Body

PITTSBURGH—Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have identified a biological marker in the immune system that – beginning at about age 22 – predicts our ability to fight off the common cold.

Among healthy adults who were administered a cold virus, those with shorter telomere length (a structure at the end of a chromosome) in certain cells were more likely to develop experimentally-induced upper respiratory infection than participants with longer telomeres, according to results of preliminary research published in the February 20 issue of JAMA.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Identifying areas of malarial infection risk depends more on daily temperature variation than on the average monthly temperatures, according to a team of researchers, who believe that their results may also apply to environmentally temperature-dependent organisms other than the malaria parasite.

Species facing widespread and rapid environmental changes can sometimes evolve quickly enough to dodge the extinction bullet. Populations of disease-causing bacteria evolve, for example, as doctors flood their "environment," the human body, with antibiotics. Insects, animals and plants can make evolutionary adaptations in response to pesticides, heavy metals and overfishing.

Would you prefer $120 today or $154 in one year? Your answer may depend on how powerful you feel, according to new research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Scientists at the University of Montreal's Quebec Research Group in Animal Pharmacology have found a way to recognize and treat osteoarthritis in cats – a condition that the owner might not notice and that can make even petting painful.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Understanding exactly how droplets and bubbles stick to surfaces — everything from dew on blades of grass to the water droplets that form on condensing coils after steam drives a turbine in a power plant — is a "100-year-old problem" that has eluded experimental answers, says MIT's Kripa Varanasi. Furthermore, it's a question with implications for everything from how to improve power-plant efficiency to how to reduce fogging on windshields.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Chemists at the University of California, Riverside have developed a compound that holds much promise in the laboratory in fighting renal (kidney) cancer.

Some infants raised in poverty exhibit physical traits that make them more vulnerable to poor caregiving, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The combination of physiological vulnerability and poor caregiving may lead these children to show increased problem behaviors later in childhood.

For infants growing up in poverty, the ability to adapt and regulate — both biologically and behaviorally — in response to various environmental pressures seems to be critical for successful development.

PHILADELPHIA — A new drug combination shows promise in reducing the risk for patients with advanced oral precancerous lesions to develop squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The results of the study, which included preclinical and clinical analyses, were published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Performing sensitive biological experiments is always a delicate affair. Few researchers, however, contend with the challenges faced by Cheryl Nickerson, whose working laboratory aboard the International Space Station (ISS) is located hundreds of miles above the Earth, traveling at some 17,000 miles per hour.

Nickerson, a microbiologist at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, is using the ISS platform to pursue new research into the effects of microgravity on disease-causing organisms.

(Boston) – A review article by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) proposes a new epigenetic hypothesis linked to tumor production and novel ideas about what causes progenitor cells to develop into cancer cells. Published in the February 2013 issue of Epigenomics, the article provides examples of how epigenetic drug treatments could be beneficial in treating cancers while also decreasing the likelihood of cancer relapse.

The true cost of war is being masked by the secretive and largely unaccountable activities of a private security industry, according to a new study.

Infrasonic waves from the meteor that broke up over Russia's Ural mountains last week were the largest ever recorded by the CTBTO's International Monitoring System. Infrasound is low frequency sound with a range of less than 10 Hz. The blast was detected by 17 infrasound stations in the CTBTO's network, which tracks atomic blasts across the planet. The furthest station to record the sub-audible sound was 15,000km away in Antarctica.

Exactly how a crystal forms from solution is a problem that has occupied scientists for decades. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), together with researchers from Germany and the USA, are now presenting the missing piece. This classical theory of crystal formation, which occurs widely in nature and in the chemical industry, was under fire for some years, but is saved now. The team made this breakthrough by detailed study of the crystallization of the mineral calcium phosphate –the major component of our bones.