Body

In cancer therapy, the best results are often achieved by combining treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. This multidisciplinary approach is the focus of special symposia at the meetings of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology (ESTRO) taking place in Sweden this month.

The skeleton of a man discovered by archaeologists in a shallow grave on the site of the University of York's campus expansion could be that of one of Britain's earliest victims of tuberculosis.

Radiocarbon dating suggests that the man died in the fourth century. He was interred in a shallow scoop in a flexed position, on his left side.

The man, aged 26-35 years, suffered from iron deficiency anaemia during childhood and at 162 centimetres (5ft 4in), was a shorter height than average for Roman males.

September 16, 2008 -- A paper published in the journal Health Affairs highlights the cost and coverage implications of Senator John McCain's healthcare plan and describes its likely impact on the level and stability of insurance coverage as well as the healthcare costs faced by families. The plan would eliminate the current tax exclusion of employer payments for health coverage, replace the exclusion with a refundable tax credit for those who purchase coverage, and encourage Americans to move to a national market for non-group insurance.

AUSTIN, Texas—Materials deep inside Earth have unexpected atomic properties that might force earth scientists to revise their models of Earth's internal processes, a team of researchers has discovered.

Detecting ever lower amounts of ionising radiation with ever better methods – sci-entists have had this goal since the start of the nuclear age. In addition to natural radiation, mankind is exposed to a multitude of other sources of radiation which result from the military and technical use of radioactive substances. To protect health, but also for technical and medical applications, it is necessary to determine even the smallest amounts of radionuclides with high precision.

Millions of American children are exposed to violence in their homes each year, putting them at risk for a variety of emotional and behavioral problems. According to a new study in the September/October 2008 issue of the journal Child Development, children who are maltreated tend to have a lot of re-exposure to family violence, and this re-exposure often leads to increased psychological problems.

Society holds that when it comes to aggression, boys hit and punch, while girls spread rumors, gossip, and intentionally exclude others, a type of aggression that's called indirect, relational, or social. Now a new analysis of almost 150 studies of aggression in children and adolescents has found that while it's true that boys are more likely to engage in physical aggression, girls and boys alike take part in social aggression.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Canadian researchers have used three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (3-D MRI) to accurately detect bleeding within the walls of diseased carotid arteries, a condition that may lead to a stroke. The results of the study published in the October issue of Radiology suggest the technique may prove to be a useful screening tool for patients at high risk for stroke.

Montreal, September 16, 2008 – Young girls from poor neighbourhoods need to review more than the birds and bees with their parents – they need to hear about contraception and potential dangers of hanging out with older boys. A new study by researchers from the Université de Montréal, the University of New Brunswick and Tufts University, published in the journal Child Development, has found that girls living in poor neighbourhoods were more likely to engage in sexual intercourse in early adolescence and to be doing so with older boys.

A winter free from colds and flu? Not yet. But a new study offers new evidence that Canada's top cold and flu-fighting product provides significant help. The three-year study showed that trial participants who took COLD-FX were about one-third less likely to get a "Jackson" cold or flu. The very sensitive Jackson scoring method is a well-accepted scientific approach for judging clinical symptoms, which include coughing, sneezing, runny noses and others. COLD-FX is a unique extract of North American ginseng discovered by 25 Canadian scientists.

A team of biologists from UC San Diego, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Oregon State University has identified the genes that enable plants to undergo bursts of rhythmic growth at night and allow them to compete when their leaves are shaded by other plants.

Inadequate treatment of antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis (TB) can leave patients highly infectious, and small numbers of such patients may drive transmission of the disease in the very health care facilities intended to treat it, according to research published in PLoS Medicine.

Every year, more than nine million people develop tuberculosis—a contagious infection usually involving the lungs—and nearly two million people die from the disease. The bacteria that cause TB are spread in airborne droplets when people with the disease cough or sneeze.

YAOUNDE (16 September 2008) – A new report from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB) and partners warns that an upsurge in hunting bushmeat—including mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians — in tropical forests is unsustainable and that it poses serious threats to food security for poor inhabitants of forests in Africa, who rely largely on bushmeat for protein.

In a study published this week in PLoS Biology, Eric Xu and colleagues have determined the molecular structure of a nuclear receptor, which regulates the expression of specific genes within cells, that may serve as a drug target for diseases related to heart and blood vessel development, human embryonic development and female infertility. Researchers also found that the receptor, named COUP-TFII, is activated by retinoic acid, a form of Vitamin A.

Just over five years ago, an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-coronavirus killed over 750 people. SARS (corona)virus, a positive-stranded RNA virus, replicates in the cytoplasm of host cells, attaching its replication complex to intracellular membranes that it has modified for this purpose.