Researchers from the UCLA Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology have isolated a new population of primitive, stress-resistant human pluripotent stem cells easily derived from fat tissue that are able to differentiate into virtually every cell type in the human body without genetic modification.
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Names can provide a clue to a person's background, and with certain names come certain preconceptions. But could a parent's choice of name for their child be influenced by evolution? Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London analysed the most popular baby names from the last decade to decode the link between the sounds in a name and the sex, in a new paper published in the journal PLOS ONE today.
Boston, MA – Reaching puberty at an unusually early age can have adverse effects on social behavior and psychological development, as well as physical effects, including short stature, and lifelong health risks, such as diabetes, breast cancer and heart disease. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), in a multi-institutional collaboration with Boston Children's Hospital, the Broad Institute, and the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, have identified that a genetic mutation leads to a type of premature puberty, known as central precocious puberty.
Baltimore, Md. — June 5, 2013. The bacteria that live in the human gut may play an important role in immune response to vaccines and infection by wild-type enteric organisms, according to two recent studies resulting from a collaborative effort between the University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute for Genome Sciences and the Center for Vaccine Development.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have demonstrated a method for "temporal cloaking" of optical communications, representing a potential tool to thwart would-be eavesdroppers and improve security for telecommunications.
"More work has to be done before this approach finds practical application, but it does use technology that could integrate smoothly into the existing telecommunications infrastructure," said Purdue University graduate student Joseph Lukens, working with Andrew Weiner, the Scifres Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – June 5, 2013 – Cancer survivors who live in rural areas aren't as healthy as their urban counterparts, according to new research from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
Kathryn E. Weaver, Ph.D., assistant professor of social sciences and health policy at Wake Forest Baptist, said that this study, which builds on previous research showing that rural cancer survivors suffer worse health after cancer, looks at the role of health behaviors, such as smoking and physical inactivity.
PORTLAND, Ore. — The surgeon who more than two decades ago pioneered deep brain stimulation surgery in the United States to treat people with Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders has now developed a new way to perform the surgery — which allows for more accurate placement of the brain electrodes and likely is safer for patients.
The researchers have been tracking the evolution of Drosophila subobscura, a small fly that is very common all over Europe, since 1976. They are focusing on a specific type of genomic variability known as chromosomal inversion polymorphism. The study has compared how the flies' genomes change from spring to summer, summer to autumn and autumn to spring, over the years.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Offering flu vaccines at elementary schools could expand vaccination rates and reduce costs, according to a new study reported in the scientific journal Vaccine by researchers from UC Davis Health System; the Monroe County, New York, Department of Public Health; University of Rochester Medical Center; and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) —To attract and maintain a diverse, qualified academic workforce, institutions of higher education should have — and promote — policies to help balance career and family life, according to an article published by UC Davis researchers in the June 2013 issue of Academic Medicine.
Policies allowing medical school faculty to care for family while advancing their careers are more available today than ever before, the authors said in the article. Yet these policies are also underused, primarily because faculty members do not know they exist.
URBANA, Ill. – Phosphorus is a vital nutrient for pig growth, but the majority of the phosphorus in common plant-based feedstuffs is bound to phytate and therefore is unavailable to pigs. Diets fed to pigs can be supplemented with microbial phytase to improve phosphorus digestibility, according to Hans S. Stein, a University of Illinois professor in animal sciences.
Early Earth was not very hospitable when it came to jump starting life. In fact, new research shows that life on Earth may have come from out of this world.
Lawrence Livermore scientist Nir Goldman and University of Ontario Institute of Technology colleague Isaac Tamblyn (a former LLNL postdoc) found that icy comets that crashed into Earth millions of years ago could have produced life building organic compounds, including the building blocks of proteins and nucleobases pairs of DNA and RNA.
A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine describes genetic testing of a rare blood cancer called atypical chronic neutrophilic leukemia (CNL) that revealed a new mutation present in most patients with the disease. The mutation also serves as an Achilles heel, allowing doctors at the University of Colorado Cancer Center to prescribe a never-before-used, targeted treatment. The first patient treated describes his best snowboarding season ever.
WHAT:
Untreated HIV infection destroys a person's immune system by killing infection-fighting cells, but precisely when and how HIV wreaks this destruction has been a mystery until now. New research by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, reveals how HIV triggers a signal telling an infected immune cell to die. This finding has implications for preserving the immune systems of HIV-infected individuals.
Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), led by Dr. Lee Bulla, have characterized a protein produced by the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis (Bti), which is highly toxic against Anopheles gambiae, the principal mosquito vector of malaria. The protein toxin, which has been known for a number of years, is produced in a complex of other protein toxins, called Cry toxins, which also have mosquitocidal activity against other species of mosquito.