Body

A large U.S. multicenter study shows that older men with higher testosterone levels are more likely to have a heart attack or other cardiovascular disease in the future. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

"The study finding contradicts smaller studies that have shown that testosterone levels are not associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease," said presenting author Kristen Sueoka, MD, a resident physician at the University of California, San Francisco.

A new nonsteroidal, anti-inflammatory therapy made from a human protein significantly decreases disease signs of asthma in mice, opening the possibility of a new asthma therapy for patients who do not respond to current steroid treatments. Results of this therapy in an animal model were presented at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

A new study from researchers in Ottawa and Toronto suggests that a commonly used type of bone marrow stem cell may be able to help treat sepsis, a deadly condition that can occur when an infection spreads throughout the body. The study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, shows that these cells can triple survival rates in an experimental model of sepsis.

An imaging algorithm produced by a radiology department and distributed through the medical director's office, in a top-down fashion, enabled a large, academic medical center to significantly reduce the number of unnecessary cervical spine radiographs (X-rays) in the emergency department, according to a study published in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (www.jacr.org).

A study of the occurrence of fishes in the ocean's deepest reaches—the hadal zone, below 6000 meters—has provided evidence that some species of fishes are more numerous at such depths than experts had thought. The authors of the study, which is published in the July/August issue of BioScience, observed 10 to 20 snailfish congregating at a depth of 7703 meters around a baited video lander in the Japan Trench. The observation period lasted only five hours, so the occurrence of so many snailfish, which were of the species Pseudoliparis amblystomopsis, was a surprise.

Philadelphia, PA, July 1, 2010 – About 1 in 200 women in the US delivers her baby at home, with approximately 75% of these low-risk, single-baby births planned in advance as home deliveries. In a study published online today by the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology (AJOG), researchers from Maine Medical Center, Portland, Maine, analyzed the results of multiple studies from around the world.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new analysis of the extinction of woolly mammoths and other large mammals more than 10,000 years ago suggests that they may have fallen victim to the same type of "trophic cascade" of ecosystem disruption that scientists say is being caused today by the global decline of predators such as wolves, cougars, and sharks.

In each case the cascading events were originally begun by human disruption of ecosystems, a new study concludes, but around 15,000 years ago the problem was not the loss of a key predator, but the addition of one – human hunters with spears.

Inducing mild hypothermia is easy to implement in clinical practice and may be a valuable tool in the treatment of human sepsis patients, say researchers at the University of Brest, France.

Sepsis is an inflammatory response to infection and will often result in septic shock, which is the biggest cause of death in intensive care units.

New research shows that the development of sepsis in rats living under hypothermic conditions was slower than in normal conditions and they survived much longer.

Once thought to be "evolutionary leftovers", new research has shown that the feathered forelimbs of ostriches are sophisticated air-rudders and braking aids. Even more, say the researchers, learning wing-use and hindlimb function in ostriches may help palaeontologists in their quest to reconstruct locomotor techniques in bipedal (two-legged) dinosaurs.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---An international team co-led by scientists from the University of Michigan have discovered 12 more regions on the genome with DNA variants that are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, bringing the number to 38.

A variant is a place on a string of DNA where one of the "letters," or nucleotides, differs between people. At most places along the DNA, any two people will have the same letter. The variable places in the DNA are important because some variants can increase predisposition to disease and other conditions, or offer drug targets.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have found that an enzyme with several important roles in energy metabolism also helps to turn off the body's generation of fats and cholesterol under conditions of fasting. The report in Genes & Development describes how SIRT1, one of a group of enzymes called sirtuins, suppresses the activity of a family of proteins called SREBPs, which control the body's synthesis and handling of fats and cholesterol. The findings could lead to new approaches to treating conditions involving elevated cholesterol and lipid levels.

New research by UC Davis wheat geneticist Jorge Dubcovsky and his colleagues could lead to new strategies for improving freezing tolerance in wheat, which provides more than one-fifth of the calories consumed by people around the world.

The new findings, published June 22 in the Online First issue of the journal Plant Physiology, shed light on the connection between flowering and freezing tolerance in wheat.

A more flexible approach to the expansion of protected area systems could ultimately protect much more biodiversity for the same budget according to a new paper in the scientific journal Nature.Lead author Dr Richard Fuller of the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship and The University of Queensland said that without spending extra money "we could dramatically improve the performance of protected area systems by replacing a small number of poor performing areas with more cost-effective ones".

As atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise, so does the pressure on the plant kingdom. The hope among policymakers, scientists and concerned citizens is that plants will absorb some of the extra CO2 and mitigate the impacts of climate change. For a few decades now, researchers have hypothesized about one major roadblock: nitrogen.