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Researchers at the Yale University School of Medicine have found that patients with obstructive sleep apnea are at increased risk for developing of type II diabetes, independent of other risk factors.

The study looked at 593 patients at the VA Connecticut Health Care System referred for evaluation of sleep-disordered breathing. Each patient spent a night in a sleep laboratory to undergo a sleep study, called polysomnography.

A nanocomposite particle can be constructed so that it has a mix of properties that would not otherwise happen in nature. By combining an organic matrix with metallic clusters that can absorb light, it is possible to incorporate such particles into cells and then destroy those targeted cells with a laser. In a presentation at the NSTI Nanotech 2007 Conference, researchers describe work regarding the creation and characterization of a dendrimer nanocomposite (DNC) matrix containing silver clusters that can be used to target and destroy melanoma cancer cells.

Northwestern University researchers have discovered that a recently identified genetic marker for prostate cancer is linked to a highly aggressive form of the disease.

These findings ultimately will aid the development of a simple blood test to predict who is susceptible to this aggressive cancer, Northwestern researchers said. Knowing which patients carry this genetic marker also will guide doctors in how they treat the cancer.

People with obstructive sleep apnea have a markedly increased risk of severe motor vehicle crashes involving personal injury, according to a study presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, on Sunday, May 20.

As societies emerge from conflict, men's dominance at all levels of decision-making ensures women never feel truly secure according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

In a unique study of women's security and participation in three post conflict societies—Northern Ireland, South Africa and Lebanon—researchers found that women see security differently from men. And because men dominate the institutions of peace-making and peace-building, they often fail to consider the specific security needs of women.

The research reactor at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is back in action and better than ever.

After $70 million in renovations and more than a year of meticulous system checks, ORNL’s High Flux Isotope Reactor was restarted this week, taken to 10 percent power, and reached its peak power of 85 megawatts Wednesday.ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor has been used for neutron-scattering studies since 196g. Credit: ORNL

Physicists at the University of Pittsburgh have demonstrated a new form of matter that melds the characteristics of lasers with those of the world’s best electrical conductors. The work introduces a new method of moving energy from one point to another as well as a low-energy means of producing a light beam like that from a laser.

British scientists working with David A. Russell have made it possible to gain information about the lifestyle of a person from their fingerprint - this includes drug and doping transgressions, what foods have been consumed, diagnosis of diseases and they can even use specific antibodies to differentiate between the fingerprints of smokers and nonsmokers.

Knowing more about the lifestyle of the person who made the fingerprints will allow investigators to shrink the pool of crime suspects, the researchers say.

Researchers at the University of Illinois have constructed the first global family tree of metabolic protein architecture. Their approach offers a new window on the evolutionary history of metabolism.

Their work relies on established techniques of phylogenetic analysis developed in the past decade to plot the evolution of genes and organisms but which have never before been used to work out the evolutionary history of protein architecture across biological networks.

By applying the techniques of computer engineering to a mechanistic diagram describing the development of the Nematode C. elegans, a group of researchers in Switzerland has been able to tease out what laboratory experiments have not – how and when the crucial cross-talk between cellular signaling pathways takes place in order to determine the fates of individual cells.

Tomatoes might be nutritious and tasty, but don’t count on them to prevent prostate cancer. In the May issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers based at the National Cancer Institute and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center report that lycopene, an antioxidant predominately found in tomatoes, does not effectively prevent prostate cancer.

One of the world’s largest and least studied freshwater turtles has been found in Cambodia’s Mekong River, raising hopes that the threatened species can be saved from extinction.

Despite the fact that they both infect the liver, the hepatitis A and hepatitis C viruses actually have very little in common. The two are far apart genetically, are transmitted differently, and produce very different diseases.

Up to 25,000 people may die needlessly each year due to the failure to prevent blood clots known as venous thromboembolisms (VTE) in UK hospitals, say experts in this week's BMJ.

Their warning follows the publication of official guidelines on the issue last month by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which are also summarised in this week's journal.

Now that the genome sequences of hundreds of bacteria and viruses are known, we can design tests that will rapidly detect the presence of these species based solely on their DNA. These tests can detect a pathogen in a complex mixture of organic material by recognizing short, distinguishing sequences—called DNA signatures—that occur in the pathogen and not in any other species.