Body

The internal circadian clock of a Drosophila (fruit fly) can be synchronised using vibrations, according to research published today in the journal Science. The results suggest that an animal's own movements can influence its clock.

The circadian clock, which underlies the daily rhythms characterising most of our bodily functions including the sleep cycle, is mainly set by diurnal changes in light and temperature.

In a study published this week in Nature Neuroscience, Bess Frost, PhD, and co-authors, identify abnormal expression of genes, resulting from DNA relaxation, that can be detected in the brain and blood of Alzheimer's patients.

Prof. Erich Nigg and his research group at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel have discovered an amino acid signal essential for error-free cell division. This signal regulates the number of centrosomes in the cell, and its absence results in the development of pathologically altered cells. Remarkably, such altered cells are found in people with a neurodevelopmental disorder, called autosomal recessive primary microcephaly. The results of these investigations have been published in the current issue of the US journal Current Biology.

Currently more than 1 million knee replacements and hip replacements are performed each year in the United States, and with the aging population, the number of total joint replacements is expected to grow.

While total joint surgeries have a low risk of infection – between 1 and 3 percent – in those rare instances when bone infection sets in, it can be a devastating setback for patients.

The majority of gastric bypass patients mysteriously recover from their type 2 diabetes within days, before any weight loss has taken place. A study at Lund University Diabetes Centre in Sweden has now shown that the insulin-producing beta cells increase in number and performance after the surgery.

"We have suspected this for a while, but there have not previously been any models to prove it", says Dr Nils Wierup, who led the research.

The small study involved gastric bypass surgery on just four pigs, but is the only study of its kind and therefore unique.

BOSTON –– The most common genetic subtype of lung cancer, which has long defied treatment with targeted therapies, has had its growth halted by a combination of two already-in-use drugs in laboratory and animal studies, setting the stage for clinical trials of the drugs in patients, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other scientists report in a new study.

Football helmets can be designed to reduce the risk of concussions, according to a new study by some of the nation's leading concussion researchers published today in the Journal of Neurosurgery.

Scientists have discovered vital clues as to how the pathogen responsible for the Irish potato famine adapted to spread between different plant species.

Researchers at Oxford University and The Sainsbury Laboratory (Norwich, UK) looked in unprecedented detail at how Phytophthora infestans, a pathogen that continues to blight potatoes and tomatoes today, evolved to target other plants.

DURHAM, N.C. -- The strength of a lemur couple's bond is reflected by the similarity of their scents, finds a new study.

"It's like singing a duet, but with smells instead of sounds," said Christine Drea, a Duke University professor who supervised the study.

Duke researchers sampled and analyzed scent secretions produced by lemurs known as Coquerel's sifakas living at the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, NC. The researchers also monitored the animals' scent-marking and sniffing behavior across the breeding season.

New research published today shows that depression and impulse control disorders (eating disorders in particular) are independently associated with diabetes diagnosis, after adjustment for presence of other mental disorders. The research, published in Diabetologia (the journal of The European Association for the Study of Diabetes), supports the focus on depression as an independent risk factor for diabetes, but also suggests this focus should be extended to impulse control disorders.

More than a third of a million people in England took part in Stoptober 2012, a national campaign to encourage people to give up smoking, according to new research by UCL researchers published today in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Stoptober, which is now run by Public Health England, aims to support a positive social movement that encourages smokers to kick the habit by setting them a realistic and achievable goal (quitting for 28 days).

HIV infection has many unhealthy consequences on the body, but in particular it messes up the gut. The human intestine has the highest concentration of HIV target cells, the majority of which are destroyed within days of infection, and before CD4 T cell counts drop measurably in the blood. A study published on January 30th in PLOS Pathogens reports the first three-dimensional ultra-structural study of HIV infection in vivo.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered what appears to be a potent stimulator of new bone growth. The finding could lead to new treatments for osteoporosis and other diseases that occur when the body doesn't make enough bone.

Osteoporosis affects 55 percent of Americans age 50 and older. Of that age group, one in three women and one in 12 men are believed to have osteoporosis, a condition responsible for millions of fractures each year, mostly involving the hips, wrist or lower back vertebrae.

The human intestinal tract, or gut, is best known for its role in digestion. But this collection of organs also plays a prominent role in the immune system. In fact, it is one of the first parts of the body that is attacked in the early stages of an HIV infection. Knowing how the virus infects cells and accumulates in this area is critical to developing new therapies for the over 33 million people worldwide living with HIV.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Do not smoke and do not allow yourself to be exposed to smoke because second-hand smoke and third-hand smoke are just as deadly as first-hand smoke, says a scientist at the University of California, Riverside who, along with colleagues, conducted the first animal study of the effects of third-hand smoke.