Body

While roses are red, and violets are blue, how exactly do flower colors change?

In the case of penstemons, with over 200 species to choose from, scientists Carolyn Wessinger and Mark Rausher have now shown that turning their flowers from blue to red involves knocking out the activity of just a single enzyme involved in the production of blue floral pigments.

MANY patients whose lung cancer is diagnosed as an emergency in hospital reported difficulties in previously seeing their GP, according to research presented at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Liverpool today (Tuesday).

The study, carried out by researchers from the London Cancer Alliance (LCA) and King's College London, investigated around 130 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer after attending as an emergency at one of seven hospitals in south and west London.

SCIENTISTS have found a possible way to halt one of the most common faults in many types of cancer, according to research presented at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Liverpool today (Wednesday).

A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Germany hasuncovered a new strategy and new potential drug to target an important signalling protein in cells called Ras, which is faulty in a third of cancers.

PATIENTS with a specific type of oesophageal cancer survived longer when they were given the latest lung cancer drug, according to trial results being presented at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference today (Wednesday).

Up to one in six patients with oesophageal cancer were found to have EGFR duplication in their tumour cells and taking the drug gefitinib, which targets this fault, boosted their survival by up to six months, and sometimes beyond.

Fossils are usually deformed or incompletely preserved when they are found, after sometimes millions of years of fossilization processes. Consequently, fossils have to be studied very carefully to avoid damage, and are sometimes they are difficult to access, as they might be located in remote museum collections. An international team of scientists, led by Dr. Stephan Lautenschlager from the University of Bristol now solved some of these problems by using modern computer technology, as described in a recent issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Among patients with metastatic melanoma, treatment with a combination of the drugs sargramostim plus ipilimumab, compared with ipilimumab alone, resulted in longer overall survival and lower toxicity, but no difference in progression-free survival, according to a study in the November 5 issue of JAMA.

Testing of study participants who wore head-mounted display systems (Google glasses) found that the glasses created a partial peripheral vision obstruction, according to a study in the November 5 issue of JAMA.

BOSTON – Patients with metastatic melanoma who were treated with ipilimumab, an immune checkpoint blocker, survived 50 percent longer – a median 17.5 months vs. 12.7 months – if they simultaneously received an immune stimulant, according to a study led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists.

Patients in the clinical trial who got the combined therapies also had fewer serious adverse side effects than those who received only ipilimumab, the researchers report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

San Diego — Scientists have developed a novel topical microbicide loaded with hyaluronic acid (HA) nanofibers that could potentially prevent transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) through the vaginal mucosa. This research is being presented at the 2014 American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting and Exposition, the world's largest pharmaceutical sciences meeting, in San Diego, Nov. 2-6.

In nature, the right amount of death at the right time might actually help boost a species' population density, according to new research that could help in understanding animal populations, pest control and managing fish and wildlife stocks.

In a paper in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, a Princeton University researcher and European colleagues conclude that the kind of positive population effect an overall species experiences from a loss of individuals, or mortality, depends on the size and developmental stage of the creatures that die.

Hot flushes are one of the most distressing conditions faced by women who have been treated for breast cancer, but they are not being adequately addressed by healthcare professionals and some women consider giving up their post cancer medication to try and stop them, a new study has shown.

Asthma may be more harmful than was previously thought, according to UCLA researchers who found that genetic damage is present in circulating, or peripheral, blood. Doctors previously thought that the genetic damage it caused was limited to the lungs.

In the study, researchers looked for the overexpression of a cytokine called interleukin 13 (IL-13), which is known to mediate inflammation, a critical problem for people with asthma.

Sublingual misoprostol is inferior to intramuscular oxytocin for the prevention of postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) in women undergoing uncomplicated birth at a regional hospital in Uganda, according to trial results published in PLOS Medicine. The randomized non-inferiority trial, conducted by Esther Cathyln Atukunda at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda, and colleagues, showed that PPH incidence in the misoprostol arm exceeded that in the oxytocin arm by 11.2% (95% confidence interval 6.44%-16.1%).

In an analysis of the 2003–2010 MarketScan US database, Rakesh Bhattacharjee and coauthors (University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois) compared hospital admissions and prescriptions for children with asthma who underwent adenotonsillectomy before and after surgery to determine whether their asthma control improved (based on ICD-9-CM and CPT codes, as well as drug prescriptions) in the year after compared with the year before surgery. They also compared the children with children with asthma who did not undergo adenotonsillectomy who were the same age and sex and lived in the same region.

Surgical removal of the tonsils and adenoids in children suffering from sleep apnea is associated with decreased asthma severity, according to the first large study of the connection, published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

Researchers from the University of Chicago found that in the first year after the operation, children who had the surgery had a 30 percent reduction in acute asthma exacerbations and a 38 percent decrease in acute status asthmaticus—a medical emergency.