Body

Standing in a full-body scanner at an airport isn't fun, and the process adds time and stress to a journey. It also raises privacy concerns. Researchers now report in ACS' The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters a more precise and direct method for using that "terahertz" (THz) technology to detect explosives from greater distances. The advance could ultimately lead to detectors that survey a wider area of an airport without the need for full-body scanners.

The side effects of ingesting too much caffeine — restlessness, increased heart rate, having trouble sleeping — are well known, but recent research has shown that the stimulant also has a good side. It can kill cancer cells. Now, researchers report in the ACS journal Inorganic Chemistry that combining a caffeine-based compound with a small amount of gold could someday be used as an anticancer agent.

A Keck Medicine of USC-led team of microbiologists has identified previously unknown interactions between critical proteins in the human immune response system, uncovering two independent regulatory mechanisms that keep the body's immune response in check. Their findings appear in the February 2014 edition of Cell Host & Microbe, the top peer-reviewed scientific journal that focuses on the study of cell-pathogen interaction.

PORTLAND, Ore. February 26, 2014 -- Colon cancer screening rates increased by nearly 40 percent when free stool tests were mailed to patients' homes, according to results of a pilot study published today in the journal BMC Cancer.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), included 869 patients who received their health care from community health centers in the Portland, Ore. metropolitan area. The clinics serve many Latino patients who live below the poverty level. About half of them have no health insurance.

The Bering Strait is famous as a land bridge that prehistoric humans used to travel from Russia to North America. Today, the waterway is 58 miles wide and maximum 160 feet deep, with about one-third of its span in U.S. waters and the rest in Russia. The two coasts are quite different, Stafford said, which makes the international collaboration essential to understanding the full environment.

The mega-decline in cod and other fisheries across the North Atlantic Ocean threatens the livelihood of fishermen and communities in New England and Atlantic Canada. One suspect in the disappearance of cod and other groundfish is the food source for their young: a planktonic copepod crustacean, no larger than a grain of rice. Recent changes in local copepod populations have co-occurred with declines in fisheries elsewhere, such as the collapse of the cod fishery in Europe's North Sea.

TORONTO, Feb. 26, 2014—Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common chronic liver disease in developed countries, affecting up to 30 per cent of their populations.

Since the disease is closely linked to obesity and Type 2 diabetes, there's a growing debate in the medical community about whether diet plays a role in its development, specifically the consumption of fructose.

Judging the effects of climate change on extinction may be easier than previously thought, according to a paper published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Although widely used assessments of threatened species, such as the IUCN Red List, were not developed with the effects of climate change in mind, a study of 36 amphibian and reptile species endemic to the US has concluded that climate change may not be fundamentally different from other extinction threats in terms of identifying species in danger of extinction.

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 26, 2014 – The second-most common type of breast cancer is a very different disease than the most common and appears to be a good candidate for a personalized approach to treatment, according to a multidisciplinary team led by University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) scientists.

Women living in world regions where HIV infection is common are at high risk of acquiring HIV infection during pregnancy and the postpartum period, according to a study by US researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. Alison Drake and colleagues from the University of Washington in Seattle also found that mothers who acquire HIV during pregnancy or postpartum are more likely to pass the infection on to their offspring than mothers with chronic HIV infections.

AMHERST, Mass. ¬– A new study of territorial songs used by chipping sparrows to defend their turf reveals that males sometimes will form a "dear enemy" alliance with a weaker neighbor to prevent a stronger rival from moving in. University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate student Sarah Goodwin and her advisor, behavioral ecologist Professor Jeffrey Podos, report their findings in the current issue of Biology Letters.

A new screening technology reveals a signature of mortality in blood samples.

Researchers have identified four biomarkers that help to identify people at high risk of dying from any disease within the next five years.

Early humans may have evolved black skin to protect against a very high risk of dying from ultraviolet light (UV)-induced skin cancer, a new analysis concludes.

Skin cancer has usually been rejected as the most likely selective pressure for the development of black skin because of a belief that it is only rarely fatal at ages young enough to affect reproduction.

In December 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first high-throughput DNA sequencer (also known commonly as a "gene sequencer"), an instrument that allows laboratories to quickly and efficiently sequence a person's DNA for genetic testing, medical diagnoses and perhaps one day, customized drug therapies. Helping get the new device approved was another first: the initial use of a reference set of standard genotypes, or "coded blueprints" of a person's genetic traits.

The prevalence of obesity remains high in the U.S., with about one-third of adults and 17 percent of children and teens obese in 2011-2012, according to a national survey study in the February 26 issue of JAMA.