Cancer researchers are increasingly aware that in addition to genetic mutations in a cancer itself, characteristics of the surrounding tissue can promote or suppress tumor growth. One of these important tissue characteristics is inflammation – most cancers prosper in and attach to inflamed tissue and so many cancers have developed ways to create it. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation shows that the protein SPARC (Secreted Protein Acidic and Rich in Cysteine) acts much like an anti-inflammatory drug, attempting ...

Could probiotics help HIV patients? Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs are the first line therapy for patients with HIV; however, ARV-treated, HIV-infected individuals still have a higher mortality rate than uninfected individuals. During the course of infection, HIV patients develop inflammation that damages the walls of the intestines, known as the gut mucosa, allowing intestinal microbes to escape and enter the blood stream to cause a life-threatening systemic infection. The health of the gut mucosa is significantly influenced by the complement of bacteria in the gut and ...

Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs are the first line therapy for patients with HIV; however, ARV-treated, HIV-infected individuals still have a higher mortality rate than uninfected individuals. During the course of infection, HIV patients develop inflammation that damages the walls of the intestines, known as the gut mucosa, allowing intestinal microbes to escape and enter the blood stream to cause a life-threatening systemic infection. The health of the gut mucosa is significantly influenced by the complement of bacteria in the gut and there is mounting evidence that probiotic ...

Viruses prompt oncogenic transformation by genetically altering infected cells. Several recent studies have demonstrated that viruses alter the expression of microRNAs, non-coding RNA molecules that can block the expression of target genes. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Xiaoje Xu and colleagues at the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology report that miR-148a is repressed by hepatitis B virus (HBV) X protein (HBx) to promote growth and metastasis of liver cancer. In normal liver cells, miR-148a represses the expression of the oncogenic protein HPIP, ...

PHILADELPHIA - One of the most insidious ways that parasitic diseases such as malaria and toxoplasmosis wreak their havoc is by hijacking their host's natural cellular processes, turning self against self. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University, led by Doron Greenbaum, Ph.D., assistant professor of Pharmacology at Penn, have identified the cell signaling pathway used by these parasites to escape from and destroy their host cells and infect new cells -- pointing the way toward possible new strategies to ...

On the left of this new image there is a dark column resembling a cloud of smoke. To the right shines a small group of brilliant stars. At first glance these two features could not be more different, but they are in fact closely linked. The cloud contains huge amounts of cool cosmic dust and is a nursery where new stars are being born. It is likely that the Sun formed in a similar star formation region more than four billion years ago. This cloud is known as Lupus 3 and it lies about 600 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). The section ...

PITTSBURGH—For the first time, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging (CCBI) have used a new combination of neural imaging methods to discover exactly how the human brain adapts to injury. The research, published in Cerebral Cortex, shows that when one brain area loses functionality, a "back-up" team of secondary brain areas immediately activates, replacing not only the unavailable area but also its confederates. "The human brain has a remarkable ability to adapt to various types of trauma, such as traumatic brain injury and stroke, ...

WASHINGTON, DC, January 16, 2013 — Psychiatric disorders are prevalent among current and former inmates of correctional institutions, but what has been less clear is whether incarceration causes these disorders or, alternatively, whether inmates have these problems before they enter prison. A study co-authored by Jason Schnittker, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, shows that many of the most common psychiatric disorders found among former inmates, including impulse control disorders, emerge in childhood and adolescence and, therefore, ...

Mass poultry vaccination programmes introduced to combat Salmonella infections have led to a dramatic fall in the number of cases since the late 1990s, according to a researcher at the University of Liverpool. Salmonella are important food-borne pathogens worldwide, causing diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea, fever and abdominal pain. There are currently around 6 million cases of illness from Salmonella across the EU each year, the majority of which are linked to food items such as eggs, chicken, beef, pork, salad vegetables and dairy products. Between 1981 and 1991, the ...

This press release is available in French. Quebec City, January 16, 2013—Genetics plays a major role in peer rejection and victimization in early elementary school, according to a study recently published on the website of the journal Child Development by a team directed by Dr. Michel Boivin, a research professor at Université Laval's School of Psychology. To come to this conclusion, Boivin and his team tested over 800 twins at three time points: when they were in kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 4. This sample consisted of 41% monozygotic twins—"true" twins who share ...

Since 1992 the number of deaths linked to breast cancer in Spain has decreased among young and middle aged patients but not among the elderly. Spanish researchers also predict that it will continue to decline over the next decade, although more slowly as observed up until now. A new study headed by a team of Spanish researchers has analysed breast cancer mortality in Spain among different age groups from 1981 to 2007, setting a valid prediction up until 2023. Studying this age-related tendency is interesting because any improvement could have significant social and ...

Charles Dickens' tales are filled with immortal characters — think of A Christmas Carol's Scrooge and Great Expectations' Miss Havisham. But more than whims of literary invention, his characters and plots often deal with the difficult social realities of Victorian England. His portrayal of the disabled — both in terms of medicine and the social discrimination they faced — is no exception. "Social attitudes towards the disabled can often be traced through art, from ancient times through today," explains Prof. Avi Ohry of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, ...

