Imagine millions of jigsaw puzzle pieces scattered across a football field, with too few people and too little time available to assemble the picture.
Body
The sperm of obese fathers could increase the risk of both their children and their grandchildren inheriting obesity, according to new research from University of Adelaide.
In laboratory studies, researchers from the University's Robinson Institute have found that molecular signals in the sperm of obese fathers can lead to obesity and diabetes-like symptoms in two generations of offspring, even though the offspring are eating healthily.
(TORONTO, Canada – July 15, 2013) – Scientists led by Drs. Mona Gauthier and Tak Mak at The Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre have solved a key piece in the puzzle of how BRCA1 gene mutations specifically predispose women to breast and ovarian cancers.
A drug originally developed to prevent the rejection of transplanted organs has now been shown to dramatically reduce seizures in patients with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) – a genetic disease characterized by benign tumors on multiple organ systems. TSC is estimated to affect more than a million individuals throughout the world.
The study is the latest to demonstrate the effectiveness of everolimus for TSC patients. Previous studies conducted at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center showed that everolimus reduced tumors in the brain and the kidney.
Following the death of the polar bear Knut at Berlin Zoo, examinations carried out at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin showed that Knut was suffering from virus-induced encephalitis (acute inflammation of the brain).
Researchers at Saarland University and IZW have now analyzed his genetic material and discovered and characterized new sequences of endogenous retroviruses. The retroviruses were also found in another former resident of Berlin Zoo: the giant panda Bao Bao.
PHILADELPHIA — Scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have generated a data set of cancer-specific genetic variations and are making these data available to the research community, according to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
This will help cancer researchers better understand drug response and resistance to cancer treatments.
Parents are increasingly experiencing a 'time squeeze' as they struggle to navigate the pressures of full-time employment and the demands of caring for their children. Research in the Journal of Marriage and Family examines if flexible working schemes are helping or adding to this pressure.
The authors examined how the introduction of ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) has impacted parents' perceptions of their time. Under this scheme employees are paid for results, rather than their time.
A new study suggests that some very preterm babies have trouble bonding with their care-givers due to neurological impairments and not to the way their parents interact with them.
University of Warwick researchers found that most very preterm and very low birthweight (VP/VLBW) infants were securely attached to their parents.
But they also found that VP/VLBW infants were at higher risk for what is termed 'disorganised attachment' – when a child shows conflicting behaviour in their relationship with their parents.
Fizzy drinks, cakes, biscuits, crisps and desserts have all been identified as risk factors for bowel cancer, according to new research.
The study is the first of its kind to find a positive link between the disease and a diet high in foods that contain a lot of sugar and fat.
Researchers looked at risk factors including diet, levels of physical activity and smoking in a large Scottish study.
Physicists from the University of York have carried out new research into how the heating effect of an experimental cancer treatment works.
Magnetic hyperthermia is viewed as an attractive approach for the treatment of certain cancers as it has no known side effects compared to more conventional therapies such as chemotherapy. It is particularly suitable for the treatment of prostate cancer and brain tumours. However, until now there has been no clear theoretical understanding of how it actually works.
Studies of patients with immunodeficiencies involving single gene mutations can reveal a great deal about our immune systems, especially when actual symptoms do not accord with clinical expectations.
Australian scientists acknowledge such a gap between expectation and reality in a new study, which examines people with 'Autosomal Dominant Hyper IgE Syndrome'.
A team of scientists, led by researchers at The Wistar Institute, has determined that it might be possible to stimulate the immune system against multiple strains of influenza virus by sequentially vaccinating individuals with distinct influenza strains isolated over the last century.
Their results also suggest that world health experts might need to re-evaluate standard tests used for surveillance of novel influenza strains. Their findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, available online now.
The number of tick-borne illnesses reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is on the rise. Lyme disease leads the pack, with some 35,000 cases reported annually. In the Northeast, the black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) that spread Lyme disease also infect people with other maladies, among them anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and – as a new paper in the journal Parasites and Vectors reports – Powassan encephalitis.
Experiments by biochemists at the University of California, Davis show for the first time that a law of physics, the ergodic theorem, can be demonstrated by a collection of individual protein molecules -- specifically, a protein that unwinds DNA. The work will be published online by the journal Nature on July 14.
Vitamin D influences many other physiological processes, including muscle function, cardiovascular homeostasis, nerve function, and immune response. Furthermore, accumulated evidence suggests that vitamin D also mediates the immune system response to infection. Infections are very common in patients from neurosurgical intensive care unit. A recent study published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 8, No.