Alcohol use is a major risk factor for head and neck cancer. But an article published in the November issue of the journal Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology shows that the chemical resveratrol found in grape skins and in red wine may prevent cancer as well. "Alcohol bombards your genes. Your body has ways to repair this damage, but with enough alcohol eventually some damage isn't fixed. That's why excessive alcohol use is a factor in head and neck cancer. Now, resveratrol challenges these cells - the ones with unrepaired DNA damage are killed, so they can't ...

West Orange, NJ. December 3, 2014. Brain injury researchers in New Jersey have identified retrieval practice as a useful strategy for improving memory among children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI). "Retrieval Practice as an Effective Memory Strategy in Children and Adolescents with TBI" (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2014.09.022) was published online ahead of print on October 10 by the Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. This article is based on a collaborative study funded by Kessler Foundation and Children's Specialized Hospital. ...

As the two foolish pigs learned before running to their brother's solidly built house of bricks for safety, when the wolf comes calling, the quality of your shelter is everything. Animals in the wild have always instinctively known this. But changes to their habitat in the wake of human encroachment, climate change and a variety of environmental influences are affecting the predator-prey relationship and creating new "fearscapes" dotted with predation risks. To better understand what's happening, researchers are using innovative imaging techniques to map the properties ...

DETROIT - A common prostate cancer therapy should not be used in men whose cancer has not spread beyond the prostate, according to a new study led by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital. The findings are particularly important for men with longer life expectancies because the therapy exposes them to more adverse side effects, and it is associated with increased risk of death and deprives men of the opportunity for a cure by other methods. The research study has been published online in European Urology. The focus of the new study is androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), ...

Scientists have developed a novel treatment approach for persistent viral infections such as herpes. Using animal models of herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection, researchers show that blocking the activity of a host cell protein called LSD1 reduces HSV infection, shedding (release of viral particles) and recurrence. LSD1, which is essential for HSV's infectious cycle, modifies certain host proteins that control access to DNA. These modifications, known as "epigenetic" changes, help determine how and when genes are used. The collaborative effort, led by scientists at the ...

Kansas City, Mo. -- December 3, 2014 -- Results from more than 100 families with children affected by a broad range of neurologic and developmental disorders who underwent genomic testing to end their quest for a diagnosis, were published today in Science Translational Medicine. This is the first study to show that a genome-based diagnostic approach directly impacts patient care of both infants and older children with neurologic disorders. Forty-five percent of families received a diagnosis by exome or genome sequencing, fifty percent of those diagnosed had a change in ...

PULLMAN, Wash.--Washington State University researchers have found that it is counter-productive to kill wolves to keep them from preying on livestock. Shooting and trapping lead to more dead sheep and cattle the following year, not fewer. Writing in the journal PLOS ONE, WSU wildlife biologist Rob Wielgus and data analyst Kaylie Peebles say that, for each wolf killed, the odds of more livestock depredations increase significantly. The trend continues until 25 percent of the wolves in an area are killed. Ranchers and wildlife managers then see a "standing wave of livestock ...

Koala population distribution may be influenced by eucalyptus leaf toxin and nutrient content, especially in areas with low-quality food options, according to a study published December 3, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Eleanor Stalenberg from The Australian National University and colleagues. Scientists suspect that access to nutritious food plays a role in herbivore distribution and abundance, but there is still some debate over how variation in plant nutritional qualities may influence population distribution. Koalas predominantly eat eucalyptus leaves ...

A population of humpback whales that resides in the Arabian Sea may have been isolated for ~70,000 years, according to a study published December 3, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Cristina Pomilla, Ana Rita Amaral, Howard Rosenbaum, and Tim Collins of the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and their colleagues. The small, non-migratory population of Arabian Sea humpback whales is currently classified as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Scientists have limited data on the difficult-to-study population, ...

Aspects of the culture of research in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) can encourage poor research practices and hinder the production of high quality science, according to scientists who took part in a project exploring the ethical consequences of the culture of research led by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. The findings of the project, which included a survey of almost 1000 scientists and others, suggest that scientists are motivated in their work to find out more about the world and benefit society, and that they believe collaboration, multidisciplinarity, ...

Birds learn new foraging techniques by observing others in their social network, 'copycat' behaviour that can sustain foraging 'traditions' that last years, according to a study of how innovations spread and persist in wild great tits (Parus major). The study involved experiments with eight local populations of great tits in Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire (UK). In five of the populations two male birds were trained to slide a puzzle box door either to the left or to the right. In three control groups two males were captured but not trained. The birds were then released back ...

Whether stubbing a toe or stroking a cat, the sensation of touch starts out as a mechanical force that is then transformed into an electrical signal conveying pain or other sensations. Tiny channels in neurons act as translators by helping to formulate that signal to the brain. However, scientists know little about the fine details of how these channels work. New work at Rockefeller University has revealed that one such channel in humans responds to mechanical force using a never-before-seen mechanism. Researchers led by Roderick MacKinnon, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor ...

A team of biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis, led by Lihong Wang, PhD, the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has developed the world's fastest receive-only 2-D camera, a device that can capture events up to 100 billion frames per second. That's orders of magnitude faster than any current receive-only ultrafast imaging techniques, which are limited by on-chip storage and electronic readout speed to operations of about 10 million frames per second. Using the Washington University technique, called compressed ultrafast ...

