Body

It takes two to tangle: Wistar scientists further unravel telomere biology

Chromosomes - long, linear DNA molecules – are capped at their ends with special DNA structures called telomeres and an assortment of proteins, which together act as a protective sheath. Telomeres are maintained through the interactions between an enzyme, telomerase, and several accessory proteins. Researchers at The Wistar Institute have defined the structure of one of these critical proteins in yeast.

Pathway identified in human lymphoma points way to new blood cancer treatments

PHILADELPHIA – A pathway called the "Unfolded Protein Response," or UPR, a cell's way of responding to unfolded and misfolded proteins, helps tumor cells escape programmed cell death during the development of lymphoma.

University of Tennessee study: Unexpected microbes fighting harmful greenhouse gas

The environment has a more formidable opponent than carbon dioxide. Another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, is 300 times more potent and also destroys the ozone layer each time it is released into the atmosphere through agricultural practices, sewage treatment and fossil fuel combustion.

Luckily, nature has a larger army than previously thought combating this greenhouse gas—according to a study by Frank Loeffler, University of Tennessee, Knoxville–Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor's Chair for Microbiology, and his colleagues.

Angina often a symptom of stable IHD

Six organizations representing physicians, other health care professionals, and patients issued two new clinical practice guidelines for diagnosing and treating stable ischemic heart disease (IHD), which affects an estimated one in three adults in the United States.

The American College of Physicians, the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, the American College of Cardiology Foundation, the American Heart Association, the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association, and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons collaborated to create the guidelines.

The most popular TV series among youngsters in Spain recreates violence

Published in the Comunicación journal, a study conducted by the University of Seville analyses violence content in Spanish TV series. It concludes that Telecinco's Sin tetas no hay paraíso is the most violent of the five studied.

Despite the fact that other series have more scenes or minutes of violence, according to the study, the Telecinco series is more powerful in its transmission of values that are more detrimental to youngsters in terms of their perception of aggressive behaviour and its consequences.

Saving water without hurting peach production

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U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are helping peach growers make the most of dwindling water supplies in California's San Joaquin Valley.

Daily steps add up for midlife women's health

CLEVELAND, Ohio (November 21, 2012)—Moving 6,000 or more steps a day—no matter how—adds up to a healthier life for midlife women. That level of physical activity decreases the risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome (a diabetes precursor and a risk for cardiovascular disease), showed a study published online this month in Menopause, the journal of the North American Menopause Society.

Novel mechanism through which normal stromal cells become cancer-promoting cells identified

PHILADELPHIA — New understanding of molecular changes that convert harmless cells surrounding ovarian cancer cells into cells that promote tumor growth and metastasis provides potential new therapeutic targets for this deadly disease, according to data published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

MicroRNAs can convert normal cells into cancer promoters

Unraveling the mechanism that ovarian cancer cells use to change normal cells around them into cells that promote tumor growth has identified several new targets for treatment of this deadly disease.

Herbivore defense in ferns

Kidney tumors have a mind of their own

TORONTO, Nov. 21, 2012-- New research has found there are several different ways that kidney tumours can achieve the same result – namely, grow.

Scientists have been trying to figure out how different people have kidney tumours with the same histology, or shape, although the genetic changes can vary among individual tumours.

The most popular TV series among youngsters in Spain recreate violence

Published in the Comunicación journal, a study conducted by the University of Seville analyses violence content in Spanish TV series. It concludes that Telecinco's Sin tetas no hay paraíso is the most violent of the five studied.

Despite the fact that other series have more scenes or minutes of violence, according to the study, the Telecinco series is more powerful in its transmission of values that are more detrimental to youngsters in terms of their perception of aggressive behaviour and its consequences.

Flower power to purge poison and produce platinum

A consortium of researchers led by WMG at the University of Warwick are to embark on a £3 million research programme called "Cleaning Land for Wealth" (CL4W), that will use a common class of flower to restore poisoned soils while at the same time producing perfectly sized and shaped nano sized platinum and arsenic nanoparticles for use in catalytic convertors, cancer treatments and a range of other applications.

Researchers detail the migrations of the wood wasp Sirex noctilio

In order to find out about its migrations, various research centres in South Africa, Sweden, Canada, Chile, Australia, Spain, Argentina and Switzerland have conducted research detailing its routes and expansion periods. A significant new fact has emerged and it is that the wasps returning to Europe from Chile and South Africa have undergone a genetic micro-evolution which makes them more resistant to their natural European enemy, a nematode that sterilises them.

Nearly 90 percent of clinical trialists think data should be more easily shared

Research: Sharing of clinical trial data among trialists: a cross sectional survey

Nearly nine out of ten clinicians carrying out biomedical research trials believe that trial data should be shared more easily, even though they do express some practical concerns, a study published today on bmj.com reveals.