New genetic evidence strengthens the case that one well-known type of cholesterol is a likely suspect in causing heart disease, but also casts further doubt on the causal role played by another type. The findings may guide the search for improved treatments for heart disease. Most of us have heard of "good cholesterol" and "bad cholesterol" coursing through our bloodstream. In the conventional health wisdom of the past 30 years, having more of the "good" variety (high-density lipoprotein, or HDL) lowers your risk of heart disease, while more of the bad one (low-density ...

Getting in the right shape might be just as important in a biology lab as a gym. Shape is thought to play an important role in the effectiveness of cells grown to repair or replace damaged tissue in the body. To help design new structures that enable cells to "shape up," researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have come up with a way to measure, and more importantly, classify, the shapes cells tend to take in different environments.* With the notable exception of Flat Stanley, we all live, and are shaped by, a 3-dimensional world. Biologists ...

Researchers have found that the melanopsin pigment in the eye is potentially more sensitive to light than its more famous counterpart, rhodopsin, the pigment that allows for night vision. For more than two years, the staff of the Laboratory for Computational Photochemistry and Photobiology (LCPP) at Ohio's Bowling Green State University (BGSU), have been investigating melanopsin, a retina pigment capable of sensing light changes in the environment, informing the nervous system and synchronizing it with the day/night rhythm. Most of the study's complex computations were ...

In a study published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology on February 7, 2014, Daniel J. Pallin, MD, MPH and Jeremiah D. Schuur, MD, MS, surveyed a random sample of US emergency departments (EDs) and found substantial variation in the adoption of policies relating to contact precautions. While most EDs have policies relating to contact precautions when specific organisms are suspected, a minority have such policies for the symptoms often caused by those organisms. This indicated that institutional policies do not mirror consensus recommendations by the CDC, ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — As the Endangered Species Act (ESA) celebrated its 40th anniversary at the end of 2013, its administrative agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), was mired in controversy. At issue was a proposal to remove the gray wolf (Canis lupus) from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and add the Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi). As a result, the USFWS sought an independent peer review of the science behind the proposed rule to delist the gray wolf species. The agency commissioned UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological ...

Communities across the United States experienced an unprecedented decline in crime in the 1990s. But for counties where Wal-Mart built stores, the decline wasn't nearly as dramatic. "The crime decline was stunted in counties where Wal-Mart expanded in the 1990s," says Scott Wolfe, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and lead author of a new study. "If the corporation built a new store, there were 17 additional property crimes and 2 additional violent crimes for every 10,000 persons in a county." The study, titled ...

Septic shock is caused by excessive and systemic reaction of the entire body against infectious agents, in most cases of bacterial origin. The number of deaths by septic shock in intensive care units is very high and is still increasing, despite numerous large scale clinical trials. Scientists of VIB and UGent, supervised by Peter Vandenabeele, demonstrated in a mouse study that a potential novel treatment for sepsis may consist of the simultaneous neutralization of two harmful cytokines in the blood circulation, namely interleukin-1 and interleukin-18. In the VIB research ...

One of the issues of the Atapuerca sites that generates the most scientific debate is the dating of the strata where the fossils are found. Therefore, researchers at the Spanish National Research Centre for Human Evolution, among others, strive to settle the dates. A study published by the 'Journal of Archaeological Science' has clarified that the sediment of Gran Dolina, where the first remains of Homo antecessor were discovered in 1994, is 900,000 years old. The findings at the Lower Palaeolithic cave site of Gran Dolina, in the Sierra de Atapuerca mountain range (Burgos), ...

The lipid-rich membranes of cells are largely impermeable to proteins, but evolution has provided a way through – in the form of transmembrane tunnels. A new study shows in unmatched detail what happens as proteins pass through such a pore. Every cell is surrounded by a surface membrane and contains internal compartments bounded by membranes. Almost one-third of all proteins synthesized in cells must pass through these membranes or be incorporated into them in order to fulfil their functions. However, the fat-rich nature of membranes makes it impossible for most proteins ...

Zurich, 7 February 2014. Since the end of 2011 when the scientific work of Professor Don Poldermans was first scrutinized there has been controversy in the medical world about the use of beta blockers in perioperative care. The recent publication - and retraction for proper peer reviewing and revision - in the European Heart Journal (EHJ) of a paper by Professors Cole and Francis from Imperial College, questioning whether beta blockers in perioperative care could lead to a mortality increase brought the topic back into the public eye. The EHJ has published an editorial ...

The total stock of fish on the planet had been reckoned until today to be around 2,000 million tonnes. About half of them were thought to be mesopelagic fish, in other words, ones found at depths of between 200 and 1,000 metres in ocean areas. However, an international team*, in which AZTI-Tecnalia researchers are participating and which is being led by the doctor in oceanography Xabier Irigoien, has discovered that its abundance could be at least 10 times higher than the original estimate. The results have been published in the journal Nature Communications. Mesopelagic ...

Biologists working in the Andes mountains of Ecuador have described a new plant species, a wild relative of black pepper, that is in itself a mini biodiversity hotspot. The new species, Piper kelleyi, is the sole home of an estimated 40-50 insect species, most of which are entirely dependent on this plant species for survival. This discovery is part of a larger project which focuses on the influence of plant-produced chemical compounds on biodiversity. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. The chemical compounds produced by plants are source of ...

