Body

As small and active flying mammals, bats have very high mass-specific energy requirements and as such continually adjust their rates of activity and metabolism in response to ambient temperature and other seasonal variation. In particular, during the autumn mating season, male bats must carefully balance time spent foraging (to gain enough fat to last the winter hibernation) with time spent finding a mate. Because both activities require significant effort, how do male bats do it?

Specific DNA once dismissed as junk plays an important role in brain development and might be involved in several devastating neurological diseases, UC San Francisco scientists have found.

Their discovery in mice is likely to further fuel a recent scramble by researchers to identify roles for long-neglected bits of DNA within the genomes of mice and humans alike.

Researchers from North Carolina State University believe they have solved a puzzle that has vexed science since plants first appeared on Earth.

MINNEAPOLIS – New research suggests that fainting may be genetic and, in some families, only one gene may be responsible. However, a predisposition to certain triggers, such as emotional distress or the sight of blood, may not be inherited. The study is published in the April 16, 2013, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Fainting, also called vasovagal syncope, is a brief loss of consciousness when your body reacts to certain triggers. It affects at least one out of four people.

A cup of beetroot juice a day may help reduce your blood pressure, according to a small study in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.

People with high blood pressure who drank about 8 ounces of beetroot juice experienced a decrease in blood pressure of about 10 mm Hg. But the preliminary findings don't yet suggest that supplementing your diet with beetroot juice benefits your health, researchers said.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – People with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often have trouble communicating and interacting with others because they process language, facial expressions and social cues differently. Previously, researchers found that propranolol, a drug commonly used to treat high blood pressure, anxiety and panic, could improve the language abilities and social functioning of people with an ASD. Now, University of Missouri investigators say the prescription drug also could help improve the working memory abilities of individuals with autism.

How do nerve cells -- which can each be up to three feet long in humans -- keep from rupturing or falling apart?

Axons, the long, cable-like projections on neurons, are made stronger by a unique modification of the common molecular building block of the cell skeleton. The finding, which may help guide the search for treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, was reported in the April 10 issue of Neuron by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, short-term hearing loss after sustained exposure to loud noise does not reflect damage to our hearing: instead, it is the body's way to cope.

The landmark finding could lead to improved protection against noise-induced hearing loss in future.

The research, led by University of New South Wales Professor Gary Housley, has found that "reversible hearing loss" is a physiological adaptation mechanism, allowing the cochlea (the auditory portion of the inner ear) to perform normally when exposed to noise stress.

ATP is the main energy currency of cells and one might expect that not only contracting muscle, but also uncontrollably dividing cancer cells would have a high demand for ATP. However, for some reason cancer cells have re-programmed their metabolic engines to produce less ATP. The phenomenon, known as Warburg effect, is typical for cancer cells and the mechanism behind is believed to benefit cancer cells by switching biochemical engines from energy manufacturing reactions to anabolic reactions, which primarily support growth of the cell size and proliferation.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere have decoded the genome of the platyfish, a cousin of the guppy and a popular choice for home aquariums.

Among scientists, the fish are meticulously studied for their tendency to develop melanoma and for other attributes more common to mammals, like courting prospective mates and giving birth to live young.

Montréal, April 15, 2013 – A team of researchers at the IRCM, led by Dr. Jean-François Côté, made an important discovery in breast cancer, which will published online this week by the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The Montréal scientists identified the DOCK1 protein as a potential target to reduce the progression of metastases in patients suffering from breast cancer, the most common type of cancer in women.

Recently, doctors have begun to categorize breast cancers into four main groups according to the genetic makeup of the cancer cells. Which category a cancer falls into generally determines the best method of treatment.

Researchers from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok and the Natural History Museum, London (Thanit Siriboon, Chirasak Sutcharit, Fred Naggs and Somsak Panha) discovered many new taxa of the brightly coloured carnivorous terrestrial snails family Streptaxidae. Terrestrial snails are primarily herbivores and only a rare few groups like this one are carnivorous.

A team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers has identified a genetic signature that appears to reflect the risk of tumor recurrence or spread in men surgically treated for prostate cancer. If confirmed in future studies, this finding not only may help determine which patients require additional treatment after the cancerous gland has been removed, it also may help address the most challenging problem in prostate cancer treatment – distinguishing tumors that require aggressive treatment from those that can safely be monitored.

Philadelphia, PA, April 15, 2013 – Data from a new study of British adults suggest that adherence to a "Western-style" diet (fried and sweet food, processed and red meat, refined grains, and high-fat dairy products) reduces a person's likelihood of achieving older ages in good health and with higher functionality. Study results appear in the May issue of The American Journal of Medicine.