Body

Dogs suffering from lymphoma will be able to receive the same type of medical treatment as their human counterparts, as North Carolina State University becomes the first university in the nation to offer canine bone marrow transplants in a clinical setting.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Elderly people who take a cholesterol drug after a stroke or mini-stroke lower their risk of having another stroke just as much as younger people in the same situation, according to research published in the September 3, 2008, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

New Haven, Conn. —Yale molecular and evolutionary biologists in collaboration with Department of Energy scientists produced the full genome sequence of Trichoplax, one of nature's most primitive multicellular organisms, providing a new insight into the evolution of all higher animals.

Merging multiple CT images (summation of CT scans) increases the accuracy of probe repositioning during radiofrequency ablation treatments of various lesions, according to a recent study performed at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH.

MADISON, WI, SEPTEMBER 2, 2008– Varying the rate of crop production inputs such as fertilizer and seed makes intuitive sense, as farmers have long observed differences in crop yield in various areas of a single field. The availability of spatial yield information from combines equipped with yield monitors has provided a good resource for improved management.

Scientists have detected previously unnoticed chemical signals that individual cells in the immune system use to communicate with each other over short distances.

The signals the researchers detected originated in dendritic cells – the sentinels of the immune system that do the initial detection of microscopic invaders – and was received by nearby T-cells, which play a number of crucial roles in the immune system, including coordination of attacks on agents that cause disease or infection.

Charlottesville, Va., Sept. 3, 2008 -- Getting pregnant with her first child was difficult, but when Rebecca Killmeyer of Charlottesville, Va. experienced a miscarriage during her second pregnancy, she wasn't sure if she would ever have another baby. When she decided to enter a study testing the impact of acupuncture on women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) at the University of Virginia Health System, she came out with a miracle.

UCLA scientists have succeeded in making unique nanoscale droplets that are much smaller than a human cell and can potentially be used to deliver pharmaceuticals.

"What we found that was unexpected was within each oil droplet there was also a water droplet — a double emulsion," said Timothy Deming, professor and chair of the UCLA Department of Bioengineering and a member of both the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center. "We have a water droplet inside of an oil droplet, in water."

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Large flightless birds of the southern continents – African ostriches, Australian emus and cassowaries, South American rheas and the New Zealand kiwi – do not share a common flightless ancestor as once believed.

Instead, each species individually lost its flight after diverging from ancestors that did have the ability to fly, according to new research conducted in part by University of Florida zoology professor Edward Braun.

The rise of retired people seeking active participation in their communities has led researchers to define this new aspect of American life. As a result, civic engagement can now be considered a distinct retirement role, according to an article in the latest issue of The Gerontologist (Volume 48, Number 3).

Scientists from the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) have determined the 3D structure of a key protein component involved in enabling "epigenetic code" to be copied accurately from cell to cell.

Epigenetic code is a series of chemical switches that is added onto our DNA in order to ensure that the cells in our body can form different types of tissue, for example liver and skin, despite having identical DNA genetic code.

Imagine having to copy an entire book by hand without missing a comma. Our cells face a similar task every time they divide. They must duplicate both their DNA and a subtle pattern of punctuation-like modifications on the DNA known as methylation.

Scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have caught in action one of the tools mammalian cells use to maintain their pattern of methylation. Visualized by X-ray crystallography, the SRA domain of the protein UHRF1 appears to act like a bookmark while enzymes are copying a molecule of DNA.

Serum microRNAs (miRNAs) can serve as biomarkers for the detection of diseases including cancer and diabetes, according to research published online this week in Cell Research. The findings pave the way for a revolutionary non-invasive diagnostic tool.

miRNAs are a class of naturally occurring small non-coding RNAs that have been linked with cancer development. Recent studies reporting individual miRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers of specific cancers were unable to rule out the possibility that these miRNAs appeared as a result of contamination.

Biocontrol agents, such as insects, are often released outside of their native ranges to control invasive plants. But scientists in Montana have found that through complex community interactions among deer mice, native plants and seeds, the presence of an introduced fly may exacerbate the effects of the invasive plant it was meant to control. The authors report their results in the September issue of the journal Ecological Applications.

DALLAS – Sept. 3, 2008 – Many nursing mothers who have been hospitalized for breast abscesses are afflicted with the "superbug" methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, but according to new research by UT Southwestern Medical Center physicians, conservative treatment can deal with the problem.

The study focused on hospitalized women with mastitis, and showed that community-associated MRSA was much more likely to be found in those who had both mastitis (an inflammation of the milk glands) and abscesses (pockets of infection).