Body

Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, according to an international team of researchers led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The research was published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Researchers at New York University's Department of Chemistry and NYU Langone Medical Center have developed a compound that blocks signaling from a protein implicated in many types of cancer. The compound is described in the latest issue of the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Researchers have discovered a new gene mutation they say causes Parkinson's disease. The mutation was identified in a large Swiss family with Parkinson's disease, using advanced DNA sequencing technology.

The study, published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics, was led by neuroscientists at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida and included collaborators from the U.S., Canada, Europe, United Kingdom, Asia and the Middle East.

A gene linked to intellectual disability was found in a study involving the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) – a discovery that was greatly accelerated by international collaboration and new genetic sequencing technology, which is now being used at CAMH.

CAMH Senior Scientist Dr. John Vincent and colleagues identified defects on the gene, MAN1B1, among five families in which 12 children had intellectual disability. The results will be published in the July issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

In a new study with implications for state and federal efforts to reform payments to doctors and hospitals to encourage greater coordination of care, Harvard Medical School researchers found that a global payment system underway in Massachusetts lowered medical spending while improving the quality of patient care relative to the traditional fee-for-service system.

• A low level of response (LR) to alcohol is one of several genetically influenced characteristics that may increase an individual's risk for heavy drinking and alcohol problems.
• A new study has examined the LR model of risk among adolescents in the United Kingdom.
• Findings indicate that a low LR is related to more adverse alcohol outcomes through partial mediation by peer substance use, positive expectancies of the effects of alcohol, and using alcohol to cope with stress.

Acute stress is thought to precipitate alcohol drinking. Yet the ways that acute stress can increase alcohol consumption are unclear. A new study investigated whether different phases of response to an acute stressor can alter the subjective effects of alcohol. Findings indicate bi-directional relationships between alcohol and stress.

Results will be published in the October 2011 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

DURHAM, N.C. - Donated red blood cells lose a key feature that diminishes their lifesaving power the longer they have been stored, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

The finding, published Friday in the journal Critical Care Medicine, details how banked blood undergoes a change during storage that decreases its ability to transport oxygen.

BOSTON—Nursing home residents taking certain antidepressant medications are at an increased risk of falling in the days following the start of a new prescription or a dose increase of their current drug, according to a new study by the Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew SeniorLife, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Children with public insurance are 22 percent less likely to receive comprehensive primary care than those with private insurance, according to new research from the University of Michigan Medical School.

Public insurance programs cover one-third of U.S. children, many of whom belong to the most vulnerable groups, including minorities, the underprivileged and those in poor health. This includes children covered by Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Recent research conducted at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health may have strong implications for informing the controversial debate currently surrounding national health care reform.

PHILADELPHIA — There are many kinds of cancers of the immune system, but one, Activated B-Cell Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma, or ABC-DLBCL, is particularly common and pernicious. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine have shown for the first time that dogs that develop this disease spontaneously share the same aberrant activation of a critical intracellular pathway with humans. They also found that a drug designed to disrupt this pathway helps to kill tumor cells in the dogs' cancerous lymph nodes.

Ecologists at Princeton University recently discovered top-ranking male baboons exhibit higher levels of stress hormones than second-ranking males, suggesting that being at the top of a social hierarchy may be more costly than previously thought.

By studying baboon groups in Kenya, the researchers, for the first time, identified higher levels of stress hormones, or glucocoricoids, in alpha males as compared to beta males.

An adult male peacefully rests on a rock early in the morning.

An in-depth review of consent forms provided to volunteers for HIV/AIDS research in the United States and abroad about study procedures, risks and benefits has found that the forms were extremely long and used wording that may have been complex enough to hinder full understanding, according to bioethicists at The Johns Hopkins University.

LOS ANGELES, July 14, 2011 – Two studies published in the current on-line issue of the journal Appetite indicate that consuming in-shell pistachios is a weight-wise approach to healthy snacking, offering unique mindful eating benefits to help curb consumption and decrease calorie intake.