New research by scientists in the Department of Biology at the University of York shows that species have responded to climate change up to three times faster than previously appreciated. These results are published in the latest issue of the leading scientific journal Science. Faster distribution changes. Species have moved towards the poles (further north in the northern hemisphere, to locations where conditions are cooler) at three times the rate previously accepted in the scientific literature, and they have moved to cooler, higher altitudes at twice the rate previously ...

Philadelphia, PA, August 18, 2011 – Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have determined that the majority of primary care providers continue to recommend annual cervical cancer screening, and less than 15% would extend the screening interval when using the Papanicolaou test and human papillomavirus (HPV) test together, as some guidelines suggest. The results of the study are published online today in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology (AJOG). Current cervical cancer screening guidelines, issued by the American Cancer Society ...

VIDEO: Before they start attaching themselves to kinetochores (green), microtubules nudge chromosomes (red) into position in a "belt " around the center of the spindle. Click here for more information. Heidelberg, 19 August 2011 – When an egg cell is being formed, the cellular machinery which separates chromosomes is extremely imprecise at fishing them out of the cell's interior, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, ...

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Over the past 530 million years, the vertebrate lineage branched out from a primitive jawless fish wriggling through Cambrian seas to encompass all the diverse forms of fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. Now researchers combing through the DNA sequences of vertebrate genomes have identified three distinct periods of evolutionary innovation that accompanied this remarkable diversification. The study, led by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and published this week in Science, focused on regulatory elements that orchestrate ...

VIDEO: The researchers found a 10 percentage point gap in research funding -- even after taking into consideration demographics, education and training, employer characteristics, NIH experience and research productivity. For example,... Click here for more information. LAWRENCE, Kan. – Black scientists were significantly less likely than their white counterparts to receive research funding from the National Institutes of Health, according to an analysis of data from 2000 to ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—August 18, 2011—A scientist at the Gladstone Institutes has discovered how a gene known as SIRT3 contributes to a suite of health problems sweeping across America, offering new insight into how to combat these potentially fatal conditions. In a paper being published today in Molecular Cell, Gladstone Senior Investigator Eric Verdin, MD, describes how SIRT3, when switched off, accelerates the build-up of fats throughout the body. This can lead to obesity, high blood pressure and a decreased ability to process sugar—the combination of which is known as ...

Severe sepsis is common and often fatal, although evidence-based therapies have improved patient outcomes. In recent study, researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin and Orlando Regional Medical Center found that the number of severe sepsis hospitalizations per 100,000 people increased from 143 in 2000 to 343 in 2007. The mean number of organ failures per patient during hospitalization increased from 1.6 to 1.9, although the mean length of hospital stay decreased from 17.3 to 14.9 days, and the mortality rate decreased from 39% to 27%. However, more patients with ...

The prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma is increasing partly because of a link between asthma and obesity. Several factors lead to asthma-like symptoms in obese patients, including the mechanical effect of increased body mass index on lung volumes, which increases the work required for breathing. Researchers from the Countess of Chester Hospital and the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom recently found that obese patients may be more at risk for asthma misdiagnosis due to the similarity of symptoms experienced, such as breathlessness. Out of 91 subjects, ...

A new drug which offers a radically different approach to treating certain types of heart failure has been shown to improve cardiac function in heart failure patients in its first clinical trials. Current treatments for heart failure are aimed at a wide range of targets, but omecamtiv mercabil is the first of a new class of drugs – called cardiac myosin activators – which target the motor proteins that cause muscle contraction. Cardiac myosin activators prolong the interaction between the motor proteins myosin and actin to prolong the contraction of the left ventricle, ...

A single flexible sigmoidoscopy screening between the ages of 55-64 years is associated with a lower level of colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence and mortality, according to a study published online August 18 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Multiple randomized controlled trials have shown that fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) in CRC screening can reduce the mortality rate of patients diagnosed with CRC. Observational studies and a prior, randomized trial from the U.K., known as SCORE have shown a reduction in incidence and mortality for cancer in the ...

Boston, MA (August 18, 2011) — In health care, more choice may not always lead to better choices, particularly for the elderly. In a new study, researchers from Harvard Medical School's Department of Health Care Policy found that the large variety of managed care plans offered by the Medicare Advantage program may be counter-productive. Elderly patients, particularly those with low cognitive ability, often make poor decisions—or no decisions at all—when faced with an overwhelming number of complex insurance choices. Ironically, those with impaired cognition may benefit ...

The presence of calcium in coronary arteries is a much better predictor of heart attack and stroke than C-reactive protein among people with normal levels of LDL cholesterol, according to a study of more than 2,000 people led by a Johns Hopkins heart specialist. Results of the study, published in the August 19, 2011 issue of The Lancet, have important implications for deciding whether cholesterol-lowering statin medication should be prescribed for people who have heart disease risk factors but normal levels of LDL, the so-called "bad" cholesterol. An estimated 6 million ...

Leaders in biomedical education at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are calling for a radical new approach to post-graduate training in the life sciences to address significant challenges, including an avalanche of new discoveries in the last decade and the need to transcend traditional departmental boundaries to understand biological processes at multiple levels. In a Leading Edge commentary published in the August 19, 2011 edition of Cell, the authors present a new model for biomedical education that would break down current silos of particular disciplines, ...

