Hamilton, ON (March 31, 2011) - Good-bye itching, watering eyes and sneezing. McMaster University researchers have developed a vaccine which successfully treats people with an allergy to cats. Traditionally, frequent allergy shots have been considered the most effective way to bring relief – other than getting rid of the family pet -- for the eight to 10% of the population allergic to cats. Both options – one difficult and costly, the other troubling - may now be tossed aside thanks to the work of immunologist Mark Larché, professor in the Department of Medicine in ...

VIDEO: It's often thought that older adults must tolerate the strength and muscle loss that come with age. But analyses of current research by University of Michigan scientists reveal that not... Click here for more information. ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Getting older doesn't mean giving up muscle strength. Not only can adults fight the battle of strength and muscle loss that comes with age, but the Golden Years can be a time to get stronger, say experts at the University of Michigan ...

Three National Science Foundation-supported researchers recently undertook the first non-Iraqi archaeological investigation of the Tigris-Euphrates delta in nearly 20 years. Archeologists Jennifer Pournelle and Carrie Hritz, with geologist Jennifer Smith, carried out the study late last year to look for links between wetland resources and the emergence of Mesopotamian cities. "Mesopotamia"--Greek for "the land between the rivers"--is an area about 300 miles long and 150 miles wide straddling the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which now run through Iraq, northeastern Syria, ...

Durham, NC —'Outer' tree canopy leaves influence the sunlight reaching inner canopy leaves by changing their shape, says a new study. The shape and physiology of leaves within the tree canopy is not constant, and can vary depending on their position within the tree crown. This phenomenon is expected to have important consequences for how trees cope with stress and use resources. A new study describes how the leaves in the outer canopy of olive trees can influence the light environment within the canopy by changing their shape, as more elongated leaves resulted in higher ...

Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants should win their divisions, while the Atlanta Braves will take the wild card slot in the National League (NL), according to NJIT's baseball guru Bruce Bukiet. http://www.njit.edu/news/experts/bukiet.php For over a decade, Bukiet, an associate professor and associate dean, has applied mathematical analysis to compute winning games for each Major League Baseball Team. This year, he said that in the American League (AL), the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox should tie for first place in the East, with ...

BOSTON--A section of the AIDS virus's protein envelope once considered an improbable target for a vaccine now appears to be one of the most promising, new research by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists indicates. The section, a twisting strand of protein known as the V3 loop, is an attractive vaccine target because immune system antibodies aimed at the loop may offer protection against multiple genetic subtypes of HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS. This is a key prerequisite of any AIDS vaccine because the viruses mutate rapidly and by now comprise millions of different ...

Ants and termites have a significant positive impact on crop yields in dryland agriculture, according to a paper published today in the journal Nature Communications by scientists at CSIRO and the University of Sydney. "Ants and termites perform the same ecosystem service functions in dryland agriculture that earthworms perform in cooler and wetter areas, but the potential for ants and termites to provide these benefits has received little attention until now," said CSIRO's Dr Theo Evans. "We already knew that the activities of ants and termites affect soil structure, ...

PHOENIX, Ariz. — March 31, 2011 — Conducting genetic profiles using microRNA can help doctors predict which lung cancer patients are likely to also develop brain metastasis (BM), according to a study published today by Scottsdale Healthcare and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). The study identified microRNA-328 as a potential therapeutic target because of its association with the spread of cancer to the brain in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). NSCLC makes up 88 percent of the 222,000 annual U.S. cases of lung cancer, which is by far ...

Some may think that the mosquito and the house fly are worlds apart when it comes to common ancestry but new research published this week by an international team of scientists puts them much closer together in evolutionary history.According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, the mosquito branched off the same evolutionary tree as the house fly around 220 million years ago. Though just a few species of flies gain public attention as pests – namely: house flies, March flies and mosquitoes – there are 152,000 named species ...

Marine scientists from five research agencies have pooled their skills and resources to compile a directory of life on Australia's continental shelf. They examined the shelf seascape during a three-year program of the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF) Marine Biodiversity Hub. Hub director, Professor Nic Bax of CSIRO and the University of Tasmania, says the program developed and applied a consistent, national approach to biodiversity mapping. "The program compiled existing biological survey datasets, mapped 1868 square kilometres of seabed with multibeam ...

When the unemployed complain of fighting an uphill battle to reenter the job market, believe them. Through a series of simple experiments, researchers from UCLA and the State University of New York–Stony Brook found that out-of-work Americans face discrimination that is unrelated to their skills sets or to the conditions of departure from their previous jobs. "We were surprised to find that, all things being equal, unemployed applicants were viewed as less competent, warm and hireable than employed individuals," said lead researcher Geoffrey Ho, a doctoral student ...

AUDIO: Insect-eating bats provide pest-control services that save the U.S. agriculture industry over $3 billion per year, according to a study released today in the journal Science. However, scientists with the... Click here for more information. Pest-control services provided by insect-eating bats in the United States likely save the U.S. agricultural industry at least $3 billion a year, and yet insectivorous bats are among the most overlooked economically important, non-domesticated ...

Alexandria, VA — In recent years reimbursement for surgical services has declined, failing to keep up with inflation and economic growth. Financial incentives aimed at re-distributing reimbursement from procedural specialties to primary care specialties have been ineffective thus far, and the financial returns of being a physician continue to decrease, according to new research published in the April 2011 issue of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery. According to a national survey of 409 members of the general population, survey participants said that a reasonable ...

DARIEN, Ill. – A study in the April 1 issue of the journal SLEEP demonstrates that an Internet-based intervention was effective at reducing infant and toddler sleep disturbances, as well as providing positive, indirect benefits for maternal sleep, mood and confidence. The study suggests that the Internet can give parents widespread access to individualized, behaviorally based advice for sleep problems in young children. Results show that there were significant improvements in the sleep of infants and toddlers in the Internet-based intervention groups. The number and duration ...

WALTHAM, MA – April 1, 2011 – Avila Therapeutics™, Inc., a biotechnology company developing novel targeted covalent drugs, today announced the publication of a scientific review article in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery titled "The Resurgence of Covalent Drugs" (www.nature.com/reviews/drugdisc, Vol. 10, April 2011, Singh, J.). This article discusses the broad opportunities for covalent drugs and how structural bioinformatics coupled with structure-based drug design can enable the design of highly selective covalent drugs with unique therapeutic properties for treating ...

DARIEN, IL – A study in the April 1 issue of the journal SLEEP suggests that the risk of death is more than two times higher in older adults who have sleep apnea and report struggling with excessive daytime sleepiness. Results of adjusted proportional hazards modeling show that older adults with moderate to severe sleep apnea who reported struggling with excessive daytime sleepiness at baseline were more than twice as likely to die (hazard ratio = 2.28) as subjects who had neither problem. The risk of death was insignificant in older adults with only excessive daytime ...

PHILADELPHIA — Researchers have found that it may not be necessary to look for tumors directly in patients with prostate cancer — analyzing non-tumor tissue may be an effective option, according to study results published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "A biopsy needle does not need to hit a tumor to detect the presence of tumor," said lead researcher Dan Mercola, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of California at Irvine. "It is reminiscent of the game Battleship; we can detect ...

SEATTLE – A landmark breast health care publication reveals a multitude of barriers that keep women of developing nations from being screened and treated for breast cancer – but offers tools to help countries improve their breast care programs. "Global Breast Health Care: Optimizing Delivery in Low- and Middle-Resource Countries," published as a supplement to the April 1 edition of The Breast, compiles three consensus statements and 11 research papers that were based on projects and proposals presented last June at the Breast Health Global Initiative Global Summit on ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---The first national study of the prevalence of multiple partner fertility shows that 28 percent of all U.S. women with two or more children have children by more than one man. The study will be presented April 1 in Washington, D.C., at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America. "I was surprised at the prevalence," said demographer Cassandra Dorius, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. "Multiple partner fertility is an important part of contemporary American family life, and a key component ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---World population will reach 7 billion this year, prompting new concerns about whether the world will soon face a major population crisis. "In spite of 50 years of the fastest population growth on record, the world did remarkably well in producing enough food and reducing poverty," said University of Michigan economist David Lam, in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America. Lam is a professor of economics and a research professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research. The talk is titled "How the World ...

Biological invasions get less prime-time coverage than natural disasters, but may be more economically damaging and warrant corresponding investments in preparedness and response planning, according to three biologists writing in the April issue of BioScience. Anthony Ricciardi of McGill University and his coauthors point out that species invasions are becoming more frequent worldwide, largely because of international trade. Although many alien species establish themselves in a new location without causing harm, the worst biological invasions may cause multiple extinctions ...

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease thought to be related to aberrant activation of the immune system in the intestine. Recent research has also suggested that regulated cell death (apoptosis) of the intestinal epithelial cells is a contributing factor to the pathogenesis. However, the molecular mechanisms that control the cellular response to inflammation are incompletely understood. In this paper, Lin Zhang, at the University of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, found that in mice, a protein called PUMA (p53 upregulated modulator of apoptosis) was responsible ...

Cells control which genes they express by multiple mechanisms, one of which is the direct modification of DNA with small molecules. Methylation of genes effectively silences them, and excess DNA methylation, particularly of genes that control the cell cycle, is known to promote cancer formation. However, it is unclear whether the enzymes that modify DNA in this way target specific genes or whether random modifications select cells for enhanced tumorigenic capactiy. In new research, Rudolf Jaenisch and colleagues, at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, ...

EDITOR'S PICK Cat's out of the bag: PUMA contributes to ulcerative colitis Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease thought to be related to aberrant activation of the immune system in the intestine. Recent research has also suggested that regulated cell death (apoptosis) of the intestinal epithelial cells is a contributing factor to the pathogenesis. However, the molecular mechanisms that control the cellular response to inflammation are incompletely understood. In this paper, Lin Zhang, at the University of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, found that in ...

Bombardments of 'micro-meteorites' on Earth and Mars four billion years ago may have caused the planets' climates to cool dramatically, hampering their ability to support life, according to research published today in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. Scientists from Imperial College London studied the effects of the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB), a period of time in the early Solar System when meteorite showers lasting around 100 million years barraged Earth and Mars. This bombardment discharged sulphur dioxide into the upper atmospheres of both planets and ...