Body

Ottawa, Canada (September 10, 2012) − A new study just published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism (APNM) reaffirms the crucial role exercise along with good nutrition play in maintaining health and fighting disease.

Bucking the idea that environmentalism hurts economic performance, a new UCLA-led study has found that companies that voluntarily adopt international "green" practices and standards have employees who are 16 percent more productive than the average.

Professor Magali Delmas, an environmental economist at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and Sanja Pekovic from France's University Paris–Dauphine are the first to study how a firm's environmental commitment affects its productivity.

Preeclampsia is one of the most dangerous conditions for the expectant mother and the unborn child and is characterized by elevated blood pressure and protein in the urine in the last trimester of pregnancy. The cause for this life-threatening disease has long remained elusive. Recently however, Dr.

September 10, 2012 (SILVER SPRING, Md.) – Scientists used genetic sequencing to discover new evidence that the first vaccine shown to prevent HIV infection in people also affected the viruses in those who did become infected. Viruses with two genetic "footprints" were associated with greater vaccine efficacy. The results were published today in the online edition of the journal Nature.

A new study from the University of Southern California (USC) has found a link between recreational marijuana use and an increased risk of developing subtypes of testicular cancer that tend to carry a somewhat worse prognosis.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA)—the key US law protecting species listed as threatened or endangered—focuses on boosting species' numbers until they reach recovery thresholds and so can be taken off the ESA list. Almost 1400 species are now listed. Yet as many as 84 percent of currently listed species with management plans will face threats to their biological recovery even after they are considered "recovered" under the act, according to an article by Dale D. Goble and his colleagues in the October issue of BioScience. These species will require continuing management actions.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A new study by University of North Carolina School of Medicine pediatrics researchers finds a surprising difference in the eating habits of overweight children between ages 9 and 17 years compared to those younger than 9.

Younger children who are overweight or obese consume more calories per day than their healthy weight peers. But among older overweight children the pattern is reversed: They actually consume fewer calories per day than their healthy weight peers.

How to explain such a seemingly counterintuitive finding?

Mange and viral diseases have a substantial, recurring impact on the health and size of reintroduced wolf packs living in Yellowstone National Park, according to ecologists.

Following the restoration of gray wolves to Yellowstone in 1996, researchers collected blood from the animals to monitor parasite-induced disease and death. They also tracked the wolves in each pack to follow their survival and allow additional data-gathering.

Genetic variations that are linked with the onset of Barrett's oesophagus (BE), a pre-cancerous condition of the lower end of the gullet, have been identified for the first time. The discovery of variations in regions on two chromosomes makes it possible to develop screening tests for people at high risk of developing the disease.

Researchers have newly identified three genetic regions associated with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), the most common autoimmune liver disease, increasing the number of known regions associated with the disorder to 25.

PORTLAND, Ore. — For decades, a successful HIV vaccine has been the Holy Grail for researchers around the globe. Yet despite years of research and millions of dollars of investment, that goal has still yet to be achieved. Recent research by Oregon Health & Science University scientists explains a decades-old mystery as to why slightly weakened versions of the monkey AIDS virus were able to prevent subsequent infection with the fully virulent strain, but were too risky for human use, and why severely compromised or completely inactivated versions of the virus were not effective at all.

A nationwide consortium of scientists has reported the first comprehensive genetic analysis of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, a common type of lung cancer responsible for about 400,000 deaths each year.

"We found that almost 75 percent of the patients' cancers have mutations that can be targeted with existing drugs -- drugs that are available commercially or for clinical trials," says one of the lead investigators, Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, an oncologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and co-chair of the lung cancer group of The Cancer Genome Atlas.

An international team of scientists have shown at an unprecedented level of detail how cells prioritise the repair of genes containing potentially dangerous damage. The research, published in the journal Nature and involving academics from the University of Bristol, the Institut Jacques-Monod in France and Rockefeller University in the US, studied the action of individual molecules in order to understand how cellular repair pathways are triggered.

In the September 9, 2012 early online edition of Nature, scientists with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) report that they have characterized the lung squamous cell carcinoma genome.

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common form of lung cancer, a disease that kills more Americans than any other type of cancer.

Cambridge and Boston, MA. Sunday, September 9, 2012 – A new paper published online in Nature holds out hope that people with the second most common type of lung cancer may one day benefit from targeted therapies that have transformed treatments for other lung cancer patients.