Body

A new study by Greek researchers suggests that the biologic drug bortezomib (Velcade), a proteasome inhibitor used to treat multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer), may represent a promising treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In this study, bortezomib displayed favorable effects in an animal model of inflammatory arthritis that mimics RA, in reducing disease severity and inflammation, and promoting bone healing. Full findings of this study are published in the November issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).

It is hard to believe that they belong to the same species: The large, long-lived queen bee is busy producing offspring throughout her lifetime. The much smaller worker bees, on the other hand, gather food, take care of the beehive, look after and feed the brood – but they are infertile.

When a team of European researchers sought to discover how a class of antiviral drugs worked, they looked in an unlikely place: the sugar dish. A new research report appearing in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology (http://www.jleukbio.org) suggests that a purified and modified form of a simple sugar chain may stop fast-acting and deadly viruses, such as Ebola, Lassa, or Marburg viruses, in their tracks.

Stock markets react to crisis in a similar way to plants and the human body, according to a major new study that may help to predict future financial down-turns.

An extensive analysis of biological and financial data suggests that systems under stress exhibit similar symptoms, whether they be polluted forests, cancer patients or the FTSE 100.

SAN DIEGO, CA (November 3, 2010)—Removal of the prostate gland often eradicates early-stage cancer. But patients whose cancer has spread may need to follow up with what is known as salvage radiation therapy. Researchers at Fox Chase have now determined a better way to monitor outcomes after this procedure.

The mysterious origins of Australia's bizarre and secretive marsupial moles have been cast in a whole new and unexpected light with the first discovery in the fossil record of one of their ancestors.

The find reveals a remarkable journey through time, place and lifestyle: living marsupial moles are blind, earless and live underground in the deserts of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia, yet their ancestors lived in lush rainforest far away in north Queensland.

Fruit flies that grow obese after eating a diet loaded with fat could lead the way to the core elements of obesity, according to researchers who report their findings in the November issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication.

The findings also get at obesity's origins. The demonstration that flies do become obese on a high-fat diet (HFD), much as humans do, indicates that the ability to become obese goes way, way back, the researchers say.

Researchers have identified a hormone produced and secreted by the liver as a previously unknown cause of insulin resistance. The findings, in the November issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, suggest a new target for the treatment of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, the researchers say.

"The current study sheds light on a previously underexplored function of the liver; the liver participates in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance through hormone secretion," said Hirofumi Misu of Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medical Science in Japan.

Every person emits the equivalent of approximately two tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from the time food is produced to when the human body excretes it, representing more than 20% of total yearly emissions. That is what a study by the Universidad de Almería says, confirming for the first time that human excrements contribute to water pollution, primarily with nitrogen and phosphorus.

A new study analysing how complex, highly-evolved societies are organised in nature has found that it is workers that play a pivotal role in creating well-ordered societies where conflict is minimised.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2010 — For the first time in the United States, researchers are reporting detection of Bisphenol A (BPA) in fresh and canned food as well as food wrapped in plastic packaging.

The amounts in the limited sample, however, were almost 1,000 times lower than the "tolerable daily intake" levels set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

Their report appears online in Environmental Science & Technology.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have developed two strategies to ward off cattle fever ticks that are crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. These ticks transmit bovine babesiosis, commonly known as Texas cattle fever, a deadly disease of cattle that's caused by singled-celled organisms.

NEW YORK (November 2, 2010) -- For patients with the most common form of hepatitis C being treated for the first time, the addition of an investigational hepatitis C–specific protease inhibitor called telaprevir to the current standard therapy markedly improved their sustained viral response (SVR or viral cure) rate.

WORCESTER, Mass. – A potentially life-threatening challenge characterized by pauses in breathing that can last for more than 20 seconds, apnea of prematurity (AOP) affects more than 50 percent of premature infants and is almost universal in the smallest of preemies. Caused in part by an underdeveloped central nervous system that can't adequately regulate breathing outside of the womb, especially during sleep, AOP is not yet fully understood by scientists and remains a grave concern among neonatologists and parents alike.

Scientists from the UK and Australia have seen the human immune system's assassin – a protein called perforin – in action for the first time. The UK team, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Wellcome Trust, is based at Birkbeck College where they used powerful electron microscopes to study the mechanism that perforin uses to punch holes in rogue cells. The research is published today (1800hrs, 31 October) in Nature.