Body

In work published this week in Nature: Scientific Reports, a team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame's Eck Institute for Global Health, led by Associate Professor Giles Duffield and Assistant Professor Zain Syed of the Department of Biological Sciences, revealed that the major malaria vector in Africa, the Anopheles gambiae mosquito, is able to smell major human host odorants better at night.

BURLINGTON, Vt., August 30, 2013 – In the 1970s, red spruce was the forest equivalent of a canary in the coal mine, signaling that acid rain was damaging forests and that some species, especially red spruce, were particularly sensitive to this human induced damage. In the course of studying the lingering effects of acid rain and whether trees stored less carbon as a result of winter injury, U.S. Forest Service and University of Vermont scientists came up with a surprising result – three decades later, the canary is feeling much better.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A new study on mentholated cigarette use in the U.S. finds an increase in menthol cigarette smoking among young adults and concludes that efforts to reduce smoking likely are being thwarted by the sale and marketing of mentholated cigarettes, including emerging varieties of established youth brands.

PHILADELPHIA -- One way cells promote tumor suppression is through a process called senescence, an irreversible arrest of proliferation. Senescence is thought to be associated with normal aging, but is also a protective measure by the body against run-away cell replication. Studying the basic science of senescence gives biomedical researchers a better understanding of the mechanisms behind age-related diseases such as cancer.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Dieters call it willpower; social scientists call it delayed gratification.

It's the ability to delay an immediate reward in favor of a bigger future reward, for example, having a slimmer body in a few months versus the hot fudge sundae now. Previous studies have shown that overweight and obese people have a harder time delaying gratification, so they are more likely to forego the healthy body later on in favor of eating more calorie-dense foods now.

(Boston) - With soaring obesity rates in the U.S., the American Medical Association has classified obesity as a disease. This major shift in healthcare policy brings much needed medical attention to obese patients. However, this definition of obesity focuses on a single criterion of Body Mass Index (BMI), which includes a large group of persons with high BMI who are metabolically healthy and not at high risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease or obesity-associated cancers.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Platelets, which allow blood to clot, are at the heart of numerous cardiovascular problems, including heart attacks and stroke. New research has uncovered a key platelet protein that could offer a new angle for developing drugs to prevent thrombosis, or dangerous blood clots, in patients who are at high risk such as those with atherosclerosis or a history of heart problems.

University of Notre Dame researchers, as part of a collaborative effort, have identified a protein that potentially could be a target for drugs that that would help people recover faster from jet lag and better adjust their circadian rhythms during rotational shift work. The study appears in the Aug. 29th issue of the journal Cell.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– If the idea of hookworms makes you shudder, consider this: Those pesky intestinal parasites may actually help your body ward off other infections, and perhaps even prevent autoimmune and other diseases.

Whales have been shown to increase the pigment in their skin in response to sunshine, just as we get a tan.

Research published today in Nature journal, Scientific Reports, reveals that not only do some species of whales get darker with sun exposure, incurring DNA damage in their skin just like us, they also accumulate damage to the cells in the skin as they get older.

SAMOSIR, NORTH SUMATRA (30 August 2013)—With governments, loggers, miners and palm oil producers poaching their lands with impunity, indigenous leaders from 17 countries gathered on a remote island in Sumatra this week to launch a global fight for their rights that will take advantage of powerful mapping tools combined with indigenous knowledge to mark traditional boundaries.

STANFORD, Calif. - You can't resurrect a dead cell anymore than you can breathe life into a brick, regardless of what you may have gleaned from zombie movies and Dr. Frankenstein. So when heart cells die from lack of blood flow during a heart attack, replacing those dead cells is vital to the heart muscle's recovery.

Collagen, the stuff of ligaments and skin, and the most abundant protein in the human body, has an extraordinary role in triggering chemical signals that help protect the body from cancer, a new study reveals.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, have uncovered a series of chemical signals sent out by collagen that appear to protect against cancer's growth.

Boosting those signals could act as an effective treatment for cancers that grow in the presence of collagen, including squamous cell lung cancer, for which no targeted treatments currently exist.

Boston, MA — Eating more whole fruits, particularly blueberries, grapes, and apples, was significantly associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. Greater consumption of fruit juices was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. The study is the first to look at the effects of individual fruits on diabetes risk.

Eating more whole fruits, particularly blueberries, grapes and apples, is associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, with greater fruit juice consumption having an adverse effect, a paper published today on bmj.com suggests.

Increasing fruit consumption has been recommended for the prevention of many chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes. However, studies have generated some mixed results.