Body

Galaxy -- an open-source, web-based platform for data-intensive biomedical and genetic research -- is now available as a "cloud computing" resource.

Los Angeles, CA (NOVEMBER 8, 2011) – Distance may no longer be an obstacle for struggling students living in rural and isolated areas. According to the new study "Voice-over-the-Internet-Protocol as a Medium for Delivering Reading Intervention: Evidence from a Single Case Study," published in SAGE Open, video-chatting technology is an effective way for educators to teach their students from remote locations.

Holm oaks and other forests in lowland areas of Mediterranean mountains could expand by up to 350% due to global warming. In contrast, those forest formations that are more adapted to cold and humid conditions, such as beech and Sylvester pines, could shrink by up to 99%. Both scenarios could be quite possible in the 21st century according to a model created to study the effects of climate change on the forests of the Sistema Central and the Sistema Ibérico (Spain).

PHILADELPHIA — Treatment with a recombinant poxviral vaccine showed a positive response in both metastatic breast cancer and ovarian cancer, according to a trial published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

"With this vaccine, we can clearly generate immune responses that lead to clinical responses in some patients," said lead researcher James Gulley, M.D., Ph.D., director and deputy chief of the clinical trials group at the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology at the National Cancer Institute.

Desperately needed adult living donor liver transplantation is a safe surgery for the donor, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital.

The study looked at donor safety from a single center over a period of 10 years and found there were no patient deaths and no life-threatening complications requiring ICU care.

"There is a growing need for a limited number of available organs and more people are dying while waiting so we need to look at ways to continue to safely increase the organ pool," says Hemal Patel, M.D., a gastroenterologist at Henry Ford Hospital.

A bleak future? Deadly bird diseases creeping up Hawaiian mountains with climate change: For decades, world health experts have been predicting an increase in the occurrence and geographical spread of mosquito-borne human disease due to global warming trends. Similarly, climate change in the Hawaiian Islands could have a profound effect on the altitudinal distribution and severity of non-native mosquito-borne avian disease.

Pipe-in-pipe systems are now commonly used to distribute water in many homes. The inner pipe for drinking water is made of a plastic called cross-linked polyethylene (PEX). Are these pipes harmful to health and do they affect the taste and odour of drinking water?

Previous international studies have shown that plastic pipes can release substances that give an unwanted taste and odour to drinking water. It has also been suggested that some of these substances may be carcinogenic.

Researchers at the University of Warwick have shown that proper management of footrot could cut lameness from one in ten to one in fifty sheep.

The research promises a sea change in tackling the endemic disease, which causes lameness in around 9 million ewes and lambs in Great Britain each year.

The work is part of a £1.4 million Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)-funded project at the University of Warwick in collaboration with the University of Bristol, which was presented this week to members of the farming and pharmaceutical communities.

"It is strange to think of a sea turtle as an ecosystem," says Amanda Feuerstein, program coordinator and research assistant at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, "but they are…they have all of these other animals living on their skin and shells."

Feuerstein is co-author of a recent survey documenting the crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other marine organisms that make a home on the bodies Olive Ridley and green sea turtles living in the Pacific.

As World AIDS Day approaches on Dec. 1, University of Cincinnati research is shedding light on a culture affected by the world's highest rates of AIDS and HIV infections. An Ohio survey conducted by Matthew Asare, a native of Ghana, finds that among African immigrants, AIDS remains a public health concern.

Asare surveyed just over 400 African immigrants in Ohio to examine attitudes about AIDS/HIV and sex – all subjects that are considered taboo for discussion in many parts of Africa, a continent where HIV/AIDS infection and the death rate from AIDS is the highest in the world.

We're not always aware of how we are making a decision. Unconscious feelings or perceptions may influence us. Another important source of information -- even if we're unaware of it -- is the body itself.

Most of the 600,000 Americans with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) -- a genetic heart muscle disease -- can live normal life spans, according to the first science-based guideline for diagnosing and treating this disorder.

The joint recommendations of the American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association are published online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association and Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

A major study calling for levels of obesity among South Asians to be recalculated has been published by researchers from the University of Leicester.

A team from the University's Departments of Health Sciences and Cardiovascular Sciences have put the case for the point at which South Asians should be classed as obese to be redefined. Their study has been published in PLoS One, a journal of the Public Library of Science.

At first it sounds like good news: The body's own immune system gets active in almost every cancer – however, not necessarily for the benefit of the patient. "We distinguish between two different types of immune response," says Professor Dr. Viktor Umansky, immunologist at DKFZ and University Medical Center Mannheim. "On the one hand, cells of the immune system specifically attack tumor cells. On the other, however, almost every tumor causes in its microenvironment a chronic inflammatory immune response which suppresses the specific antitumor immunity."

Photosynthesis is one of the most important biological processes. However, it is less efficient in plants than it could be. Red algae, in contrast, use a slightly different mechanism and are thus more productive. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB) in Martinsried near Munich, Germany, have now identified a so far unknown helper protein for photosynthesis in red algae. "We could elucidate its structure and its intriguing mechanism," says Manajit Hayer-Hartl, MPIB group leader.