Body

Highlights

October 12, 2012 – The human mouth is home to a teeming community of microbes, yet still relatively little is known about what determines the specific types of microorganisms that live there. Is it your genes that decide who lives in the microbial village, or is it your environment?

A new long-term study of human twins by University of Colorado Boulder researchers indicates the makeup of the population of bacteria bathing in their saliva is driven more by environmental factors than heritability.

University of Iowa researchers have previously shown that an enzyme called CaM kinase II plays a pivotal role in the death of heart cells following a heart attack or other conditions that damage or stress heart muscle. Loss of beating heart cells is generally permanent and leads to heart failure, a serious, debilitating condition that affects 5.8 million people in the United States.

DURHAM, N.C. – Adding a third anti-cancer agent to a current drug cocktail appears to have contributed to dramatic improvement in three infants with the most severe form of Pompe disease -- a rare, often-fatal genetic disorder characterized by low or no production of an enzyme crucial to survival.

Boston, MA -- New research that combines cell phone data from 15 million people in Kenya with detailed information on the regional incidence of malaria has revealed, on the largest scale so far, how human travel patterns contribute to the disease's spread. The findings from researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and seven other institutions indicate that malaria, in large part, emanates from Kenya's Lake Victoria region and spreads east, chiefly toward the capital, Nairobi.

The study appears in the October 12, 2012 issue of the journal Science.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A group of researchers have proposed creating a new web-based data network to help researchers and policymakers worldwide turn existing knowledge into real-world applications and technologies and improve science and innovation policy.

Researchers around the world have created datasets that, if interlinked with other datasets and made more broadly available could provide the needed foundation for policy and decision makers. But these datasets are spread across countries, scientific disciplines and data providers, and appear in a variety of inconsistent forms.

MADISON — Scientists have identified three neighboring genes that make soybeans resistant to the most damaging disease of soybean. The genes exist side-by-side on a stretch of chromosome, but only give resistance when that stretch is duplicated several times in the plant.

The relatively new field in microbiology that focuses on quorum sensing has been making strides in understanding how bacteria communicate and cooperate. Quorum sensing describes the bacterial communication between cells that allows them to recognize and react to the size of their surrounding cell population. While a cell's output of extracellular products, or "public goods," is dependent on the size of its surrounding population, scientists have discovered that quorum sensing, a type of bacterial communication, controls when cells release these public goods into their environments.

VALHALLA, October 11, 2012—A New York Medical College developmental biologist whose life's work has supported the theory of evolution has developed a concept that dramatically alters one of its basic assumptions—that survival is based on a change's functional advantage if it is to persist. Stuart A.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – As a result of concerns about antibiotic resistance, doctors in the United States are increasingly prescribing newer, more costly and more powerful antibiotics to treat urinary tract infections, one of the most common illnesses in women.

New research at Oregon State University suggests that the more powerful medications are used more frequently than necessary, and they recommend that doctors and patients discuss the issues involved with antibiotic therapy – and only use the stronger drugs if really neeeded.

WESTMINSTER, CO (October 10, 2012)—Numerous studies have shown that female athletes are more likely to get knee injuries, especially anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears and chronic pain, than their male counterparts. While previous research has focused on biomechanical differences as the main source of these problems, a new study suggests another distinction that could play a role: changes across the menstrual cycle in nerves that control muscle activity. The finding may eventually lead to new ways to prevent knee problems in female athletes.

WESTMINSTER, CO (October 10, 2012)—Researchers may soon be able to add yet another item to the list of exercise's well-documented health benefits: A preliminary study suggests that when cancer survivors exercise for several weeks after they finish chemotherapy, their immune systems remodel themselves to become more effective, potentially fending off future incidences of cancer. The finding may help explain why exercise can significantly reduce the chances of secondary cancers in survivors or reduce the chances of cancer altogether in people who have never had the disease.

BOSTON – In recent years investigators have discovered that breast tumors are influenced by more than just the cancer cells within them. A variety of noncancerous cells, which in many cases constitute the majority of the tumor mass, form what is known as the "tumor microenvironment." This sea of noncancerous cells and the products they deposit appear to play key roles in tumor pathogenesis.

New York, NY (October 11, 2012) — A study by scientists from the Motor Neuron Center at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) suggests that spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a genetic neuromuscular disease in infants and children, results primarily from motor circuit dysfunction, not motor neuron or muscle cell dysfunction, as is commonly thought. In a second study, the researchers identified the molecular pathway in SMA that leads to problems with motor function.