Obese men were more likely to have precancerous lesions detected in their benign prostate biopsies compared with non-obese men, and were at a greater risk for subsequently developing prostate cancer, according to researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. The findings will be published online in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Our study is focused on a large group of men who have had a prostate biopsy that is benign but are still at a very high risk for prostate cancer," ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — In the first study of its kind, lay health workers increased screening rates for hepatitis B virus (HBV) and knowledge about the disease among a group of Asian Americans, known as the Hmong, UC Davis researchers have found. The study appears online today in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Hmong Americans, who originate from the mountainous areas of Laos, are at elevated risk for chronic hepatitis B — the major risk factor for liver cancer. They're also at greater risk than either white or other Asian Americans for poor outcomes from ...

A group of researchers from the University of Copenhagen has taken a significant step towards understanding the reasons for both diabetes and growth hormone deficiency. Their new discoveries centre on the body's ability to regulate certain hormones, and their findings have just been published in the respected scientific journal PLOS Biology. Some people suffering from diabetes or affected by poor growth most likely have problems with the so-called PICK1 protein, a protein that plays a decisive role in the formation of both growth hormone and insulin in the human body. ...

(Boston, MA) April 23, 2013 – Consumption of white potatoes is linked to increased intake of potassium, according to a new study released today at the Experimental Biology 2013 Annual Meeting. For each additional kilocalorie of white potatoes consumed, there was a 1.6 mg increase in potassium intake among adults 19-years-old and older, and a 1.7 mg increase among children and teens from 2 to 18 years of age. Gender, age, race/ethnicity and educational attainment, but not income or body mass index, were also highly predictive of potassium intake. Potassium is considered ...

Our gut is home to trillions of bacteria, numbering more than the cells in the rest of our body, and these bacteria help us to digest our food, absorb nutrients and strengthen our immune system. This complex bacterial ecosystem, called the gut microbiota, also helps to prevent bad bacteria from colonising our bodies and making us ill. As part of the symbiotic relationship between the gut microbiota and our bodies, the bacteria derive nutrition from our food and convert it into compounds that we can't make ourselves. Some of these compounds are part of the arsenal that ...

Boston, MA – A prospective study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) observed an association between risk of second primary cancer and history of non-melanoma skin cancer in white men and women. The researchers found that people with a history of non-melanoma skin cancer had a modestly increased risk of getting cancer in the future, specifically breast and lung cancer in women and melanoma in both men and women. Non-melanoma skin cancer, which includes basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma, is the most common form of cancer in the United States. The ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – Geosphere papers posted online 4 and 17 April 2013 use LiDAR, ALSM (Airborne Laser Swath Mapping), EarthScope, CHIRP (compressed high-intensity radar pulse), and IODP (International Ocean Drilling Program) data to further geoscientists' understanding of the nature of Earth. New locations studied: Sakhalin, in the Russian far east; Peña de Bernal nation monument, México; and Andalshatten batholith, central Norway. Geosphere's online-only articles feature a variety of article lengths, stunning figures, and animations or 3-D digital displays. You'll ...

Park Ridge, Ill. (April 23, 2013) – This week at Experimental Biology (EB) 2013, scientists from around the world are gathering to share research on a variety of topics, including nutrition and health. Given the growing global burden of chronic disease, there is particular interest in the important role of diet and nutrition in overall health. Several studies presented at the conference looked specifically at the role of whole egg consumption in high-risk groups, including those with metabolic syndrome and heart disease, as well as the satiating effects of high-protein ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – A research team led by Cornell University's Creative Machines Lab has created a computer algorithm that can be used to witness virtual creatures evolving their squishy, muscle-like features in order to teach themselves to walk. The team incorporated concepts from developmental biology and how nature builds complex animals – from jellyfish to jaguars. The result is an array of bizarre, simulated robots that evolve a diverse series of gaits and gallops. The paper describing these soft-bodied robots will appear in Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary ...

For much of Asia, the pace of life is tuned to rhythms of monsoons. The summer rainy season is especially important for securing the water and food supplies for more than a billion people. Its variations can mean the difference between drought and flood. Now a Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego-led study reports on a crucial connection that could drastically improve the ability of forecasters to reliably predict the monsoon a few months in advance. Yu Kosaka and Shang-Ping Xie from Scripps and colleagues from NOAA found that a winter appearance of the ...

WASHINGTON, DC, April 23, 2013 — Even within the same school, lower-achieving students often are taught by less-experienced teachers, as well as by teachers who received their degrees from less-competitive colleges, according to a new study by researchers from the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the World Bank. The study, using data from one of the nation's largest school districts, also shows that student class assignments vary within schools by a teacher's gender and race. In a paper published in the April issue of Sociology of Education, the researchers present ...

BOSTON, MA – April 23, 2013 – Two of the most serious health conditions facing Americans today—obesity and cancer—are the subject of new mango nutrition research presented this week at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) in Boston. This preliminary research identifies important findings that merit further investigation to determine whether mangos can potentially have a positive effect on blood sugar in obese individuals and help to limit inflammation. Preliminary research examines effects on blood sugar A study led by Edralin Lucas, ...

