Male injection drug users deported from the United States to Tijuana have four-fold higher odds of HIV infection compared to those living in Tijuana who were not deported there, according to a study to be presented at the International AIDS Conference on August 5, 2008 in Mexico City. The study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will be published in the July 30 issue of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) One.
Body
Paleontologists in 2005 hailed research that apparently showed that soft, pliable tissues had been recovered from dissolved dinosaur bones, a major finding that would substantially widen the known range of preserved biomolecules.
But new research challenges that finding and suggests that the supposed recovered dinosaur tissue is in reality biofilm – or slime.
In vertebrates with separate sexes, sex determination can be genotypic (GSD) or temperature-dependent (TSD). TSD is very common in reptiles, where the ambient temperature during sensitive periods of early development irreversibly determines whether an individual will be male or female. The number of males and females in a population is the sex ratio, a key demographic parameter crucial for population viability.
An enriched extract of the 'Indian Frankincense' herb Boswellia serrata has been proven to reduce the symptoms of osteoarthritis. Research published today in BioMed Central's open access journal Arthritis Research & Therapy has shown that patients taking the herbal remedy showed significant improvement in as little as seven days.
Ultra-miniature bialy-shaped particles — called nanobialys because they resemble tiny versions of the flat, onion-topped rolls popular in New York City — could soon be carrying medicinal compounds through patients' bloodstreams to tumors or atherosclerotic plaques.
Extreme heat or cold is not only uncomfortable, it can be deadly—causing proteins to unravel and malfunction.
For many years now, scientists have understood the molecular mechanisms that enable animals to sense dangerous temperatures; such as extremely high temperatures that directly trigger heat sensor proteins known as TRP channels. However, much more poorly understood is how animals sense very small temperature differences in the comfortable range, and choose their favorite temperature.
One-fifth of British adult survivors of childhood cancers are current smokers, and nearly a third have been regular smokers at some point in their lives, according to a study in the July 29 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
An organized population-based breast cancer screening program in Norway and an approach to screening that relies on physician- and self-referrals in Vermont are equally sensitive for detecting cancer, researchers report in the July 29 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. But the recall rate for abnormal mammograms was lower in Norway.
A London, Canada scientist studying cystic fibrosis (CF) has successfully corrected the defect which causes the overproduction of intestinal mucous in mice. This discovery by Dr. Richard Rozmahel, a scientist with the Lawson Health Research Institute, affiliated with The University of Western Ontario, has clear implications to understanding and treating this facet of the disease in humans. CF is a fatal, genetic disease characterized by an overproduction of mucous in the lungs and digestive system.
FAIRFAX, Va., July 29, 2008 – A new study from George Mason University reveals that while a majority of U.S. health department directors believe their city or county will have serious public health problems as a result of climate change within the next 20 years, very few of them have planned or implemented activities to detect, prevent or adapt to these health threats.
Researchers in Japan and Canada have discovered a key component of the quality control mechanism that operates inside human cells – sometimes too well. The breakthrough has significant implications for the development of new treatments for cystic fibrosis (CF) and some other hereditary diseases, the researchers say. Their results were published July 25 in the journal Science.
The majority of general internists and pediatricians in the United States are not comfortable serving as primary care providers for young adults with complex chronic illnesses that originate during childhood, according to findings from a new national survey.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Detecting deadly fumes in subways, toxic gases in chemical spills, and hidden explosives in baggage is becoming easier and more efficient with a measurement technique called surface-enhanced Raman scattering. To further improve the technique's sensitivity, scientists must design better scattering surfaces, and more effective ways of evaluating them.
Less able to achieve their life goals, women end up unhappier than men later in life – even though they start out happier, reveals new research by Anke Plagnol of the University of Cambridge, and University of Southern California economist Richard Easterlin.
Plagnol and Easterlin's study, forthcoming in the Journal of Happiness Studies, is the first to use nationally representative data spanning several decades to examine the role of unfulfilled desires in a person's sense of well-being.
July 25, 2008 -- Medical physicists at the University of Virginia have created a novel way to kill tumor cells using nanoparticles and light. The technique, devised by Wensha Yang, an instructor in radiation oncology at the University of Virginia, and colleagues Ke Sheng, Paul W. Read, James M. Larner, and Brian P. Helmke, employs quantum dots. Quantum dots are semiconductor nanostructures, 25 billionths of a meter in diameter, which can confine electrons in three dimensions and emit light when exposed to ultraviolet radiation.