Body

(WASHINGTON, February 3, 2011) – For blood cancer patients at high risk of relapse, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), the transplantation of blood-forming stem cells, is one of best options for treatment and a potential cure. Unfortunately, the most common complication of HSCT is graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a serious and often deadly post-transplant complication that occurs when the newly transplanted donor cells recognize the recipient's own cells as foreign and react by attacking the cells in the patient's body.

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation's largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — commends the federal government's recent release of the "2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans" and particularly applauds its inclusion of specific advice for older adults.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. Feb. 3, 2011 -- Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a biohybrid photoconversion system -- based on the interaction of photosynthetic plant proteins with synthetic polymers -- that can convert visible light into hydrogen fuel.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Scientists are having a difficult time gauging the recovery of marine species from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico because they lack sufficient data about historical population size and the distribution, growth rates and reproduction rates of many species.

In a forum paper published this week in the journal Science, they call for a new research agenda that prioritizes systematic acquisition of baseline data for marine species.

Bar Harbor, Maine — Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Cambridge, Mass., in collaboration with Jackson Laboratory scientists, have identified a regulatory defect that drives lupus.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The pediatric cardiac team at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children's Hospital is the first in the region and one of a handful in the nation to implant a pulmonary heart valve without open-heart surgery.

To date, four patients have received the landmark valve in the OHSU Pediatric and Adult Congenital Cardiac Catheterization Lab. All reported immediate improvement in their energy level and stamina.

The amount of time families spend eating meals together has been linked to the health and well-being of children and teens, with families who eat together regularly reporting declines in substance abuse, eating disorders, and unhealthy weight in their children. Now, a new study that looks at children with asthma has found that the quality of family interactions during mealtime affected the children's health.

Many teens work part-time during the school year, and in the current economic climate, more youths may take jobs to help out with family finances. But caution is advised: Among high school students, working more than 20 hours a week during the school year can lead to academic and behavior problems.

That's the finding of a new study by researchers at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, and Temple University. It appears in the January/February issue of the journal, Child Development.

Childhood obesity in the United States has more than tripled in the past three decades, and prior research has linked maternal employment to children's body mass index (BMI), a measure of their weight-for-height. A new study in the January/February issue of the journal Child Development has found that children's BMI rose the more years their mothers worked over their children's lifetimes.

ATLANTA, February 4, 2011—A new American Cancer Society report says cancers associated with lifestyles and behaviors related to economic development, including lung, breast, and colorectal cancers, will continue to rise in developing countries if preventive measures are not widely applied. The finding comes from the second edition of Global Cancer Facts & Figures and its academic publication, Global Cancer Statistics, published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. Both publications are being released on World Cancer Day, Feb. 4, 2011.

MADISON - By coaxing healthy and diseased human bone marrow to become embryonic-like stem cells, a team of Wisconsin scientists has laid the groundwork for observing the onset of the blood cancer leukemia in the laboratory dish.

New Haven, Conn.—Triceratops and Torosaurus have long been considered the kings of the horned dinosaurs. But a new discovery traces the giants' family tree further back in time, when a newly discovered species appears to have reigned long before its more well-known descendants, making it the earliest known member of its family.

Using funding provided under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River National Laboratory has launched a demonstration project near one of the Savannah River Site's former production reactor sites to clean up chemically contaminated groundwater, naturally.

INDIANAPOLIS – A School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis biophysicist has developed a new method to identify communication pathways connecting distant regions within proteins.