Culture
Common dairy cows share the same core group of genetically inherited gut microbes, which influence factors such as how much methane the animals release during digestion and how efficiently they produce milk, according to a new study. By identifying these microbes, the research may help enable scientists to manipulate the rumen (a cow's first stomach, where microbes break down ingested food), facilitating a transition towards more eco-friendly and productive agriculture.
Bottom Line: Cancer has significant impact on the U.S. economy, in part, because of lost productivity from premature deaths. This analysis estimated lost earnings for individuals ages 16 to 84 who died from cancer in 2015 by using data on cancer deaths, life expectancy and annual earnings. There were an estimated $94.4 billion in lost earnings due to cancer deaths in 2015, with large variation across the states. The study has several limitations including that lost productivity was likely underestimated in this study.
Pancreatic cancer is especially challenging to treat - only eight percent of patients are still alive five years after diagnosis. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are of limited benefit, and even immunotherapy - which revolutionized treatment for other kinds of cancer by activating the body's immune system to attack cancer cells - has been largely ineffective because pancreatic tumors have ways to dampen the immune assault.
Cancer took more than 8.7 million years of life and $94.4 billion in lost earnings among people ages 16 to 84 in the United States in 2015. The calculation comes from a new report by American Cancer Society researchers that appears early online in JAMA Oncology.
Scientists at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital have used a novel gene-editing approach to salvage the hearing of mice with genetic hearing loss and succeeded in doing so without any apparent off-target effects as a result of the treatment.
The animals--known as Beethoven mice--were treated for the same genetic mutation that causes progressive hearing loss in humans, culminating in profound deafness by their mid-20s.
As antibiotic resistance is growing and posing a threat on public health, developing new antibiotics has become more urgent than ever. Researchers at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) have recently revealed the virulence regulatory mechanism in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a superbug which is common in patients with a weak immune system and is resistant to many antibiotics. The findings pave ways for identifying good antibiotic targets for new drug development.
DALLAS (SMU) - Researchers from Southern Methodist University (SMU) could help determine if Saturn's icy moon - Titan - has ever been home to life long before NASA completes an exploratory visit to its surface by a drone helicopter.
NASA announced in late June that its "Dragonfly" mission would launch toward Saturn's largest moon in 2026, expecting to arrive in 2034. The goal of the mission is to use a rotorcraft to visit dozens of promising locations on Titan to investigate the chemistry, atmospheric and surface properties that could lead to life.
New research on the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) provides hints to the origins of the puzzling disorder. The results were published in Nature Immunology.
In people with SLE, their B cells - part of the immune system - are abnormally activated. That makes them produce antibodies that react against their own tissues, causing a variety of symptoms, such as fatigue, joint pain, skin rashes and kidney problems.
July 3, 2019 - There are two kinds of age: chronological age, which is the number of years one has lived, and biological age, which is influenced by our genes, lifestyle, behaviour, the environment and other factors. Biological age is the superior measure of true age and is the most biologically relevant feature, as it closely correlates with mortality and health status. The search for reliable predictors of biological age has been ongoing for several decades, and until recently, largely without success.
For the first time, a team of neuroscientists from Columbia University have controlled a visual behavior of a mouse by activating a few neurons in its visual cortex.
Rearing its head in infancy, Christianson Syndrome is a rare disorder whose symptoms include intellectual disability, seizures and difficulty standing or walking. Although it is becoming increasingly diagnosed, with little being known about the neural mechanism behind the disease, therapeutic options for patients remain limited.
Treatment for individuals who experience psychosis, such as hallucinations and delusions as a result of a psychiatric illness, can be targeted to a specific structural mutation, according to a study published by researchers from McLean Hospital and other institutions in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
In the near future, we will be able to mass-produce meat directly from animal cells.
This cultured meat could change the world - or it could falter like GM 'frankenfoods'.
Writing in Frontiers in Nutrition, researchers warn that the most common media framing of cultured meat - as a 'high-tech' innovation - may be the least effective in garnering consumer acceptance.
The revolution will be televised
Antibodies are the biomolecules our immune systems deploy to find, tag and destroy invading pathogens. They work by binding to specific targets, called epitopes, on the surfaces of antigens - like locks to keys.
New research published in Respirology suggests that some respiratory symptoms may predict an earlier death in older adults. Also, such predictions differ by smoking status.
In the study of 2087 older Australians with 22 years of follow-up, shortness of breath predicted a shorter life expectancy irrespective of smoking status. Cough in former smokers and wheeze in current smokers predicted shorter life expectancy.