Body

Inflammation-causing cells in fat tissue may explain the link between obesity and diabetes, a team of Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers in Melbourne, Australia, has shown.

Researches at the University of Gothenburg have shown how climate change many million years ago has influenced the geographical range of plants by modelling climate preferences for extinct species. The method can also be used to predict what effects climate change of today and tomorrow will have on future distributions of plants and animals.

The substance medetomidine has proved effective in preventing fouling of ship bottoms. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have now identified the gene that causes the barnacle to react to the substance, opening up the possibility of an antifouling paint that is gentle both on barnacles and on the environment.

Two recent studies provide evidence for a new approach to vaccines to prevent infections caused by drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- better known as MRSA – the leading cause of skin and soft tissue, bloodstream and lung infections in the United States. One demonstrates a way to counteract the bacteria's knack for evading the immune system. The other shows how to disrupt the germ's tissue-damaging mechanism.

In a discovery that has implications for developing treatments against cancer and potentially deadly viruses, researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center have discovered the function of proteins that can enhance the progression of certain viruses and cancer cells. Their findings were published in the journal Genes and Development.

London (August 16, 2010) - Illuminated and neon signs outside businesses have contributed to brand identity for some years. But researchers are now evaluating how selecting a universal lighting design for stores can also send out branding signals to consumers. The concept of using lighting design as a form of corporate communication is illuminated further in an article in the current issue of Lighting Research and Technology, published by SAGE.

Obesity rates have started to decline and level off for many adolescents, but continue to increase for certain racial and ethnic minorities, according to a new UCSF-led study.

The evidence of increasing racial disparities for obesity underscores the need for more tailored intervention programs and policies that target high-risk groups, the authors conclude.

JUPITER, FL, August 10, 2010 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have identified a protein that may act as the trigger controlling the addictive impact of cocaine in the brain. The findings may one day lead to new therapies to treat addiction.

The study was published on August 15, 2010, in the prestigious journal Nature Neuroscience.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Clinical trials using patients' own immune cells to target tumors have yielded promising results. However, this approach usually works only if the patients also receive large doses of drugs designed to help immune cells multiply rapidly, and those drugs have life-threatening side effects.

Now a team of MIT engineers has devised a way to deliver the necessary drugs by smuggling them on the backs of the cells sent in to fight the tumor. That way, the drugs reach only their intended targets, greatly reducing the risk to the patient.

A team of researchers has discovered new evidence that Parkinson's disease may have an infectious or autoimmune origin. "Common genetic variation in the HLA region is associated with late-onset sporadic Parkinson's disease" appears online in Nature Genetics.

Love, exercise and, new research shows, an infrared laser can make a heart beat faster.

Scientists at Case Western Reserve University and Vanderbilt University found that pulsed light can pace contractions in an avian embryonic heart, with no apparent damage to the tissue. The work, "Optical pacing of the embryonic heart," will be published in the advanced online issue of Nature Photonics on Aug. 15, 2010.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a method for predicting the ways nanoparticles will interact with biological systems – including the human body. Their work could have implications for improved human and environmental safety in the handling of nanomaterials, as well as applications for drug delivery.

Using a new, rapid and less expensive DNA sequencing strategy, scientists have discovered genetic alterations that account for most cases of Kabuki syndrome, a rare disorder that causes multiple birth defects and mental retardation. Instead of sequencing the entire human genome, the new approach sequences just the exome, the 1-2 percent of the human genome that contains protein-coding genes.

Pancreatic cancers use the sugar fructose, very common in the Western diet, to activate a key cellular pathway that drives cell division, helping the cancer to grow more quickly, a study by researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found.

Although it's widely known that cancers use glucose, a simple sugar, to fuel their growth, this is the first time a link has been shown between fructose and cancer proliferation, said Dr. Anthony Heaney, an associate professor of medicine and neurosurgery, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and senior author of the study.