Polar bears were added to the threatened species list nearly three years ago as their icy habitat showed steady, precipitous decline because of a warming climate. But it appears the Arctic icons aren't necessarily doomed after all. Scientists from several institutions, including the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington, have found that if humans reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly in the next decade or two, enough Arctic ice is likely to remain intact during late summer and early autumn for polar bears to survive. "What we projected in ...

Reykjavik, ICELAND, 15 December 2010 – Scientists from deCODE genetics and academic colleagues from Iceland, the UK, US, Netherlands, Spain and Romania today report the discovery of a set of single-letter variations in the sequence of the human genome (SNPs) that impact individual baseline levels of prostate specific antigen, or PSA. Testing for PSA levels is the most commonly used screening tool for the detection of prostate cancer. A prostate biopsy is routinely recommended for men with PSA above a certain threshold. However, PSA levels can rise for reasons unrelated ...

America is winning a battle against heart disease and stroke mortality, but is still losing the war, according to the American Heart Association. In Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics – 2011, published online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, the association reports that the death rate from heart diseases declined 27.8 percent from 1997 to 2007 (the most recent final data available), and the stroke death rate fell 44.8 percent. However, during the same period, the total number of inpatient cardiovascular operations and procedures increased ...

Body fat distribution does not play an important role in the incidence of every subtype of premenopausal breast cancer, but is associated with an increased risk for estrogen receptor (ER)–negative breast cancer, according to a study published December 15 in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Previous studies have shown that the association between body mass index (BMI) and the risk of breast cancer varies with menopausal status: a higher BMI is positively associated with risk of postmenopausal breast cancer but inversely associated with risk of premenopausal ...

"Staph" bacteria feed on blood. They need the iron that's hidden away inside red blood cells to grow and cause infections. It turns out that these microbial vampires prefer the taste of human blood, Vanderbilt University scientists have discovered. The researchers report in the Dec. 16 issue of Cell Host & Microbe that Staphylococcus aureus (staph) favors human hemoglobin – the oxygen-carrying protein that contains iron – over hemoglobin from other animals. The findings help explain why staph preferentially infects people and suggest that genetic variations in hemoglobin ...

STANFORD, Calif. — More than 2,000 genetic regions involved in early human development have been identified by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The regions, called enhancers, are responsible for triggering the expression of distant genes when embryonic stem cells begin to divide to form the many tissues of a growing embryo. "This is going to be an enormous resource for researchers interested in tracking cells involved in early human development," said Joanna Wysocka, PhD, assistant professor of developmental biology and of chemical and systems ...

LA JOLLA, CA-In addition to fast food, desk jobs, and inertia, there is one more thing to blame for unwanted pounds-our genome, which has apparently not caught up with the fact that we no longer live in the Stone Age. That is one conclusion drawn by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, who recently showed that mice lacking a gene regulating energy balance are protected from weight gain, even on a high fat diet. These findings have implications for the worldwide obesity epidemic and its consequences, such as type two diabetes. In the December 16, ...

The software tool presents data visually and this allows those without specialist training – both professionals and older people – to better understand and contribute to discussions about the mechanics of movement, known as biomechanics, when carrying out everyday activities. The software takes motion capture data and muscle strength measurements from older people undertaking everyday activities. The software then generates a 3D animated human stick figure on which the biomechanical demands of the activities are represented visually at the joints. These demands, or stresses, ...

A newly published insight into the biology of many kinds of less-aggressive but still lethal brain tumors, or gliomas, opens up a wide array of possibilities for new therapies, according to scientists at Brown University and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In paper published online Dec. 15 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, they describe how a genetic mutation leads to an abnormal metabolic process in the tumors that could be targeted by drug makers. "What this tells you is that there are some forms of tumors with a fundamentally altered ...

Richmond, Va. (Dec. 15, 2010) – Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center and the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine (VIMM) have developed a novel virus-based gene therapy for renal cell carcinoma that has been shown to kill cancer cells not only at the primary tumor site but also in distant tumors not directly infected by the virus. Renal cell carcinoma is the most common form of kidney cancer in adults and currently there is no effective treatment for the disease once it has spread outside of the kidney. The study, published in the journal ...

Absence makes your heart grow fonder, but close-quarters may boost your career. According to new research by scientists at Harvard Medical School, the physical proximity of researchers, especially between the first and last author on published papers, strongly correlates with the impact of their work. "Despite all of the profound advances in information technology, such as video conferencing, we found that physical proximity still matters for research productivity and impact," says Isaac Kohane, the Lawrence J. Henderson Professor of Pediatrics at Children's Hospital ...

A small-scale University of California, San Francisco-led study has identified the first evidence in humans that exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) may compromise the quality of a woman's eggs retrieved for in vitro fertilization (IVF). As blood levels of BPA in the women studied doubled, the percentage of eggs that fertilized normally declined by 50 percent, according to the research team. The chemical BPA, which makes plastic hard and clear, has been used in many consumer products such as reusable water bottles. It also is found in epoxy resins, which form a protective ...

Cold plasma jets could be a safe, effective alternative to antibiotics to treat multi-drug resistant infections, says a study published this week in the January issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology. The team of Russian and German researchers showed that a ten-minute treatment with low-temperature plasma was not only able to kill drug-resistant bacteria causing wound infections in rats but also increased the rate of wound healing. The findings suggest that cold plasmas might be a promising method to treat chronic wound infections where other approaches fail. The ...

