Body

If you think sleep problems and bladder problems are a fact of life in old age, you may be right. A new report appearing in the November 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal, shows that our sleep-wake cycles are genetically connected to our bladder, and disruptions to one may cause problems with the other. This discovery builds on the hypotheses that under normal circumstances, a primary clock located in the brain controls several other peripheral clocks located throughout the body.

TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 30, 2014) – The current special issue of Technology and Innovation, is devoted to patents that benefit people around the world who live with limited resources, in challenging environments, and are in need of better access to basic needs and improved standards of living, health and infrastructure.

They live in the cold, dark depths of the oceans, are often exposed to strong currents and provide a stable base for diverse and colourful ecosystems: Stony corals of the species Lophelia pertusa are considered excellent reef-builders. According to the latest findings of researchers from the Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, the University of Glasgow and the United States Geological Survey, even genetically different individuals are able to fuse their skeletons.

Messenger, transfer, ribosomal... there's more than one type of RNA. The difference lies not only in the sequence of the nucleotides, the "beads" that form the strand, but also in the three-dimensional structure that this long molecule takes on. Computer models are often used to reveal this structure but these tend to be rather complex, and they vary depending on the field of application.

The Swainson's warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii) is one of the rarest and most secretive songbirds in North America, prized by birdwatchers in the southeastern U.S. hoping to catch a glimpse of it in the wild or hear its beautiful ringing song. With only 90,000 breeding individuals sparsely distributed across 15 states in the U.S., the Swainson's warbler is a species of high conservation concern that, for decades, has left conservationists with little confidence that its populations would ever be fully secure.

WHAT:

Why were dinosaurs covered in a cloak of feathers long before the early bird species Archaeopteryx first attempted flight? Researchers from the University of Bonn and the University of Göttingen attempt to answer precisely that question in their article "Beyond the Rainbow" in the latest issue of the renowned journal Science. The research team postulates that these ancient lizards had a highly developed ability to discern color.

The United States and United Kingdom buck the overall trend of developed countries having more egalitarian domestic economies than the countries they trade with.

The finding comes from the first ever 'inequality footprint' of nations, created by researchers at the University of Sydney, demonstrating the link that each country's domestic economic activity has to income distribution elsewhere in the world.

LIMA, PERU (30 October, 2014)—In an analysis of almost 73,000 concessions in eight tropical forested countries, more than 93 percent of these developments were found to involve land inhabited by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. According to the research, conducted by The Munden Project, the total amount of land handed over by governments to the private sector for mining, logging, oil & gas drilling, and large-scale agriculture includes at least 40 percent of Peru and 30 percent of Indonesia.

SAN FRANCISCO: Breast and colorectal cancers rarely occur in children, but when they do, these conditions are more precarious, according to a pair of National Cancer Data Base (NCDB) studies presented this week at the 2014 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.

Both breast cancer and colon cancer are known as adult conditions. According to the American Cancer Society, 95 percent of new breast cancer cases occur in women age 40 and older.1 Colorectal cancer is also largely an adult cancer, with 90 percent of cases occurring in people who are age 50 and older.2

Efforts to roll back current nutritional standards for the National School Lunch Program could jeopardize gains made in the fight against childhood obesity, write the authors of an article that will appear in the November 13 New England Journal of Medicine and has been released online. The Perspectives article by two MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC)-affiliated pediatricians addresses the claims raised by opponents of the current standards and stresses the standards' importance for maintaining the progress that has been made to improve the quality of school meals.

Doctors and public health authorities need to renew their attention to measles, researchers from Emory Vaccine Center urge in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Because of its high level of contagiousness, measles is the indicator disease for weaknesses of an immunization program," write Walter Orenstein, MD, and Katherine Seib, MSPH.

Orenstein is associate director of the Emory Vaccine Center and professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, and Seib is research manager in Emory's Division of Infectious Diseases.

MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL (October 29, 2014) – A new standard of care for children facing acute myeloid leukemia (AML) may be clear, following a multi-year study published in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

UCLA research could lead to a simple saliva test capable of diagnosing — at an early stage — diabetes and cancer, and perhaps neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases.

The study, the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted of RNA molecules in human saliva, reveals that saliva contains many of the same disease-revealing molecules that are contained in blood. It was published online today by the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Chemistry and will be published in the journal's January 2015 special print issue, "Molecular Diagnostics: A Revolution in Progress."

MINNEAPOLIS – Diets high in fat and low in carbohydrates, such as the ketogenic or modified Atkins diet, may reduce seizures in adults with tough-to-treat epilepsy, according to a review of the research published in the October 29, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Epilepsy is a nervous system disorder in which the nerve cells in the brain work abnormally, causing seizures. About 50 million people have epilepsy worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.