Body

SEATTLE—Bypass resulted in much greater weight loss and fewer reoperations than did banding, according to a large national study in JAMA Surgery comparing two of the gastric surgery procedures that are done most commonly for obesity. But bypass was linked to more risk of short-term complications than was banding. The study report is called "Comparative effectiveness of laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding versus laparoscopic gastric bypass in 10 health systems."

A landmark study to be published in the October 30, 2014 print edition of the journal Nature provides new insight into the function of an enzyme related to the BRCA1 breast-cancer protein. The study by a team at Penn State University is the first to produce a detailed working image of an enzyme in the Polycomb Repressive Complex 1 (PRC1) -- a group that regulates cell development and is associated with many types of cancer.

Washington, D.C., October 29 – When a right-wing Italian politician named Umberto Bossi suffered a severe stroke in 2004, his speech became permanently impaired. Strangely, this change impacted Bossi's perception among his party's followers -- from appearing authoritarian to benevolent.

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 29, 2014 – Is it possible that hearing loss in one infant from a pair of twins can affect the mother's speech to both infants? A new acoustics study zeroes in on this question and suggests that not only is this alteration of speech entirely possible, but that mothers speak to both infants as if they are hearing impaired.

Scientists discover a new species of leopard frog from New York City and surrounding region, according to a study published October 29, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jeremy Feinberg from Rutgers University and colleagues.

The frog species was discovered in the New York City metropolitan area and surrounding coastal regions, one of the largest and most densely populated urban parts of the world. Among other data, scientists analyzed acoustic and genetic data to characterize the new species of leopard frog, named Rana kauffeldi.

More than a half century after claims that a new frog species existed in New York and New Jersey were dismissed, a Rutgers researcher and team of scientists have proven that the frog is living in wetlands from Connecticut to North Carolina and are naming it after the ecologist who first noticed it.

Scientists have created a molecular map that pinpoints genetic variants that play a role in 21 different autoimmune diseases, they report Oct. 29 in the journal Nature.

Researchers at Yale, the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF), and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard developed a sophisticated mathematical model and created maps of different cell types that together enabled them to identify which variants cause the immune response to go awry and cause specific diseases.

The ability to pop a working copy of a faulty gene into a patient's genome is a tantalizing goal for many clinicians treating genetic diseases. Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have devised a new way to carry out this genetic sleight of hand.

The approach differs from that of other hailed techniques because it doesn't require the co-delivery of an enzyme called an endonuclease to clip the recipient's DNA at specific locations. It also doesn't rely on the co-insertion of genetic "on" switches called promoters to activate the new gene's expression.

A genetic autism study of unprecedented scope and power has uncovered more than two-dozen high-confidence risk genes for the disorder. It offers compelling evidence that spontaneous, or de novo, mutations contribute to autism in at least 27 percent of families in which the parents and siblings are unaffected.

The new research has also established conclusively that 'higher-IQ' autism, which mostly affects boys, has a different genetic basis from 'lower-IQ' autism, which commonly affects both boys and girls.

LA JOLLA, CA—October 29, 2014—Mimicking natural evolution in a test tube, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised an enzyme with a unique property that might have been crucial to the origin of life on Earth.

Aside from illuminating one possible path for life's beginnings, the achievement is likely to yield a powerful tool for evolving new and useful molecules.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a new strategy that they say could detect bladder cancer with more accuracy and sensitivity than standard endoscopy methods. Endoscopy refers to a procedure in which surgeons use an instrument equipped with a lens to see inside the patient.

Scores of autoimmune diseases afflicting one in 12 Americans — ranging from type 1 diabetes, to multiple sclerosis (MS), to rheumatoid arthritis, to asthma — mysteriously cause the immune system to harm tissues within our own bodies. Now, a new study pinpoints the complex genetic origins for many of these diseases, a discovery that may lead to better diagnosis and ultimately to improved treatments.

CINCINNATI – Scientists used pluripotent stem cells to generate functional, three-dimensional human stomach tissue in a laboratory – creating an unprecedented tool for researching the development and diseases of an organ central to several public health crises, ranging from cancer to diabetes.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – Our picture of how genetic errors contribute to autism has just gotten sharper. The latest series of clarifications in what, in its totality, is a very complex puzzle, emerges from new research published in Nature today by a team co-led by investigators at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), Yale University, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Washington, Seattle.

Some bacteria are able to thrive even when under continued attack, scientists have found, in a development that may help explain how our immune systems can't always prevent infections.

Studies of the common bug E. coli have shown that it is able to recover continually from potentially fatal harm to its genetic material, without slowing down the rate at which it grows.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh, who led the study, say their discovery helps explain why bacteria are so hard to kill and why they are so widespread.