15 December 2010, MDMA or 'ecstasy' increases feelings of empathy and social connection. These 'empathogenic' effects suggest that MDMA might be useful to enhance the psychotherapy of people who struggle to feel connected to others, as may occur in association with autism, schizophrenia, or antisocial personality disorder. However, these effects have been difficult to measure objectively, and there has been limited research in humans. Now, University of Chicago researchers, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, are reporting their new findings in healthy volunteers ...

If everyone in the UK ate their "five a day," and cut their dietary salt and unhealthy fat intake to recommended levels, 33,000 deaths could be prevented or delayed every year, reveals research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day accounts for almost half of these saved lives, the study shows. Recommended salt and fat intakes would need to be drastically reduced to achieve similar health benefits, say the authors. The researchers base their findings on national data for the years 2005 ...

Doctors with a profile on the social networking site Facebook may be compromising the doctor-patient relationship, because they don't deploy sufficient privacy settings, indicates research published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics. The authors base their findings on a survey of the Facebook activities of 405 postgraduate trainee doctors (residents and fellows) at Rouen University Hospital in France. Half those sent the questionnaire returned it. Almost three out of four respondents (73%) said they had a Facebook profile, with eight out of 10 saying they had ...

Interactions between proteins are at the heart of cellular processes, and those interactions depend on the interfaces where the direct physical contact occurs. A new study published this week suggests that there may be roughly a thousand structurally-distinct protein-protein interfaces – and that their structures depend largely on the simple physics of the proteins. Believed to be the first systematic study of the nature of the protein-protein interfaces, the research could help explain the phenomena of "promiscuous" proteins that bind to many other proteins. The results ...

In studies conducted on the fruit fly, researchers at IRB Barcelona headed by ICREA Professor Marco Milán have revealed that organs have the molecular mechanisms to control their proportions. In this process the protein p53 plays a crucial role. The study is published today in the prestigious journal PLoS Biology. The correct establishment of organ proportions, which occurs during embryonic development, is vital for the proper function of all organisms. Alterations in the mechanisms responsible for these processes cause fatal errors in embryos and even cause their death. ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study of nursing home records shows more residents with dementia are seeking a hospice benefit and using it longer. The study also estimates that 40 percent of nursing home residents die with some degree of dementia. Researchers hope the new data will help policymakers preserve the hospice benefit even as they seek to control Medicare costs. In newly published research analyzing data on more than 3.8 million deceased nursing home residents, researchers at Brown University and Hebrew SeniorLife/Deaconess Medical Center in Boston ...

Researchers from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) have been monitoring a cyclone on Saturn for more than five years. This makes it the longest-lasting cyclone detected to date on any of the giant planets of the Solar System. Images from the Cassini probe were used to carry out this study. "Cyclones – where the wind turns in the same direction as the planet – do not usually last for a long time, and so we were interested to discover one that had gone on for several years on Saturn", Teresa del Río-Gaztelurrutia, lead author of the study and a researcher at ...

MANHATTAN, KS – For years, gardeners have claimed that putting Bounce® fabric softener sheets in their pockets is an effective way to repel pests like mosquitoes and gnats. Any Internet search will uncover countless articles about the bug-repelling properties of Bounce®. Are these claims valid or simply folklore? The authors of a new study say that until now, no quantitative data has existed to substantiate these claims, but their latest research has revealed a definitive answer: Bounce® sheets do indeed repel adult gnats. In a report just published in HortScience, Kansas ...

Patients recovering from a right foot injury or surgery should think twice about how soon they want to begin driving again. According to a new study from the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), it takes much longer to brake when the driver is wearing an immobilization device - like a splint or brace, than it does when wearing normal footwear. Driving is important to many people's social and professional lives, so when a person's right ankle or foot must be immobilized after an injury or surgery, one of the first questions an orthopaedic surgeon hears is, "When can ...

Carrageenan, is a polymer derived from red seaweed which helps to create a protective physical barrier in the nasal cavity and has proven to be an effective antiviral in the treatment of the common cold. The present study assessed the efficacy of Carrageenan against influenza viruses, including the pandemic H1N1 influenza strain. Results showed that the polymer directly binds to influenza viruses, effectively blocking the virus from attaching to cells and spreading further. In animal experiments, Carrageenan demonstrated equivalent efficacy when compared to the drug Tamiflu. ...

Humans are consuming an increasing amount of the Earth's total annual land plant production, new NASA research has found. As the human population continues to grow and more societies develop modern economies, this rate of consumption is increasing both as a whole and on a per capita basis globally. In addition to as food, plants are consumed for paper, clothing, livestock feed, firewood, biofuels, building and packaging materials, among other uses. A NASA research group led by Marc Imhoff at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., first quantified this global ...

CHICAGO (December 15, 2010) – Delaying elective surgical procedures after a patient has been admitted to the hospital significantly increases the risk of infectious complications and raises hospital costs, according to the results of a new study in the December issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The occurrence of infection following surgical procedures continues to be a major source of morbidity and expense despite extensive prevention efforts that have been implemented through educational programs, clinical guidelines, and hospital-based policies. ...