Body

A particular type of consumer enjoys stories with plots, characters, and imagery that allow them to get lost in the narrative, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

On the road to our modern human lineage, scientists speculate there were many twist and turns, evolutionary dead ends, and population bottlenecks along the way. But how large were population sizes of common ancestors of the great apes and humans, and does the genetic analysis support the prevailing views of a great bottleneck in primate evolution?

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A new study of women ages 50 and older examines the 12.2 percent who say they are satisfied with their body size to unlock the secrets of body satisfaction.

This minority of midlife women who report being satisfied with their body size appears to exert considerable effort to achieve and maintain this satisfaction. In addition, they are not impervious to dissatisfaction with other aspects of their physical appearance; especially those aspects affected by aging, said Cynthia Bulik, PhD, corresponding author of the study.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota, Mayo Clinic, and University of Toronto have successfully shown that a new method for targeting mutated cells could create a major breakthrough in a personalized medicine approach to treat cancer.

The team's findings are published in the Oct. 15 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association of Cancer Research.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have developed a system that concentrates foodborne salmonella and other pathogens faster than conventional methods by using hollow thread-like fibers that filter out the cells, representing a potential new tool for speedier detection.The machine, called a continuous cell concentration device, could make it possible to routinely analyze food or water samples to screen for pathogens within a single work shift at food processing plants.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researchers report that river otters in Central Illinois are being exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides that were banned in the U.S. in the 1970s and '80s.

Their analysis appears in the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have identified a protein expressed by human bone marrow stem cells that guides and stimulates the formation of blood vessels.

Their findings, which could help improve the vascularization of engineered tissues, were reported online on October 12 in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology.

A team led by Chris Sullivan, a professor of molecular biosciences at The University of Texas at Austin, has provided the first positive evidence that RNA interference (RNAi), a biological process in which small RNA molecules prevent genes from being expressed, does not play a role as an antiviral in most body, or "somatic," cells in mammals.

Their research was published in Cell Host & Microbe.

Hamilton, ON (Oct. 13, 2013) -- Researchers at McMaster University are addressing the crisis in drug resistance with a novel approach to find new antibiotics.

"We have developed technology to find new antibiotics using laboratory conditions that mimic those of infection in the human body," said Eric Brown, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences.

Researchers of the Spanish research council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) and the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) have discovered that inhibiting the protein Rcan1 in mice reduces the burden of atherosclerosis, one of the commonest cardiovascular diseases. The results of their study, published in the prestigious journal EMBO Molecular Medicine, suggest that Rcan1 is a potential target for future drug treatments for this disease, and the team is already working to develop this potential.

Researchers around Dr. Michael Hirtz from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Dr. Aravind Vijayaraghavan from the University of Manchester have developed a new method to produce artificial membranes: Using a nanoscaled tip, they write tailored patches of phospholipid membrane onto a graphene substrate. The resulting biomimetic membranes, i.e. membranes simulating biological structures, allow for the specific investigation of functions of cell membranes and the development of novel applications in medicine and biotechnology, such as biosensors.

Recent scientific findings have raised the fear that young athletes may fare worse after sustaining a sports-related concussion than older athletes.

Researchers in the Vanderbilt Sports Concussion Center compared symptoms associated with concussion in middle- and high-school aged athletes with those in college-age athletes and found no significant differences between the two age groups.

The study, "Does age affect symptom recovery after sports-related concussion? A study of high school and college athletes," was in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.

Scientists from the University of Sheffield have discovered ground breaking clues as to how the pioneering heart drug ticagrelor might reduce the risk of dying following a heart attack, in comparison to previous standard treatments.

The new findings, published in Platelets, show that ticagrelor may reduce the risk of dying as a result of a lung infection after suffering a heart attack compared to patients treated with the drug clopidogrel.

When the "war on cancer" was declared with the signing of National Cancer Act in 1971, identifying potential physical traits, or biomarkers, that would allow doctors to detect the disease early on was a significant goal. To this day, progress in the battle against cancer depends on understanding the underlying causes and molecular mechanisms of the disease.

Scientists have combined cutting edge computer modelling with pharmacology and medicinal chemistry to reveal new insights into how the body interacts with novel drug treatments, in research that could lead to the creation of drugs that are more targeted and with fewer side effects.