Body

The nature-nurture debate is usually about how much of something is due to our genes and how much is caused by our environment. New research just published in the academic journal Addiction shows that the case is more interesting for young women who smoke, drink, or use drugs, for two related reasons. First, a young woman with a genetic predisposition to substance use is also predisposed to choose friends who smoke, drink, or use drugs, thereby altering her environment in a way that encourages substance use.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., USA, 21 June, 2010 – In the year since their 2008 preliminary ranking, Cell Press journals Cell Stem Cell and Cell Host and Microbe saw their Impact Factors surge, according to new data released in the 2009 Journal Citation Reports© published by ThomsonReuters.

In the report released June 17, Cell Stem Cell's rating rose to 23.563 - a growth of 40% from the journal's previous score. Cell Host and Microbe ranks 13.021 - boasting an increase of 75% from the journal's 2008 Impact Factor.

"The small size of an alien insect that feeds on a native tree from the western Pacific island of Guam allows it to hide in cracks and other locations that are out of reach for its only local natural enemy," said UOG entomologist Aubrey Moore.

One year after weight loss surgery with laparoscopic gastric banding, extremely obese adults demonstrate not only better physical health but also improved psychological health, a new study shows. The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Fructose, the sugar widely used as high-fructose corn syrup in soft drinks and processed foods, often gets some of the blame for the widespread rise in obesity. Now a laboratory study has found that when fructose is present as children's fat cells mature, it makes more of these cells mature into fat cells in belly fat and less able to respond to insulin in both belly fat and fat located below the skin.

A diet rich in natural antioxidants improves insulin sensitivity in insulin-resistant obese adults and enhances the effect of the insulin-sensitizing drug metformin, a preliminary study from Italy finds. The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

People who donate one of their kidneys experience faster deterioration of their other kidney if they have the metabolic syndrome at the time of donation, a new study finds. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Russ Campbell, Guam's territorial entomologist and Aubrey Moore, UOG extension entomologist, welcomed New Zealand scientist, Trevor Jackson to Guam in early June. Jackson was invited to assist in the release of a virus into the rhino beetle (Oryctes rhinoceros) population. This virus only infects rhino beetles and it has been successful in controlling populations of the pest on other Pacific islands.

HOUSTON -- (June 21, 2010) – The completion of three pilot projects designed to determine how best to build an extremely detailed map of human genetic variation begins a new chapter in the international project called 1,000 Genomes (http://www.1000genomes.org/page.php?page=home), said the director of the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center (http://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/), which is a major contributor to the effort.

Berkeley — Pregnant women with higher blood levels of a common flame retardant had altered thyroid hormone levels, a result that could have implications for fetal health, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

PHILADELPHIA –- A team of bioengineers from the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Medicine and Engineering have trained a computer neural network model to accurately predict how blood platelets would respond to complex conditions found during a heart attack or stroke.

Using an automated, robotic system, they exposed human blood platelets to hundreds of different combinations of biological stimuli like those experienced during a heart attack. This was done by fingerprinting each platelet sample with 34,000 data points obtained in response to all possible pairs of stimuli.

BOSTON—Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have found a way to disable a common protein that often thwarts chemotherapy treatment of several major forms of cancer.

Obese people without metabolic risk factors for diabetes and heart disease, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, do not have the elevated cardiovascular risk typical of obesity, but they represent only a small percentage of the obese population, according to a long-term study. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Rome, Italy, Saturday 19 June 2010: For healthcare professionals diagnosing primary Sjögren's Syndrome (pSS, an autoimmune disorder in which immune cells attack and destroy moisture-producing glands), the incidence of blood based deficiencies is the strongest predictor of a poor outcome in patients according to the results of a study presented today at EULAR 2010, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism in Rome, Italy.

Coffee and tea drinkers may not need to worry about indulging – high and moderate consumption of tea and moderate coffee consumption are linked with reduced heart disease, according to a study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers in The Netherlands found: