Interrupted breathing during sleep affects brain neurons necessary to regulate heart rate Sufferers of a common sleep-breathing disorder have diminished activity among neurons responsible for keeping heart rate low, reveals a new study published today [16 May] in The Journal of Physiology. The research discovered that in obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), neurons in the brainstem that control heart rate experience a blunting of their activity. The reduction of neuronal activity likely contributes to the increased heart rate, blood pressure and risk of adverse cardiovascular ...

Research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) suggests that two large meals (breakfast and lunch), rather than six small meals with the same total calories, are better for controlling weight and blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes. The research is by Dr Hana Kahleová, Diabetes Centre, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic, and colleagues. The study assessed 54 patients (29 men, 25 women) treated with oral diabetes drugs, aged 30–70 years, BMI 27–50 kg/m2 and HbA1c of 6–11.8% ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — If studying a single gene or a diet that might extend longevity is like searching for a fountain of youth, then a new study calls for looking at something more like the whole watershed. Brown University biologists who experimentally throttled three such factors in fruit flies found that lifespan depended more on interactions among the factors than on the factors themselves. "I think the main lesson is that these interaction effects are as significant or important as the [single] effects, such as diet effects alone or genetic effect ...

Trypanosome parasites transmitted by tsetse flies cause devastating diseases in humans and livestock. Different subspecies infect different hosts: Trypanosoma brucei brucei infects cattle but is non-infectious to humans, whereas T. b. gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense cause sleeping sickness in humans. A study published on May 15th in PLOS Pathogens reveals how humans can fight off some trypanosomes but not others. Sam Alsford, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and colleagues, undertook a comprehensive search for genes that make T. b. brucei ...

Washington, DC (May 15, 2014) — For individuals with kidney disease, walking may help prolong life and reduce the risk of needing dialysis or a kidney transplant. That's the conclusion of a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). Physical inactivity is common among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Che-Yi Chou MD, PhD, Chiz-Tzung Chang, PhD (China Medical University Hospital, in Taiwan) and their colleagues looked to see if an activity as simple as walking might provide benefits to patients. ...

VIDEO: Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center researcher Anna T. Riegel, PhD, discusses a new technique that allows the growth of both normal and cancer cells and keeps them alive indefinitely is... Click here for more information. WASHINGTON — A new technique that allows the growth of both normal and cancer cells and keeps them alive indefinitely is transforming and expediting basic cancer research, say investigators from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. ...

Washington, DC (May 15, 2014) — A newly approved US policy regarding allocation of kidneys from deceased donors will likely improve patient and transplant survival, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The true effects of the new policy are yet to be seen, however, and officials will evaluate its intended and unintended consequences on an ongoing basis. In 2013, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network in the United States approved a new national deceased donor kidney allocation policy ...

Zinc is essential for optimal plant growth and development but when high levels of the metal are present in the soil, it can become toxic to the plant. Consequently, plants need to trigger mechanisms capable of coping with that stress. Researchers from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) have now discovered a novel genetic mechanism that protects plants from toxic zinc levels. The research team, led by Paula Duque, identified a gene that produces a protein capable of sequestering zinc inside the cells of the root. In the presence of high levels of zinc, this gene ...

Tumor cells in bone marrow of early breast cancer patients predict a higher risk of relapse as well as poorer survival, but bone marrow biopsy is an invasive and painful procedure. Now, it may be possible to identify tumor cells in a routine blood sample and use them as prognostic markers, according to a study published May 15 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. To assess the prognostic value of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in patients with early breast cancer, Brigitte Rack, M.D., of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Klinikum Innenstadt, ...

DALLAS, May 15, 2014 — Older migraine sufferers may be more likely to have silent brain injury, according to research published in the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke. In a new study, people with a history of migraine headaches had double the odds of ischemic silent brain infarction compared to people who said they didn’t have migraines. Silent brain infarction is a brain injury likely caused by a blood clot interrupting blood flow to brain tissue. Sometimes called “silent strokes,” these injuries are symptomless and are a risk factor for future strokes. Previous ...

Tempe, Ariz. (May, 15, 2014) - Overweight young people are more likely to be rejected as friends by peers who are of normal weight, according to new research by Arizona State University social scientists. "Using Social Network Analysis to Clarify the Role of Obesity in Adolescent Friend Selection," published in the American Journal of Public Health by Arizona State University Associate Professors David R. Schaefer of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and Sandra D. Simpkins of the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, used social network ...

Electronic monitoring to measure medication adherence by patients with glaucoma documented that a sizable number of patients did not regularly use the eye drops prescribed to them. Topical medications for glaucoma lower intraocular pressure and can delay or slow the progression of the eye disease. Medication adherence is important. Patients who were treated with once-daily prostaglandin eye drops were recruited from a university-based glaucoma clinic. Patients were given a container with an electronic cap in which to store their eye drops. The cap recorded each ...

As Bike to Work week continues, New Yorkers got some good news from a team of researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Using funds from the federally funded Safe Routes to School program enacted in 2005 in an effort to create safe environments for American children to walk or bike to school, New York City made safety changes to the most dangerous intersections near schools. These interventions included narrowing intersections by building out sidewalks, setting off dedicated bicycle lanes, and installing speed humps, and timing lights so pedestrians ...

A study involving Simon Fraser University researchers and published today in the journal Science has found evidence for the genomic basis of how new species evolve, in adapting to different environments. Researchers studying an insect known as the walking stick (genus Timema) determined that the process of "speciation" happened in association with the use of different host plants. They also determined that across many populations of the insect, those on one host plant are diverging, genetically, from the populations on another host plant, a process they call "parallel ...

The change was clear and it was dramatic: "I went from being property to owning property," a woman in a remote area of Nicaragua told UC Santa Cruz assistant professor of psychology Shelly Grabe. Grabe wanted to know how the power dynamic between men and women might change when women owned land. More importantly, she wanted to know how the propensity for gender-based violence against women might change. Writing in the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly, Grabe suggests that when women in developing countries own land, they gain power within their relationships and ...

HOUSTON -- (May 15, 2014) -- A first-of-its-kind study this week suggests that the genomes of new species may evolve in a similar, repeatable fashion -- even in cases where populations are evolving in parallel at separate locations. The research is featured on the cover of the May 16 issue of Science. A team of evolutionary biologists at Rice University, the University of Sheffield and eight other universities used a combination of ecological fieldwork and genomic assays to see how natural selection is playing out across the genome of a Southern California stick insect ...

AURORA, Colo. (May 15, 2014) – The proportion of marijuana-positive drivers involved in fatal motor vehicle crashes in Colorado has increased dramatically since the commercialization of medical marijuana in the middle of 2009, according to a study by University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers. With data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System covering 1994 to 2011, the researchers analyzed fatal motor vehicle crashes in Colorado and in the 34 states that did not have medical marijuana laws, comparing changes ...

Primary care physicians already have enough administrative duties on their plates, and the implementation of electronic medical records has only added to their burden. As a result, they have less time to spend with their patients. But a new UCLA study suggests a simple way to lighten their load: a "physician partner" whose role would be to work on those administrative tasks, such as entering information into patient records, that take up so much of doctors' time. A physician partner allows doctors to focus more of their attention on their patients and leads to greater ...

Stereotypes of gay men as effeminate and weak and black men as threatening and aggressive can hurt members of those groups when white people evaluate them in employment, education, criminal justice and other contexts. But the negative attributes of the two stereotypes can cancel one another out for gay black men in the employment context, according to research by a Princeton University graduate student in sociology, challenging the commonly held idea that membership in multiple marginalized groups leads to more discrimination than being a member of a single such group. Sociologist ...

The body's innate immune system is a first line of defense, intent on sensing invading pathogens and wiping them out before they can cause harm. It should not be surprising then that bacteria have evolved many ways to specifically evade and overcome this sentry system in order to spread infection. A study led by researchers in the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine now reveals how some Salmonella bacteria hide from the immune system, allowing them to persist and cause systemic infection. The findings could help researchers craft a more effective ...

RENO, Nev. – Like a detective story with twists and turns in the plot, scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno are unfolding a story about the rapid uplift of the famous 400-mile long Sierra Nevada mountain range of California and Nevada. The newest chapter of the research is being published today in the scientific journal Nature, showing that draining of the aquifer for agricultural irrigation in California's Central Valley results in upward flexing of the earth's surface and the surrounding mountains due to the loss of mass within the valley. The groundwater subsidence ...

This news release is available in Spanish and Arabic. The discovery of a near-complete human skeleton in a watery cave in Mexico is helping scientists answer the question, "Who were the first Americans?" The finding, reported in the 16 May issue of the journal Science, sheds new light on a decades-long debate among archaeologists and anthropologists. Deciphering the ancestry of the first people to populate the Americas has been a challenge. On the basis of genetics, modern Native Americans are thought to descend from Siberians who moved into eastern Beringia (the ...

WASHINGTON (May 15, 2014)—The skeletal remains of a teenage female from the late Pleistocene or last ice age found in an underwater cave in Mexico have major implications for our understanding of the origins of the Western Hemisphere's first people and their relationship to contemporary Native Americans. In a paper released today in the journal Science, an international team of researchers and cave divers present the results of an expedition that discovered a near-complete early American human skeleton with an intact cranium and preserved DNA. The remains were found surrounded ...

PULLMAN, Wash.—For more than a decade, Washington State University molecular anthropologist Brian Kemp has teased out the ancient DNA of goose and salmon bones from Alaska, human remains from North and South America, and human coprolites—ancient poop—from Oregon and the American Southwest. His aim: use genetics as yet another archaeological record offering clues to the identities of ancient people and how they lived and moved across the landscape. As head of the team studying the DNA of Naia, an adolescent girl who fell into a Yucatan sinkhole some 12,000 years ago, he ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study could help resolve a longstanding debate about the origins of the first people to inhabit the Americas, researchers report in the journal Science. The study relies on genetic information extracted from the tooth of an adolescent girl who fell into a sinkhole in the Yucatan 12,000 to 13,000 years ago. The girl's remains were found alongside those of ancient extinct beasts that also fell into the "inescapable natural trap," as researchers described the sinkhole. The team used radiocarbon dating and analyzed chemical signatures in bones and ...