Body

In what could be a breakthrough in animal breeding, a team of scientists from Germany, Russia and Sweden have discovered a set of genetic regions responsible for animal tameness. This discovery, published in the June 2009 issue of the journal GENETICS (http://www.genetics.org), should help animal breeders, farmers, zoologists, and anyone else who handles and raises animals to more fully understand what makes some animals interact with humans better than do others.

TORONTO, JUNE 8, 2009 – Ontario children are more likely to get diagnosed with diabetes than their American counterparts. A study out of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) has found a 3 per cent increase per year in the rate of diabetes in Ontario children from 1994 to 2004.

A new lung cancer therapy employing a vaporized viral vector to deliver a cancer-inhibiting molecule directly to lung tissue shows early promise in mouse trials, according to researchers at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in Korea.

Gene therapy is an area of great promise, but delivery mechanisms, which have included intravenous injection and intratracheal instillation, have proven problematic for effective delivery of genetic therapy to lung tissues.

Research conducted under the direction of Melinda Sothern, PhD, Professor and Director of Health Promotion at the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health, showing early signs of diabetes in healthy children as young as seven years old will be presented at the American Diabetes Association 2009 Annual Scientific Session Meeting in New Orleans. Dr. Sothern's group is the first to document previously unknown markers for obesity, heart disease and diabetes, collectively called the Metabolic Syndrome, in children this young.

When mobbing predators, Siberian jays use over a dozen different calls to communicate the level of danger and predator category to other members of their own group. A Swedish study from Uppsala University, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences, shows birds have evolved call systems that are as sophisticated as those of primates and meerkats.

Rushing to salvage fossils from the Panama Canal earthworks, Aldo Rincon, paleontology intern at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, unearthed a set of fossil teeth. Bruce J. MacFadden, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida in Gainesville, describes the fossil as Anchitherium clarencei, a three-toed browsing horse, in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of Paleontology.

A lung cancer treatment that inhibits nicotine receptors was shown to double survival time in mice, according to Italian researchers.

The results of the early phase animal model study were reported in the June 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Using forensic data from feather remains, scientists have identified the birds that caused the Jan. 15 airline crash into the Hudson River as migratory Canada geese. The study, published online in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, will help managers better assess how to prevent such strikes in the future.

Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution examined the feather remains from the Jan. 15US Airways Flight 1549 bird strike to determine not only the species, but also that the Canada geese involved were from a migratory, rather than resident, population. This knowledge is essential for wildlife professionals to develop policies and techniques that will reduce the risk of future collisions. The team's findings are being published in the journal "Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment" today, June 8.

June 8, 2009 --A new study finds that many women with breast cancer take antioxidant supplements while undergoing cancer treatment, even though the consequences of doing so are unknown. Published in the July 15, 2009 issue of CANCER, a journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that additional research should be undertaken to determine the effects of antioxidant supplementation on the health and survival of breast cancer patients.

WESTCHESTER, Ill. – The genes that play a role in adolescent insomnia are the same as those involved in depression and anxiety, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday, June 8, at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

WESTCHESTER, Ill. – Men who work with their female partners while receiving continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are more likely to adhere to their treatment, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

WESTCHESTER, Ill. – Athletes who extended their nightly sleep and reduced accumulated sleep debt reported improvements in various drills conducted after every regular practice, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday, June 8, at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

A new study finds that many women with breast cancer take antioxidant supplements while undergoing cancer treatment, even though the consequences of doing so are unknown. Published in the July 15, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that additional research should be undertaken to determine the effects of antioxidant supplementation on the health and survival of breast cancer patients.

Women continue to be under-enrolled in cancer clinical trials, according to a new review, published in the July 15, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study's results suggest that greater efforts are needed to ensure that oncologists know the true effects of treatments and medical procedures in female patients.