PITTSBURGH, March 16 – Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have identified a cell-signaling pathway that plays a key role in increasing insulin secretion during pregnancy and, when blocked, leads to the development of gestational diabetes. Their findings are available online today in Diabetes, one of the journals of the American Diabetes Association. During pregnancy, pancreatic beta cells should expand and produce more insulin to adapt to the needs of the growing baby, explained senior investigator Adolfo Garcia-Ocana, Ph.D., associate professor ...

CHICAGO – In a study that included a nationally representative sample of nearly 45,000 adults, participants who met more of seven recommended cardiovascular health behaviors or factors (such as not smoking, having normal cholesterol levels, eating a healthy diet), had a lower risk of death compared to participants who met fewer factors, although only a low percentage of adults met all seven factors, according to a study appearing in JAMA. The study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at a specialty meeting of the American Heart Association. "Cardiovascular ...

The northeastern U.S. should prepare for a surge in Lyme disease this spring. And we can blame fluctuations in acorns and mouse populations, not the mild winter. So reports Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY. What do acorns have to do with illness? Acorn crops vary from year-to-year, with boom-and-bust cycles influencing the winter survival and breeding success of white-footed mice. These small mammals pack a one-two punch: they are preferred hosts for black-legged ticks and they are very effective ...

Nanoparticles containing chitosan have been shown to have effective antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus saprophyticus and Escherichia coli. The materials could be used as a protective wound-healing material to avoid opportunistic infection as well as working to facilitate wound healing. Chitosan is a natural, non-toxic and biodegradable, polysaccharide readily obtained from chitin, the main component of the shells of shrimp, lobster and the beak of the octopus and squid. Its antimicrobial activity is well known and has been exploited in dentistry to prevent ...

New biotechnological and chemical methods will facilitate efficient production of chemicals, materials and fuels from renewable natural resources. The Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence (CoE) in White Biotechnology – Green Chemistry Research focuses on the research and development of microbial cells, or cell factories, for producing new useful compounds from sugars in plant biomass. These compounds can be used, for example, for manufacturing bioplastics or in medical applications. "By means of gene technology, we can modify microbial metabolism and thereby produce ...

Coming from the Asian continent, Drosophila suzukii has only been in Spain for a short time. Far away from slipping through into the Iberian Peninsula, it accelerated towards the north of Europe where it has already crossed the Alps. Amongst its preferred target are cherries and red fruits but any type of fruit is suitable for it to lay its eggs. This insect is posing a threat to the fruit of more and more European countries. "Out of the 3,000 known species of Drosophilae, commonly named the vinegar fly, only two are potentially dangerous to fruit crops. One of them is ...

Have you ever wondered how life is sustained in environments like deserts, deep seas or the polar regions? How do organisms adapt and thrive in such harsh conditions, and what challenges do they face as a result of human activities and climate change, especially climate "extremization"? Shedding light on some of these issues is the objective of the European Science Foundation's (ESF) session on 27 March at Planet Under Pressure 2012. The session will look at different aspects of life in extreme environments - from knowledge to sustainable exploitation of new resources under ...

Montreal, March 16, 2012 – A clinical study co-led by the Montreal Heart Institute and Innovaderm Research Inc., which was presented today at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology, shows that a new treatment for psoriasis could be associated with a significant decrease in vascular inflammation, a major risk factor of cardiovascular disease. Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the skin and joints that affects up to 3% of the population. This disease is associated with a greater risk of heart attack (infarction) and stroke. The goal of this ...

Early snowmelt caused by climate change in the Colorado Rocky Mountains snowballs into two chains of events: a decrease in the number of flowers, which, in turn, decreases available nectar. The result is decline in a population of the Mormon Fritillary butterfly, Speyeria mormonia. Using long-term data on date of snowmelt, butterfly population sizes and flower numbers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Carol Boggs, a biologist at Stanford University, and colleagues uncovered multiple effects of early snowmelt on the growth rate of an insect population. "Predicting ...

In the wilds of New York City--or as wild as you can get that close to skyscrapers--scientists have found a new leopard frog species. For years, biologists mistook it for a more widespread variety of leopard frog. While biologists regularly discover new species in remote rainforests, finding this one in ponds and marshes--sometimes within view of the Statue of Liberty--is a big surprise, said scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles; Rutgers University; the University of California, Davis and the University of Alabama. "For a new species to go unrecognized ...

You've been feeling under the weather. You Google your symptoms. A half-hour later, you're convinced it's nothing serious—or afraid you have cancer. More than 60 percent of Americans get their health information online, and a majority of those decide whether to see a doctor based on what they find. "Wow, this is an era of self-diagnosis," thought Arizona State University psychologist Virginia Kwan, learning that statistic. How might information accessed online affect individual health decisions? In a new study, Kwan and her colleagues found that the way information is ...

TORONTO, ON—Scientists at the University of Toronto have found a molecular mechanism that plays a key role in the transition of Candida albicans yeast into disease-causing fungus—one of the leading causes of hospital-acquired infection. The finding highlights the importance of heat in fungal growth, and provides a new target for drug therapies to counter Candida albicans infection. Candida albicans is a normally harmless yeast that is present in all humans. It becomes infectious in various genetic and environmental conditions, with temperature as a key determinant. It ...

