Microbes present in the gut can affect the severity of kidney disease brought on by melamine poisoning, according to an international study led by Professor Wei Jia at the University of North Carolina in collaboration with the research group of Professor Jeremy Nicholson at Imperial College London. In 2008, nearly 300,000 Chinese children were hospitalised with kidney disease brought on by supplies of powdered milk deliberately contaminated with melamine to boost the apparent protein content. Although melamine was known to combine with uric acid in the children's bodies ...

How green algae produce hydrogen in the dark is reported by biologists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in the "Journal of Biological Chemistry". Hereby, they have uncovered a mechanism for the production of the gas which has hardly been examined before; usually, researchers are interested in light-driven hydrogen synthesis. "Hydrogen could help us out of the energy crisis", says Prof. Dr. Thomas Happe, head of the working group Photobiotechnology. "If you want to make green algae produce more hydrogen, it is important to understand all the production pathways." Green algae ...

Philadelphia, PA, February 14, 2013 – The 18th century natural philosopher Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed that the necks of giraffes lengthened as a consequence of the cumulative effort, across generations, to reach leaves just out of their grasp. This view of evolution was largely abandoned with the advent of modern genetic theories to explain the transmission of most important traits and many medical illnesses across generations. However, there has long been the impression that major life events, like psychological traumas, not only have effects on individuals who directly ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 14, 2013 – Adults undergoing bariatric surgery who are more physically active are less likely to have depressive symptoms and to have recently received medication or counseling for depression or anxiety than their less active counterparts, according to new research led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. "Typically, clinical professionals manage their patients' depression and anxiety with counseling and/or antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication," said Wendy C. King, Ph.D., epidemiologist at Pitt Public Health and lead ...

(WASHINGTON)- While advancements in cancer treatment over the last several decades have improved patient survival rates for certain cancers, some patients remain at risk of developing treatment-related leukemia, according to results of a study published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). Chemotherapy is often a highly effective treatment for cancer, but certain drugs have also been shown in a range of studies to increase a patient's risk of developing therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia (tAML), a rare but frequently fatal ...

Scientists investigating how certain genes affect an individual's risk of developing coronary heart disease have identified a new therapeutic target, according to research published today in The American Journal of Human Genetics. They have discovered that an enzyme known as ADAMTS7 plays a crucial role in the build-up of cells in the coronary arteries which lead to coronary heart disease. Coronary heart disease (also known as coronary artery disease) is the nation's biggest killer, with around 94,000 deaths in the UK each year*. The condition happens when the blood ...

For the first time scientists studying the cellular processes underlying the body's response to healing have revealed how a flash of calcium is the very first step in repairing damaged tissue. The findings, published in Current Biology, could lead to new therapies that speed up the healing process following injury or surgery. Until recently, very little was known about how damaged tissue activates and attracts the first white blood cells to the wound — the first stage in the healing process. However, researchers from the University of Bristol's School of Biochemistry ...

Mice with many of the pathologies of Alzheimer's Disease showed fewer signs of the disease when given a protein-restricted diet supplemented with specific amino acids every other week for four months. Mice at advanced stages of the disease were put on the new diet. They showed improved cognitive abilities over their non-dieting peers when their memory was tested using mazes. In addition, fewer of their neurons contained abnormal levels of a damaged protein, called "tau," which accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Dietary protein is the major dietary regulator ...

Utilizing optical characteristics first demonstrated by the ancient Romans, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created a novel, ultra-sensitive tool for chemical, DNA, and protein analysis. "With this device, the nanoplasmonic spectroscopy sensing, for the first time, becomes colorimetric sensing, requiring only naked eyes or ordinary visible color photography," explained Logan Liu, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and of bioengineering at Illinois. "It can be used for chemical imaging, biomolecular imaging, ...

The first animal model of recent human evolution reveals that a single mutation produced several traits common in East Asian peoples, from thicker hair to denser sweat glands, an international team of researchers report. The team, led by researchers from Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, Fudan University and University College London, also modeled the spread of the gene mutation across Asia and North America, concluding that it most likely arose about 30,000 years ago in what is today central ...

Amsterdam, February 14, 2013 – Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today the publication of a clinical guide by the European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS) in its journal Maturitas on lichen sclerosus with summary recommendations. Vulvar lichen sclerosus (LS) is a chronic inflammatory disease which affects genital labial, perineal and perianal areas, producing significant discomfort and psychological distress. The purpose of this clinical guide is to provide advice on early recognition ...

CLEVELAND — Using modified laws of gravity, researchers from Case Western Reserve University and Weizmann Institute of Science closely predicted a key property measured in faint dwarf galaxies that are satellites of the nearby giant spiral galaxy Andromeda. The predicted property in this study is the velocity dispersion, which is the average velocity of objects within a galaxy relative to each other. Astronomers can use velocity dispersion to determine the accelerations of objects within the galaxy and, roughly, the mass of a galaxy, and vice-versa. To calculate the ...

