Body

Is cancer an inevitable consequence of aging?

Although it is widely thought that cancer is an inevitable consequence of aging, the risk of developing several common cancers decreases with age.

Researchers have long been puzzled by the apparent decrease with age in the risk of developing certain adult cancers.

A possible solution to this puzzle was presented in a recent paper published in Biophysical Reviews and Letters by Professor James P. Brody of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine.

Serendipity leads University of Kansas scientists to the discovery and description of Rhipidocyrtus muiri - a 107 year old, lost in collections specimen, which turned out to represent a new genus and species. The long and tortuous history of the enigmatic ripidiine wedge beetle from Borneo is discussed in a recent paper published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Honey bees with roots in the local environment manage much better in the struggle for survival than imported honey bees from foreign environments.

A world without bees would be a whole lot poorer – literally. In Denmark alone an additional 600 million to 1 billion Danish kroner are earned annually due to the work done by bees making honey and pollinating a wide range of crops from apples to cherries and clover.

The Roquin protein, discovered in 2005, controls T-cell activation and differentiation by regulating the expression of certain mRNAs. In doing so, it helps to guarantee immunological tolerance and prevents immune responses against the body's own structures that can lead to autoimmune disease. Roquin is thus an immune regulator. Autoimmune diseases affect between five and ten per cent of the population. They usually occur as a result of complex environmental influences when a genetic predisposition exists.

In close collaboration with Jürg Schönenberger and Yannick Städler from the Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research of the Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, 14 developmental stages of the flower of Arabidopsis thaliana from very early meristematic floral initiation to fully developed seeds were monitored with micro-computed tomography in 3D. From the same set of developmental stages a full metabolic profile using mass spectrometry was measured covering hundreds of biochemical pathways.

Early maize farmers selected for genes that improved the harvesting of sunlight, a new detailed study of how plants use 'doubles' of their genomes reveals. The findings could help current efforts to improve existing crop varieties.

A new theory of how cancer works could lead to the next generation of treatments of the disease.

The theory suggests that cancer forms when recently evolved genes are damaged, and cells have to revert to using older, inappropriate genetic pathways.

Astrobiologists Dr Charley Lineweaver from The Australian National University and Professor Paul Davies from Arizona State University teamed up with oncologist Dr Mark Vincent from the University of Western Ontario to develop the new model.

ATLANTA – July 14, 2014 –Physical fitness may buffer some of the adverse health effects of too much sitting, according to a new study by researchers from the American Cancer Society, The Cooper Institute, and the University of Texas. The study appears in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, and finds the association between prolonged sedentary time and obesity and blood markers associated with cardiovascular disease is markedly less pronounced when taking fitness into account.

Scientists at the University of East Anglia have shown how the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis could reduce tumor growth in cancer patients.

Research published today reveals the existence of previously unknown signaling platforms which are responsible for the drug's success in shrinking tumours.

It is hoped that the findings could help develop a synthetic equivalent with anti-cancer properties.

MADISON, Wis. — The ability to reliably and safely make in the laboratory all of the different types of cells in human blood is one key step closer to reality.

Writing today in the journal Nature Communications, a group led by University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell researcher Igor Slukvin reports the discovery of two genetic programs responsible for taking blank-slate stem cells and turning them into both red and the array of white cells that make up human blood.

A new analysis has found that rates of testicular cancer have been rising dramatically in recent years among young Hispanic American men, but not among their non-Hispanic counterparts. Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings indicate that greater awareness is needed concerning the increasing risk of testicular cancer in Hispanic adolescents and young adults, and that research efforts are needed to determine the cause of this trend.

A new study in women suggests that experiencing one or more stressful events the day before eating a single high-fat meal can slow the body's metabolism, potentially contributing to weight gain.

Researchers questioned study participants about the previous day's stressors before giving them a meal consisting of 930 calories and 60 grams of fat. The scientists then measured their metabolic rate – how long it took the women to burn calories and fat – and took measures of blood sugar, triglycerides, insulin and the stress hormone cortisol.

Montreal, July 13, 2014 — An international research project, led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal, reports that a new oral medication is showing significant progress in restoring vision to patients with Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA). Until now, this inherited retinal disease that causes visual impairment ranging from reduced vision to complete blindness, has remained untreatable. The study is published today in the scientific journal The Lancet.

New research in Nature Genetics identifies a novel genetic and molecular pathway in the esophagus that causes eosinophillic esophagitis (EoE), opening up potential new therapeutic strategies for an enigmatic and hard-to-treat food allergy.

BOSTON – New research raises the prospect of more effective treatments for cachexia, a profound wasting of fat and muscle occurring in about half of all cancer patients, raising their risk of death, according to scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Many strategies have been tried to reverse the condition, which may cause such frailty that patients can't endure potentially life-saving treatments, but none have had great success.