent outcomes among HIV+ kidney transplant recipients

Highlights Compared with uninfected (HIV-/HCV-) kidney transplant recipients, mono-infected HIV+ (HIV+/HCV-) recipients had similar 5-year and 10-year kidney survival rates, while HIV+ recipients co-infected with HCV (HIV+/HCV+) had worse kidney survival rates. Patient survival among mono-infected HIV+ recipients was similar to uninfected recipients but was significantly lower for co-infected recipients. Over the last decade there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of kidney transplants performed in HIV+ patients. Washington, DC (March 19, 2015) -- HIV+ ...

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Medicine19 Mar 2015

Penn Medicine study finds being near greened vacant lots lowers heart rates

PHILADELPHIA - Greening vacant lots may be associated with biologic reductions in stress, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Residents who walked near newly greened vacant lots had significantly lower heart rates compared to walking near a blighted, or neglected, vacant lot. "Our goal was to scientifically explore the connection between city environments and stress," said the study's lead author, Eugenia C. South, MD, MHSP, a physician in the department of Emergency Medicine at Penn. "We used heart rate as ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

Fewer multiple births could reduce autism risk in ART children

In a paper published online today (Thursday, March 19), scientists report that the incidence of diagnosed autism was twice as high for assisted reproductive technology (ART) as non-ART births among the nearly 6 million children in their study, born in California from 1997 through 2007. However, much of the association between ART and autism was explained by age and education of the mother as well as adverse perinatal outcomes, especially multiple births. After accounting for these factors, the study showed an elevated risk only for mothers ages 20-34. Notably, the study ...

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Medicine19 Mar 2015

Case Western Reserve global health expert urges action to eradicate yaws, tropical disease

Half a century ago, a concentrated global effort nearly wiped a disfiguring tropical disease from the face of the earth. Now, says Case Western Reserve's James W. Kazura, MD, it's time to complete the work. In a perspective column in the Feb.19 New England Journal of Medicine, Kazura responded to a research article that demonstrated positive results from a single oral dose of azithromycin to 83.8 percent (13,302) of 16,092 residents of Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea. "We have the medical knowledge to achieve global eradication, and new evidence establishes proof of ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

Massive amounts of fresh water, glacial melt pouring into Gulf of Alaska

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Incessant mountain rain, snow and melting glaciers in a comparatively small region of land that hugs the southern Alaska coast and empties fresh water into the Gulf of Alaska would create the sixth largest coastal river in the world if it emerged as a single stream, a recent study shows. Since it's broken into literally thousands of small drainages pouring off mountains that rise quickly from sea level over a short distance, the totality of this runoff has received less attention, scientists say. But research that's more precise than ever before is making ...

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Medicine19 Mar 2015

Streamlined 'military' work flow means more patient appointments and fewer return visits

Both patients and physicians may benefit from a "work flow" system developed at military medical facilities and tested at a Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center clinic, according to results of an efficiency study. The study evaluates a work flow method developed by the U.S. Air Force; Johns Hopkins researchers Shereef Elnahal, M.D., M.B.A. and Joseph Herman, M.D.; and consulting firm ProcessProxy Corporation. Called the Military Acuity Model, the method examines tasks performed by physicians and nurses and identifies jobs that can be safely assigned to support staff. For ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

Scientists trace genomic evolution of high-risk leukemia

By genomic sequencing of leukemia cells from relapsed patients at different stages, scientists have discovered key details of how acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells mutate to survive chemotherapy. These mutations enable the cells to proliferate, causing relapse and often death. The findings are important because ALL is a leading cause of cancer deaths in children, with 15 percent of ALL patients relapsing with poor survival. The researchers said their findings will lead to new tests to monitor children in remission and to detect signs of relapse. The research ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

World Heritage Sites risk collapse without stronger local management

Without better local management, the world's most iconic ecosystems are at risk of collapse under climate change, say researchers in Science. Protecting places of global environmental importance such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Amazon rainforest from climate change will require reducing the other pressures they face, for example overfishing, fertilizer pollution or land clearing. The international team of researchers warns that localized issues, such as declining water quality from nutrient pollution or deforestation, can exacerbate the effects of climatic extremes, ...

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Medicine19 Mar 2015

Microscope technique reveals for first time when and where proteins are made

March 19, 2015--(Bronx, NY)--Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and their international collaborators have developed a novel fluorescence microscopy technique that for the first time shows where and when proteins are produced. The technique allows researchers to directly observe individual messenger RNA molecules (mRNAs) as they are translated into proteins in living cells. The technique, carried out in living human cells and fruit flies, should help reveal how irregularities in protein synthesis contribute to developmental abnormalities ...

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Technology19 Mar 2015

Robotic materials: Changing with the world around them

Prosthetics with a realistic sense of touch. Bridges that detect and repair their own damage. Vehicles with camouflaging capabilities. Advances in materials science, distributed algorithms and manufacturing processes are bringing all of these things closer to reality every day, says a review published today in the journal Science by Nikolaus Correll, assistant professor of computer science, and research assistant Michael McEvoy, both of the University of Colorado Boulder. The "robotic materials" being developed by Correll Lab and others are often inspired by nature, ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

New genetic method promises to advance gene research and control insect pests

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a new method for generating mutations in both copies of a gene in a single generation that could rapidly accelerate genetic research on diverse species and provide scientists with a powerful new tool to control insect borne diseases such as malaria as well as animal and plant pests. Their achievement was published today in an advance online paper in the journal Science. It was accomplished by two biologists at UC San Diego working on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster who employed a new genomic technology ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

Even at a molecular level, taking it slow helps us cope with stress

Berkeley -- Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified a new molecular pathway critical to aging, and confirmed that the process can be manipulated to help make old blood like new again. The researchers found that blood stem cells' ability to repair damage caused by inappropriate protein folding in the mitochondria, a cell's energy station, is critical to their survival and regenerative capacity. The discovery, to be published in the March 20 issue of the journal Science, has implications for research on reversing the signs of aging, a process ...

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Environment19 Mar 2015

Government action needed on iconic World Heritage ecosystems

Without better local management, the world's most iconic ecosystems are at risk of collapse under climate change, say researchers in a study published in the journal Science. The international team of researchers say protecting places of global environmental importance such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Amazon rainforest from climate change requires reducing the other pressures they face, for example overfishing, fertilizer pollution or land clearing. The researchers warn that localised issues, such as declining water quality from nutrient pollution or deforestation, ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

Sharper nanoscopy

The 2014 chemistry Nobel Prize recognized important microscopy research that enabled greatly improved spatial resolution. This innovation, resulting in nanometer resolution, was made possible by making the source (the emitter) of the illumination quite small and by moving it quite close to the object being imaged. One problem with this approach is that in such proximity, the emitter and object can interact with each other, blurring the resulting image. Now, a new JQI study has shown how to sharpen nanoscale microscopy (nanoscopy) even more by better locating the exact ...

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Space19 Mar 2015

Milky Way's center unveils supernova 'dust factory'

Sifting through the center of the Milky Way galaxy, astronomers have made the first direct observations - using an infrared telescope aboard a modified Boeing 747 - of cosmic building-block dust resulting from an ancient supernova. "Dust itself is very important because it's the stuff that forms stars and planets, like the sun and Earth, respectively, so to know where it comes from is an important question," said lead author Ryan Lau, Cornell postdoctoral associate for astronomy, in research published March 19 in Science Express. "Our work strongly reinforces the theory ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

New PET image analysis technique tracks amyloid changes with greater power

Researchers from Banner Alzheimer's Institute (BAI) have developed a new brain image analysis method to better track the progression of beta-amyloid plaque deposition, a characteristic brain abnormality in Alzheimer's disease, according to a study published in the March issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Investigators also believe this new approach may make it easier to evaluate investigational anti-amyloid treatments in clinical trials. During the last decade, researchers have been using positron emission topography (PET) to assess amyloid plaque deposition in ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

Men's preference for certain body types has evolutionary roots

A psychology study from The University of Texas at Austin sheds new light on today's standards of beauty, attributing modern men's preferences for women with a curvy backside to prehistoric influences. The study, published online in Evolution and Human Behavior, investigated men's mate preference for women with a "theoretically optimal angle of lumbar curvature," a 45.5 degree curve from back to buttocks allowing ancestral women to better support, provide for, and carry out multiple pregnancies. "What's fascinating about this research is that it is yet another scientific ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

Why 'hypoallergenic' isn't a thing (video)

WASHINGTON, March 19, 2015 -- It's a simple claim made on thousands of personal care products for adults and kids: hypoallergenic. But what does that actually mean? Turns out, it can mean whatever manufacturers want it to mean, and that can leave you feeling itchy. Speaking of Chemistry is back this week with Sophia Cai explaining why "hypoallergenic" isn't really a thing. Check it out here: http://youtu.be/lXh8bnqMOZs. Speaking of Chemistry is a production of Chemical & Engineering News, a weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society. The program features fascinating, ...

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Physics19 Mar 2015

Superconductivity breakthroughs

The Canadian research community on high-temperature superconductivity continues to lead this exciting scientific field with groundbreaking results coming hot on the heels of big theoretical questions. The latest breakthrough, which will be published March 20 in Science, answers a key question on the microscopic electronic structure of cuprate superconductors, the most celebrated material family in our quest for true room-temperature superconductivity. This result is the product of a longstanding close collaboration between the University of British Columbia Quantum ...

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Science19 Mar 2015

Prehistoric stone tools bear 500,000-year-old animal residue

Some 2.5 million years ago, early humans survived on a paltry diet of plants. As the human brain expanded, however, it required more substantial nourishment - namely fat and meat - to sustain it. This drove prehistoric man, who lacked the requisite claws and sharp teeth of carnivores, to develop the skills and tools necessary to hunt animals and butcher fat and meat from large carcasses. Among elephant remains some 500,000 years old at a Lower Paleolithic site in Revadim, Israel, Prof. Ran Barkai and his graduate students Natasha Solodenko and Andrea Zupanchich of Tel ...

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Medicine19 Mar 2015

New lead against HIV could finally hobble the virus's edge

DENVER, March 23, 2015 -- Since HIV emerged in the '80s, drug "cocktails" transformed the deadly disease into a manageable one. But the virus is adept at developing resistance to drugs, and treatment regimens require tweaking that can be costly. Now scientists at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) are announcing new progress toward affordable drugs that could potentially thwart the virus's ability to resist them. ACS, the world's largest scientific society, is holding the meeting here through Thursday. It features nearly 11,000 ...

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Environment19 Mar 2015

Ocean pipes 'not cool,' would end up warming climate

Washington, D.C.--To combat global climate change caused by greenhouse gases, alternative energy sources and other types of environmental recourse actions are needed. There are a variety of proposals that involve using vertical ocean pipes to move seawater to the surface from the depths in order to reap different potential climate benefits. A new study from a group of Carnegie scientists determines that these types of pipes could actually increase global warming quite drastically. It is published in Environmental Research Letters. One proposed strategy--called Ocean ...

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