By using swarms of untethered grippers, each as small as a speck of dust, Johns Hopkins engineers and physicians say they have devised a new way to perform biopsies that could provide a more effective way to access narrow conduits in the body as well as find early signs of cancer or other diseases. In two recent peer-reviewed journal articles, the team reported successful animal testing of the tiny tools, which require no batteries, wires or tethers as they seize internal tissue samples. The devices are called "mu-grippers," incorporating the Greek letter that represents ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When a team of University of Illinois engineers set out to grow nanowires of a compound semiconductor on top of a sheet of graphene, they did not expect to discover a new paradigm of epitaxy. The self-assembled wires have a core of one composition and an outer layer of another, a desired trait for many advanced electronics applications. Led by professor Xiuling Li, in collaboration with professors Eric Pop and Joseph Lyding, all professors of electrical and computer engineering, the team published its findings in the journal Nano Letters. Nanowires, ...

"When designing next generation solar energy conversion systems, we must first develop ways to more efficiently utilize the solar spectrum," explained Lane Martin, whose research group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has done just that. "This is a fundamentally new way of approaching these matters," said Martin, who is an assistant professor of materials science and engineering (MatSE) at Illinois. "From these materials we can imagine carbon-neutral energy production of clean-burning fuels, waste water purification and remediation, and much more." Martin's ...

Alexandria, VA – In 2009, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission (CRC), a body that controls and regulates coastal development in North Carolina, asked 13 members of its advisory Science Panel to prepare a report on the state of sea-level rise in North Carolina. After the report was published, there was a subsequent maelstrom regarding its utility and validity. In this month's issue of EARTH Magazine, Orrin Pilkey and Alexander Glass from Duke University describe what happened. Based on the latest scientific studies both locally and globally, the Science Panel's ...

Many collisions occur between asteroids and other objects in our solar system, but scientists are not always able to detect or track these impacts from Earth. The "rogue debris" created by such collisions can sometimes catch us by surprise. UCLA space scientists have now devised a way to monitor these types of collisions in interplanetary space by using a new method to determine the mass of magnetic clouds that result from the impacts. Their findings, published online this month in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science, are the result of nearly 30 years of observations ...

In their article "Over 30 million psychedelic users in the United States", Teri S Krebs and Pål-Ørjan Johansen from the Department of Neuroscience at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, use data from a randomly-selected sample of over 57,000 individuals surveyed for the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), to estimate lifetime prevalence of psychedelic use. The authors estimate that approximately 32 million people have used LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), psilocybin ("magic mushrooms"), or mescaline (peyote and other cacti) in their lifetime. ...

COLLEGE PARK, MD - The NASA Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers their clearest view yet of Comet ISON, a newly-discovered sun grazer comet that may light up the sky later this year, or come so close to the Sun that it disintegrates. A University of Maryland-led research team is closely following ISON, which offers a rare opportunity to witness a comet's evolution as it makes its first-ever journey through the inner solar system. Like all comets, ISON is a "dirty snowball" – a clump of frozen gases mixed with dust, formed in a distant reach of the solar system, ...

Scientists at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of California at Davis, led by Dr. John Imig and Dr. Bruce Hammock have determined the synergistic actions of inhibiting soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) with tAUCB (trans-4-(4-[3-adamantan-1-yl-ureid]-cyclohexyloxy)-benzoic acid) and activating peroxisome proliferator-activator receptorγ (PPARγ) with the thiazolidinedione rosiglitazone on the pathological progression of cardiometabolic syndrome. Cardiometabolic syndrome occurs with obesity and hypertension increasing the risks for cardiovascular ...

Researchers at Micro Orthopaedics, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, led by Dr. Ai-xi Yu, have suggested that articular cartilage defects can be repaired by a novel thermo-sensitive injectable hydrogel engineered with gene modified bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (BMSCs). The chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol composite hydrogel containing hTGFβ-1 gene modified BMSCs was injected into rabbits with defective articular cartilage. Sixteen weeks later the defected cartilage regenerated and was proven to be hyaline cartilage. This work can be found in the January ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif.—Air pollution from wildland fires and urban and agricultural areas in California is diminishing air quality at Devils Postpile National Monument, according to a recent study published in the journal Atmospheric Environment. Dr. Andrzej Bytnerowicz, a research ecologist from the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station, and a team of scientists measured air quality at Devils Postpile National Monument in the eastern Sierra Nevada and found occasionally high concentrations of ozone caused by wildland fires and air pollution from the California ...

URBANA – Following the drought of 2012, the prices of corn and soybean meal for livestock diets have increased significantly. In an effort to reduce their costs, pork producers are looking for alternative sources of calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P). Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed equations for calculating the concentrations of these minerals in byproducts from the rendering industry. Professor of animal sciences Hans H. Stein and his team determined the digestibility of Ca and P in meat and bone meal (MBM), which is traditionally used as a source ...

PHILADELPHIA— Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that an area of the brain that initiates behavioral changes had greater activation in smokers who watched anti-smoking ads with strong arguments versus those with weaker ones, and irrespective of flashy elements, like bright and rapidly changing scenes, loud sounds and unexpected scenario twists. Those smokers also had significantly less nicotine metabolites in their urine when tested a month after viewing those ads, the team reports in a new study published online ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (April 23, 2013) -- A specific region of the brain is in play when children consider their identity and social status as they transition into adolescence -- that often-turbulent time of reaching puberty and entering middle school, says a University of Oregon psychologist. In a study of 27 neurologically typical children who underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at ages 10 and 13, activity in the brain's ventromedial prefrontal cortex increased dramatically when the subjects responded to questions about how they view themselves. The findings, ...