Body

Often enough, in science as in life, unexpected knowledge has a personal impact. Researchers seeking rare gene variants in just a few individuals with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) discovered that one patient had a novel combination of two mutations. Those mutations caused a different disease, unrelated to ADHD—a blood disorder called idiopathic hemolytic anemia.

Although the man had long contended with the blood disease, "idiopathic" meant that physicians were unable to determine the cause of his particular anemia—until now, say authors of a new study.

SALT LAKE CITY – A team of researchers from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University has developed a mouse model of focal dermal hypoplasia, a rare human birth defect that causes serious skin abnormalities and other medical problems. This animal model not only provides insight into studying the cause of focal dermal hypoplasia (FDH), but also offers a novel way to study a signaling pathway that is crucial for embryonic development.

The findings were published July 19, 2011, online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

JACKSON, Miss. – A group of researchers from the University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School and the University of Mississippi Medical Center has constructed the world's most detailed genetic map, a tool scientists can use to better understand the roots of disease and how DNA is passed generationally to create diversity in the human species.

About 5,000 Jackson-area volunteers were included in a group of nearly 30,000 African-Americans whose genetic information the scientists used to create the map.

In an article that may bring smiles to the faces of vegetarians who consume no dairy products and vegans, who consume no animal-based foods, scientists have identified seaweed as a rich new potential source of heart-healthy food ingredients. Seaweed and other "macroalgae" could rival milk products as sources of these so-called "bioactive peptides," they conclude in an article in ACS's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Big Texas crocodile swam the shores of North America's prehistoric seaway

Adams identified the reptile primarily from its long snout, which measures more than 2 feet long and 7 inches wide, or 62 centimeters. With a snout that long, Adams estimates the head would have been about one meter long.

A new genus and species of hadrosaur (duck-billed) dinosaur – the oldest duck-billed dinosaur known from North America – has been named by scientists who expect the discovery to shed new light on dinosaur evolution.

The most striking feature of Acristavus gagslarsoni, the name given to the new dinosaur, is that its head lacked the distinctive ornamentation common to later duck-billed relatives. Acristavus means "non-crested grandfather." The genus name is symbolic of the animal's unadorned skull and the fact that it preceded later hadrosaurs.

RENO, Nev. – Caffeine reduces muscle activity in the Fallopian tubes that carry eggs from a woman's ovaries to her womb. "Our experiments were conducted in mice, but this finding goes a long way towards explaining why drinking caffeinated drinks can reduce a woman's chance of becoming pregnant," says Sean Ward, professor of physiology and cell biology, at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, who conducted the study.

Ward's study was recently published in the British Journal of Pharmacology.

DURHAM, N.C. – Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have discovered a way to block the damaging actions of Chlamydia, the bacteria responsible for the largest number of sexually transmitted infections in the United States.

The team, which included Duke University microbiologists and chemists, designed a molecule that takes away the bacteria's self-defense mechanisms.

Rising U.S. natural gas production from shale formations has already played a critical role in weakening Russia's ability to wield an "energy weapon" over its European customers, and this trend will accelerate in the coming decades, according to a new Baker Institute study, "Shale Gas and U.S. National Security." The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, projects that Russia's natural gas market share in Western Europe will decline to as little as 13 percent by 2040, down from 27 percent in 2009.

Scientists are reporting development and successful initial laboratory tests on the key ingredient for a much-needed vaccine to help individuals addicted to heroin abstain from the illicit drug. Their study appears in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study reveals how enzymes in the honey bee gut detoxify pesticides commonly used to kill mites in the honey bee hive. This is the first study to tease out the precise molecular mechanisms that allow a pollinating insect to tolerate exposure to these potentially deadly compounds.

The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

July 20, 2011 – Violent conflict disrupts all aspects of society, including the delivery of the most basic reproductive health services: prenatal and maternal care, family planning, prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, abortions and emergency caesarian care. A new study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and collaborators demonstrates and quantifies the alarming gap between the desire of women in war-torn areas to limit their childbearing and the availability of resources and knowledge to enable them to do so.

University of Minnesota Medical School researchers have developed a new strategy to improve the development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS).

Currently, iPS cells are created by introducing four defined genes to an adult cell. The genes reprogram the adult cell into a stem cell, which can differentiate into many different types of the cells in the body. Typically, the four genes introduced are Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc, a combination known as OSKM.

Chronic illnesses such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's could be treated more effectively in the future, by means of the transplant of microencapsulated cells. The researcher from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) Dr Ainhoa Murua has presented a number of proposals for optimising this technique. Amongst other things, she put forward improvements that can make viable the transplant of cells from other species (xenotransplants) to human patient, which would resolve the problem caused by the habitual scarcity of human tissues for transplanting.

Tel Aviv — The health implications of polluting the environment weigh increasingly on our public consciousness, and pharmaceutical wastes continue to be a main culprit. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher says that current testing for these dangerous contaminants isn't going far enough.