Body

New Insights Into How Certain Slow Progressers Control HIV Infection

People with a rare genetic trait who are infected with HIV progress more slowly to AIDS than others. But even within this group, there are wide variations in time to progression. A new study illustrates in detail how the immune system fights the virus in those subjects who progress more slowly. The research, which could prove useful to efforts to develop a vaccine against HIV, is published in the September Journal of Virology.

Using a combination of traditional and innovative model-building techniques, scientists in the U.S. and a specialist in Denmark have created a lifelike reconstruction of an ancient mollusk, offering a vivid portrait of a creature that lived about 390 million years ago, and answering questions about its place in the tree of life, as described in the Sept. 18 edition of the journal Palaeontology.

Could the impact of chronic stress explain why American black girls are more likely to be overweight than white girls? According to Dr. Tomiyama of the University of California, Los Angeles in the U.S., and her colleagues, higher levels of stress over 10 years predict greater increases in body weight over time in both black and white girls. However, the experience of chronic stress appears to have a greater negative effect on black girls' weight, which may explain racial disparities in obesity levels.

This press release is available in Spanish.

Scientists are reporting development of a revolutionary new lens — flat, distortion-free, so small that more than 1,500 would fit across the width of a human hair — capable in the future of replacing lenses in applications ranging from cell phones to cameras to fiber-optic communication systems. The advance, which could lead to smart phones as thin as a credit card, appears in ACS' journal Nano Letters.

This press release is available in Spanish.

Scientists at the Basque Institute of Agricultural Research and Development, NEIKER-Tecnalia, and the National Institute of Agricultural Research in Bordeaux (INRA) have come to the conclusion that alleged symptoms of 'black dead arm' (BDA) on grapevine leaves are, in fact, those of esca disease in its initial phase. Esca and BDA are diseases that affect the trunk of vines and cause serious losses to the wine-making and grape-growing sectors every year.

One in every two cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in soldiers remains undiagnosed. This is the conclusion reached by a working group led by Hans-Ulrich Wittchen et al. They report their study in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109(35): 559), which is a special issue focusing on the prevalence of psychological stress in German army soldiers.

Why, fifty years on, is the Cuban Missile Crisis still a subject of considerable fascination for academics and professionals alike? Should we still be studying it, and if so, how? These are just some of the questions addressed in a special issue in the journal International Relations, published by SAGE.

A new model system of the cellular skeletons of living cells is akin to a mini-laboratory designed to explore how the cells' functional structures assemble. A paper about to be published in EPJ E by physicist Volker Schaller and his colleagues from the Technical University Munich, Germany, presents one hypothesis concerning self-organisation. It hinges on the findings that a homogeneous protein network, once subjected to stresses generated by molecular motors, compacts into highly condensed fibres.

The largest U.S. multicenter study of living kidney transplant donor chains showed that 46 percent of recipients are minorities, a finding that allays previous fears that these groups would be disadvantaged by expansion of the donor pool through this type of exchange process.

Fast-flowing and narrow glaciers have the potential to trigger massive changes in the Antarctic ice sheet and contribute to rapid ice-sheet decay and sea-level rise, a new study has found.

Research results published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveal in more detail than ever before how warming waters in the Southern Ocean are connected intimately with the movement of massive ice-sheets deep in the Antarctic interior.

When a huge meteor collided with Earth about 2.5 million years ago and fell into the southern Pacific Ocean it not only could have generated a massive tsunami but also may have plunged the world into the Ice Ages, a new study suggests.

A team of Australian researchers says that because the Eltanin meteor – which was up to two kilometres across - crashed into deep water, most scientists have not adequately considered either its potential for immediate catastrophic impacts on coastlines around the Pacific rim or its capacity to destabilise the entire planet's climate system.

Barcelona, 19 September 2012. The Vall d'Hebron Breast Cancer Unit, the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) and SOLTI, an academic breast cancer research group , are heading up a multi-centre international study involving four Spanish and three North American research centres*. The aim of the study is to investigate whether BKM120, a drug that inhibits the PI3K pathway (phosphatidylinositol-3-Kinase) can be an effective treatment against triple-negative breast cancer.

LA JOLLA, CA---- Salk scientists have identified a unique molecular signature in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), "reprogrammed" cells that show great promise in regenerative medicine thanks to their ability to generate a range of body tissues.

DURHAM, N.C. – Better adherence to the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet is associated with significant reductions in blood pressure. However, African-Americans may be less likely than whites to adopt the diet, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

The findings, which appear online September 19 in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, suggest that altering traditional recipes to meet nutritional guidelines rather than eliminating certain foods altogether may result in better adherence among African-Americans.