Body

Single-celled archaea are invisible to the naked eye, and even when using a microscope, great care must be taken to observe them. An international team of researchers led by the Center for Geomicrobiology, Aarhus University, Denmark, has nevertheless succeeded in retrieving four archaeal cells from seabed mud and mapping the genome of each one.

Scientists at Harvard may have new hope for anyone who's tried to fight the battle of the bulge.

New research, conducted in collaboration with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, has found that the gut microbes of mice undergo drastic changes following gastric bypass surgery. Transfer of these microbes into sterile mice resulted in rapid weight loss. The study is described in a March 27 paper in Science Translational Medicine.

BOSTON--Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists and colleagues have discovered that pancreatic cancer cells' growth and spread are fueled by an unusual metabolic pathway that someday might be blocked with targeted drugs to control the deadly cancer.

Cancer cells are known to "rewire" their metabolic circuits differently from normal cells to provide energy for cancerous growth. A study published today in Nature reveals that pancreatic tumor cells are dependent on an amino acid, glutamine, which they utilize via a molecular pathway that has no apparent backup system.

A recent study published in the Journal of Political Economy suggests that some types of intellectual property rights discourage subsequent scientific research.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Association for Cancer Research released its second Annual Report on Cancer Survivorship in the United States in advance of the AACR Annual Meeting 2013, which will be held in Washington, D.C., April 6-10.

The report, published in the AACR's journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, shows that as of January 2012, there were approximately 13.7 million cancer survivors in the United States, a number that is expected to rise by 31 percent to 18 million by 2022.

After eons of wandering in the dark, primates developed highly acute, three-color vision that permitted them to shift to daytime living, a new Dartmouth College study suggests.

The findings challenge the prevailing view that trichromatic color vision, a hallmark of primate evolution, evolved only after they started getting up with the sun, a shift that gave rise to anthropoid (higher) primates, which, in turn, gave rise to the human lineage. The results are published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Researchers at UC Davis and the University of British Columbia have shed new light on methylation, a critical process that helps control how genes are expressed. Working with placentas, the team discovered that 37 percent of the placental genome has regions of lower methylation, called partially methylated domains (PMDs), in which gene expression is turned off. This differs from most human tissues, in which 70 percent of the genome is highly methylated.

Montreal, March 27, 2013 – Women tend to carry excess fat in their hips and thighs, while men tend to carry it on their stomachs. But after menopause, things start to change: many women's fat storage patterns start to resemble those of men. This indicates that there's a link between estrogen and body fat storage. This connection is well documented, but the underlying mechanisms remained poorly understood until now.

The European Collaborative Oncological Gen-Environmental Study (COGS) project, whose main goal is to decipher the complex genetic bases of breast, prostate and ovarian cancers, publishes today a total of 12 research articles in several prestigious journals, including Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, The American Journal of Human Genetics and PLOS Genetics. Using mass sequencing techniques, the study has identified up to 80 new regions of the genome associated with an increased susceptibility to developing breast, prostate and ovarian cancers.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Engineers at Oregon State University have developed a new interactive system to create networks of small wetlands in Midwest farmlands, which could help the region prevent massive spring floods and also retain water and mitigate droughts in a warming climate.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center have identified new DNA sequences associated with breast cancer -- the most common cancer among women, with an average risk of developing the disease of 10 percent -- and ovarian cancer, the most common cause of death from gynecological cancers in the U.S. The findings, which appear in three studies in the journals Plos Genetics and Nature Genetics, will help reveal the underlying causes of these diseases and help researchers build better risk models to support new prevention strategies.

More than 80 genetic 'spelling mistakes' that can increase the risk of breast, prostate and ovarian cancer have been found in a large, international research study within the framework of the EU Network COGS. For the first time, the researchers also have a relatively clear picture of the total number of genetic alterations that can be linked to these cancers. Ultimately the researchers hope to be able to calculate the individual risk of cancer, to better understand how these cancers develop and to be able to generate new treatments.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center have identified a novel gene that can contribute to a woman's susceptibility for developing ovarian cancer. Researchers identified the gene, called HNF1B, through large-scale analysis of more than 16,000 women with ovarian cancer and more than 26,000 healthy women. Results of the study are published in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications.

An international team of scientists led by the University of Leicester has found new evidence that links faster 'biological' ageing to the risk of developing several age-related diseases - including heart disease, multiple sclerosis and various cancers.

The study involved scientists in 14 centres across 8 countries, working as part of the ENGAGE Consortium (list of research teams is give below). The research is published online today (27th March) in the journal Nature Genetics.

In collaboration with an international research team, University of Copenhagen researchers have for the first time mapped telomerase, an enzyme which has a kind of rejuvenating effect on normal cell ageing. The findings have just been published in Nature Genetics and are a step forward in the fight against cancer.