More than one-third of adults in the United States are obese, and some of these individuals undergo gastric bypass surgery to shed the extra pounds. A genome-wide association study published by Cell Press May 2nd in The American Journal of Human Genetics reveals that the amount of weight loss after this surgery can be predicted in part by a DNA sequence variation found on chromosome 15. The findings explain why the success of gastric bypass surgery varies so widely and could help clinicians identify those who would benefit the most from this type of surgery. "Surgery ...

When children with conduct problems see images of others in pain, key parts of their brains don't react in the way they do in most people. This pattern of reduced brain activity upon witnessing pain may serve as a neurobiological risk factor for later adult psychopathy, say researchers who report their findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 2. That's not to say that all children with conduct problems are the same, or that all children showing this brain pattern in young life will become psychopaths. The researchers emphasize that many children with ...

When people create and modify their virtual reality avatars, the hardships faced by their alter egos can influence how they perceive virtual environments, according to researchers. A group of students who saw that a backpack was attached to an avatar that they had created overestimated the heights of virtual hills, just as people in real life tend to overestimate heights and distances while carrying extra weight, according to Sangseok You, a doctoral student in the school of information, University of Michigan. "You exert more of your agency through an avatar when ...

NGC 6559 is a cloud of gas and dust located at a distance of about 5000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). The glowing region is a relatively small object, just a few light-years across, in contrast to the one hundred light-years and more spanned by its famous neighbour, the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8, eso0936 - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0936/). Although it is usually overlooked in favour of its distinguished companion, NGC 6559 has the leading role in this new picture. The gas in the clouds of NGC 6559, mainly hydrogen, is ...

MADISON, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin-Madison research group has converted skin cells from people and monkeys into a cell that can form a wide variety of nervous-system cells — without passing through the do-it-all stage called the induced pluripotent stem cell, or iPSC. Bypassing the ultra-flexible iPSC stage was a key advantage, says senior author Su-Chun Zhang, a professor of neuroscience and neurology. "IPSC cells can generate any cell type, which could be a problem for cell-based therapy to repair damage due to disease or injury in the nervous system." In ...

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have identified a gene variant that helps predict how much weight an individual will lose after gastric bypass surgery, a finding with the potential both to guide treatment planning and to facilitate the development of new therapeutic approaches to treating obesity and related conditions like diabetes. The report receiving advance online publication in The American Journal of Human Genetics is the first to identify genetic predictors of weight loss after bariatric surgery. "We know now that bypass surgery works not by ...

Lugano-CH, Brussels-BE, 2 May 2013 -- A study that aimed to understand how the cancer drug everolimus helps overcome the resistance breast cancers can develop to trastuzumab has left researchers contemplating a puzzle. The study showed a statistically non-significant benefit in clinical response rates for some patients with early breast cancer when everolimus was added to treatment with trastuzumab. Yet the results suggest this benefit is achieved independently of the molecular pathways researchers expected would be involved. Prof Mario Campone, Principal Investigator ...

Lugano-CH, Brussels-BE, 2 May 2013 -- A test that measures the expression levels of 58 genes in oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancers can effectively differentiate between patients who are at higher and lower risk for having their cancer recur elsewhere in the body more than five years after diagnosis, researchers report. The new findings show that better individual risk prediction for women with these cancers is getting nearer, says study author Prof Michael Gnant from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. Prof Gnant reported the findings at the 5th IMPAKT ...

Lugano-CH, Brussels-BE, 2 May 2013 -- A new analysis has provided a comprehensive comparison of scores designed to predict which women with oestrogen-receptor positive breast cancer are at high risk of recurrence beyond five years after diagnosis, and may benefit from prolonged endocrine treatment. The promising new findings will likely benefit the many women with oestrogen-receptor positive breast cancer whose cancer recurs more than five years after diagnosis, researchers told the 5th IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference in Brussels, Belgium. The IMPAKT meeting presents ...

Lugano-CH, Brussels- BE, 2 May 2013 -- An important new study has revealed the clearest picture yet of precisely how much measurement variation influences gene expression profiles of breast cancer. The results show, for the first time, which gene expression measurements may benefit from pooling of biopsies from a single tumour, researchers said at the 5th IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference in Brussels, Belgium. These findings represent an important step toward allowing doctors to more precisely tailor an individual's treatment to a detailed analysis of their tumour's gene ...

Lugano-CH, Brussels-BE, 2 May 2013 -- A study led by prominent breast cancer experts from Europe and the US has revealed a number of potentially important prospects for targeted therapies, and brings opportunities of truly personalised therapy for breast cancer a step closer, researchers said at the 5th IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference in Brussels, Belgium. The IMPAKT meeting presents cutting edge, 'translational' breast cancer research that is beginning to have an impact for patients. This current study was led by Dr Martine Piccart, Director of Medicine at the Jules ...

