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New York City's limit of a maximum 16-ounce size of sugar-sweetened drinks for sale in eating establishments is a positive public health move and should be replicated in Canada, argues an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Failure to launch an adequate immune response may be at the root of septic shock, according to a study published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine on December 17th.

WASHINGTON, December 17, 2012 — With the holiday season a high-risk period for packing on unwanted pounds, the American Chemical Society (ACS) today posted a new video that may lend perspective on this year's battle of the bulge. Produced by the world's largest scientific society, it explains the science behind the calorie counts and other information on those Nutrition Facts Labels on food packages.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A new series of studies in mouse models by Mayo Clinic researchers uncovered that the aging process is characterized by high rates of whole-chromosome losses and gains in various organs, including heart, muscle, kidney and eye, and demonstrate that reducing these rates slows age-related tissue deterioration and promotes a healthier life span. The findings appear in today's online issue of Nature Cell Biology.

Scientists from the Structural Computational Biology Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), led by Alfonso Valencia, together with French and American researchers, have published recently two articles in the journal Nucleic Acid Research (NAR) that introduce two new databases for studying the human genome.

More than one in every ten schoolchildren suffers from a transient tic disorder, and 1% have a particular type of tic disorder known as Tourette syndrome. In this issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, Andrea G. Ludolph of the Universitätsklinikum Ulm and her coauthors report on the available modes of diagnosis and treatment for these disorders (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109(48): 821).

HOUSTON – (Dec. 17, 2012) – Rice University scientists have discovered a new way to look inside living cells and see the insoluble fibrillar deposits associated with Parkinson's disease.

The combined talents of two Rice laboratories – one that studies the misfolded proteins that cause neurodegenerative diseases and another that specializes in photoluminescent probes – led to the spectroscopic technique that could become a valuable tool for scientists and pharmaceutical companies.

Scientists at the University of Arizona Cancer Center and the Moffitt Cancer Center, led by Dr. Robert Gillies, have demonstrated that an advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method can non-invasively evaluate the cellular proliferation of tumor models of breast cancer. This quantitative imaging method evaluates the diffusion of water in tumor tissue, which correlates with the growth rates of the tumor models. The results, which appear in the November 2012 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, can contribute to the development of new tumor models for cancer research.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Coral colonies that suffered tissue damage in The Bahamas were still producing low numbers of eggs four years after the injuries occurred, according to new research by University at Buffalo scientists. Tiny sperm-producing factories called spermaries were also in short supply.

The slow recovery was a surprise, said UB geology professor Howard Lasker, PhD, who led the study on the coral species Antillogorgia elisabethae.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- It appears that long, arduous hours in the hospital are causing more than stress and fatigue among doctors-in-training -- they're crashing, or nearly crashing, their cars after work, according to new Mayo Clinic research. Nearly half of the roughly 300 Mayo Clinic residents polled during the course of their residencies reported nearly getting into a motor vehicle crash during their training, and about 11 percent were actually involved in a traffic accident.

The gonad is well known to be important for reproduction but also affects animal life span. Removal of germ cells – the sperm and egg producing cells – increases longevity of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms were a mystery. Now scientists at the Cologne-based Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, have discovered that germ cell removal flips a "molecular switch" that extends the life span by using components of a "developmental clock".

A protected area network should ensure the maintenance of biodiversity, but climate is changing rapidly, thereby creating further demand for the protected area network to be efficient in preserving biota. Due to climate change species ranges are expected to move polewards, which poses challenges to the protected area network.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A research team led by scientists at Mayo Clinic in Florida have decoded the entire pathway that regulates leakiness of blood vessels — a condition that promotes a wide number of disorders, such as heart disease, cancer growth and spread, inflammation and respiratory distress.