Body

URBANA, Ill. - Co-products from the human food industry offer a lower-cost alternative to cereal grains in diets fed to pigs. Research at the University of Illinois is helping to determine the nutritional value of these ingredients so that producers can make informed choices about incorporating them into swine diets, said Hans H. Stein, a U of I animal science researcher.

Normally when you drop a drinking glass on the floor it shatters. But, in future, thanks to a technique developed in McGill's Department of Mechanical Engineering, when the same thing happens the glass is likely to simply bend and become slightly deformed. That's because Prof. François Barthelat and his team have successfully taken inspiration from the mechanics of natural structures like seashells in order to significantly increase the toughness of glass.

A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the journal PLoS ONE shows that bladder and lung cancers are marked by shared differences in the genetics that control the cell cycle. Measuring these genetic signatures could allow doctors to refine a patient's prognosis, choose appropriate treatments, and perhaps offer new treatments that target these shared genetic abnormalities.

Washington, DC, January 29, 2014 – U.S. hospital intensive care units (ICUs) show uneven compliance with infection prevention policies, according to a study in the February issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).

Like little factories, cells metabolize raw materials and convert them into chemical compounds. Biotechnologists take advantage of this ability, using microorganisms to produce pharmaceuticals and biofuels. To boost output to an industrial scale and create new types of chemicals, biotechnologists manipulate the microorganisms' natural metabolism, often by "overexpressing" certain genes in the cell. But such metabolic engineering is hampered by the fact that many genes become toxic to the cell when overexpressed.

CLEVELAND, Ohio (January 29, 2014)—With plummeting hormone levels, natural menopause before age 40 can put a damper on women's mental well being and quality of life. But bringing testosterone back up to normal may not bring them the boost some hoped for, found a new study published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

The Congressional agenda for 2014 includes science issues with far-reaching implications for an array of issues including public health, job growth, pharmaceutical research and energy, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. The mid-term elections occurring this fall, however, promise to complicate progress on key legislative efforts, already stymied by a bitter partisan atmosphere.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Scientists have identified how a single gene in honey bees separates the queens from the workers.

A team of scientists from Michigan State University and Wayne State University unraveled the gene's inner workings and published the results in the current issue of Biology Letters. The gene, which is responsible for leg and wing development, plays a crucial role in the evolution of bees' ability to carry pollen.

CLEVELAND – Researchers from University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have published new findings in the February issue of American Journal of Roentgenology that mammography remains beneficial for women in their 40s. According to the study, women between ages 40 and 49 who underwent routine screening mammography were diagnosed at earlier stages with smaller tumors and were less likely to require chemotherapy.

People are much more likely to decide to donate a kidney to a stranger — an extraordinarily altruistic act — in areas of the United States where levels of well-being are high, according to a new study.

"Anywhere from 11% to 54% of adults say that they'd be willing to consider altruistic kidney donation, but only a tiny fraction of them actually become donors," says psychological scientist Abigail Marsh of Georgetown University, senior author on the study. "Our work suggests that subjective well-being may be a factor that 'nudges' some adults into actually donating."

DETROIT – A new study reveals an alarming increase in oropharyngeal cancers among young adults. While the exact cause for this phenomenon is unknown, the human papillomavirus (HPV) may be to blame.

According to researchers from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit there was an overall 60 percent increase from 1973 and 2009 in cancers of the base of tongue, tonsils, soft palate and pharynx in people younger than age 45.

Among Caucasians, there was a 113 percent increase, while among African-Americans the rate of these cancers declined by 52 percent during that period of time.

Researchers at Lund University have managed to develop a technique whereby they can study the inflammatory process that takes place in the pancreas during the natural development of type 1 diabetes, allowing for real time and repeated non-invasive imaging of individual islets of Langerhans. The technique enables the visualisation of a human autoimmune disease in animal models that gives us a way to watch the body´s response to new therapeutic strategies that attempt to save islets from this deadly immune system attack.

People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are less able to consider the perspective of their conversational partner, says research from the University of Waterloo. The findings may lead to new remediation that can improve the way individuals with the disorder interact and communicate with others.

The research appears in two published studies, one in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research is focused on children, the other addresses adults and appears in the Journal of Attention Disorders.

Gene expression (the functional activation of genes within a cell) is a crucial process for life. An important step in this process is protein synthesis, whereby the single amino acids, the "building blocks" that make up the strand of protein, are strung together like beads on a necklace. Even though this mechanism had previously been described in detail, some "stochastic" aspects had been neglected: in the chain of events that characterizes protein synthesis there is a certain random component that influences the time it takes for the protein to be assembled.

Just like healthy cells, tumor cells need nutrients and oxygen in order to survive. For this reason, a tumor of a certain size has to ensure that it is connected to the blood circulation. In doing this, it is supported by cells of the innate immune system, the neutrophil granulocytes or brief neutrophils, which are supposed to protect the body against pathogens.