Body

Oregon Health & Science University researchers have figured out how to turn a mouse into a factory for human liver cells that can be used to test how pharmaceuticals are metabolized.

The technique, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, could soon become the gold standard not only for examining drug metabolism in the liver, which helps scientists determine a drug's toxicity. But it also can be used as a platform for testing new therapies against infectious diseases that attack the liver, such as hepatitis C and malaria.

It may not be inhaled into the lungs, but smokeless tobacco exposes users to some of the same potent carcinogens as cigarettes. In the August issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers at the University of Minnesota Cancer Center report that users of smokeless tobacco are exposed to higher amounts of tobacco-specific nitrosamines -- molecules that are known to be carcinogenic -- than smokers.

Every three minutes, a woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer . While factors like age and heredity contribute significantly to a woman’s likelihood of contracting this disease, lifestyle and nutrition choices may also play a role. One dietary choice that may help provide protection against breast cancer is a glass of 100 percent grape juice made from deep purple Concord grapes.

Despite the popular notion that antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, offer health-promoting benefits by protecting against damaging free radicals, a new study in the August 10 issue of the journal Cell reveals that, in fact, balance is the key. The researchers show in mice that an overload of natural antioxidants can actually lead the heart to failure.

Rainforests are the world’s treasure houses of biodiversity, but all rainforests are not the same. Biodiversity may be more evenly distributed in some forests than in others and, therefore, may require different management and preservation strategies. That is one of the conclusions of a large-scale Smithsonian study of a lowland rainforest in New Guinea, published in the Aug.

Opinions surrounding the safety of genetically modified (GM) foods must be based on conclusive scientific facts, not the results of one study, the trade association representing Canada's plant science industry said today.

"Genetically modified foods and the crops from which they are derived are some of the most extensively studied food products in the world," says Denise Dewar, Executive Director of Plant Biotechnology for CropLife Canada. "GM foods have been safely consumed for over a decade."

At menopause, women lose hormone protection against heart (cardiovascular) and kidney (renal) diseases, and are likely to become obese. A research team has tested the idea that estrogen deficiency in aged females may trigger the development of high blood pressure and obesity. The results of their study, using an animal model, suggest that estrogen depletion can have these effects.

For decades, older women have taken hormone replacements to replenish estrogen and progesterone levels lost to aging. More recently, testosterone (the most important male hormone) supplements have been used by aging men to improve their muscle mass, bone strength, libido and quality of life. In 2002, the number of elderly American men taking testosterone replacement therapy was nearly 819,000, and the number is growing.

A new study in the American Journal of Gastroenterology suggests that wireless capsule endoscopy is a useful and safe technique to study small bowel health in children. While the technology has become widely used in adult treatment, this is the first study to examine its use in pediatrics.

Diet foods and drinks for children may inadvertently lead to overeating and obesity, says a new report from the University of Alberta.

A team of researchers contends that animals learn to connect the taste of food with the amount of caloric energy it provides, and children who consume low-calorie versions of foods that are normally high in calories may develop distorted connections between taste and calorie content, leading them to overeat as they grow up.

The research will be published today in the academic journal Obesity.

Researchers have identified a new player in the control of so-called “good” cholesterol that circulates in the bloodstream and reduces heart attack risk, according to a report in the August issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press. Should the metabolic pathway uncovered in mice operate similarly in humans, the new discovery could point the way to therapies that protect against heart disease by boosting concentrations of the beneficial high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C).

Cryptography is just about as old as written communication itself, and mathematics has long supplied methods for the cryptographic toolbox. Starting in the 1970s, increasingly sophisticated mathematics began to make inroads into cryptography, changing the nature of the field and bringing new perspectives on what it means to keep communications secure.

Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT) is a National Science Foundation program to educate U.S. scientists and engineers who will pursue careers in research and education. It aims to bring together interdisciplinary backgrounds, deep knowledge in chosen disciplines, and technical, professional and personal skills that will build leaders and creative agents for change.

How do consumers look at advertisements? Most marketing textbooks advance the theory that looking at ads is a predominantly “dumb process,” driven by visual stimuli such as the size of the ad or the color of the text. However, new research by researchers from the Netherlands and the University of Michigan uses eye-tracking software to reveal that it may be our goals – the tasks we have in mind – that drive what we pay attention to, even during a few seconds of ad exposure.

“New technology and global observations have improved resource-management decision making from disaster detection and mitigation of fires, insect outbreaks, storms, and floods, to agricultural management and basic ecological research,” says Dennis Ojima (Colorado State University).