Body

An ethically dubious medical research study from the 1950s and 60s, known as the "Bowery series," foreshadowed and shared commonalities with prostate cancer screening and treatment measures as they are carried out today, argues University of Pennsylvania physician and historian Robert Aronowitz in two new publications.

Cohesins are protein complexes that join the two copies of each chromosome—called sister chromatids—to ensure that they are shared fairly between the daughter cells during cell division. In this way, each daughter cell receives exactly the same genetic information from the parent cell.

Philadelphia, PA, October 18, 2013 – A new study published in the December issue of The American Journal of Medicine shows a significant association between low dietary fiber intake and cardiometabolic risks including metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular inflammation, and obesity. Surveillance data from 23,168 subjects in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2010 was used to examine the role dietary fiber plays in heart health.

HEIDELBERG, 18 October 2013 – Scientists from the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, United States have shown that specific gut bacteria are beneficial for maintaining a healthy intestine in the fruit fly Drosophila and mice and also contribute to the overall health of these organisms. The researchers demonstrated that bacteria in the gut, particularly members of the genus Lactobacillus, promote the growth of host epithelial cells and that this is essential for maintaining homeostasis in the intestinal system.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about mollusks, e.g. snails, slugs and mussels. The research group of Andreas Wanninger, Head of the Department of Integrative Zoology of the University of Vienna, took a detailed look at the development of cryptic worms. The larvae of the "wirenia argentea" hold a much more complex muscular architecture than their adults -- they remodel during their metamorphosis. That's a clue that the ancestors had a highly complex muscular bodyplan.

Any textbook will tell you that oxygen is essential for advanced life to evolve. For example, ancient dinosaurs and modern large-brained mammals need a lot of oxygen to keep their large and sophisticated organisms running. But why did life not explode when oxygen levels rose dramatically 2.1 billion years ago? This is the big question after a Danish/Swedish/French research team, led by University of Southern Denmark, has shown that the oxygen content 2.1 billion years ago was probably the same as when life exploded 500 million years ago.

A gene important in skin tanning has been linked to higher risk for testicular cancer in white men, according to a study led by scientists from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the University of Oxford in England. Nearly 80 percent of white men carry a variant form of this gene, which increased risk of testicular cancer up to threefold in the study.

A species of one of the world's tiniest creatures, ocean plankton, is heading for extinction as it struggles to adapt to changes in sea temperature. And it may take local fisheries with it.

Research led by Deakin University (Warrnambool, Australia) and Swansea University (UK) has found that a species of cold water plankton in the North Atlantic, that is a vital food source for fish such as cod and hake, is in decline as the oceans warm. This will put pressure on the fisheries that rely on abundant supplies of these fish.

South American camelids, especially llamas and alpacas, are very susceptible to infections caused by endoparasites. The so-called small liver fluke (Dicrocoelium dendriticum) is particularly problematic and infections with this parasite are frequently fatal. Moreover, camelids are prone to stress and together with their tendency to spit (especially when they do not like the taste of something) this very often results in underdosing if they are given medicine to swallow.

Every case of cancer originates from changes in a person's genetic material (mutations). These usually occur as "somatic mutations" in individual cells during an individual's lifetime, rather than being inherited from a person's parents. "Over time, the original damaged cell accumulates additional mutations, and it is still largely unknown why," says Prof. Roland Eils, who leads bioinformatics departments both at DKFZ and Heidelberg University.

(RENO): When Rajan Chakrabarty, Ph.D., an assistant research professor at the Desert Research Institute, began looking into the regional inventories of human-produced sources of carbon aerosol pollution in South Asia, considered to be a climate change hot spot, he knew something was missing.

"Current emission inventories do not account for cultural burning practices in Asia as aerosol sources," said Chakrabarty, who is originally from the Northeastern region of India.

Montreal − Lifestyle programs focused on high-intensity interval training combined with nutritional counselling on the Mediterranean diet have shown dramatic results for improving the heart health of people with abdominal obesity, finds a study released at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress.

Montreal – High blood pressure during pregnancy could dramatically raise a woman's lifetime risk of stroke, according to a study presented today at the Canadian Stroke Congress.

"We've found that women who had high blood pressure during pregnancy could be at higher risk of stroke, particularly if they had pre-eclampsia, which is a more severe form of high blood pressure," says Dr. Aravind Ganesh, a neurology resident at the University of Calgary. "The elevated risk of stroke could be as high as 40 per cent."

Leishmaniasis is a vector borne disease caused by different Leishmania species with different clinical manifestations. Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is endemic and widespread especially among young individuals in Iran. Currently prophylactic or therapeutic vaccines are not available, and in spite of vector control wherever possible, the disease has not been controlled. Although the majority of zoonotic CL cases heal within 6-9 months, anthroponotic cases persist much longer.

Children of women harboring the bilharzia (schistosomiasis) worm during pregnancy are more likely to suffer the infection by the age of five years, a new study publishing October 17th, 2013 in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases has found.

The study was conducted by a team of researchers from the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), Makerere University, University of Cambridge and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) around the Entebbe peninsula of Lake Victoria in Uganda between 2005 and 2012.