Body

Reptiles are often chosen as pets when an allergy risk exists within a family and the choice is made to avoid potentially allergenic pets such as dogs, cats or guinea pigs. Researchers at the Messerli Research Institute, however, recently described a noteworthy clinical case in which an eight-year-old boy developed nightly attacks of severe shortness of breath four months after the purchase of a bearded dragon.

At the University of Cologne, biophysicists in the lab of Professor Berenike Maier were now able to show how differential mechanical forces can lead to cell sorting in biofilms, thereby determining their architecture. In their publication in the journal eLife, the team headed by the biophysicist Enno Oldewurtel showed how specific mechanical forces can be the key to the structure of a biofilm. Bacteria with different surface structures organized themselves in a "tug of war": the cells actively moved in the direction in which they could pull the strongest onto neighboring bacteria.

There is a hint of a benefit of pulse oximetry screening as an add-on test to existing standard examinations for detection of critical congenital heart defects in newborns: More cases are detected by additional screening than by the two clinical examinations U1 and U2 alone. This means that newborns can be treated at an early stage and may be protected from severe late complications.

Online services in the EU are highly fragmented: Europeans surf mostly on US-based websites which account for about 54% of online activity, while activity on EU-based websites accounts for 42%, according to a new JRC report. Only 4% of the EU's online services activity takes place on websites from other parts of the world.

HONOLULU - A panel of markers have been discovered that helps identify if a person is pre-diabetic by measuring the fatty acids in their blood. This discovery by University of Hawai'i Cancer Center researchers may allow physicians to warn patients years before the onset of diabetes, therefore allowing them to change their lifestyle patterns potentially avoiding the diagnosis of a chronic disease.

"This 'rotation model', which made the cover of BioEssays, represents a true paradigm shift in the membrane receptor field," stated Prof. Pierre De Meyts, a renowned researcher of insulin and receptor binding for almost half a century and one of the reviewers of the paper by Prof. Ichiro Maruyama, the head of the Information Processing Biology Unit at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST).

A novel and affordable diagnostic test for chikungunya will soon be available thanks to the work of researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in partnership with a commercial lab.

Chikungunya, a mosquito-borne illness that while not often deadly causes severe, incapacitating and often chronic joint pain, is spreading throughout the Americas. It can be difficult to diagnose and most tests available now are expensive and challenging to develop.

A recent study conducted by The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston shows that severely obese women who maintained or lost weight during pregnancy had healthier babies and lower health care costs.

Scientists of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine of the University of Luxembourg have developed a method for analysing the genome of cancer cells more precisely than ever before. The team led by Prof. Antonio del Sol, head of the research group Computational Biology, is employing bioinformatics: Using novel computing processes, the researchers have created models of the genome of cancer cells based on known changes to the genome. These models are useful for determining the structure of DNA in tumours.

FORT COLLINS, Colo., Oct. 30, 2015 - Across Africa, lion populations are threatened by continued reductions in their range and associated genetic isolation.

Reproductive factors in women, such as a later starting age of menstruation, having children, breastfeeding and use of oral contraceptives, are associated with a reduced risk of death, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Medicine. A better understanding of how these factors can influence long-term health could help in the development of clinical strategies to improve women's health.

The four out of ten women who use antibiotics during pregnancy can breathe easy, as a comprehensive new study shows that the two most often prescribed drugs have no adverse outcome on the child's physical development. The researchers, led by Anick Bérard of the University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine children's hospital, and Hedvig Nordeng of the University of Oslo, looked at macrolides, a type of antibiotics. "With penicillin, macrolides are amongst the most used medications in the general population and in pregnancy.

Researchers conduct a systematic review of randomized clinical trials comparing the long-term effectiveness of low-fat and higher-fat dietary interventions on weight loss

Low-fat diets do not lead to greater weight loss in the long term compared to higher-fat diets (eg, low-carbohydrate or Mediterranean diets) of similar intensity, according to a large meta-analysis involving more than 68000 adults, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal.

A critical component of an experiment that proved evolution happens 15 times faster than was previously believed relied upon genetic lines of chickens from Virginia Tech.

The discovery utilized the DNA of lines of White Plymouth Rock chickens that Paul Siegel has been developing for more than 50 years.