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A new study used computer modeling to try and create a detailed picture of how and when opsins evolved, which would shed light on the origin of sight in animals, including humans.

The evolutionary origins of vision remain hotly debated, partly due to inconsistent reports of phylogenetic relationships among the earliest opsin-possessing animals.

LA JOLLA, CA – October 25, 2012 – Explosive advancement in human genome sequencing opens new possibilities for identifying the genetic roots of certain diseases and finding cures. However, so many variations among individual genomes exist that identifying mutations responsible for a specific disease has in many cases proven an insurmountable challenge.

Kids born to moms who have lost a substantial amount of weight after undergoing bariatric surgery have fewer cardiovascular risk factors than their siblings who were born before the weight loss surgery.

This is because the metabolic changes and weight loss that occur after the surgery have a positive effect on inflammatory disease-related genes in the offspring, according to a new study presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society.

Scientists at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto have established that a drug recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat a rare form of cystic fibrosis works in an unconventional way. Their results reveal new possibilities for treating various forms of cystic fibrosis.

The idea of taking a mature cell and removing its identity (nuclear reprogramming) so that it can then become any kind of cell, holds great promise for repairing damaged tissue or replacing bone marrow after chemotherapy. Hot on the heels of his recent Nobel prize Dr John B. Gurdon has published today in BioMed Central's open access journal Epigenetics & Chromatin research showing that histone H3.3 deposited by the histone-interacting protein HIRA is a key step in reverting nuclei to a pluripotent type, capable of being any one of many cell types.

SAN DIEGO — An extreme body mass index or high waist-to-hip ratio, both measures of body fat, increased risk for mortality among patients with breast cancer, but this association varied by race/ethnicity, according to recently presented data.

Marilyn L. Kwan, Ph.D., a research scientist in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research in Oakland, Calif., presented these results at the Fifth AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held here Oct. 27-30, 2012.

SAN DIEGO — Women with aggressive breast cancer were more likely to receive adjuvant chemotherapy, but at the expense of completing locoregional radiation therapy, according to recently presented data. This was especially true in minorities, who were the most likely to present with moderate- to high-grade and symptomatically detected tumors.

SAN DIEGO — Language barriers and the immigration status of caregivers appear to impact the care of Hispanic children with cancer and affect the experience of the families within the medical system, according to data presented at the Fifth AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held here Oct. 27-30, 2012.

Atrial fibrillation, whose prevalence continues to rise, was described last year as the "new epidemic" in cardiovascular disease, even though AF can be successfully controlled by the detection and management of risk factors, by rhythm control treatments, and by the use of antithrombotic therapies.(1) These therapies have been improved in the past few years by the introduction of new anticoagulant drugs, such that AF - like high blood pressure or smoking - may now be considered a "modifiable" risk factor for stroke, whose treatment can reduce the degree of risk.

SAN DIEGO — Non-Hispanic black women diagnosed with breast cancer, specifically those with estrogen receptor-positive tumors, are at a significantly increased risk for breast cancer death compared with non-Hispanic white women.

"This difference was greatest in the first three years after diagnosis," said Erica Warner, M.P.H., Sc.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Mass., who presented the data at the Fifth AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held here Oct. 27-30, 2012.

Researchers have identified several genes that are linked to one of the most lethal forms of uterine cancer, serous endometrial cancer. The researchers describe how three of the genes found in the study are frequently altered in the disease, suggesting that the genes drive the development of tumors. The findings appear in the Oct. 28, 2012, advance online issue of Nature Genetics. The team was led by researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

HOUSTON - Doxorubicin, a 50-year-old chemotherapy drug still in widespread use against a variety of cancers, has long been known to destroy heart tissue, as well as tumors, in some patients.

STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers have learned how a man-made molecule destroys complexes that induce allergic responses — a discovery that could lead to the development of highly potent, rapidly acting interventions for a host of acute allergic reactions.

The study, which will be published online Oct. 28 in Nature, was led by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of Bern, Switzerland.

STANFORD, Calif. — Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig's disease, is a devastatingly cruel neurodegenerative disorder that robs sufferers of the ability to move, speak and, finally, breathe. Now researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and San Francisco's Gladstone Institutes have used baker's yeast — a tiny, one-celled organism — to identify a chink in the armor of the currently incurable disease that may eventually lead to new therapies for human patients.

Scientists have developed a prototype ultra-sensitive sensor that would enable doctors to detect the early stages of diseases and viruses with the naked eye, according to research published today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The team, from Imperial College London, report that their visual sensor technology is ten times more sensitive than the current gold standard methods for measuring biomarkers. These indicate the onset of diseases such as prostate cancer and infection by viruses including HIV.