Since its first identification in Asia, highly pathogenic avian influenza—H5N1—has caused significant alarm in the scientific community. While the virus' primary target is birds—tens of millions have already died from it—it is capable of infecting mammals, including humans, causing serious illness and a frightening rate of mortality. In a new study, Matthew Scotch, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, tracks the spread of an H5N1 variant in Egypt—a country recently identified as a major epicenter for the virus. In results recently appearing ...

An international team of researchers led by scientists at Virginia Tech and the University of California, Berkeley has discovered that a process that turns on photosynthesis in plants likely developed on Earth in ancient microbes 2.5 billion years ago, long before oxygen became available. The research offers new perspective on evolutionary biology, microbiology, and the production of natural gas, and may shed light on climate change, agriculture, and human health. "By looking at this one mechanism that was not previously studied, we will be able to develop new basic ...

SAN ANTONIO (Feb. 6, 2014) — Scientists from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio have found a clue as to why muscles weaken with age. In a study published Feb. 5 in The Journal of Neuroscience, they report the first evidence that "set points" in the nervous system are not inalterably determined during development but instead can be reset with age. They observed a change in set point that resulted in significantly diminished motor function in aging fruit flies. "The body has a set point for temperature (98.6 degrees), ...

A genetic disorder that affects about 1 in every 2,500 births can cause a bewildering array of clinical problems, including brain tumors, impaired vision, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, heart defects and bone deformities. The symptoms and their severity vary among patients affected by this condition, known as neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a patient's gender as a clear and simple guidepost to help health-care providers anticipate some of the effects of NF1. The scientists ...

A new study analyses the risk factors and excess mortality among heroin and cocaine consumers admitted to treatment in Spain. The results reveal that the fatality rate among consumers of both drugs is 14.3 times higher than for the general population, while among those only using cocaine, it is 5.1 times higher. In Spain the majority of deaths related to cocaine are not correctly certified and therefore up until now very few studies have been carried out that analyse the consequences of consuming these drugs in terms of mortality. "Death certificates rarely include ...

Mexico is the fourth largest honey producer and fifth largest honey exporter in the world. A Smithsonian researcher and colleagues helped rural farmers in Mexico to quantify the genetically modified organism (GMO) soybean pollen in honey samples rejected for sale in Germany. Their results will appear Feb. 7 in the online journal, Scientific Reports. David Roubik, senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and colleagues developed the ability to identify pollen grains in honey in Panama and in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s when they studied ...

With a stock estimated at 1,000 million tons so far, mesopelagic fish dominate the total biomass of fish in the ocean. However, a team of researchers with the participation of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has found that their abundance could be at least 10 times higher. The results, published in Nature Communications journal, are based on the acoustic observations conducted during the circumnavigation of the Malaspina Expedition. Mesopelagic fishes, such as lantern fishes (Myctophidae) and cyclothonids (Gonostomatidae), live in the twilight zone of the ...

The first top predators to walk on land were not afraid to bite off more than they could chew, a University of Toronto Mississauga study has found. Graduate student and lead author Kirstin Brink along with Professor Robert Reisz from U of T Mississauga's Department of Biology suggest that Dimetrodon, a carnivore that walked on land between 298 million and 272 million years ago, was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop serrated ziphodont teeth. According to the study published in Nature Communications, ziphodont teeth, with their serrated edges, produced a more-efficient ...

"Understanding the pattern of insulin use is limited by a lack of data characterising the prevalence of insulin use in the UK," according to Craig Currie, Professor of Applied Pharmacoepidemiology at Cardiff University's School of Medicine, who led the study alongside colleagues from the University of Bristol. "Given the limitations, our study sought to calculate – for the first time – the best possible estimate of the rates of insulin for type 1 and type 2 diabetes." In this retrospective study the team examined the number of patients receiving prescriptions for ...

Philadelphia, PA, February 7, 2014 – Despite the identification of gene mutations in methyl CpG binding protein 2 (MECP2) being linked to Rett syndrome (RS), research has been hindered by the lack of commercially available reference materials. Through collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and members of the clinical-laboratory and non-profit–research communities, 35 DNA samples containing many common RS genetic variants have now been characterized and made publicly available, eliminating a major stumbling-block for investigators and ...

For the first time, guidelines have been developed for preventing stroke in women. "If you are a woman, you share many of the same risk factors for stroke with men, but your risk is also influenced by hormones, reproductive health, pregnancy, childbirth and other sex-related factors," said Cheryl Bushnell, M.D., M.H.S., author of the new scientific statement published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke. The guidelines outline stroke risks unique to women and provide scientifically-based recommendations on how best to treat them, including: Women with a ...

Viruses mutate fast, which means they can quickly become resistant to anti-viral drugs. But viruses also depend on proteins and nutrients provided by their hosts, and therefore one strategy to identify new anti-viral drugs is to identify and target such host-cell components. A paper published on February 6th in PLOS Pathogens reports that proteins involved in the regulation of cholesterol are essential for hantavirus entry into human host cells. There are only about 30 known human cases of hantavirus infection in the US per year (with the 2012 cluster in Yosemite National ...

Washington, DC (February 6, 2014) — A chemical that can accumulate in seafood and is known to cause brain damage is also toxic to the kidneys, but at much lower concentrations. The findings, which come from a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN), suggest that officials may need to reconsider what levels of the toxin are safe for human consumption. The world's oceans contain algae that produce certain chemicals that can be harmful to humans and other living creatures. Many of these chemicals are considered neurotoxins ...