Body

A new study says targeting smaller (¡Ü5 mm) lesions does little to significantly reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) and, in fact, results in extremely high financial costs and a large proportion of adverse events. Published in the June 1, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, a cost-benefit analysis study says the low malignancy rate among so-called diminutive polyps gives virtual colonoscopy with removal of lesions 6 mm or greater the best estimated value per life year gained and with fewer complications.

Scientists have discovered one of the reasons why bladder cancer is so much more prevalent in men than women: A molecular receptor or protein that is much more active in men than women plays a role in the development of the disease. The finding could open the door to new types of treatment with the disease.

Crohn’s disease is a chronic relapsing inflammatory disorder of the intestinal tract that affects an estimated 0.15% of people in the developed world. Common symptoms include abdominal pain and diarrhea, but the disorder is often associated with debilitating clinical complications. Researchers from the University of Liège, Belgium, have now uncovered an important clue to the susceptibility of individuals to this disease.

Using a new type of drug that targets a specific genetic defect, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, along with colleagues at PTC Therapeutics Inc. and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, have for the first time demonstrated restoration of muscle function in a mouse model of Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD).

An effective way to fight leukemia might be to knock out a specific protein that protects cancer cells from dying, a new study shows.

The findings suggest that a drug that can block this "survival protein" might on its own be an effective therapy.

But such a drug used in combination with several existing drugs might also offer an effective one-two punch against drug-resistant forms of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The two forms of cancer kill about 20,500 Americans yearly.

Mayo Clinic researchers, along with collaborators from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and University of Oslo, Norway, have discovered that a miscue of the body’s genetic repair system may cause Huntington’s disease, a fatal condition that affects 30,000 Americans annually by destroying their nervous system. Until now, no one knew how Huntington’s begins, only that it is incurable. The findings appear in the online issue of the journal Nature.

The most recent census of mountain gorillas in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park—one of only two places in the world where the rare gorillas exist—has found that the population has increased by 6 percent since the last census in 2002, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Max Planck Institute of Anthropology and other groups that participated in the effort.

The rise of the central nervous system (CNS) in animal evolution has puzzled scientists for centuries. Vertebrates, insects and worms evolved from the same ancestor, but their CNSs are different and were thought to have evolved only after their lineages had split during evolution. Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg now reveal that the vertebrate nervous system is probably much older than expected.

Contrary to popular belief, lemmings do not commit mass suicide by leaping off of cliffs into the sea. In fact, they are quite fond of staying alive. A bigger threat to the rodents is climate change, which could deprive them of the snow they need for homes and lock up their food in ice, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is launching a study to examine how these tiny but important players in the ecological health of the far North will fare in the age of global warming.

The largest study to date of genetic variation among chimpanzees has found that the traditional, geography-based sorting of chimps into three populations—western, central and eastern—is underpinned by significant genetic differences, two to three times greater than the variation between the most different human populations.

People who significantly cut back on the amount of salt in their diet could reduce their chances of developing cardiovascular disease by a quarter, according to a report on bmj.com today.

Researchers in Boston also found a reduction in salt intake could lower the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by up to a fifth.

Strawberries are good for you, but serving them in daiquiri form may make them even healthier, scientists show.

While exploring ways to help keep strawberries fresh during storage, researchers from Thailand and the US discovered that treating the berries with alcohol led to an increase in antioxidant capacity and free radical scavenging activity within the fruit. While such a boost helped the berries resist decay, the same compounds would also be expected to make the strawberries healthier to eat.

The ability to eliminate waste and toxins from production processes early on, to create more efficient and flexible solar panels, and to remove contaminants from water, is becoming an exciting reality with nanotechnology. This "green nanotechnology" involves designing nanoproducts for the environment and with the environment in mind. Green nano is not just a niche among a few scientists or environmentalists. The investment community has recognized these green nano advances as big business and rewarded corporate innovators.

The study reveals the likely mechanism by which the Arabidopsis plant flowers in response to changes in day length. Earlier research had shown that plants' leaves perceived seasonal changes in day length, which triggers a long-distance signal to travel through the plant's vascular system from the leaf to the shoot apex, where flowering is induced. However, the identity of the long-distance signal remained unclear.

Use of hydrogen as fuel for vehicles is currently stunted because it is difficult to store in a cost-effective and convenient way. Using metal is too expensive and leads to environmental issues.

Chemists at UC Riverside now offer a possible solution. A class of carbenes – molecules that have unusual, highly reactive carbon atoms – can mimic, to some extent, the behavior of metals, the chemists have found. Called cyclic alkyl amino carbenes or CAACs, these organic molecules, the researchers report, could be used to develop carbon-based systems for storing hydrogen.