Body

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is diagnosed in about 700,000 people in the United States every year. Commonly contributing to SCC is a protein called DNp63a – it goes abnormally high and the ability of a patient's body to kill cancer cells goes abnormally low. In many cases of SCC, it's just that simple. And science thought the function of DNp63a was simple, as well: the tumor suppressor gene p53 is responsible for recognizing and killing cancer cells, and in SCC, it's usually inactivated. It looked like high DNp63a repressed p53, made SCC.

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, concerned that women who quit smoking during their pregnancies often resume smoking after they deliver their baby, tested self-help interventions designed to prevent postpartum smoking relapse.

"We'd first like to see more women quit smoking when they become pregnant," said Thomas H. Brandon, Ph.D., senior member at Moffitt and chair of the Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior. "However, even among those who do quit, the majority return to smoking shortly after they give birth."

Writing in the journal PLoS One, the scientists have used a high resolution form of CT scanning to reconstruct two 305-million year old juvenile insects. Without the pioneering approach to imaging, these tiny insects – which are three-dimensional holes in a rock – would have been impossible to study.

By placing the fossils in a CT scanner, and taking over 3,000 X-rays from different angles, the scientists were able to create 2,000 slices showing the fossil in cross section.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Robotic surgery though the mouth is a safe and effective way to remove tumors of the throat and voice box, according to a study by head and neck cancer surgeons at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James).

This is the first report in the world literature illustrating the safety and efficacy of transoral robotic surgery for supraglottic laryngectomy, the researchers say.

Children living in low-income urban areas appear especially prone to developing asthma, possibly related to infections they acquire early in life. In a new study in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, available online, researchers from the University of Wisconsin in Madison investigated viral respiratory illnesses and their possible role in the development of asthma in urban versus suburban babies. The differences in viral illness patterns they found provide insights that could help guide the development of new asthma treatments in children.

By outfitting two British Columbia subspecies of Swainson's thrushes with penny-sized, state-of-the-art geolocators, University of British Columbia researchers have been able to map their wildly divergent migration routes and pinpoint conservation hotspots.

Research: Cardiovascular disease risk in healthy children and its association with body mass index: systematic review and meta-analysis

Editorial: Obesity in children and adolescents

Being obese as a child or adolescent may have a larger effect on future health than previously thought, suggests a study published on bmj.com today.

It comes as New York City passes a ban on large-size sugary drinks to help tackle obesity and related health problems in the US. MPs are now calling on the government to introduce similar legislation in the UK.

Doctors who experience a gut feeling about serious illness when treating a child in primary care should take action upon this feeling and not ignore it, a study published today on bmj.com suggests.

The current practice of large donors is forcing the World Health Organization and the World Bank to reflect on how to reform to remain more appealing to the wider set of stakeholders and interests at play, according to Devi Sridhar from the University of Oxford writing in this week's PLOS Medicine.

In this month's editorial, the PLOS Medicine Editors comment on the World Health Organization's (WHO) latest World Health Report, originally planned for publication in 2012, and the outcomes of the journal's collaboration with WHO on the intended theme of "no health without research." As part of that collaboration, the journal editors and WHO previously called for submission of papers to a joint collection on that theme, inviting "the submission of articles, especially from low- and middle-income countries, on topics related to the strengthening of key functions and components of nat

Tampa, Fla. (Sep.

Boston (Sept. 25, 2012) — Tonsillectomy is exceedingly common, with a reported increase in tonsillectomy rates in children younger than 15 years from 287,000 to 530,000 per year over the past decade. Although safe, adenotonsillectomy can result in significant complications, such as aspiration and bleeding. Complications are infrequent, but because tonsillectomy is so common, the absolute number of children experiencing tonsillectomy complications is formidable.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers studying river turtles in Missouri found populations of the northern map turtle have not recovered from harvesting in the 1970s.

We've heard it time and time again: exercise is good for us. And it's not just good for physical health – research shows that daily physical activity can also boost our mental health. But what actually accounts for the association between exercise and mental health?

A new article in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, explores whether certain psychosocial factors may help to explain the benefits of daily physical activity for adolescents' mental health.

Two new studies from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Chronic Kidney Disease Prognosis Consortium found that the presence of chronic kidney disease itself can be a strong indicator of the risk of death and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) even in patients without hypertension or diabetes. Both hypertension and diabetes are common conditions with chronic kidney disease with hypertension being the most prevalent. The studies were released online in advance of publication in The Lancet.