VIDEO: NIH-funded scientists developed a promising new drug that may lead to spinal cord injury treatments. Click here for more information. Injections of a new drug may partially relieve paralyzing spinal cord injuries, based on indications from a study in rats, which was partly funded by the National Institutes of Health The results demonstrate how fundamental laboratory research may lead to new therapies. "We're very excited at the possibility that millions of people ...

Case Western Reserve scientists have developed a new chemical compound that shows extraordinary promise in restoring function lost to spinal cord injury. The compound, which the researchers dubbed intracellular sigma peptide (ISP), allowed paralyzed muscles to activate in more than 80 percent of the animals tested. The remarkable study, partly funded by the National Institutes of Health, appears in the December 3 edition of the journal Nature. Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Professor of Neurosciences Jerry Silver, PhD, the senior author, led an international ...

Pilots are trained to guard against vertigo: a sudden loss of the sense of vertical direction that renders them unable to tell "up" from "down" and sometimes even leads to crashes. Coming up out of a subway station can produce similar confusion: For a few moments, you are unsure which way to go, until regaining your sense of direction. In both cases, the disorientation is thought to be caused by a temporary malfunction of a brain circuit that operates as a three-dimensional (3D) compass. Weizmann Institute scientists have now for the first time demonstrated the existence ...

Extensive areas of the world's deltas -- which accommodate major cities such as Shanghai, Dhaka and Bangkok -- will be drowned in the next century by rising sea levels, according to a Comment piece in this week's Nature. In the article, Dr. Liviu Giosan, a geologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and colleagues call for maintenance efforts to be started now to avert the loss of vast expanses of coastline, and the consequent losses of ecological services, economic and social crises, and large-scale migrations. Problems start upstream: deltas are built ...

HOUSTON - (Dec. 3, 2014) - A novel mechanism - similar to how normal tissue stem cells respond to wounding - might explain why bladder cancer stem cells actively contribute to chemo-resistance after multiple cycles of chemotherapy drug treatment. Targeting this "wound response" of cancer stem cells can potentially provide a novel approach for therapeutic invention, said researchers from the National Cancer Institute-designated Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine. The results of their study appear online in the journal Nature today. "Treatment ...

LA JOLLA, CA--December 3, 2014--A team led by biologists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has solved a long-standing mystery in neuroscience by identifying the "mechanoreceptor" protein that mediates the sense of touch in mammals. Mice that lack the Piezo2 ion-channel protein in their skin cells and nerve endings lose nearly all their sensitivity to ordinary light touch, but retain a mostly normal sensitivity to painful mechanical stimuli. "We can say with certainty that Piezo2 is the principal touch sensor in mammals," said Ardem Patapoutian, professor at TSRI ...

Researchers from the African Genome Variation Project (AGVP) have published the first attempt to comprehensively characterise genetic diversity across Sub-Saharan Africa. The study of the world's most genetically diverse region will provide an invaluable resource for medical researchers and provides insights into population movements over thousands of years of African history. These findings appear in the journal Nature. "Although many studies have focused on studying genetic risk factors for disease in European populations, this is an understudied area in Africa," says ...

ROSEMONT, Ill.--Compression fractures in the spine due to osteoporosis, a common condition causing progressive bone loss and increased fracture risk, are especially common in older women. A new study appearing in the December 3rd issue of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery (JBJS) found that patients who wore a brace as treatment for a spinal compression fracture had comparable outcomes in terms of pain, function and healing when compared to patients who did not wear a brace. Nearly 700,000 men and women suffer from a spinal compression fracture each year. These fractures, ...

People who work around the clock could actually be setting themselves back, according to Virginia Tech biologists. Researchers found that a protein responsible for regulating the body's sleep cycle, or circadian rhythm, also protects the body from developing sporadic forms of cancers. "The protein, known as human period 2, has impaired function in the cell when environmental factors, including sleep cycle disruption, are altered," said Carla Finkielstein, an associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Science, Fralin Life Science Institute affiliate, ...

The more time you spend getting to and from work, the less likely you are to be satisfied with life, says a new Waterloo study. Published in World Leisure Journal, the research reveals exactly why commuting is such a contentment killer--and surprisingly, traffic isn't the only reason to blame. "We found that the longer it takes someone to get to work, the lower their satisfaction with life in general," says Margo Hilbrecht, a professor in Applied Health Sciences and the associate director of research for the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. While commuting has long been ...

Is your inbox burning you out? Then take heart - research from the University of British Columbia suggests that easing up on email checking can help reduce psychological stress. Some of the study's 124 adults -- including students, financial analysts medical professionals and others -- were instructed to limit checking email to three times daily for a week. Others were told to check email as often as they could (which turned out to be about the same number of times that they normally checked their email prior to the study). These instructions were then reversed for ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Geckos, found in places with warm climates, have fascinated people for hundreds of years. Scientists have been especially intrigued by these lizards, and have studied a variety of features such as the adhesive toe pads on the underside of gecko feet with which geckos attach to surfaces with remarkable strength. One unanswered question that has captivated researchers is: Is the strength of this adhesion determined by the gecko or is it somehow intrinsic to the adhesive system? In other words, is this adhesion a result of the entire animal initiating ...