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The scientific evidence linking air pollution to heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular death has "substantially strengthened," and people, particularly those at high cardiovascular risk, should limit their exposure, according to an updated American Heart Association scientific statement.

Women with type 2 diabetes who ate the most bran in a study had a 35 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and a 28 percent reduction in death from all causes than women who ate the least amount, researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Bran is a component of whole grain rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber.

Consuming more nuts appears to be associated with improvements in blood cholesterol levels, according to a pooled analysis of data from 25 trials reported in the May 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

A laboratory technique using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that copies DNA segments may allow clinicians to accurately identify pathogens infecting the cornea more quickly than standard methods, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Restless legs syndrome appears to aggregate in families, and the siblings of those who are severely affected appear to have an increased risk of developing the disease, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Pathological gambling, compulsive shopping, binge eating and other impulse control disorders appear to be more common among individuals taking dopamine agonist medications for Parkinson's disease, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Among infants who undergo surgery to treat congenital cataract, surgical lens replacement appears to cause more complications while achieving the same treatment benefit as treatment with contact lenses, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the July print issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Montreal, May 10, 2010 – Restless legs syndrome, which causes an irresistible desire to move legs, appears to be a hereditary condition that's more prominent among French Canadian women and may be caused by a combination of genetic influences and environmental effects. According to a large-scale study published in the Archives of Neurology, siblings of people affected by restless legs syndrome are three and a half times more likely to develop the disease.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A tiny gene mutation in human liver cells could one day influence how high or low a dose patients need of about half of the clinically used drugs on the market, new research suggests.

Scientists at Ohio State University and their colleagues have identified this mutation, and have shown that it alters the level of a protein in the liver responsible for processing between 45 percent and 60 percent of medications used to treat a wide range of conditions.

A new paper by a team of researchers led by University of Notre Dame biologist Jeffrey Feder could herald an important shift in thinking about the genomics of speciation.

Titled "Widespread genomic divergence during sympatric speciation," the paper appears in today's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Immortality and uncontrolled cell division are the fundamental differences between cancer cells and normal cells.

A widely held explanation for these differences is that the biological clocks in cancer cells are damaged and can't regulate cell division in the fashion that they do in normal cells.

A 150-million-year old 'Dinobird' fossil, long thought to contain nothing but fossilized bone and rock, has been hiding remnants of the animal's original chemistry, according to new research.

The sensational discovery by an international team of palaeontologists, geochemists and physicists was made after carrying out state-of-the art analysis of one the world's most important fossils - the half-dinosaur/half-bird species called Archaeopteryx.

Field studies have shown for the first time that several common species of seaweeds in both the Pacific and Caribbean Oceans can kill corals upon contact using chemical means.

An Arizona State University graduate student, Jinglin Fu, in collaboration with Biodesign Institute researchers Neal Woodbury and Stephen Albert Johnston, has pioneered a technique that improves on scientists' ability to harness and modulate enzyme activity.

The new approach, reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (published recently online), could have wide applicability for designing a range of industrial catalysts, health care diagnostics and therapies centered on understanding the control of enzymatic activity.