Body

UPTON, NY -- If your experiment doesn't go the way you expect, take a closer look -- something even more interesting may have happened. That strategy has led scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory to discover a fundamental shift in an enzyme's function that could help expand the toolbox for engineering biofuels and other plant-based oil products. The results will be published online the week of September 8, 2008, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Baltimore, Md. – September 08, 2008 – Infantile spasms are a severe and potentially devastating epilepsy condition affecting children aged typically 4-8 months. In a new study appearing in Epilepsia, researchers have found that the ketogenic diet, a high fat, low carbohydrate diet more traditionally used for intractable childhood epilepsy, is an effective treatment for this condition before using drugs. The study is the first description of the ketogenic diet as a first-line therapy for infantile spasms.

New York, NY (Sept. 4, 2008) – A new study finds hospitals can save more than $300 a day taking care of seriously ill patients while giving them even better care.

The Archives of Internal Medicine will publish the study by the Center to Advance Palliative Care and National Palliative Care Research Center in its September 8 issue.

Microscopic particles in polluted air can adversely affect the heart's ability to conduct electrical signals in people with serious coronary artery disease, researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

In a recent study of 48 Boston-area patients, all of whom had coronary artery disease, 24-hour Holter monitors were used to examine electrocardiograms for the conductivity change called an ST-segment depression, which may indicate inadequate blood flow to the heart or inflamed heart muscle.

Women age 70 and older who sleep five hours or less per night may be more likely to experience falls than those who sleep more than seven to eight hours per night, according to a report in the September 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Additionally, the use of sleep medications does not appear to influence the association between sleep and risk of falling.

Individuals who have a genetic mutation associated with high body mass index (BMI) may be able to offset their increased risk for obesity through physical activity, according to a report in the September 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

High levels of physical activity can help to counteract a gene that normally causes people to gain weight, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. They analyzed gene variants and activity levels of the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, Pa., and found that the obesity-related FTO gene had no effect on individuals who were the most physically active.

Blacksburg, Va. – Virginia Tech chemistry Professor Harry Dorn has developed a new area of fullerene chemistry that may be the backbone for development of molecular semiconductors and quantum computing applications.

A new paper by a team of researchers led by Shahriar Mobashery, Navari Family Professor of Life Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, provides important new insights into the process by which bacteria recycle their cell wall.

The cell wall is a critically important entity for bacteria and essential for their survival. It is a rigid entity encasing the bacterium, and antibiotics are designed to interfere with disease processes by affecting its maturation. The function of antibiotics is to impair the cell wall, leading to bacterial death.

Single fathers should never be prevented from seeing their children. Even in the toughest family conflicts, interaction should always continue between father and child according to sociologist Germain Dulac, a researcher at the Université de Montréal's Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Violence Against Women and Families.

"Every father, even the worst delinquent, must see his child once in a while. It's beneficial for both parties," says Dulac, who has studied the male condition for 20 years and analyzed the impact of broken relationships.

AMES, Iowa – The first beam of protons will begin racing around the world's biggest science experiment on Wednesday, Sept. 10, and Iowa State University physicists will be part of the research team taking notes.

They'll also be joining physicists around the world in celebrating a major milestone for the $8 billion, 17-miles-around Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator ever built.

HOUSTON - The protein IKKalpha (IKKα) regulates the cell cycle of keratinocytes and plays a key role in keeping these specialized skin cells from becoming malignant, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the Sept. 9 issue of Cancer Cell.

Scientists have gained new insight into a mechanism whereby chemotherapy may actually assist the rapid regrowth of tumors after treatment. The research, published by Cell Press in the September issue of the journal Cancer Cell, also helps to explain why a combination of traditional chemotherapy with drugs that block formation of new blood vessels might impede the devastating tumor recovery that often follows cancer therapy.

Scientists have gained new insight into a mechanism whereby chemotherapy may actually assist the rapid regrowth of tumors after treatment. The research, published by Cell Press in the September issue of the journal Cancer Cell, also helps to explain why a combination of traditional chemotherapy with drugs that block formation of new blood vessels might impede the devastating tumor recovery that often follows cancer therapy.

Contrary to a long-standing assumption that blood vessel cells in healthy tissues and those associated with tumors are similar, a new study unequivocally demonstrates that tumor blood vessel cells are far from normal. The research, published by Cell Press in the September issue of the journal Cancer Cell, identifies tumor-specific blood vessel cells that are atypically stem cell-like and have the potential to differentiate into cartilage- or bone-like tissues.