Body

Replacing carbohydrates and animal fat with vegetable fat may be associated with a lower risk of death in men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

"Nearly 2.5 million men currently live with prostate cancer in the United States, yet little is known about the association between diet after diagnosis and prostate cancer progression and overall mortality," according to the study background.

Men with prostate cancer may significantly improve their survival chances with a simple change in their diet, a new study led by UC San Francisco has found.

By substituting healthy vegetable fats – such as olive and canola oils, nuts, seeds and avocados – for animal fats and carbohydrates, men with the disease had a markedly lower risk of developing lethal prostate cancer and dying from other causes, according to the study.

New research reveals that transplantation of partial livers from deceased adult and teen donors has become less risky for infants and young children, helping to save these young lives. Findings published online in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society, indicate that risk of organ failure and mortality from partial or split liver transplant was comparable to whole organ transplant in this pediatric population.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Biologists from Indiana University and Montana State University have discovered a striking connection between viruses such as HIV and Ebola and viruses that infect organisms called archaea that grow in volcanic hot springs. Despite the huge difference in environments and a 2 billion year evolutionary time span between archaea and humans, the viruses hijack the same set of proteins to break out of infected cells.

Although scientists have known since the middle of the 19th century that the tropics are teeming with species while the poles harbor relatively few, the origin of the most dramatic and pervasive biodiversity on Earth has never been clear.

New research sheds light on how that pattern came about. Furthermore, it confirms that the tropics have been and continue to be the Earth's engine of biodiversity.

Schizophrenia, a chronic and devastating disorder characterized by the breakdown of cognition processes and typical emotional and behavioral responses, has been affecting people throughout history. Scientists believe that several genes are associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia but that no single gene causes the disease by itself. It is likely that interactions between genes and the environment are necessary for schizophrenia to develop and that epigenetic change also plays a role.

The new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provides a detailed consumption-based accounting of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in China. Consumption-based accounting allocates emissions to the province where products are ultimately consumed, rather than simply focusing on where emissions occur. It shows that policies to reduce emissions in China may tend to push factories and production into developing regions of the country.

Since 1996, farmers worldwide have planted more than a billion acres (400 million hectares) of genetically modified corn and cotton that produce insecticidal proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt for short. Bt proteins, used for decades in sprays by organic farmers, kill some devastating pests but are considered environmentally friendly and harmless to people. However, some scientists feared that widespread use of these proteins in genetically modified crops would spur rapid evolution of resistance in pests.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- In the wake of concerns over climate change and other emergent environmental issues, both individuals and governments are examining the impact of consumer and producer behavior and policies.

Scientists at the University of York have uncovered new insights into the way seeds use gene networks to control when they germinate in response to environmental signals.

Timing of seed germination is crucial for survival of plants in the wild and is also important for commercial seed production where there is a need to ensure uniform growth.

LA JOLLA, Calif., June 10, 2013 — Conventional treatments for diseases such as cancer can carry harmful side effects—and the primary reason is that such treatments are not targeted specifically to the cells of the body where they're needed. What if drugs for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases can be targeted specifically and only to cells that need the medicine, and leave normal tissues untouched?

For more than a decade, scientists have suspected that hairpin-shaped chains of micro-RNA regulate wood formation inside plant cells. Now, scientists at NC State University have found the first example and mapped out key relationships that control the process.

Females play a larger role in determining paternity than previously thought, say biologists in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences. Their findings are the subject of a new paper titled "Female mediation of competitive fertilization success in Drosophila melanogaster," published this month by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects more than 170 million people worldwide. Approximately 80 percent of infections lead to chronic illness including fibrosis, cirrhosis, cancer and also hepatic iron overload. A new study completed by researchers at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine reveals that HCV not only alters expression of the iron-uptake receptor known as transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1) but that TfR1 also mediates HCV entry.

Women with a severe form of morning sickness who take antihistamines to help them sleep through their debilitating nausea are significantly more likely to experience adverse pregnancy outcomes, including low birth weight babies and premature births, a UCLA study has found.