Body

The new 10-20-30 training concept can improve both a person's running performance and health, despite a significant reduction in the total amount of training. This is the conclusion of a study from University of Copenhagen researchers just published in the renowned scientific Journal of Applied of Physiology.

Scoliosis (curvature of the spine) affects three or four per thousand children and as many as seven out of ten older adults. While there is still controversy about the efficacy of back braces for children this is often considered a problem of compliance – if the children do not wear their braces the treatment does not work.

Researchers at the University of York headed a major international review aimed at enhancing efforts to better understand the impacts of chemicals used in pharmaceuticals or in personal care products, such as cosmetics, soaps, perfumes, deodorants and toothpastes (PPCPs), on the natural environment.

Over the last two decades, scientists and regulators have raised concerns over the potential environmental effects and risks of the 4,000 pharmaceuticals and substantial number of personal care products that are used by society.

Belief in God or other higher powers may be crucially linked to humans' cognitive ability to infer other peoples' mental states, called "theory of mind" or "mentalizing," according to research published May 30 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

Men's offices have significantly more bacteria than women's, and the office bacterial communities of New York and San Francisco are indistinguishable, according to a study published May 30 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

Genetics can help determine whether a person is likely to quit smoking on his or her own or need medication to improve the chances of success, according to research published in today's American Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers say the study moves health care providers a step closer to one day providing more individualized treatment plans to help patients quit smoking.

Overdiagnosis poses a significant threat to human health by labeling healthy people as sick and wasting resources on unnecessary care, warns Ray Moynihan, Senior Research Fellow at Bond University in Australia, in a feature published on bmj.com today.

PHILADELPHIA—Younger patients with colorectal cancer were more likely to present advanced stage tumors at diagnosis and metastasize much sooner, yet had better than or equal survival to patients 50 and older, according to data being presented at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago. (Abstract #3621, Monday, June 4, 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM CST, S Hall A2).

PITTSBURGH, May 30 – Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have identified an agent that in lab tests protected the skin and lungs from fibrosis, a process that can ultimately end in organ failure and even death because the damaged tissue becomes scarred and can no longer function properly. The findings were published today in Science Translational Medicine.

After being infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in a laboratory study, rhesus macaques that had more of a certain type of immune cell in their gut than others had much lower levels of the virus in their blood, and for six months after infection were better able to control the virus.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 - A botanist brings a species of alfalfa from Siberia, to the United States. His hope? The plant survives, and leads to a new winter-hardy alfalfa. But what also happened during this time in the late 1800's, isn't just a story of legend and lore. The truth of the matter is creating a current revival in both interest and conservation of what's now called a crop's "wild relative."

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- If lower-income mothers want kids with healthy diets, it's best to adopt healthy eating habits themselves and encourage their children to eat good foods rather than use force, rewards or punishments, says a Michigan State University study.

ITHACA, N.Y. - For the first time, the genome of the tomato, Solanum lycopersicum, has been decoded, and it becomes an important step toward improving yield, nutrition, disease resistance, taste and color of the tomato and other crops. The full genome sequence, as well as the sequence of a wild relative, is jointly published in the latest issue of the journal Nature (May 31, 2012).

Specifically, the genome was sequenced from the "Heinz 1706" tomato.

In focusing on the use of short strands of synthetic DNA and avoiding the long scaffold strand, Yin's team developed an alternative building method. Each SST is a single, short strand of DNA. One tile will interlock with another tile, if it has a complementary sequence of DNA. If there are no complementary matches, the blocks do not connect. In this way, a collection of tiles can assemble itself into specific, predetermined shapes through a series of interlocking local connections.

The Tomato Genome Consortium, a group of over 300 scientists from 13 countries, has sequenced the genomes of the domesticated tomato and its wild ancestor, Solanum pimpinellifolium. This achievement is expected to lower costs and speed up efforts to improve the worldwide tomato production, making it better equipped to combat the pests, pathogens, droughts and diseases that now plague growers. The work may also speed up improvements to other crops. The sequences were reported in this week's issue of Nature.