Body

The tropical rabbitfish which have devastated algal forests in the eastern Mediterranean Sea pose a major threat to the entire Mediterranean basin if their distribution continues to expand as the climate warms, a new study warns.

The study, by an international team of researchers led by Dr Adriana Vergés of UNSW Australia and Dr Fiona Tomas of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies in Spain, is published in the Journal of Ecology.

Ottawa (September 18, 2014) – A new expert panel report, Improving Medicines for Children in Canada, released today by the Council of Canadian Academies, addresses the importance of developing safe and effective medicines for children. Each year about half of Canada's seven million children use at least one prescription drug. Much of this prescribing is done off-label (i.e. the prescription differs from the authorized use), creating potential health risks.

Scientists at USC have developed a new microscopy technology that allows them to view single molecules in living animals at higher-than-ever resolution.

Dubbed "Complementation Activated Light Microscopy" (CALM), the new technology allows imaging resolutions that are an order of magnitude finer than conventional optical microscopy, providing new insights into the behavior of biomolecules at the nanometer scale.

Scientists at the University of Leeds think we may be able to drown deadly bacteria in their own paperwork.

A research team in the University's Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology has identified for the first time how the "paper shredder" that keeps the bacteria E. coli on top of its day job works.

Now the group are looking for ways to jam the mechanism and leave E. coli and similar bacteria in filing hell.

New evidence will be presented at the first Global Violence Reduction Conference in Cambridge this week which shows that homicide rates have been declining since the mid-1990s in many parts of the world - in some cases dramatically.

The findings prompt the researchers to suggest that adding 'nutraceuticals' to chemotherapy cycles may improve the effectiveness of conventional drugs, particularly in hard to treat cancers, such as pancreatic cancer.

They base their findings on the effectiveness of extract of chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) in killing off cancer cells—a process known as apoptosis.

A wild berry native to North America may strengthen the effectiveness of a chemotherapy drug commonly used to treat pancreatic cancer, reveals research published online in the Journal of Clinical Pathology.

The study by researchers at King's College Hospital and the University of Southampton suggests that adding nutraceuticals to chemotherapy cycles may improve the effectiveness of conventional drugs, particularly in hard to treat cancers, such as pancreatic cancer.

Becoming invisible is probably the ultimate form of camouflage: you don't just blend in, the background shows through you. And this strategy is not as uncommon as you might think. Kathryn Feller, from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA, explains that the larval life stages of many marine species are transparent. However, there is one part of the anatomy that most creatures cannot make transparent. Feller explains that the animals with compound eyes have to shield each individual eye unit with an opaque pigment to prevent light leaking between adjacent eye structures.

High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke, chronic heart failure, and kidney disease. Inflammation is thought to promote the development of high blood pressure, though it is not clear what triggers inflammatory pathways in hypertension. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation suggests that an autoimmune response leads to the development high blood pressure.

The magnificent plumage of the peacock may not be quite the sacrifice to love that it appears to be, University of Leeds researchers have discovered.

Dr Graham Askew, from the University's School of Biomedical Sciences, filmed five Indian peacocks taking off using two high-speed video cameras to try to work out what price male birds pay for carrying the spectacular iridescent feathers they use in displays to attract females.

Washington, DC (September 17, 2014) – Receiving an email that claims you are the recipient of a large sum of money from an unknown deceased relative immediately raises a red flag. These email scams are often trashed or filtered through spam folders. But what about on social networks where there is no filter? Where people can learn about your personal life with a few clicks?

Bioluminescence, nanoparticles, gene manipulation – these sound like the ideas of a science fiction writer, but, in fact, they are components of an exciting new approach to imaging local and metastatic tumors.

The most common type of hospital-associated infection may be preventable with a vaccine, new research in mice suggests.

The experimental vaccine, developed by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, prevented urinary tract infections associated with catheters, the tubes used in hospitals and other care facilities to drain urine from a patient's bladder.

(September 17, 2014, San Francisco) – Patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are otherwise healthy fare better over time if they undergo conventional surgery versus less-invasive radiosurgery to remove their cancer, according to a Yale study. The findings are scheduled to be presented at the 56th annual conference of the American Society for Radiation Oncology in San Francisco. (Abstract # 302; Comparative Effectiveness of Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy versus Surgery for Stage I Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer.)

Bottom Line: Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were associated with increased food addiction, especially when individuals had more symptoms or the symptoms occurred earlier in life.

Authors: Susan M. Mason, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues.