Body

Lesbian, gay and bisexual women and men in England are more likely to suffer from poor health than the general population, according to a new study conducted by the RAND Corporation, the University of Cambridge and Boston Children's Hospital.

The study, published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine, also found that lesbian, gay and bisexual populations are more likely to report unfavorable experiences with the health care they received in general practices in England's health care system, the National Health Service.

Most living mammals are active at night (or nocturnal), and many other mammal species are active during twilight conditions. It has long been thought that the transition to nocturnality occurred at about the same time as mammals evolved, around 200 million years ago. This thinking was based on on features such as the large brains of mammals (good for processing information from senses like hearing, touch, and smell) and the details of light-sensitive chemicals in the eyes of mammals.

Prostate cancer patients whose tumors contain a shortened protein called AR-V7, which can be detected in the blood, are less likely to respond to two widely used drugs for metastatic prostate cancer, according to results of a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. If large-scale studies validate the findings, the investigators say men with detectable blood levels of AR-V7 should avoid these two drugs and instead take other medicines to treat their prostate cancer. A report on the work is described online Sept.

Bottom Line: Airline pilots and cabin crews appear to have twice the incidence of melanoma as the general population.

Author: Martina Sanlorenzo, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues.

Parents of twins often tell them apart through subtle differences such as facial expression, moles, voice tone and gait. Similarly, physicians treating women with endometrial cancer must be able to distinguish between different versions of this disease form that, on the surface, appear the same.

Polyester clothes smell worse than cotton, following intensive exercise by their wearers, because bacteria that cause odor grow better on polyester, according to research published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is no longer a fatal condition, thanks to newer medications inhibiting the retrovirus, but a puzzling phenomenon has surfaced among these patients — non-AIDS complications. Scientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have resolved the mystery with their discovery of the leaky gut as the offender. Bacterial products seep out of the colon, trigger inflammation throughout the body and set into motion the processes of cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, chronic kidney and metabolic diseases, and cancer.

DARIEN, IL – New research suggests that sleeping 7 to 8 hours per night is associated with the lowest risk of absence from work due to sickness. The results underscore the importance of the "Sleep Well, Be Well" campaign of the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project, a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Sleep Research Society and other partners.

Ithaca, N.Y.— Hundreds of thousands of volunteer data collectors are due for some thanks from scientists, according to a new paper that reveals the role of citizen science in studies of birds and climate change. Data collected by amateurs underpins up to 77 percent of the studies in this field, but that fact is largely invisible by the time the research appears in journals, according to a study published today in the open-access journal PLOS ONE:

WHAT:

Scientists discovered two new species of sea-dwelling, mushroom-shaped organisms, according to a study published September 3, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jean Just from University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues.

A new study calls into question the evolutionary stability of an ecological explanation of biodiversity.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, brings together evolutionary theory and ecology to explore one of the big questions in ecology: How is biodiversity developed and maintained?

A new study from the University of Pennsylvania demonstrates that wearable sensors could one day transform the correctional system by tracking gun use by community-based offenders, who account for a disproportionate share of fatal and non-fatal shootings.

Currently, detecting and deterring this type of crime can be challenging in the absence of reliable evidence that a particular community-supervised offender illegally used a firearm.

Alexandria, Va., USA – The International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) have published a paper titled "SSRIs and the Risk of Osseointegrated Implant Failure – A Cohort Study." Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), the most widely used drugs for the treatment of depression, have been reported to reduce bone formation and increase the risk of bone fracture. Since osseointegration is influenced by bone metabolism, this study investigates the association between SSRIs and the risk of failures in osseointegrated implants.

Despite the revolutionary biotechnological advancements of the last few decades, an ideal anti-cancer treatment — one that's immediately lethal to cancer cells, harmless to healthy cells, and resistant to cancer's relapse — is still a dream.