Body

Fetal exposure to a commonly used plasticizer found in water bottles, soup can liners and paper receipts can increase the risk for prostate cancer later in life, according to a study published in the journal Endocrinology.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is widely used to soften plastics. Steering clear of the chemical is nearly impossible, says Gail Prins, professor of physiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lead author of the paper.

Vaccines combat diseases and protect populations from outbreaks, but the life-saving technology leaves room for improvement. Vaccines usually are made en masse in centralized locations far removed from where they will be used. They are expensive to ship and keep refrigerated and they tend to have short shelf lives.

While it's clear that exercise can improve health and longevity, the changes that occur in the body to facilitate these benefits are less clear. Now researchers publishing in the January issue of Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism have discovered a molecule that is produced during exercise and contributes to the beneficial effects of exercise on metabolism.

ANN ARBOR—Like salmon in reverse, long-snouted Bandringa sharks migrated downstream from freshwater swamps to a tropical coastline to spawn 310 million years ago, leaving behind fossil evidence of one of the earliest known shark nurseries.

That's the surprising conclusion of University of Michigan paleontologist Lauren Sallan and a University of Chicago colleague, who reanalyzed all known specimens of Bandringa, a bottom-feeding predator that lived in an ancient river delta system that spanned what is today the Upper Midwest.

Excessive alcohol consumption, as well as obesity leads to the accumulation of fat in the liver, a disease termed fatty liver disease (FLD) or steatosis. FLD is one of the most prevalent diseases in Western societies and affects about 30% of the adult population. Importantly, FLD increases the risk of liver failure, diabetes and cancer and no pharmacological therapies exist for this detrimental disease.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Conservation of a protected or endangered species requires frequent monitoring and the dynamic techniques biologists utilize to ensure the survival of threatened animals. Often, scientists study biodiversity at all levels—from genes to entire ecosystems. Currently, researchers at the University of Missouri are employing genotyping to study movement patterns of African forest elephants in protected and unprotected regions of Gabon to better understand how human occupation of these areas might affect elephants on the African continent.

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HIGHWAYS – The road to efficiency . . .

BOZEMAN (January 7, 2014) – A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, Idaho State University and the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that habitat fragmentation and the addition of makeshift perches such as transmission polls in sagebrush ecosystems are creating preferred habitat for common ravens that threaten sensitive native bird species, including greater sage grouse.

HOUSTON – (Jan. 7, 2014) – Genetic systems run like clockwork, attuned to temperature, time of day and many other factors as they regulate living organisms. Scientists at Rice University and the University of Houston have opened a window onto one aspect of the process that has confounded researchers for decades: the mechanism by which genetic regulators adjust to changing temperature.

New Rochelle, NY, January 7, 2014—African American men have an increased risk of prostate cancer and are two times more likely than Caucasian American men to die from the disease. Despite recent questions about the overall usefulness of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing to detect prostate cancer, should PSA screening be used to detect early-stage disease to help save lives in this at-risk population? The controversy is explored in a Review article in Journal of Men's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Teriflunomide (trade name: Aubagio) has been approved in Germany since August 2013 for adults with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether this new drug offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy specified by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA).

Researchers at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have discovered that an enzyme from a microorganism first found in the Valley of Geysers on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia in 1990 can digest cellulose almost twice as fast as the current leading component cellulase enzyme on the market.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have zoomed in on what is going on at the molecular level when the body recognizes and defends against an attack of pathogens, and the findings, they say, could influence how drugs are developed to treat autoimmune diseases.

In most tetrapods (land vertebrates) the fourth (ring) finger is the first to develop in the embryo. And in birds, the finger on the outside of the hand (posterior, the pinky side) appears first, which suggests that this is the ring finger. However, it can be shown that on the thumb side (anterior) an embryonic finger begins to develop, but quickly disappears -- this would have to be digit I. These data argue for an identification of the fully-formed fingers as the index, middle, and ring fingers (II, III, IV).

ATLANTA – Jan. 7, 2014–The annual cancer statistics report from the American Cancer Society finds steady declines in cancer death rates for the past two decades add up to a 20 percent drop in the overall risk of dying from cancer over that time period. The report, Cancer Statistics 2014, finds progress has been most rapid for middle-aged black men, among whom death rates have declined by approximately 50 percent.