Rugged, hilly landscapes with a range of different habitat types can help maintain more stable butterfly populations and thus aid their conservation, according to new findings published today (8 February 2010) in the journal Ecology Letters.
The research, carried out by scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Butterfly Conservation and the University of York, has implications for how we might design landscapes better to help conserve species.
Oestrogen-only hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may increase the risk of developing asthma after the menopause, suggests a large scale study published ahead of print in the journal Thorax.
The authors base their findings on 57, 664 women, who were quizzed about their use of HRT and development of asthma symptoms every two years between 1990 and 2002.
Women with gout are at greater risk of a heart attack than men with the disease, indicates research published ahead of print in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
Gout is known to boost the risk of a heart attack in men. But to date, little has been known about the impact of gout on women's cardiovascular health.
Gout is common and caused by inflammation in the joints as a result of excess uric acid deposits. Uric acid is a by-product of purines, which are abundant in a Western diet.
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Workers exposed to tricholorethylene (TCE), a chemical once widely used to clean metal such as auto parts, may be at a significantly higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010.
In the 7 Feb. 2010 issue of the journal Nature, scientists at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), report that a genetic molecule, called Tbx3, which is crucial for many aspects of early developmental processes in mammals, significantly improves the quality of stem cells that have been reprogrammed from differentiated cells.
Stem cells reprogrammed from differentiated cells are known as induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells.
STANFORD, Calif. - Tiny circles of DNA are the key to a new and easier way to transform stem cells from human fat into induced pluripotent stem cells for use in regenerative medicine, say scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Unlike other commonly used techniques, the method, which is based on standard molecular biology practices, does not use viruses to introduce genes into the cells or permanently alter a cell's genome.
Scientists announced today (7 Feb) they have identified for the first time definitive variants associated with biological ageing in humans. The team analyzed more than 500,000 genetic variations across the entire human genome to identify the variants which are located near a gene called TERC.
The study in Nature Genetics published today by researchers from the University of Leicester and King's College London, working with University of Groningen in the Netherlands, was funded by The Wellcome Trust and the British Heart Foundation.
CHICAGO, Ill. (February 6, 2010) — In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's (SMFM) annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ™, in Chicago, researchers will unveil findings that show that there is an increased risk of intrauterine fetal death (IUFD), commonly known as stillbirth, in women who have fibroids.
IUFD, or still birth, is rare and affects only six to seven out of every thousand births.
How two butterfly species have evolved exactly the same striking wing colour and pattern has intrigued biologists since Darwin's day. Now, scientists at Cambridge have found "hotspots" in the butterflies' genes that they believe will explain one of the most extraordinary examples of mimicry in the natural world.
Heliconius, or passion-vine butterflies, live in the Americas – from the southern United States to southern South America. Although they cannot interbreed, H. melpomene and H. erato have evolved to mimic one another perfectly.
Using ultrasound to screen all pregnant women for signs of a shortening cervix improves pregnancy outcomes and is a cost-effective way to reduce preterm birth, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in a new study.
The results of the study will be presented February 5 at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine (SMFM) in Chicago.
Physicians in training and bioethicists at Johns Hopkins have created an easy-to-remember checklist to help medical students and clinicians quickly assess a patient's decision-making capacity in an emergency.
Using an elaborate sleuthing system they developed to probe how cells manage their own division, Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that common but hard-to-see sugar switches are partly in control.
Because these previously unrecognized sugar switches are so abundant and potential targets of manipulation by drugs, the discovery of their role has implications for new treatments for a number of diseases, including cancer, the scientists say.
NORFOLK, Va. – Doctors at Eastern Virginia Medical School's Strelitz Diabetes Center have been stalking the culprit responsible for Type 1 diabetes. Now, they are one step closer.
Members of a research team at the center, led by Jerry Nadler, MD, professor and chair of internal medicine and director of the center, have been studying the role of the enzyme 12-Lipoxygenase (12-LO) in the development of Type 1 diabetes. They hope that targeting this enzyme will hold the key to a cure.
Groundbreaking research done at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) School of Biological Sciences (SBS) could lead to the development of more potent drugs or a vaccine for malaria, which is transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes and kills up to three million people each year.
PITTSBURGH—Within a virus's tiny exterior is a store of energy waiting to be unleashed. When the virus encounters a host cell, this pent-up energy is released, propelling the viral DNA into the cell and turning it into a virus factory. For the first time, Carnegie Mellon University physicist Alex Evilevitch has directly measured the energy associated with the expulsion of viral DNA, a pivotal discovery toward fully understanding the physical mechanisms that control viral infection and designing drugs to interfere with the process.