Body

A JCU scientist says slow adaptation to cold weather is delaying toad spread into the southern states.

James Cook University scientists have been using the spread of cane toads to examine genetic mechanisms that limit their range.

A team including JCU's Professor Lin Schwarzkopf, looked at the genetic processes occurring in cane toads at the limits of three invasion fronts in NSW, Western Queensland and Western Australia.

They compared this to processes occurring in toads at the centre of their range to determine the factors limiting range expansion.

WASHINGTON, DC - Sept. 13, 2016 - It's been known that the bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae secretes small molecules called siderophores that enable it to acquire iron from a host and fuel its spread. Now, Michigan researchers have found that these molecules play additional roles in helping the organism invade. Their report is published this week in mBio®, an online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

The Second Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine reviewed the current status of the field of cost-effectiveness analysis and developed a new set of recommendations, with major changes including the recommendation to perform analyses from 2 reference case perspectives and to provide an impact inventory to clarify included consequences, according to an article appearing in the September 13 issue of JAMA.

In a study appearing in the September 13 issue of JAMA, Jouke T. Annema, M.D., Ph.D., of the Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, and colleagues examined five-year survival after endosonography vs mediastinoscopy for mediastinal nodal staging of lung cancer.

Among patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement, younger age, male sex, history of diabetes mellitus, and moderate to severe residual aortic regurgitation were significantly associated with an increased risk of infective endocarditis, and patients who developed endocarditis had high rates of in-hospital mortality and 2-year mortality, according to a study appearing in the September 13 issue of JAMA.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- If you get pneumonia, or even an infected cut, your body is now a war zone.

And as your immune system battles the invading bacteria, the outcome of that war may hinge on a microscopic arms race based not on missiles or bombs, but on an essential element: iron.

Now, scientists from the University of Michigan Medical School say they have figured out how that race for iron actually increases the risk we face from one of our most dangerous microscopic foes, Klebsiella pneumoniae. They made the discovery in mice with pneumonia.

Scientists have shown for the first time that embryos can be made from non-egg cells, a discovery that challenges two centuries of received wisdom.

Eggs can be 'tricked' into developing into an embryo without fertilisation, but the resulting embryos, called parthenogenotes, die after a few days because key developmental processes requiring input from sperm don't happen.

Death research in the United States mostly overlooks bereavement customs of those who are not Anglo-Protestants, says a Baylor University researcher. She hopes to correct that -- beginning with a study of Catholic Latino communities, who often hold overnight wakes and present food to the deceased.

Candi K. Cann, Ph.D., who teaches courses on death and dying, took a group of her students in 2015 to a Latino funeral home in a Central Texas city in which nearly 30 percent of the total population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census statistics.

The research team noted that blue light is emitted when wintergreen-flavored candy (ex. Lifesavers) is bitten or smashed. In general, it is known that mechanoluminescence in the ultraviolet region is generated when the sugar component in the candy is broken. Natural vegetable oil is a material that generates a blue color by absorbing ultraviolet, thus wintergreen-flavored candy containing natural vegetable oil emits a blue light when it is smashed.

Researchers in Singapore have developed a new protein that can alter DNA in living cells with much higher precision than current methods.

The ability to alter DNA accurately will open more doors in the development of personalised medicine that could help to tackle human diseases that currently have few treatment options. Examples of diseases that have unmet therapeutic needs include neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington's disease, muscular dystrophies, and blood disorders like sickle cell anaemia.

In recent years, the incidence of breast cancer has been increasing worldwide, and breast cancer is becoming a serious object of public concern. The onset of breast cancer is closely related to the sex hormone estrogen, and estrogen antagonists such as tamoxifen have been used as anti-breast cancer drugs. During pregnancy, the elevated blood estrogen level induces the proliferation of mammary epithelial cells, leading to the development of the mammary gland in preparation for lactation.

A research group including Professor KAMADA Shinji, Research Fellow NAGANO Taiki (both from the Kobe University Biosignal Research Center), and Unit Chief ENARI Masato (National Cancer Research Institute) has succeeded in identifying genes that control cellular senescence - permanently arrested cell growth. The process involved treating liver cancer cells using anticancer drugs of various concentrations, inducing apoptotic cell death and cellular senescence, and comparing gene expression levels.

Scientists at DESY have discovered a method that paves the way for a new generation of magnetic sensors. Their procedure can be used to greatly extend the functionality of such sensors, which is limited when conventional production methods are used, so that sensors can now be individually tailored to a wide variety of new applications. The scientists have presented their manufacturing process in the scientific journal Advanced Functional Materials.

When Hippocrates first described cancer around 400 B.C., he referred to the disease's telltale tumors as "karkinos" -- the Greek word for crab. The "Father of Western Medicine" likely noted that cancer's creeping projections mirrored certain crustaceans, and the tumors' characteristic hardness resembled a crab's armored shell.

Leaders often believe that they should show anger to make subordinates more compliant, thinking they will then be seen as more effective at work or within their organization. They also feel it is bad if they show emotions such as sadness. While it is true that angry leaders are perceived by others to wield more power, followers warm more easily to those showing more vulnerable emotions, says Tanja Schwarzmüller of the Technical University of Munich in Germany.