Culture

Gene therapy has gained momentum in the past year, following the federal government's approval of the first such treatments for inherited retinal diseases and hard-to-treat leukemia. Now, research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has shown, in mice, that genetic material can be delivered to damaged cells in the kidneys, a key step toward developing gene therapy to treat chronic kidney disease.

New research reveals that people are more likely to change jobs when they are younger and well educated, though not necessarily because they are more open to a new experience.

A team from ETH Zurich in Switzerland and the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK analysed and compared the effects of individual characteristics and the economic context on career mobility.

SAN DIEGO, CA - Returning to your sport after an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury and not suffering a second injury is often difficult but for a kid who suffers an ACL injury figuring out how to prevent reinjury is even more tricky, say researchers presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting in San Diego. This research study also received the STOP Sports Injuries Award during the meeting.

SAN DIEGO, CA - For patients with rotator cuff tears, improving shoulder function is the most important reason for moving forward with surgical repair, according to research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting in San Diego. Researchers also found that through arthroscopic rotator cuff repair (ARCR), these patients consistently saw significant functional improvements and relief from pain.

Tropical forests are important to all of us on the planet. As well as being home for rare and fascinating biodiversity (like the lemurs of Madagascar), tropical forests lock up enormous amounts of carbon helping to stabilise our climate. However tropical forests are also home to many hundreds of thousands of people whose lives can be affected by international conservation policies.

Isoglucose, also known as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is used in the food industry as a substance to sweeten processed foods such as soft drinks, creams, cakes, confectionery, yogurts etc. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has been asked by various parties whether these sweeteners, which contain a high proportion of the free monosaccharide (simple sugar) fructose, pose a particular risk to health as compared to other sweeteners such as sucrose (household sugar, beet sugar, cane sugar).

A rare juvenile foot fossil of our early hominin ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis, exhibits several ape-like foot characteristics that could have aided in foot grasping for climbing trees, a new study shows. This finding challenges the long-held assumption that A. afarensis was exclusively bipedal (using only two legs for walking) and only occasionally climbed into trees. Juvenile hominin fossils provide unique insights into how traits (like foot grasping) become less apparent as the individual grows into adulthood.

Researchers have discovered that stabilizing dysfunctional endothelial cells with approved drugs reverses cellular dysfunction in a rat model of cerebral small vessel disease (SVD), hinting towards a new therapeutic approach for the treatment of vascular dementia. As life expectancies climb around the world and society ages, dementia - a group of symptoms characterized by declining memory and cognitive ability - has become a chief concern for scientists and caretakers.

Scientists have uncovered a potential approach to treat one of the commonest causes of dementia and stroke in older people.

Studies with rats found the treatment can reverse changes in blood vessels in the brain associated with the condition, called cerebral small vessel disease.

Treatment also prevents damage to brain cells caused by these blood vessel changes, raising hope that it could offer a therapy for dementia.

Boston, MA - Children and adolescents whose mothers follow five healthy habits--eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, keeping a healthy body weight, drinking alcohol in moderation, and not smoking--are 75% less likely to become obese when compared with children of mothers who did not follow any such habits, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. When both mother and child adhered to these habits, the risk of obesity was 82% lower compared with mother and children who did not.

Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is associated with changes to the structure of the brain that are also seen in the early stages of dementia, according to a study published in the European Respiratory Journal [1].

OSA, where the walls of the throat relax and narrow during sleep stopping breathing, is known to reduce levels of oxygen in the blood. The new study suggests that this drop in oxygen may be linked to a shrinking of the brain's temporal lobes and a corresponding decline in memory.

A mother's diet during pregnancy may have an effect on the composition of her baby's gut microbiome - the community of bacteria living in the gut - and the effect may vary by delivery mode, according to study published in the open access journal Microbiome.

Sara Lundgren, lead author of the study said: "Our study demonstrates an association of a readily modifiable factor, maternal diet, with the infant gut microbiome. This knowledge may be key for developing evidence-based dietary recommendations for pregnant and lactating women."

New York City -- An international team of astronomers has discovered an ancient and dramatic head-on collision between the Milky Way and a smaller object, dubbed the "Sausage" galaxy. The cosmic crash was a defining event in the early history of the Milky Way and reshaped the structure of our galaxy, fashioning both its inner bulge and its outer halo, the astronomers report in a series of new papers.

New research provides insights into the extinction of Britain's largest native carnivore.

The study - 'The Presence of the brown bear in Holocene Britain: a review of the evidence' published in Mammal Review - is the first of its kind to collate and evaluate the evidence for the brown bear in post-Ice Age Britain.

A study from The Auk: Ornithological Advances presents citizen science data which supports that American Crows and Northwestern Crows almost exclusively (97% of the time) instigate any aggressive interactions with Common Ravens no matter where in North America. The data showed that aggression by crows was most frequent during the breeding season, most likely due to nest predation by ravens. This study not only gives insight into interspecies dynamics, but also how citizen science data can aid behavioral studies at large geographic scales.