Body

When the English author Sir Francis Bacon wrote "The world's a bubble" in 1629, it's a safe bet he wasn't thinking about microfluidics. However, for a research team led by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Bacon's words could not be truer. Since 2004, their world has revolved around the development of increasingly sophisticated microfluidic devices to produce liquid-filled "bubbles" called liposomes for potential use as vehicles to deliver drugs directly to cancers and other diseased cells within the body.

The family history screening questionnaire can be used to provide insight into people's susceptibility to breast, ovarian, bowel and prostate cancer, melanoma, ischaemic heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

These findings will lead to greater insight into the process of preventative treatment for cancer in primary care and provide a cost-effective intervention for tailored disease prevention in Australian primary care..

The EORTC will present nine abstracts at the ASCO 2014 Annual Meeting which will be held 30 May – 03 June 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. Four abstracts will be presented in Oral Abstract Sessions, one in a Poster Highlights Session, and another four in General Poster Sessions.

Oral Abstract Sessions

Abstract # 4500

Washington, DC (May 21, 2014) The Net Children Go Mobile project will release new data on children's mobile use at the 64th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association at the Seattle Sheraton hotel. The project found that 46% of children own a smartphone and 41% use it daily to go online, while 20% own a tablet but 23% use it on a daily basis to access the Internet. Smartphone and tablet users engage more in communication and entertainment activities. They also have a higher level of digital skills, safety skills, and communicative abilities.

Maternal depression is more common at four years following childbirth than at any other time in the first 12 months after childbirth, and there needs to be a greater focus on maternal mental health, suggests a new study published today (21 May) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered an enzyme they say is tightly linked to how aggressive pancreatic cancer will be in a patient.

Researchers at the University of Montreal have developed an improved chemical analysis method that is more efficient and faster in detecting counterfeit medicines, which have skyrocketed in recent years. The method was developed and tested in a study by Philippe Lebel, Alexandra Furtos and Karen Waldron of the university's Department of Chemistry. It identifies and quantifies the various compounds present in a pharmaceutical product, in a fifth of the time it takes governmental services to do the same job. "Fake drugs are a scourge for public health," says Lebel.

A new genetic study has revealed that populations of humpback whales in the oceans of the North Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere are much more distinct from each other than previously thought, and should be recognised as separate subspecies. Understanding how connected these populations are has important implications for the recovery of these charismatic animals that were once devastated by hunting.

In this Review, Professor Ziad Memish, Deputy Minister of Health for Public Health in Saudi Arabia and colleagues outline the latest real-time disease surveillance system that was recently piloted to successfully monitor and assess public health risks among the 5 million pilgrims from 184 countries during the Hajj 2012 and Hajj 2013.

In this Review, Dr Catherine Smallwood and Dr Maurizio Barbeschi of WHO, Geneva, Switzerland and colleagues outline the ways in which organisers of future sporting mass gatherings can, and should, learn from the management of the safety and wellbeing of more than eight million people at the Euro 2012 Football Championships in Poland and Ukraine.

Venomous creatures usually conjure up images of hissing snakes or stinging scorpions--but for scientists Bryan Fry, et. al., an overlooked group --centipedes-- are all the rage.

Centipedes prey on bugs and other pests by stinging them with venom secreted from and injected from their first pair of pincer-like legs, called forcipules. In a new paper published in the advanced online edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution, the research team analyzed all venom protein and peptide sequences available for centipedes,

The risk of experiencing an oxygen deficit at birth (birth asphyxia) increases for babies born to women who are overweight or obese, according to a study by Swedish and US researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

These findings are important given the high prevalence of overweight and obesity worldwide, and suggest that preventing women of reproductive age from becoming overweight or obese is important to the health of their children.

Targeted interventions based on genetic risk may not be the best approach for preventing type 2 diabetes and instead universal strategies to prevent obesity should be prioritized, according to new research published in this week's PLOS Medicine. This analysis, led by Claudia Langenberg from the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK, suggests that the contribution of genetics to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes is greatest in those who are younger and leaner.

Boston, MA — Experiments creating dangerous flu strains that are transmissible between mammals pose too great a risk to human life from potential release, according to an editorial by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Yale School of Public Health. The researchers are calling for greater scrutiny of experiments that make virulent influenza strains transmissible, and for future studies on flu transmission to use safer and more effective alternative approaches.

CHICAGO --- A large new Northwestern Medicine® study upends our understanding of vitamin E and ties the increasing consumption of supposedly healthy vitamin E-rich oils -- canola, soybean and corn – to the rising incidence of lung inflammation and, possibly, asthma.