It's not a hair-brained idea: A new research report appearing in the April 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal explains why people with a rare balding condition called "atrichia with papular lesions" lose their hair, and it identifies a strategy for reversing this hair loss. Specifically the report shows for the first time that the "human hairless gene" imparts an essential role in hair biology by regulating a subset of other hair genes. This newly discovered molecular function likely explains why mutations in the hairless gene contribute to the pathogenesis of atrichia with ...

This news release is available in French. Many studies have focused on the influence of breast-feeding on child health. From analysis of data from the ELANCE cohort, Marie Françoise Rolland-Cachera, former researcher at Inserm and her co-workers in the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team (EREN) have shown that breast-feeding has a protective effect on the risk of obesity at 20 years of age. Researchers also emphasise that nutritional intake at the age of 2 years are critical in providing this beneficial effect. The results of the study are published in The Journal ...

Economics has a "law of one price," which states that identical goods should, in theory, sell for identical prices — or else markets will even out the differences. Empirical work on the topic, however, has produced little evidence in support of this "law," and many studies showing deviations from it. Now a newly published paper co-authored by two MIT economists, along with a colleague from the University of Chicago, presents evidence of a strong convergence of prices within the Eurozone, the region of European countries sharing a common currency. The divergence of product ...

New Rochelle, NY, April 1, 2014 -- Rare, very small embryonic-like stem cells (VSELs) isolated from human adult tissues could provide a new source for developing regenerative therapies to repair complex tissues damaged by disease or trauma. The ability of these most-primitive, multipotent stem cells to differentiate into bone, neurons, connective tissue, and other cell types, and the proper criteria for identifying and isolating VSELs, are described in two articles in Stem Cells and Development, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The articles ...

In a report published in the April edition of the Journal of Spinal Disorders and Techniques, a Johns Hopkins team says that only 10 percent of orthopaedic surgeons and neurosurgeons follow professional guidelines recommending routine psychological screenings of patients prior to major surgery for severe back and leg pain. The oversight, researchers say, may pose a serious risk to patients' surgical recovery. Previous reports have tied bouts of depression to longer recuperations, delayed returns to work, more postsurgical complications and failures to comply with medication ...

Philadelphia, PA--A computer model is a representation of the functional relationship between one set of parameters, which forms the model input, and a corresponding set of target parameters, which forms the model output. A true model for a particular problem can rarely be defined with certainty. The most we can do to mitigate error is to quantify the uncertainty in the model. In a recent paper published in the SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification, authors Mark Strong and Jeremy Oakley offer a method to incorporate judgments into a model about structural uncertainty ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (April 1, 2014) – Stress doesn't cause allergies, but easing your mind might mean less allergy flare-ups this spring. According to a study published in the April issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, allergy sufferers with persistent stress experience more allergy flares. "Stress can cause several negative effects on the body, including causing more symptoms for allergy sufferers," said allergist Amber Patterson, MD, lead study author and ACAAI member. ...

As the Earth's human population marches toward 9 billion, the need for hardy new varieties of grain crops has never been greater. It won't be enough to yield record harvests under perfect conditions. In an era of climate change, pollution and the global spread of pathogens, these new grains must also be able to handle stress. Now, researchers at Michigan Technological University have identified a set of genes that could be key to the development of the next generation of super rice. A meta-data analysis by biologist Ramakrishna Wusirika and PhD student Rafi Shaik has ...

In particular, the protein that activated hair follicle growth was shown to also inhibit fat production. The world first research confirmed that changes in the hair growth cycle led to fluctuations in the thickness of the underlying fat layer of the skin – essentially meaning that the skin can regulate fat production. The research was led by Professor Fiona Watt at King's College London in collaboration with Professor of Dermatology Rodney Sinclair from the University of Melbourne and Epworth Hospital. Professor Sinclair said these findings could potentially be ...

There are differences in prognosis in cutaneous malignant melanoma depending on cohabitation status and gender, according to a new study published in the scientific periodical Journal of Clinical Oncology. Single men of all ages are more likely to die of their disease. Cutaneous malignant melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. The disease is one of the fastest growing cancers among Caucasian (white) populations and is an escalating health problem even among young individuals. Swedish researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Linköping University have now, ...

Take the sound "bl": how many words starting with that sound can you think of? Blouse, blue, bland... Now try with "lb": how many can you find? None in English and Italian, and even in other languages such words either don't exist or are extremely rare. Human languages offer several examples of this kind, and this indicates that in forming words we tend to prefer certain sound combinations to others, irrespective of which language we speak. The fact that this occurs across languages has prompted linguists to hypothesize the existence of biological bases of language (inborn ...

More than 1.1 million spouses, parents and friends are caring for the injured and disabled who have served in the U.S. military since Sept. 11, 2001, often doing so without a formal support network and putting their own well-being at risk, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The largest-ever study of military caregivers -- commissioned by the Elizabeth Dole Foundation -- finds that Americans who are taking care of veterans who served after 9/11 are younger than other caregivers, are usually employed outside the home and are more likely to care for someone who has ...