Malawian villagers have found an unlikely platform to expose injustice and abuse of power and bring their leaders to task, according to research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Malawi's public radio station broadcasts are providing an alternative programme of news stories. The programme features contributions by ordinary Malawians, highlighting their everyday experiences of abuse and violation. In a country where radio is the main form of mass media, the daily programme broadcast in Chichewa, the language spoken by most Malawians, has become ...

In cancer, tumors aren't uniform: they are more like complex societies, each with a unique balance of cancer cell types playing different roles. Understanding this "social structure" of tumors is critical for treatment decisions in the clinic because different cell types may be sensitive to different drugs. A common theory is that tumors are a hierarchical society, in which all cancer cells descend from special self-renewing cancer stem cells. This view predicts that killing the cancer stem cells might suffice to wipe out a cancer. New findings by scientists at the Broad ...

Irvine, Calif. — A vast network of previously unmapped glaciers on the move from thousands of miles inland to the Antarctic coast has been charted for the first time by UC Irvine scientists (http://www.ess.uci.edu/). The findings will be critical to tracking future sea rise from climate change. "This is like seeing a map of all the oceans' currents for the first time. It's a game changer for glaciology," said UCI earth system science professor Eric Rignot, lead author of a paper on the ice flow published online today in Science Express. "We're seeing amazing flows from ...

Boston, Mass. (Aug. 19, 2011)—Researchers at Harvard Medical School have discovered that structural elements in the cell play a crucial role in organizing the motion of cell-surface receptors, proteins that enable cells to receive signals from other parts of the organism. This discovery, published in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Cell, fills a fundamental gap in the understanding of how cells relate to biochemical signals, including pharmaceuticals, and could have profound implications for drug development and the treatment of cancer and other diseases. The findings ...

Washington, DC (August 18, 2011) — High blood phosphate levels can set chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients on a rapid path to kidney failure, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). To make matters worse, phosphate appears to interfere with the effectiveness of important kidney medications. The kidneys of patients with CKD cannot efficiently get rid of wastes such as excess phosphate in the blood. As a result, the kidneys become overloaded with phosphate. Carmine Zoccali, MD (CNR-IBIM, Clinical Epidemiology ...

A new lower-limb prosthetic developed at Vanderbilt University allows amputees to walk without the leg-dragging gait characteristic of conventional artificial legs. The device uses the latest advances in computer, sensor, electric motor and battery technology to give it bionic capabilities: It is the first prosthetic with powered knee and ankle joints that operate in unison. It comes equipped with sensors that monitor its user's motion. It has microprocessors programmed to use this data to predict what the person is trying to do and operate the device in ways that facilitate ...

Preschool teachers' use of sophisticated vocabulary and analytic talk about books combined with early support for literacy in the home can predict fourth-grade reading comprehension and word recognition, new research from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College finds. The findings, published in Child Development and included in a review article in the August 19, 2011 edition of Science, present evidence that there are lasting, complex and mutually reinforcing effects that flow from strong early childhood classrooms. "We need to take very seriously the importance ...

There is no scientific basis for teaching boys and girls separately, according to Lise Eliot from The Chicago Medical School. Her review reveals fundamental flaws in the arguments put forward by proponents of single-sex schools to justify the need of teaching teach boys and girls separately. Eliot shows that neuroscience has identified few reliable differences between boys' and girls' brains relevant to learning or education. Her work is published online in Springer's journal Sex Roles. The first issue Eliot highlights is that single-sex school advocates often claim differences ...

Researchers at Lund University have discovered a new function for vitamin C. Treatment with vitamin C can dissolve the toxic protein aggregates that build up in the brain in Alzheimer's disease. The research findings are now being presented in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The brains of people with Alzheimer's disease contain lumps of so-called amyloid plaques which consist of misfolded protein aggregates. They cause nerve cell death in the brain and the first nerves to be attacked are the ones in the brain's memory centre. "When we treated brain tissue from ...

A team of researchers from the University of the Basque Country (Spain) has developed a method to determine the chemical composition of liquids seized by police and suspected to be explosive. Some of the samples analysed contained substances hazardous to health, such as methanol and boric acid. Each year police forces seize tonnes of pyrotechnic substances which, in principle, are for indoor firework manufacturing (i.e. flares or those used in artistic or sporting events), but which also may end up in the hands of violent groups and hooligans. A group of chemists from ...

Researchers have uncovered exactly how a human egg captures an incoming sperm to begin the fertilisation process, in a new study published this week in the journal Science. The research identifies the sugar molecule that makes the outer coat of the egg 'sticky', which is vital for enabling the sperm and egg to bind together. Researchers across the world have been trying to understand what performs this task for over thirty years. The scientists behind this study believe their work could help address some of the previously unexplained causes of human infertility and ...

Large-scale imaging shows mushroom body activity patterns are sparse and randomly distributed Cold Spring Harbor, NY – We know from experience that particular smells are almost inseparable in our minds with memories, some vague and others very specific. The smell of just-baked bread may trigger an involuntary mental journey, even if for a moment, to childhood, or to a particular day during childhood. Or it may, more diffusely, remind someone of grandma. How are these associations forged in the brain and how do we remember them? A research team at Cold Spring Harbor ...