PHILADELPHIA (July 01, 2013) – Scientists from the Monell Center report the surprising finding that two proteins involved in oral taste detection also play a crucial role in sperm development.
"This paper highlights a connection between the taste system and male reproduction," said lead author Bedrich Mosinger, MD, PhD, a molecular biologist at Monell. "It is one more demonstration that components of the taste system also play important roles in other organ systems."
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Farmers in the United States witnessed record-breaking extremes in temperature and drought during the last two summers, causing worldwide increases in the costs of food, feed and fiber. Indeed, many climate scientists caution that extreme weather events resulting from climate change is the new normal for farmers in North America and elsewhere, requiring novel agricultural strategies to prevent crop losses.
PITTSBURGH, July 1, 2013 – Cells of the placenta may have a unique ability to prevent viruses from crossing from an expectant mother to her growing baby and can transfer that trait to other kinds of cells, according to researchers at Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI) and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Their findings, published in the early online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shed new light on the workings of the placenta and could point to new approaches to combat viral infections during pregnancy.
Athens, Ga. – A new University of Georgia study has identified the worst and best countries in the world in terms of funding for biodiversity conservation. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also suggests how funding should change to help achieve the United Nations 2020 goals on reducing extinction.
ANN ARBOR—A University of Michigan researcher and colleagues at the University of Georgia and elsewhere have identified the most underfunded countries in the world for biodiversity conservation. They found that 40 of the most poorly funded countries harbor 32 percent of all threatened mammalian biodiversity.
Most—though not all—of the countries in greatest need of more funding are developing nations, so important gains could be made at relatively low cost, the researchers concluded.
HOUSTON – (July 1, 2013) – The idea that worms can be seen as waveforms allowed scientists at Rice University to find new links in gene networks that control movement.
The work led by Rice biochemist Weiwei Zhong, which will appear online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition, involved analyzing video records of the movement of thousands of mutant worms of the species Caenorhabditis elegans to identify the neuronal pathways that drive locomotion.
Vitamin C affects whether genes are switched on or off inside mouse stem cells, and may thereby play a previously unknown and fundamental role in helping to guide normal development in mice, humans and other animals, a scientific team led by UC San Francisco researchers has discovered.
The researchers found that vitamin C assists enzymes that play a crucial role in releasing the brakes that keep certain genes from becoming activated in the embryo soon after fertilization, when egg and sperm fuse.
The agriculture industry is researching new technologies to help feed the growing population. But feeding the world without harming air quality is a challenge.
According to a new article in Animal Frontiers, biotechnologies increase food production and reduce harmful gas output from cattle.
"We are increasing the amount of product with same input," said Clayton Neumeier, PhD student at University of California, Davis, in an interview.
Thirty percent of severe alcoholics develop liver disease, but scientists have not been able to explain why only a subset is at risk. A research team from Northwestern University and Rush University Medical Center now has a possible explanation: disrupted sleep and circadian rhythms can push those vulnerable over the edge to disease.
ALEXANDRIA, VA — A multidisciplinary clinical practice guideline that helps physicians identify children most likely to benefit from tympanostomy tubes, provide the best care before and after surgery, and improve counseling and education for parents was published Monday in the journal Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery.
It is the first evidence-based guideline in the United States for tubes, the most common reason for outpatient surgery performed on children in the U.S.
Ethnic segregation in nations straddling the world's steepest terrains may be reinforced by the biological tolerance different peoples have to altitude, according to one of the first studies to examine the effect of elevation on ethnic demographics.
DENVER – The implementation of personalized health care in cancer relies on the identification and characterization of cancer biomarkers and the availability of accurate detection systems and therapies for those biomarkers. Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), a tyrosine kinase, is a more recently characterized cancer biomarker in non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). To identifyNSCLC patients with ALK gene rearrangement in clinical trials, researchers have used the methods known as fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) or immunohistochemistry (IHC).
DENVER – Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is considered the treatment of choice for early-stage non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) if patients are inoperable because of additional medical conditions. This is based on several prospective phase II trials, which reported consistently high rates of local tumor control. However, these studies only included small number of patients, the methodology of SBRT varied between the studies and SBRT was mainly practiced in specialized centers.
HOUSTON – Scientists have tracked down and quantified the diverse origins of cells that drive fibrosis, the incurable, runaway wound-healing that scars and ultimately destroys organs such as the lungs, liver and kidneys.
Findings from research conducted at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and continued at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center are reported in an advance online publication at Nature Medicine on June 30.
Washington, DC, July 1, 2013 – Pregnant women with diabetes are more than three times as likely as mothers without diabetes to become infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) before hospital discharge, according to a study in the July issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).