Customers are more likely to frequent restaurants that provide both healthful foods and nutrition information, according to researchers at Penn State and the University of Tennessee. "The Affordable Care Act has mandated that chain restaurants -- those with more than 20 restaurants -- provide nutrition information to customers," said David Cranage, associate professor of hospitality management. "Many restaurants had been fighting this legislation because they thought they would lose customers if the customers knew how unhealthy their food was. In this study, we found ...

Researchers from the National Collection of Yeast Cultures (NCYC) at the Institute of Food Research (IFR) have identified a new globe-trotting yeast species that lives on tree-associated beetles. This new species demonstrates the importance of preserving biodiversity, as yeasts like this may help efforts to develop renewable fuel sources in the future. Preserving biodiversity must go beyond plants and animals and also preserve the microbial life. Threats to habitats, for example through oil exploration, could destroy forever potential solutions to global challenges locked ...

To improve recovery for heart attack patients, hospitals should maintain normal day and night cycles for those patients during the first few days after the attack, say University of Guelph researchers. Their new study shows for the first time that interrupting diurnal rhythms impairs healing immediately after a heart attack, said Prof. Tami Martino of the Department of Biomedical Sciences. Researchers already knew that circadian rhythms, or day-night cycles, can affect timing of a heart attack. This is the first study to show the importance of circadian rhythms during ...

Dogs are individual personalities, possess awareness, and are particularly known for their learning capabilities, or trainability. To learn successfully, they must display a sufficient quantity of attention and concentration. However, the attentiveness of dogs' changes in the course of their lives, as it does in humans. The lead author Lisa Wallis and her colleagues investigated 145 Border Collies aged 6 months to 14 years in the Clever Dog Lab at the Vetmeduni Vienna and determined, for the first time, how attentiveness changes in the entire course of a dog's life using ...

Raimon Guitart, lecturer in Toxicology at the UAB, and Vernon Thomas, emeritus professor of the University of Guelph, analysed in detail the environmental effects of using lead ammunition in shooting sports, in an article published in the AMBIO journal. Although the number of Olympic athletes specialising in these sports is reduced, and the ammunition is recovered and recycled after the competitions, there are many amateurs who practice this sport around the world, making it almost impossible to recover the ammunition after being used. Researchers show that for these ...

Nagoya, Japan – Professor Stephan Irle of the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM) at Nagoya University and co-workers at Kyoto University, Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL), and Chinese research institutions have revealed through theoretical simulations that the molecular mechanism of carbon nanotube (CNT) growth and hydrocarbon combustion actually share many similarities. In studies using acetylene molecules (ethyne; C2H2, a molecule containing a triple bond between two carbon atoms) as feedstock, the ethynyl radical (C2H), a highly reactive molecular intermediate ...

An educational intervention program for children between kindergarten and 10th grade, known as Fast Track, reduces aggressive behavior later in life, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research, led by psychological scientist Justin Carré of Nipissing University in Ontario, Canada, indicates that dampened testosterone levels in response to social threats may account for the intervention's success in reducing aggression. The Fast Track intervention program teaches children social cognitive ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers report they can generate human motor neurons from stem cells much more quickly and efficiently than previous methods allowed. The finding, described in Nature Communications, will aid efforts to model human motor neuron development, and to understand and treat spinal cord injuries and motor neuron diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The new method involves adding critical signaling molecules to precursor cells a few days earlier than previous methods specified. This increases the proportion of healthy motor neurons derived ...

This news release is available in German. Networked nerve cells are the control center of organisms. In a nematode, 300 nerve cells are sufficient to initiate complex behavior. To understand the properties of the networks, re-searchers switch cells on and off with light and observe the resulting behavior of the organism. In the Science journal, sci-entists now present a protein that facilitates the control of nerve cells by light. It might be used as a basis of studies of diseases of the nervous system. DOI: 10.1126/science.1249375 To switch a nerve cell with light, ...

People who are materialistic are more likely to be depressed and unsatisfied, in part because they find it harder to be grateful for what they have, according to a study by Baylor researchers. The study — "Why are materialists less happy? The role of gratitude and need satisfaction in the relationship between materialism and life satisfaction" — appears in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. "Gratitude is a positive mood. It's about other people," said study lead author Jo-Ann Tsang, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor's ...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Medical researchers often presented the findings of their clinical trials in a different way on a federal government website than they did in the medical journals where their studies were ultimately published, according to an Oregon Health & Science University analysis published April 1 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers' reports in peer-reviewed medical journals often were more favorable to the drug or intervention being studied than the reports on the government website — ClinicalTrials.gov — which required data for specific categories, ...

In 1990, the Jamaican iguana was removed from the list of extinct species when a small population was re-discovered on the island. Unfortunately, the species continues to be critically endangered, with only a single location left for the recovering population, now greater than 200 individuals, in a protected area called the Hellshire Hills, part of the Portland Bight Protected Area. A recent proposal by Jamaican government officials to allow extensive development in this area is causing concern among conservationists who have been working to save this species and the wealth ...

WACO, Texas (March 31, 2014) – Early strengthening activities can lead to a decrease in cardiometabolic health risks in children and adolescents, according to results of a new study by a Baylor University professor and a team of researchers. Until recently, treatment for adolescent obesity and associated health problems has focused mostly on diet modifications and aerobic exercise such as walking or swimming. But a recent research study appearing this month in Pediatrics by Paul M. Gordon, Ph.D., professor and chair of health, human performance and recreation department ...