Body

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Enterovirus. Tuberculosis. Cholera. Measles. Various strains of the flu and hepatitis. The number of infectious disease outbreaks and the number of unique illnesses causing them appear to be increasing around the globe, according to a new Brown University analysis of more than 12,000 outbreaks affecting 44 million people worldwide over the last 33 years.

Scientists have long sought to identify the specific DNA changes that can trigger new traits, allowing species to adapt. But when animals develop a new trait, are the mutations within the part of the DNA that makes proteins, or, in the master switches that control the gene, modulating its activity to turn on or off?

For development of the embryo, it is usually the master control regions of a gene that dominate, but what about in an adult?

And you thought the sexual battles between people could get weird and fierce? Try ants. In a new study, biologists at the University of Vermont have discovered some queen ants that make sexual bondage into a life and death fight.

A high milk intake in women and men is not accompanied by a lower risk of fracture and instead may be associated with a higher rate of death, suggests observational research published in The BMJ this week.

This may be explained by the high levels of lactose and galactose (types of sugar) in milk, that have been shown to increase oxidative stress and chronic inflammation in animal studies, say the researchers.  

Richard Wakeford, Life Fellow at Hughes Hall in the University of Cambridge, warns that the NHS needs more GPs immediately – and that without a complete reorganisation of student recruitment, medical schools "will continue to overproduce graduates inclined to hospital specialties and research."

Workforce reports show that we need at least half of UK medical graduates to become GPs, yet UK medical schools "are not recruiting students with this career inclination in anything like sufficient numbers," he writes.

How does a normal cellular process derail and become unhealthy?

A multi-institutional, international team led by Virginia Tech researchers studied cells found in breast and other types of connective tissue and discovered new information about cell transitions that take place during wound healing and cancer.

The results were published in a September issue of the journal Science Signaling.

Montreal, October 28, 2014 – The Montreal Heart Institute Research Centre is once again pushing the limits of knowledge in personalized medicine. A meta-analysis combining the results of several pharmacogenomic studies and involving over 40,000 research subjects now makes it possible to demonstrate a different response to statins according to the patient's gene profile. This important contribution of two Montreal researchers from the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI), Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, Director of the Research Centre and Dr.

JUPITER, FL, October 28, 2014 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have uncovered a major contributor to Huntington's disease, a devastating progressive neurological condition that produces involuntary movements, emotional disturbance and cognitive impairment.

A connection between inflammation and cancer has been recognized for over a hundred years. This connection is particularly evident in colon carcinogenesis, because patients with IBD have a higher incidence of colon cancer than the general population. There is increasing evidence that inflammation contributes to the earliest stages of carcinogenesis, namely in the process of cell transformation, where the cell acquires many aspects of cancer characteristics.

Politics can have unintentional evolutionary consequences that may cause hastily issued policies to cascade into global, multigenerational problems, according to political scientists.

"Most western democracies look at policies as if they are bandages, we fix what we can and then move on," said Pete Hatemi, associate professor of political science, Penn State. "But we need to consider generational policies so that we can fix what we can now, but also be prepared for what comes next."

A population of endangered giant tortoises, which once dwindled to just over a dozen, has recovered on the Galapagos island of Española, a finding described as "a true story of success and hope in conservation" by the lead author of a study published today (Oct. 28).

Some 40 years after the first captive-bred tortoises were reintroduced to the island by the Galapagos National Park Service, the endemic Española giant tortoises are reproducing and restoring some of the ecological damage caused by feral goats that were brought to the island in the late 19th century.

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, October 28, 2014... A lack of sufficient punishment for deception facilitates "flopping" in basketball, according to new research from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), which revealed that two-thirds of the falls were found to be intentional. Based on the research, the authors believe that players and teams are unaware of the cost/benefit analysis of "flopping" or the negative effect of falling if no offensive foul is awarded, which is indeed the case 90 percent of the time.

Philadelphia, PA, October 28, 2014 – Canadian health organizations are calling upon governments to take a leadership role in creating healthy food environments. They say that implementing strategies that facilitate access to affordable healthy foods and beverages in places where Canadians work, live, and play could play a key role in preventing diet-related disease and health risk such as obesity and hypertension, and ultimately improve cardiovascular health, This call for action is published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

One of the tragic realities of cancer is that the drugs used to treat it are highly toxic and their effectiveness varies unpredictably from patient to patient. However, a new "tumor-in-a-dish" technology is poised to change this reality by rapidly assessing how effective specific anti-cancer cocktails will be on an individual's cancer before chemotherapy begins.

DEET has been the gold standard of insect repellents for more than six decades, and now researchers led by a University of California, Davis, scientist have discovered the exact odorant receptor that repels them.

They also have identified a plant defensive compound that might mimic DEET, a discovery that could pave the way for better and more affordable insect repellents. Findings from the study appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.