Scientists at the Academy of Finland's Centre of Excellence in Computational Inference Research have developed novel computational methods that have yielded essential knowledge of how hospital-acquired bacteria spread and develop. These new methods, based on randomised algorithms, make it possible to analyse extensive genomic data significantly faster and more efficiently than previously. By applying these results, it is possible to better follow hospital-acquired infections in the future, or even fight them in real time. The new methods are used to develop models of ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Despite modern designs intended to allow migratory fish to pass, hydropower dams on major Northeast U.S. waterways, including the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers, have failed to let economically important species such as salmon, shad and river herring reach their spawning grounds, say a team of economists and fish ecologists including Adrian Jordaan of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This raises serious questions about the impact of new dams now being planned and constructed on major waterways worldwide, say the researchers in the current ...

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- A Kansas State University researcher is developing more efficient ways to save costs, time and energy when creating nanomaterials and lithium-ion batteries. Gurpreet Singh, assistant professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, and his research team have published two recent articles on newer, cheaper and faster methods for creating nanomaterials that can be used for lithium-ion batteries. In the past year, Singh has published eight articles -- five of which involve lithium-ion battery research. "We are exploring new methods for quick and cost-effective ...

Obese and overweight people are gaining weight rapidly in low-and middle-income countries while those who are severely undernourished are not experiencing similar weight gains, according to a University of Toronto and Harvard School of Public Health study. This growing divide may force governments in the developing world to care for people who fall dramatically short on their calorie intake while simultaneously treating health problems associated with obesity, including diabetes and heart disease. "One might think that as a country grows economically, the majority of ...

CAMBRIGDE, MA -- Epileptic seizures occur when neurons in the brain become excessively active. However, a new study from MIT neuroscientists suggests that some seizures may originate in non-neuronal cells known as glia, which were long believed to play a mere supporting role in brain function. In a study of fruit flies, the researchers identified a glial-cell mutation that makes the flies much more prone to epileptic seizures. Mutations in the gene, which influences glial cells' communication with neurons, appear to make neurons much more excitable. That excitability ...

Radiocarbon dates of tiny fossilised marine animals found in Antarctica's seabed sediments offer new clues about the recent rapid ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and help scientists make better predictions about future sea-level rise. This region of the icy continent is thought to be vulnerable to regional climate warming and changes in ocean circulation. Reporting this month in the journal Geology a team of researchers from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the University of Tromsø presents ...

NEW YORK (January 16, 2013) — A team of American and Chinese conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and University of Montana recently counted nearly 1,000 wild yaks from a remote area of the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau. The finding may indicate a comeback for this species, which was decimated by overhunting in the mid 20th century. The team counted 990 yaks in a rugged area called Hoh Xil – a national nature reserve nearly the size of West Virginia but devoid of people. The remote region lies in the mid-eastern Tibetan-Himalayan highlands, home to some ...

High-performance infrared cameras are crucial for civilian and military applications such as night-vision goggles and search-and-rescue operations. Existing cameras usually fall into one of two types: active cameras, which use an invisible infrared source to illuminate the scene, usually in the near or short-wavelength infrared; and passive cameras, which detect the thermal radiation given off by a warm object, typically in the mid- or long-wavelength infrared, without the need for any illumination. Both camera types have advantages and disadvantages in the field. Integrating ...

For the last ten years, theoretical physicists have shown that the intense connections generated between particles as established in the quantum law of 'entanglement' may hold the key to eventual teleportation of quantum information. Now, for the first time, researchers have worked out how entanglement could be 'recycled' to increase the efficiency of these connections. Published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the result could conceivably take us a step closer to sci-fi style teleportation in the future, although this research is purely theoretical in nature. ...

In an advance toward stain-proof, spill-proof clothing, protective garments and other products that shrug off virtually every liquid — from blood and ketchup to concentrated acids — scientists are reporting development of new "superomniphobic" surfaces. Their report on surfaces that display extreme repellency to two families of liquids — Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquids — appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Anish Tuteja and colleagues point out that scientists have previously reported "omniphobic" surfaces, the term meaning that such surfaces can ...

This press release is available in French. Montreal, January 16, 2013 – Language mixing – using elements from two languages in the same sentence – is frequent among bilingual parents and could pose a challenge for vocabulary acquisition by one- and two-year-old children, according to a new study by Concordia University psychology professor Krista Byers-Heinlein. Those results are likely temporary, however, and are often counterbalanced by cognitive advantages afforded to children raised in a bilingual environment. With immigration and international mobility on the ...

Many mothers of newborns in neonatal intensive care units have difficulty finding private, quiet places in the hospital to express milk, according to a new study from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. The lack of privacy—if it causes mothers to miss feedings or makes them too timid to express milk—is an even greater health risk for low-weight premature newborns, because milk enriched with the mother's antibodies helps ward off infection and gastrointestinal problems. "The meaning of privacy might differ for mothers and the ...

Public relations professionals who have provided ethics counsel to senior management are at least as fervent about serving the public interest — sometimes even more so — as they are about their duty to their organizations, according to a Baylor University researcher. A new study of 30 senior public relations professionals, most of whom had served as an "organizational conscience," showed the individuals viewed themselves as an "independent voice" in the organization and not "mired by its perspective or politics," said study author Marlene S. Neill, Ph.D., a lecturer in ...