Body

A new minute freshwater snail species belonging to the genus Daphniola was found by a researcher from University of Athens (Canella Radea) in a spring covered by snow on Mt. Parnassos, central Greece. This study was published in Zookeys.

The new species, Daphniola eptalophos, has a transparent conical-flat coiled shell, grey-black pigmented soft body and a black penis with a small colorless outgrowth on the left side near its base. D. eptalophos differs from its congeners in shell dimensions, soft body pigmentation and coloration of penis.

Washington, DC, November 1, 2011 -- Multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (MDR-AB) was found in the environment of 48 percent of the rooms of patients colonized or infected with the pathogen, according to a new study published in the November issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of APIC - the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

The study examined how frequently the environment surrounding the patient becomes contaminated and which environmental surfaces are most commonly contaminated.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Doctors agree that vitamin D promotes bone health, but a belief that it can also prevent cancer, cardiovascular disease and other causes of death has been a major health controversy. Consistent with advice issued last fall by the Institute of Medicine, a new study finds that vitamin D did not confer benefits against mortality in postmenopausal women after controlling for key health factors such as abdominal obesity.

Bethesda, MD—A new discovery by Californian scientists may lead to a pharmaceutical breakthrough for a wide range of illnesses that involve the hydration of cells that line the inner surfaces of our body's organs and tissues. In a new report appearing in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), the researchers describe how they used high-throughput screening to identify small-molecule drug candidates which help cells bypass defective channels that normally move salt and water through cell membranes.

Reston, Va. (November 1, 2011) – For prostate cancer patients with bone metastases, repeated administrations of radionuclide therapy with 188Re-HEDP are shown to improve overall survival rates and reduce pain, according to new research published in the November issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

Swimming jellyfish and other marine animals help mix warm and cold water in the oceans and, by increasing the rate at which heat can travel through the ocean, may influence global climate. The controversial idea was first proposed by researchers out of the California Technical Institute in 2009, but new information may help the scientists support their claim.

Bethesda, MD—Scientists from the National Institutes of Health in the United States have made an important discovery that should forever change the scope and direction of Alzheimer's research. Specifically, they have discovered that the protein tangles which are a hallmark of the disease involve at least three different proteins rather than just one. The discovery of these additional proteins, called neurofilaments and vimentin, should help scientists better understand the biology and progression of the disease as well as provide additional drug discovery targets.

Football has often been called "a game of inches," but biology is a game of nanometers, where spatial differences of only a few nanometers can determine the fate of a cell - whether it lives or dies, remains normal or turns cancerous. Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a new and better way to study the impact of spatial patterns on living cells.

AURORA, Colo. (Oct. 31, 2011) – Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine have found a specific molecule that can prevent the development of type 1 diabetes in mice and has a similar effect on human cells from diabetic patients.

The findings, published in the latest edition of The Journal of Immunology, signal a new and promising direction in the fight against type I diabetes along with other autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and celiac disease.

Mothers, sisters and daughters from breast cancer families with known genetic mutations do not all share the same high risk of developing the disease, according to a new international study involving the University of Melbourne.

Women with the breast cancer genetic mutations BRCA1 or BRCA2 are at least 10 times more likely to develop breast cancer than the average woman.

The new study found that women who do not have a genetic mutation, but are closely related to women who do have genetic mutations are at an average risk of developing the disease.

A new research technology is revealing how humans develop immunity to malaria, and could assist programs aimed at eradicating this parasitic disease.

Dr Alyssa Barry from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute's Infection and Immunity division is using 'protein microarray' technology to screen human blood serum samples for immunity to proteins produced by the malaria-causing Plasmodium falciparum parasite. Her research, which determines a person's immunity to hundreds of proteins simultaneously, has been published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Proteomics this month.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 1, 2011 -- Compared to most other cells in an organism, sperm undergo a radical transformation to become compact and mobile delivery systems for paternal DNA. Even though sperm looks and moves quite differently across species, SF State researcher Diana Chu and colleagues now say that there are at least a few key enzymes that are critical for sperm development and mobility in species as different as mice and nematode worms. The study by Chu, et al., was published today online by the journal Genetics.

Aphid researchers from Chinese Academy of Sciences found one new species, Aleurodaphis sinojackiae Qiao & Jiang, 2011 from Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, China. It forms leaf galls on Jack trees (Sinojackia xylocarpa) and is one of two known gall makers in the plant lice Aleurodaphis (Hemiptera, Aphididae, Hormaphidinae). The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Community land ownership (CLO) is bringing people back to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and helping to create more vibrant and resilient communities, according to a report from the Scottish Agricultural College. For the first time, researchers and practitioners from across the UK are coming together to discuss CLO as well as rural health and community resilience in other parts of the world at an event during the Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) Festival of Social Science.

DARIEN, IL – Loneliness is not only heartbreaking, it breaks up a normal night's sleep, a new study shows. Researchers say compromised sleep may be one pathway by which feelings of loneliness adversely affect our health.

"It's not just a product of very lonely individuals having poor sleep. The relationship between loneliness and restless sleep appears to operate across the range of perceived connectedness," said lead author Lianne Kurina, PhD, of the Department of Health Studies at the University of Chicago.