Infants exposed to rodent and pet dander, roach allergens and a wide variety of household bacteria in the first year of life appear less likely to suffer from allergies, wheezing and asthma, according to results of a study conducted by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and other institutions. Previous research has shown that children who grow up on farms have lower allergy and asthma rates, a phenomenon attributed to their regular exposure to microorganisms present in farm soil. Other studies, however, have found increased asthma risk among inner-city ...

Philadelphia, PA, June 6, 2014 – Scientists have identified four biomarkers that may help resolve the difficult differential diagnosis between malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) and non-cancerous pleural tissue with reactive mesothelial proliferations (RMPs). This is a frequent differential diagnostic problem in pleural biopsy samples taken from patients with clinical suspicion of MPM. The ability to make more accurate diagnoses earlier may facilitate improved patient outcomes. This new study appears in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. "Our goal was to identify ...

"Where does it hurt?" is the first question asked to any person in pain. A new UCL study defines for the first time how our ability to identify where it hurts, called "spatial acuity", varies across the body, being most sensitive at the forehead and fingertips. Using lasers to cause pain to 26 healthy volunteers without any touch, the researchers produced the first systematic map of how acuity for pain is distributed across the body. The work is published in the journal Annals of Neurology and was funded by the Wellcome Trust. With the exception of the hairless skin ...

Fasten your seatbelts – gravity is about to get bumpy. Of course, if you're flying in the vicinity of a black hole, a bit of extra bumpiness is the least of your worries. But it's still surprising. The accepted wisdom among gravitational researchers has been that spacetime cannot become turbulent. New research from Perimeter, though, shows that the accepted wisdom might be wrong. The researchers followed this line of thought: Gravity, it's thought, can behave as a fluid. One of the characteristic behaviours of fluids is turbulence – that is, under certain conditions, ...

YbeY is a conserved protein that is present in most bacteria. A study published on June 5th in PLOS Pathogens examines the function of YbeY in the cholera bacterium and reveals critical roles in RNA metabolism in this and other pathogenic bacteria. Graham Walker, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and colleagues previously studied E. coli YbeY and found that it acts as an "RNase"—a protein that deliberately and specifically cuts RNA molecules and thereby regulates their availability and activity. Turning to Vibrio cholerae to examine the role of YbeY ...

June 5, 2014 – So-called silent DNA mutations earned their title because, according to the fundamental rules of biology, they should be inconsequential. Reported on June 5 in PLOS Genetics online, University of Utah researchers experimentally proved there are frequent exceptions to the rule. The work was conducted in the bacteria, Salmonella enterica, used to study basic biological mechanisms that are often conserved in humans. "In this post-genomic era, where a patient's DNA sequence can be used to diagnose predisposition to diseases, silent mutations are usually ignored," ...

BOSTON – June 5, 2014 - People with type 1 diabetes who have developed kidney complications can slow the progression of their complications by improving control of their glycemic (blood glucose) levels over the long term. This finding, which may change clinical practice at many institutions for this population, was drawn from a long-term observational study led by Andrzej Krolewski, M.D., Ph.D., head of Joslin Diabetes Center's Section on Genetics and Epidemiology. Running for almost 20 years, the study showed that "you have to improve glycemic control for a long period ...

Every spring, as the weather warms, trees in forests up and down the east coast explode in a bright green display of life as leaves fill their branches, and every fall, those same leaves provide one of nature's great color displays of vivid yellow, orange and red. Over the last two decades, spurred by higher temperatures caused by climate change, Harvard scientists say, forests throughout the Eastern U.S. have experienced earlier springs and later autumns than ever before. Using a combination of satellite imagery, tower-mounted instruments and on-the-ground observations, ...

Bottom Line: Public awareness of head and neck cancer (HNC) is low, with few Americans knowing much about risk factors such as tobacco use and human papillomavirus (HPV). Author: Alexander L. Luryi, B.S., of the Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn. Background: HNC is the 10 th most common cancer in the United States. It is a potentially preventable disease with about 75 percent of cases caused by tobacco use. In recent years, HPV has been established as a risk factor for HNC. Increased public awareness of HNC and its risk factors could help improve ...

JUPITER, FL, June 5, 2014 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found new targets for potential intervention in breast cancer. These new targets could eventually increase effectiveness and reduce the undesirable side effects associated with current treatments. The study was published online ahead of print on June 5, 2014 by the journal Structure. Approximately two out of three breast cancers are driven by receptors that bind the hormones estrogen and progesterone—when the hormones bind to these receptors in cancer cells, ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–June 5, 2014–A team of scientists at the Gladstone Institutes has identified a new way to make latent HIV reveal itself, which could help overcome one of the biggest obstacles to finding a cure for HIV infection. They discovered that increasing the random activity, or noise, associated with HIV gene expression–without increasing the average level of gene expression–can reactivate latent HIV. Their findings were published today in the journal Science. When HIV infects an immune cell, it inserts its genetic material into the DNA of the infected cell. In ...

Who would you rather have as a fitness partner: a paragon of athleticism and dedication who could motivate you to exceed your current level of fitness or an equal, with whom you could exchange tips and encouragement on the road to better health? Or neither? According to a new study led by University of Pennsylvania's Damon Centola, participants in an online fitness program ignored the fitness aptitude of their potential partners. "Instead they chose contacts based on characteristics that would largely be observable in regular, offline face-to-face networks: age, gender ...