CHAMPAIGN, lll. — 2012 marked the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, which established regulations for the discharge of pollutants to waterways and supported the building of sewage treatment plants. Despite these advances, sewage remains a major source of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) and naturally occurring hormones found in the environment. Many rural communities in the United States use aerated lagoon systems to treat their wastewater. The wastewater is pumped into at least one manmade aerated lagoon, in which oxygen-loving and anaerobic ...

Santa Barbara, Calif. –– Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for before-and-after analysis, a team of researchers including a UC Santa Barbara graduate student discovered positive changes in brain activity in children with autism who received a particular type of behavioral therapy. Work completed at Yale University's Child Study Center used fMRI as the tool for measuring the impact of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) –– therapy pioneered at UCSB by Lynn Koegel, clinical director of the Koegel Autism Center –– on both lower- and higher-functioning children ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Obesity rates have increased dramatically in the last few decades. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, African Americans make up more than 60 percent of the overweight and obese population, while only 13 percent of the total population. A new study from the University of Missouri School of Journalism shows that American newspapers, and specifically newspapers geared toward an African-American audience, frame stories on obesity in a negative way. Hyunmin Lee, who performed her research while a doctoral student at MU, says this negative framing could have ...

In laboratory studies, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a way to personalize chemotherapy drug selection for cancer patients by using cell lines created from their own tumors. If the technique is successful in further studies, it could replace current laboratory tests to optimize drug selection that have proven technically challenging, of limited use, and slow, the researchers say. Oncologists typically choose anticancer drugs based on the affected organs' location and/or the appearance and activity of cancer cells when viewed under ...

There's a billboard up ahead, a roadside sign full of language and imagery. Next stop: the emotionally distracted zone. One University of Alberta researcher has discovered that language used on billboards can provoke an emotional response that affects our driving abilities. And whether the words have a negative or positive connotation seems to determine whether the attention wanders or the foot gets heavier. Lead study author Michelle Chan says that although plenty of literature exists on road rage, none of it deals with external emotional stimuli. Chan and her U of ...

Women who live in a culture in which they are objectified by others may in turn begin to objectify themselves. This kind of self-objectification may reduce women's involvement in social activism, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Psychological scientist Rachel Calogero of the University of Kent, Canterbury hypothesized that women who self-objectify — valuing their appearance over their competence — would show less motivation to challenge the gender status quo, ultimately reducing their ...

New research sheds light on how the brain encodes objects with multiple features, a fundamental task for the perceptual system. The study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that we have limited ability to perceive mixed color-shape associations among objects that exist in several locations. Research suggests that neurons that encode a certain feature — shape or color, for example — fire in synchrony with neurons that encode other features of the same object. Psychological scientists Liat Goldfarb of the ...

ANN ARBOR—Scientists have known for nearly a century that cold-blooded animals, such as worms, flies and fish all live longer in cold environments, but have not known exactly why. Researchers at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute have identified a genetic program that promotes longevity of roundworms in cold environments—and this genetic program also exists in warm-blooded animals, including humans. "This raises the intriguing possibility that exposure to cold air—or pharmacological stimulation of the cold-sensitive genetic program—may promote longevity ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Healthy menopausal women carrying a well-known genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease showed measurable signs of accelerated biological aging, a new study has found. However, in carriers who started hormone therapy at menopause and remained on that therapy, this acceleration was absent, the researchers said. Hormone therapy for non-carriers of the risk factor, a gene variant called ApoE4, had no protective effect on their biological aging. "This shows that ApoE4 is contributing to aging at the cellular level well before any outward symptoms of ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — New Mayo Clinic research suggests that blood may hold clues to whether post-menopausal women may be at an increased risk for areas of brain damage that can lead to memory problems and possibly increased risk of stroke. The study shows that blood's tendency to clot may contribute to areas of brain damage called white matter hyperintensities. The findings are published in the Feb. 13 online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study involved 95 women with an average age of 53 who recently went through menopause. ...

High school students whose friends' average grade point average (GPA) is greater than their own have a tendency to increase their own GPA over the course of a year, according to research published February 13 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Hiroki Sayama from Binghamton University and his collaborators from Maine-Endwell High School in Endwell, New York, including four high school student researchers. Previous studies have shown that a student's social network can influence obesity, emotional state and other cognitive traits and behavior. However, this is the first ...

Standing and walking for longer stretches improves insulin sensitivity and blood lipid levels more than an hour of intense exercise each day does, but only if the calories spent in both forms of exercise are similar. The findings are published February 13 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Hans Savelberg and colleagues from Maastricht University, Netherlands. The researchers recruited eighteen normal-weight 19 to 24-year-old participants for their study and asked them to follow three regimes. In the first, participants were instructed to sit for 14 hours each day ...

A new owl is the first endemic bird species discovered on the island of Lombok, Indonesia, according to research published February 13 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by an international team headed by George Sangster of the Swedish Museum of Natural History and colleagues from other institutions. The new species has long been confused with a more widespread Indonesian owl species because of its similar plumage. However, in September 2003, two members of the team independently discovered that the vocalizations of the owls on Lombok were unique and different from ...