NEW YORK (March 16, 2012)—A rapid increase in shipping in the formerly ice-choked waterways of the Arctic poses a significant increase in risk to the region's marine mammals and the local communities that rely on them for food security and cultural identity, according to an Alaska Native groups and the Wildlife Conservation Society who convened at a recent workshop. The workshop—which ran from March 12-14—examined the potential impacts to the region's wildlife and highlighted priorities for future management of shipping in the region. The meeting included participants ...

Glacial meltwater increases biodiversity in mountainous freshwater ecosystems. As glaciers vanish due to global warming, so will those species dependent upon the icy runoff. This is the conclusion of a study authored by researchers from, among other institutions, the University of Copenhagen. The article "Glacial river biodiversity" with the alarming new findings can be found in the journal Nature Climate Change. "The knowledge is new and startling. Glacial runoff is cold, nutrient-poor and physically unstable, and therefore, typically species-poor. Traditionally, we ...

Researchers from Clemson University have found a way to create temporary holes in the membranes of live cells using a standard inkjet printer. The method will be published in JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, on March 16. "We first had the idea for this method when we wanted to be able to visualize changes in the cytoskeleton arrangement due to applied forces on cells," said paper-author Dr. Delphine Dean. She said other researchers have been using this method to print cells onto slides, but that they have only recently discovered that printing the cells ...

The study's objective was to identify which skills and competencies are considered most critical for primary care providers (PCPs) to learn in order to effectively manage opioid risk in patients treated for chronic pain Study participants included experts in primary care, pain management, and addiction Experts in this study identified the most important skills for PCPs managing opioid risk in chronic pain patients as how to monitor opioids and how to assess for risk factors Primary care physicians are faced with treating a large proportion of chronic pain patients, ...

The European Union's Habitats Directive is now 20 years old, and its network of protected areas, known as Natura 2000, is nearing completion. After a slow start, the network now includes some 26 000 protected sites and covers approximately 18% of the EU's land surface as well as significant areas of sea. It is widely considered to be the world's largest network of protected areas based on agreed site selection criteria. The review has been published in the newly launched open-access journal Nature Conservation. Douglas Evans, seconded to the Paris-based European Topic ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Female mouse fetuses exposed to very high doses of a common industrial chemical that makes plastics more pliable develop significant reproductive alterations and precancerous lesions as they grow up, according to a new toxicology study conducted at Brown University. The administered doses of MEHP, the chemical that results when animals metabolize the industrial phthalate DEHP, were much higher than any normal environmental exposure that people or animals would encounter, said Mary Hixon, assistant professor of pathology and laboratory ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Firms that make a previously patented innovation accessible to competitors increase overall likelihood of improving upon that breakthrough while also raising profits for the original innovator and market welfare, according to a study by a University at Buffalo economist. The practice of free-licensing -- giving up patent protection -- corresponds to an evolutionary step in the study of patents and their effect on innovation, says the study's author Gilad Sorek, assistant visiting professor of economics at UB. "This research arose from the notion that ...

TAMPA, Fla. (March 16, 2012) – An international team of researchers from the United States and Australia, including researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., have found that the oral BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib (PLX4032) when tested in a phase II clinical trial offered a high rate of response in patients with previously treated metastatic melanoma and who had the BRAF mutation. More than 50 percent of the patients in the trial had positive, prolonged responses and a median survival of almost 16 months. The study was published in a recent issue of the New England ...

UAB researchers developed a new vehicle to release proteins with therapeutic effects. The vehicles are known as "bacteria inclusion bodies", stable insoluble nanoparticles which are found normally in recombinant bacteria. Even though these inclusion bodies traditionally have been an obstacle in the industrial production of soluble enzymes and biodrugs, they were recently recognised to have large amounts of functional proteins with direct values in industrial and biomedical applications. The research team led by Antoni Villaverde from the Institute of Biotechnology and ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres (JGR-D), and Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth (JGR-B). In this release: Measuring mercury in coastal fog water Early Eocene climate warming increased petroleum production Unexpected earthquakes within continental plates pose challenges Land use changes contribute to climate extremes When will warming-induced rainfall changes be perceptible? Model describes New Zealand's complex tectonic ...

The seas are creeping higher as the planet warms. But how high could they go? Projections for the year 2100 range from inches to several feet, or even more. The sub-tropical islands of Bermuda and the Bahamas are two seemingly unlikely places scientists have gone looking for answers. The cliffs and ancient reefs on Bermuda and the Bahamas have lured fossil-hunters for decades. The land on the Bahamas, for example, has a foundation of fossil coral; the stone is derived from the disintegration of age-old coral reefs and seashells. These areas are now attracting scientists ...

Despite the amazing advances in the field of medicine, many are still suffering from treatable and avoidable oral health conditions. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention's 2011 report on America's overall oral health shows that nearly a quarter of those over the age of 65 have lost all of their teeth due to trauma, gum disease, and tooth decay. This is why the leading Torrance dentist, Dr. Robert Mondavi, is now offering huge discounts to all dental implants this spring for those patients that would like to restore their smile permanently and painlessly. Dental ...

A fundamental shift in the Indian monsoon has occurred over the last few millennia, from a steady humid monsoon that favored lush vegetation to extended periods of drought, reports a new study led by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The study has implications for our understanding of the monsoon's response to climate change. The Indian peninsula sustains over a billion people, yet it lies at the same latitude as the Sahara Desert. Without a monsoon, most of India would be dry and uninhabitable. The ability to predict the timing and amount ...