Lugano-CH, Brussels-BE, 2 May 2013 -- Breast cancers contain many different cell types with different patterns of gene expression, but a new study provides reassurance that this variability should not be a barrier to using gene expression tests to help tailor cancer treatments to individual patients. The findings were reported at the 5th IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference in Brussels, Belgium. The IMPAKT meeting presents cutting edge, 'translational' breast cancer research that is beginning to have an impact for patients. In recent years it has become clear that breast ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Until recently, the only primate known to hibernate as a survival strategy was a creature called the western fat-tailed dwarf lemur, a tropical tree-dweller from the African island of Madagascar. But it turns out this hibernating lemur isn't alone. In a study appearing May 2 in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers report that two other little-known lemurs -- Crossley's dwarf lemur and Sibree's dwarf lemur -- burrow into the soft, spongy rainforest floor in the eastern part of Madagascar, curl up and spend the next three to seven months snoozing ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- People have long taken for granted that glasses and contact lenses improve vision for nearsightedness, but the genetic factors behind the common condition have remained blurry. Now researchers at Duke Medicine are closer to clearing this up. Mutations in a gene that helps regulate copper and oxygen levels in eye tissue are associated with a severe form of nearsightedness, according to a study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics on May 2, 2013. Nearsightedness – also known as myopia – is the most common human eye disease in the world. ...

Metal elements and molecules interact in the body but visualizing them together has always been a challenge. Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies in Japan have developed a new molecular imaging technology that enables them to visualize bio-metals and bio-molecules simultaneously in a live mouse. This new technology will enable researchers to study the complex interactions between metal elements and molecules in living organisms. Metal elements such as zinc, iron and copper are present in trace amounts in the body and play an important role ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (May 2, 2013) – Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch, who helped transform the study of genetics by creating the first transgenic mouse in 1974, is again revolutionizing how genetically altered animal models are created and perhaps even redefining what species may serve as models. "This new method is a game changer," says Jaenisch, who is also a professor of biology at MIT. "We can now make a mouse with five mutations in just three to four weeks, whereas the conventional way would take three to four years. And it's rather straightforward, ...

It is the first time that a clear link has been made between babies who grow to above average size at birth and risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder and follows from a study of more than 40,000 child health records in Sweden. The research, led by The University of Manchester, also confirms earlier research which reported that premature and poorly grown, low weight babies appear more susceptible to the condition. Autism affects how individuals interact with the world and with other people and there is no known cure. One child in 100 has the condition in the UK according ...

Children admitted to UK intensive care units in out-of-hours emergencies are at no greater risk of dying than children arriving during normal working hours, according to new research. However, mortality rates are significantly higher in the winter, even after taking into account added health risks for children in the colder months. The study, published by researchers at the University of Leeds and the University of Leicester in the Journal of Pediatrics, is the first large-scale analysis of the influence of admission times on deaths in paediatric intensive care units. ...

The body's brown fat cells play a key role in the development of obesity and diabetes. Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now discovered that we humans have two different kinds of brown fat cells and not one kind as previously thought. This discovery, now published in Nature Medicine, opens up new opportunities for future medicines that exploit the brown fat cells' ability to consume calories. Unlike white fat cells, which store the body's surplus energy in the form of fat, brown fat cells have the unique property of being able ...

Researchers at the University of Warwick and Queen Mary, University of London have shown that exercise is not effective in reducing burden of depression among elderly care home residents. Exercise is a low risk intervention that can improve mental health but the findings of a National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment Programme study, published in The Lancet, conclude that there is a requirement for alternative approaches to reduce the burden of depression in frail, very elderly, care home residents. The large randomised controlled trial sought ...

Scientists have made a fundamental discovery about how the properties of embryonic stem cells are controlled. The study, which focuses on the process by which these cells renew and increase in number, could help research to find new treatments. Researchers have found that a protein, which switches on genes to allow embryonic stem cells to self-renew, works better when the natural occurring level of the protein is reduced. It was previously thought that once levels of this protein – called Oct 4 – were reduced the numbers of new stem cells being produced would also ...

University of Granada researchers have successfully manufactured self-compacting concrete using ash from the combustion of olive pruning residue pellets. Due to its plasticity and cohesion, this type of concrete needs no compaction when used in construction and has many advantages over conventional concrete, resulting in considerable savings of time and money. In an article published in "Construction and Building Materials", the researchers present preliminary results on the use of fly ash, produced in domestic boiler combustion of biomass olive residue pellets, as a ...

Figs and fig trees are familiar to a wide cross-section of human society, both as a common food and for their spiritual importance. What is less well understood is the global nature of this association between figs and humans, which is maintained across species, continents and societies. This relationship is explored by David Wilson of Ecology and Heritage Partners and Anna Wilson from the University of Melbourne in Australia in a paper published in the Springer journal Human Ecology. Using examples from around the world, the authors show that figs are a vital resource ...

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2013—Asbestos was once called a miracle material because of its toughness and fire-resistant properties. It was used as insulation, incorporated into cement and even woven into firemen's protective clothing. Over time, however, scientists pinned the cause of lung cancers such as mesothelioma on asbestos fiber inhalation. Asbestos was banned in the many industrialized countries in the 1980s, but the threat lingers on in the ceilings, walls and floors of old buildings and homes. Now a team of researchers from the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K. ...

The new feature of the antidepressant drugs of the 1990s was that they had milder side-effects than their predecessors. Combined with aggressive marketing, this meant that annual sales in Sweden increased from just under EUR 18 million to over EUR 100 million in the space of just a few years. Most countries have an established system for self-regulation of pharmaceuticals advertising. Sweden has been held up internationally as a good example. The Swedish pharmaceutical industry's trade organisation appoints an information examiner to monitor the marketing to ensure it ...