Body

CHICAGO – At first, Krista Easom figured the little red bump on her foot was nothing more than a blister.

It didn't hurt, but after a couple months, it didn't go away either.

She booked an appointment with a dermatologist to have it removed. She wasn't worried. Easom, a 24-year-old law school student from New Jersey, was healthy, had no family history of cancer and was getting ready to enjoy some time in her newly adopted city of Chicago.

That's when she received the results from her dermatologist, who removed a part of the blister and had it tested.

Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) have developed a new bioinformatics software tool designed to more easily identify genetic mutations responsible for cancers. The tool, called DrGaP, is the subject of a new paper published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

CHICAGO --- In a new study published in Nature Genetics, Northwestern Medicine and Tel Aviv University scientists have found that a structural defect in skin cells can contribute to allergy development, including skin and food allergies, traditionally thought primarily to be a dysfunction of the immune system.

The finding is related to the team's identification of a new rare genetic disease, called "severe dermatitis, multiple allergies, and metabolic wasting," or SAM, caused by mutations in the molecule desmoglein 1.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- An analysis of enzymes that load amino acids onto transfer RNAs -- an operation at the heart of protein translation -- offers new insights into the evolutionary origins of the modern genetic code, researchers report.

Their findings appear in the journal PLOS ONE.

The molecule interleukin-7 (IL-7) is an important immune messenger protein which ensures that a sufficient number of T cells are present in our body for immune defence. Researchers from ETH Zurich have now demonstrated that IL-7 has another important function: it enhances the drainage function of lymphatic vessels, which collect fluid that has leaked out of blood vessels into the body tissue and return it to the bloodstream.

Philadelphia, Pa. (August 26, 2013) - From freshman through senior year, college football players achieve significant increases in strength and size, reports a study in the September issue of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, official research journal of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).

During the week of Aug. 18, the low pressure area designated as System 95E was lingering in the western Caribbean Sea and moved into the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, where it exploded into Tropical Storm Fernand late on Aug. 25. On Aug. 26, NASA's TRMM satellite saw towering thunderstorms in Fernand were still raging over mainland Mexico, dropping heavy rainfall.

When shopping for a big ticket item, such as a television, there is a checklist of things you should always do:

1. Read reviews2. Compare prices3. Wear high heels

If you're uncomfortable with No. 3, you have other options. You can ride up and down the escalator, play a few games using the Wii Fit, or just go shopping immediately following your yoga class.

A new BYU study finds that consumers experiencing a heightened sense of balance are more likely to weigh the options and go with a product that falls in the middle of the high-end, low-end scale.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends that primary care clinicians provide interventions, including education or brief counseling, to prevent initiation of tobacco use in school-aged children and adolescents. This recommendation statement is being jointly published in the peer-reviewed medical journals Annals of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics.

This recommendation is an update. In 2003, the Task Force found insufficient evidence to recommend for or against primary care relevant interventions for youth tobacco prevention.

A new screening strategy for ovarian cancer appears to be highly specific for detecting the disease before it becomes lethal. The strategy is described in a study published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. If verified in an ongoing clinical trial, it could potentially help save the lives of thousands of women each year in the United States alone.

Hamilton, ON (August 26, 2013) – While it's rare for a parent to fabricate an illness in their child, a McMaster University researcher says physicians and other health professionals need to be on the alert for this form of child abuse.

Dr. Harriet MacMillan, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, said caregiver-fabricated illness in a child often goes unrecognized.

Readmission rates of adult patients to the same hospital within 30 days are an area of national focus and a potential indicator of clinical failure and unnecessary expenditures.

However, a new UC San Francisco (UCSF) study shows that hospital readmissions rates for children are not necessarily meaningful measures of the quality of their care.

HOUSTON – Evaluating its change over time, CA-125, the protein long-recognized for predicting ovarian cancer recurrence, now shows promise as a screening tool for early-stage disease, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

The idea of having to negotiate over the price of a new car sends many into the cold sweats, but new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that sweaty palms and a racing heart may actually help some people in getting a good deal.

As researchers Ashley D. Brown and Jared R. Curhan of the Sloan School of Management at MIT demonstrate in two experiments, physiological arousal isn't always detrimental:

A study into marine life around an underwater volcanic vent in the Mediterranean, might hold the key to understanding how some species will be able to survive in increasingly acidic sea water should anthropogenic climate change continue.

Researchers have discovered that some species of polychaete worms are able to modify their metabolic rates to better cope with and thrive in waters high in carbon dioxide (CO2), which is otherwise poisonous to other, often closely-related species.