Body

Although sex and infidelity are now only a keyboard away, at the end of the day, there is no substitute for physical, face-to-face contact in our sexual relationships. That's according to a new study by Diane Kholos Wysocki, from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and Cheryl Childers, from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. They investigated the behaviors of infidelity on the internet and sexting - sending sexually explicit text messages and photographs via email or cell phone. Their findings are published online in Springer's journal, Sexuality & Culture.

Breast cancer accounts for almost a third of all cancer cases reported in women. However advances in the treatment for breast cancer, and early detection, have improved the chances of survival from the disease. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research has found that two thirds of women with breast cancer died from other causes and that over the length of the study cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of death.

Loss of muscle mass is not only associated with disease, such as HIV and cancer, but also with the normal aging process. Anabolic steroids are sometimes used to reverse loss of lean muscle tissue but they can have unwanted side effects. New research, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Immunity and Aging, shows that nine proteins, isolated from blood, alter with age and that the profile of some of these proteins can be reversed by testosterone treatment.

Boston, MA (June 19, 2011)—Mitochondria, those battery-pack organelles that fuel the energy of almost every living cell, have an insatiable appetite for calcium. Whether in a dish or a living organism, the mitochondria of most organisms eagerly absorb this chemical compound. Because calcium levels link to many essential biological processes, not to mention conditions such as neurological disease and diabetes, scientists have been working for half a century to identify the molecular pathway that enables these processes.

Heavy and prolonged snowfall can bring about unexpected conditions that encourage fungal growth, leading to the death of plants in the Arctic, according to experts.

A new international study confirms that whilst snow has an insulating effect which helps plants to grow bigger, heavy and prolonged snow can, in certain circumstances, also encourage the rapid and extensive growth of killer fungal strains.

PHILADELPHIA – There are new genetic clues on risk factors and biological causes of a rare neurodegenerative disease called progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), according to a new study from an international genetics team led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In the largest genetics study of the disease, three new genes associated with risk for PSP were identified and two additional genetic variants affecting risk for PSP were confirmed. The paper appears in online in Nature Genetics.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic investigators and collaborators from the United Kingdom cured well-established prostate tumors in mice using a human vaccine with no apparent side effects. This novel cancer treatment approach encourages the immune system to rid itself of prostate tumors without assistance from toxic chemotherapies and radiation treatments. Such a treatment model could some day help people to live tumor free with fewer side effects than those experienced from current therapies.

The findings appear in the journal Nature Medicine.

University of Leeds researchers, funded by Cancer Research UK, have used a library of DNA to create a vaccine that could be used to treat cancer, according to a study published in Nature Medicine.

Before now, 'gene therapy' vaccines have often delivered just one gene to stimulate the immune system. It produces a protein, called an antigen, which activates the immune system to destroy cancer cells.

It has been difficult to develop successful cancer vaccines because each tumour has specific proteins and identifying the right antigens has been a huge challenge.

New Haven, Conn. — A single gene is central in the development of several forms of polycystic kidney and liver disease, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the June 19 issue of Nature Genetics.

The findings suggest manipulating activity of PKD1, the gene causing the most common form of polycystic kidney disease, may prove beneficial in reducing cysts in both liver and kidney.

SEATTLE – Researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated in mice that the performance of a novel biomarker-development pipeline using targeted mass spectrometry is robust enough to support the use of an analogous approach in humans. The findings, by principal investigator Amanda Paulovich, M.D., Ph.D., an associate member of the Hutchinson Center's Clinical Research Division, are published in Nature Biotechnology.

The U.S. Medicaid program is likely paying far more than necessary for medications and not offering patients the most effective ones available, by ignoring international evidence-based lists of safe and effective medications, according to a new study by researchers at University of California, San Francisco.

Negative-pressure wound therapy probably does not promote healing. This is the conclusion of Frank Peinemann and Stefan Sauerland's meta-analysis in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108[22]: 381-9).

In a new study revealing key steps for controlling plant growth, Australian researchers have shown how the assembly of components of the plant cell wall regulates growth of root hairs. Root hairs are important structures that allow plants to absorb essential nutrients and water from the soil. The research will assist in contributing to the sustainability of Australia's plant -based industries such as, agriculture, horticulture and forestry.

A compound that for about 60 years has been used as a drug against tapeworm infection is also apparently effective against colon cancer metastasis, as studies using mice have now shown. The compound silences a gene that triggers the formation of metastases in colon cancer. Professor Ulrike Stein (Experimental and Clinical Research Center, a joint cooperation between the Charité Medical Faculty and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, (MDC)) and her research group made this discovery in collaboration with Professor Robert H.

It pays to prevent fractures. That's one of the main findings of a landmark report 'Osteoporosis – Burden, Healthcare provision and Opportunities in the European Union' newly published in the journal Archives of Osteoporosis. The study, compiled by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) in collaboration with the European Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), calculates the future burden of fractures as a consequence of increasing treatment uptake in the five largest European countries as well as Sweden.