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Patients with a rare type of breast cancer may benefit from receiving radiation therapy in addition to surgery to prevent recurrence, according to a study in the July issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, the official journal of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

Common genetic variations affecting nicotine receptors in the nervous system can significantly increase the chance that European Americans who begin smoking by age 17 will struggle with life-long nicotine addiction. Published July 11 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, this research – led by scientists at the University of Utah together with colleagues from the University of Wisconsin – highlights the importance of preventing early exposure to tobacco through public health policies.

Salt Lake City – Common genetic variations affecting nicotine receptors in the nervous system can significantly increase the chance that European Americans who begin smoking by age 17 will struggle with lifelong nicotine addiction, according to researchers at the University of Utah and their colleagues at University of Wisconsin-Madison. The study, published in the July 11, 2008 issue of PLoS Genetics, highlights the importance of public health efforts to reduce the number of youth who begin smoking.

A study published July 11th in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens suggests that herpesviruses use multiple strategies to manipulate important components of the host cell nuclear environment during infection. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Toronto in collaboration with Affinium Pharmaceuticals Inc., provides novel insights into the potential functions of over 120 previously uncharacterized viral proteins.

Malaria is one of the most devastating diseases afflicting humanity. It infects and debilitates about 600 million people and kills up to three million people every year, mainly in the wet tropical regions of the world. Children and pregnant women are at particularly high risk.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) - It took a decade of painstaking study, the cooperation of hundreds of researchers, and a database of more than 200,000 fossil records, but John Alroy thinks he's disproved much of the conventional wisdom about the diversity of marine fossils and extinction rates.

Sex is one of the most difficult topics a parent can bring up with an adolescent, but a new study finds that parents who are taught specific communication skills can more readily tackle these conversations and sustain them over time.

Parenting programmes in the workplace can significantly improve parents' ability to talk with their children about sexual health and may provide a unique way of promoting healthy adolescent sexual behaviour, concludes a study published on BMJ.com today.

July 11, 2008 – Coat color of wild and domestic animals is a critical trait that has significant biological and economic impact. In a study published online in Genome Research (www.genome.org), researchers have identified the genetic basis for black coat color, and white, in a breed of domestic sheep.

Being male increases your risk of diseases caused by the inappropriate formation of a blood clot (a process known as thrombosis), such as heart attack and stroke, but the reasons for this are not completely understood. However, Ethan Weiss and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, have used a mouse model of thrombosis to shed new light on this matter.

A new NOAA coral bleaching prediction system indicates that there will be some bleaching in the Caribbean later this year, but the event will probably not be severe. NOAA issued the first-ever seasonal coral bleaching outlook this week at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

The system also suggests that there is a risk of widespread bleaching in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in August, but little bleaching elsewhere during the northern hemisphere summer.

Two researchers from UCLA and the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System have developed a design for an automated, wearable artificial kidney, or AWAK, that avoids the complications patients often suffer with traditional dialysis.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – A newly developed nano-sized electronic device is an important step toward helping astronomers see invisible light dating from the creation of the universe. This invisible light makes up 98% of the light emitted since the "big bang," and may provide insights into the earliest stages of star and galaxy formation almost 14 billion years ago.

Therapies, rehabilitation and specialty medical care are just a few of the extra costs that parents face when raising children with special needs. In a new study that will be published in current issue of Pediatrics, Paul T. Shattuck, Ph.D., professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis, found that families with similar demographics and nature of their children's special needs have different out-of-pocket health expenditures depending on the state in which they live.

The sound of a noisy Chicago restaurant during the breakfast rush — the clang of plates and silverware and the clamor of many voices — was the crucial test of new hearing aid technology in a study conducted by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study showed that the hearing aids worked well in a noisy environment — the most challenging test for a hearing aid.But the patients wearing the devices didn't need to fly from St. Louis to Chicago to participate in the test.