Body

BETHESDA, MD – June 17, 2014 – Immunity is what stops you dying from a common cold or a tiny pinprick. Differences in resistance or tolerance to disease influence who catches the bug that's going around the office, or which species succumb to the deadly fungus devastating frogs around the world. But immunity involves more than just the immune cells that recognize and hunt down pathogens. It is influenced by the host's health, physiology, behavior, and environment. And underlying all these processes and their intricate interactions are the genes that govern their function.

A UT Arlington research team says their study of genetic information from more than 4,000 beetle species has yielded a new theory about why some species lose their Y chromosome and others, such as humans, hang on to it.

They call it the "fragile Y hypothesis."

Winter takes its toll on living things. To protect themselves from the elements, bears hibernate, and trees go dormant. Biologists have observed what happens when trees become dormant, but up to now, they haven't understood the underlying genetic mechanisms that enable them to start growing again.

Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a nanoshell to protect foreign enzymes used to starve cancer cells as part of chemotherapy. Their work is featured on the June 2014 cover of the journal Nano Letters.

Melbourne researchers have shown a type of leukaemia can be successfully 'reversed' by coaxing the cancer cells back into normal development.

The discovery was made using a model of B-progenitor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL), the most common cancer affecting children.

Researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute showed that switching off a gene called Pax5 could cause cancer in a model of B-ALL, while restoring its function could 'cure' the disease.

E-cigarettes, also known as vaping pens or e-hookas, are commonly advertised on Twitter and the tweets often link to commercial websites promoting e-cig use, according to University of Illinois at Chicago researchers.

The study, published as a special supplement in the July 2014 issue of Tobacco Control released online June 16, has implications for future FDA regulations on the marketing of e-cigarettes and related products.

Los Angeles, CA (June 17, 2014) How do open access sources, tightened budgets, and competition from popular technologies affect how librarians perceive and employ reference resources? How do librarians expect to utilize reference in the future? "The State of Reference Collections," a new SAGE white paper out today, finds that though the definition of reference is changing, this is in part because reference resources now look and feel like other information sources and because other information resources perform the traditional purpose of reference – answering research questions.

Fecal microbiota transplantation --- the process of delivering stool bacteria from a healthy donor to a patient suffering from intestinal infection with the bacterium Clostridium difficile --- works by restoring healthy bacteria and functioning to the recipient's gut, according to a study published this week in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Combining two smoking cessation therapies is more effective than using just one for male and highly nicotine-dependent smokers who weren't initially helped by the nicotine patch, according to researchers at Duke Medicine.

The findings, published online June 17, 2014, in the American Journal of Psychiatry, also support using an adaptive treatment model to determine which smokers are likely to succeed in quitting with nicotine replacement alone before trying additional therapies.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have completed the first comprehensive survey of e-cigarettes for sale online and the results, they believe, underscore the complexity in regulating the rapidly growing market for the electronic nicotine delivery devices.

E-cigarettes are mostly used by current smokers or would-be quitters, reveals an analysis of their uptake across 27 European countries, published online in Tobacco Control.

But their widespread use among more than 29 million people underlines the need to evaluate the potential long term impact of e-cigarettes on health and their role in smoking cessation and/or nicotine addiction say the researchers.

The number and type of e-cigarettes available online has soared within the past couple of years, with around 10 new brands and more than 240 new flavours coming to market every month during this period, reveals a study published in a special supplement of Tobacco Control.

The study is one of nine pieces of research on e-cigarettes to come out of the State and Community Tobacco Control Research (SCTC) Initiative, funded by the US National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, and published in the supplement.

How much commuting can you tolerate? A new study by MIT researchers shows that across countries, people assess their commutes by the time it takes them to complete the trip, generally independent of the distance they have to travel — as long as they have a variety of commuting options to chose from.

The study, which compares commuting practices in five locations on four continents, also demonstrates the methodological validity of using mobile phone data to create an accurate empirical picture of commuting.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- The Great White Shark is not endangered in the Eastern North Pacific, and, in fact, is doing well enough that its numbers likely are growing, according to an international research team led by a University of Florida researcher.

George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, said the wide-ranging study is good news for shark conservation. The study, to be published June 16 in the journal PLOS ONE, indicates measures in place to protect the ocean's apex predator are working.

HOUSTON – (June 16, 2014) – How does a stem cell decide what path to take? In a way, it's up to the wisdom of the crowd.

The DNA in a pluripotent stem cell is bombarded with waves of proteins whose ebb and flow nudge the cell toward becoming blood, bone, skin or organs. A new theory by scientists at Rice University shows the cell's journey is neither a simple step-by-step process nor all random.