A new screening process for tuberculosis (TB) infections in Canadian prisons could mean that more than 50 per cent of those screened won't undergo unnecessary treatment due to false positives. According to research by Wendy Wobeser and medical resident Ilan Schwartz, a test for TB using interferon-gamma release assays (IGRA) will detect a pre-existing TB infection, or latent TB, that might not present itself for many years, or until the body becomes weakened by another source. "It's fairly uncommon that latent TB will reactivate – only about a 10 per cent chance," says ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (June 5, 2014) – Metastatic cancer cells, which can migrate from primary tumors to seed new malignancies, have thus far been resistant to the current arsenal of anticancer drugs. Now, however, researchers at Whitehead Institute have identified a critical weakness that actually exploits one of these cells' apparent strengths—their ability to move and invade tissues. "This is the first vulnerability of invasive cancer cells that we really understand," says Whitehead Member Piyush Gupta, whose lab's latest work is described in the June issue of the journal ...

A new study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives describes how exposure to air pollution early in life produces harmful changes in the brains of mice, including an enlargement of part of the brain that is seen in humans who have autism and schizophrenia. As in autism and schizophrenia, the changes occurred predominately in males. The mice also performed poorly in tests of short-term memory, learning ability, and impulsivity. The new findings are consistent with several recent studies that have shown a link between air pollution and autism ...

DETROIT – Attention deficits are central to psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and are thought to precede the presentation of the illnesses. A new study led by Wayne State University School of Medicine researcher Vaibhav Diwadkar, Ph.D. suggests that the brain network interactions between regions that support attention are dysfunctional in children and adolescents at genetic risk for developing schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. "The brain network mechanisms that mediate these deficits are poorly understood, and have rarely been tackled ...

Rice University bioengineers are developing a simple, highly accurate test to detect signs of HIV and its progress in patients in resource-poor settings. The current gold standard to diagnose HIV in infants and to monitor viral load depends on lab equipment and technical expertise generally available only in clinics, said Rice bioengineer Rebecca Richards-Kortum. The new research features a nucleic acid-based test that can be performed at the site of care. Richards-Kortum, director of the Rice 360˚: Institute for Global Health Technologies, and her colleagues reported ...

AMES, Iowa – Certain bonds connecting biological cells get stronger when they're tugged. Those bonds could help keep hearts together and pumping; breakdowns of those bonds could help cancer cells break away and spread. Those bonds are known as catch bonds and they're formed by common adhesion proteins called cadherins. Sanjeevi Sivasankar, an Iowa State University assistant professor of physics and astronomy and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, has described catch bonds as "nanoscale seatbelts. They become stronger when pulled." But how ...

Short, customized carbon nanotubes have the potential to deliver drugs to pancreatic cancer cells and destroy them from within, according to researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Pristine nanotubes produced through a new process developed at Rice can be modified to carry drugs to tumors through gaps in blood-vessel walls that larger particles cannot fit through. The nanotubes may then target and infiltrate the cancerous cells' nuclei, where the drugs can be released through sonication – that is, by shaking them. The ...

BATON ROUGE – Animals incorporate a number of unique methods for detecting prey, but for the Japanese sea catfish, Plotosus japonicus, it is especially tricky given the dark murky waters where it resides. John Caprio, George C. Kent Professor of Biological Sciences at LSU, and colleagues from Kagoshima University in Japan have identified that these fish are equipped with sensors that can locate prey by detecting slight changes in the water's pH level. A paper, "Marine teleost locates live prey through pH sensing," detailing the work of Caprio and his research partners, ...

Climate change models could have a thing or two to learn from termites and fungi, according to a new study released this week. For a long time scientists have believed that temperature is the dominant factor in determining the rate of wood decomposition worldwide. Decomposition matters because the speed at which woody material are broken down strongly influences the retention of carbon in forest ecosystems and can help to offset the loss of carbon to the atmosphere from other sources. That makes the decomposition rate a key factor in detecting potential changes to the ...

As the world turns its attention to Brazil with the opening of the World Cup this month, many people around the globe know the country's soccer fame, but few realize that it is the world's leader in reducing carbon emissions. A new study published in Science magazine provides the first in-depth analysis of how Brazil reached this global-leader status and managed to increase its agriculture production at the same time. "Brazil is known as a leading favorite to win the World Cup, but they also lead the world in mitigating climate change," says the study's lead author, ...

A new series of measurements of oxygen isotopes provides increasing evidence that the Moon formed from the collision of the Earth with another large, planet-sized astronomical body, around 4.5 billion years ago. This work will be published in Science* on 6th June, and will be presented to the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in California on 11th June. Most planetary scientists believe that the Moon formed from an impact between the Earth and a planet-sized body, which has been given the name Theia. Efforts to confirm that the impact had taken place had centred ...

HOUSTON – (June 6, 2014) -- An international team of scientists including the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine has completed the first ever sequence of the sheep genome, shedding new information on the species' unique and specialized digestive and metabolic systems. Sheep, a major source of meat, milk, and fiber in the form of wool, are important to the agriculture industry. This exploration of sheep genetic characteristics found features that comprise their specialized digestive systems including the rumen (the first chamber of their stomach ...

Mountain View, CA – June 5, 2014 – Amunix Operating Inc. said today it is presenting unpublished data from its XTEN half-life extension technology development programs during two sessions this week at IBC's 9th Annual Next Generation Protein Therapeutics Summit in San Francisco, CA. Amunix is a biotechnology company developing hydrophilic, unstructured polypeptides which can be recombinantly fused or chemically conjugated to other peptides, proteins and small molecules. Vladimir N. Podust, PhD, Director of Analytical Chemistry, Amunix Operating Inc., will present "Extension ...