Body

Canada's ranking in international child health indexes would dramatically improve if measurements were standardized, according to a new study by researchers from the University of British Columbia, Dalhousie University, McGill University, the University of Calgary, and the Public Health Agency of Canada, working with the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Durham, NC — Married people may pledge to stay faithful through good times and bad, but birds sing a different tune — when weather is severe or uncertain, birds are more likely to stray from their mates, says a new study by researchers working at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and Columbia University.

The results could mean more marital strife for birds coping with climate change, the researchers say.

A panel of US and international experts met in September 2011, in Washington, DC, to review the latest scientific data on the hormonal changes that mark reproductive aging in women and to reach consensus on defining the reproductive stages in a woman's life from pre-menopause to the late postmenopausal period. STRAW+10 represents an update to the landmark STRAW (Stages of Reproductive Aging Workshop) system put into place ten years ago that paved the way for international studies that have led to a greater understanding of reproductive aging in women.

A unique board game developed by a group of medical students at Western University will help bridge gaps between various health disciplines to better educate students about their roles in interdisciplinary health teams.

Students at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry began developing the board game as part of a second year ethics project, and now it's been professionally reproduced for use in healthcare faculties at universities across Canada.

ITHACA, N.Y. – Billions of engineered nanoparticles in foods and pharmaceuticals are ingested by humans daily, and new Cornell research warns they may be more harmful to health than previously thought.

A research collaboration led by Michael Shuler, a professor of Chemical Engineering and chair of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, studied how large doses of polystyrene nanoparticles – a common, FDA-approved substance found in substances ranging from food additives to vitamins – affected how well chickens absorbed iron, an essential nutrient, into their cells.

MADISON -- Nacre -- or mother of pearl, scientists and artisans know, is one of nature's amazing utilitarian materials.

Produced by a multitude of mollusk species, nacre is widely used in jewelry and art. It is inlaid into musical instruments, furniture and decorative boxes. Fashioned into buttons, beads and a host of functional objects from pens to flatware, mother of pearl lends a lustrous iridescence to everyday objects.

Limited access to clean sources of energy, known as energy poverty, makes nearly half the world's population reliant on burning wood, animal waste, coal or charcoal to cook. This leads to severe respiratory diseases that kill roughly two million people worldwide each year, a problem University of British Columbia researchers are trying to solve.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Severe heart damage in people who are obese and diabetic is linked with a pancreatic hormone called amylin, UC Davis researchers have found.

In the failing hearts of patients who were obese and diabetic, the scientists discovered strings of proteins, small fibers and plaques made of amylin, the hormone that produces the feeling of being full after eating. They also showed in an animal model that amylin accumulation in the heart leads to heart muscle destruction and failure.

DETROIT – Ovarian cancer, which killed 15,000 American women last year, is one of the deadliest forms of cancer. A team of Wayne State University School of Medicine researchers recently proved that freezing tumors increases survival rates in ovarian cancer patients.

The "freeze and destroy" technique is an alternative for local treatment of cancerous tumors, said Peter Littrup, M.D., professor of radiology in the School of Medicine and director of imaging core and radiological research at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute.

AMES, Iowa – A team of international researchers has discovered a new type of structural anomaly, or defect, that can appear in quasicrystals, a unique material with some crystal-like properties but a more complex structure.

Pat Thiel, senior chemist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, led the international team, which includes scientists from the Institut Jean Lamour at Nancy-Université in France.

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch have developed the first accurate predictive model to differentiate between dengue fever (DF) and its more severe form, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). The breakthrough, which could vastly reduce the disease's mortality rate, was reported in related papers in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and Clinical and Translational Science. These studies could lead to a personalized approach to treatment of dengue fever.

Osteoporosis patients could soon ditch daily injection pens for an implantable microchip that releases medication at the push of a remote-controlled button, reports a new study appearing 16 February 2012 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The clinical trial, composed of a group of women with osteoporosis in Denmark, is the first to test a wirelessly controlled microchip capable of releasing drugs into the body at any time.

Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a robotic device made from DNA that could potentially seek out specific cell targets within a complex mixture of cell types and deliver important molecular instructions, such as telling cancer cells to self-destruct. Inspired by the mechanics of the body's own immune system, the technology might one day be used to program immune responses to treat various diseases. The research findings appear today in Science.

LA JOLLA, CA – February 16, 2012 – A team of scientists from the Scripps Research Institute, collaborating with members of the drug discovery company Receptos, has created the first high-resolution virtual image of cellular structures called S1P1 receptors, which are critical in controlling the onset and progression of multiple sclerosis and other diseases. This new molecular map is already pointing researchers toward promising new paths for drug discovery and aiding them in better understanding how certain existing drugs work.

A high-quality reference catalogue of the genetic changes that result in the deactivation of human genes has been developed by a team of researchers. This catalogue of loss-of-function (LoF) variants is needed to find new disease-causing mutations and will help us to better understand the normal function of human genes. In addition, the researchers report that each of us is carrying around 20 genes that have been completely inactivated.