Body

DETROIT — Diabetes Mellitus (DM), a metabolic disorder that affects nearly 170 million people worldwide, is characterized by chronic hyperglycemia that disrupts carbohydrate fat and protein metabolism resulting from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action or both. DM can cause long-term damage, dysfunction and even failure of various organs.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Due to improved treatments and technologies, more children than ever are surviving cancer. Unfortunately, about 70 percent of these children experience late effects from their disease and treatment 30 years after their cancer diagnosis, which University of Florida Health researchers say significantly impact their quality of life.

By using an ultrafast camera, scientists say they have observed the very first instants following the absorption of light into artificial yet organic nanostructures and found that charges not only formed rapidly but also separated very quickly over long distances - phenomena that occur due to the wavelike nature of electrons which are governed by fundamental laws of quantum mechanics.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (December 12, 2013) – In the classical view of evolution, species experience spontaneous genetic mutations that produce various novel traits—some helpful, some detrimental. Nature then selects for those most beneficial, passing them along to subsequent generations.

Scientists have discovered a second code hiding within DNA. This second code contains information that changes how scientists read the instructions contained in DNA and interpret mutations to make sense of health and disease.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Since the completion of the Human Genome Project, which identified nearly 20,000 protein-coding genes, scientists have been trying to decipher the roles of those genes. A new approach developed at MIT, the Broad Institute, and the Whitehead Institute should speed up the process by allowing researchers to study the entire genome at once.

In a study that compares the genomes of aquatic life forms, researchers have found evidence to shuffle the branches of the tree of life. For more than a century, scientists thought that complex cell types, like neurons and muscles, evolved only once, after simple animals that lack these cell types branched from the rest of animals on the evolutionary tree.

WOODS HOLE, Mass.—In a blind fish that dwells in deep, dark Mexican caves, scientists have found evidence for a long-debated mechanism of evolutionary change that is distinct from natural selection of spontaneously arising mutations, as reported this week in the journal Science.

MAYWOOD, IL. – A newly improved internet research tool is helping cancer researchers and physicians make sense out of a deluge of genetic data from nearly 100,000 patients and more than 50,000 mice.

The tool, called the Gene Expression Barcode 3.0, is proving to be a vital resource in the new era of personalized medicine, in which cancer treatments are tailored to the genetic makeup of an individual patient's tumor.

The idea of growing replacement tissue to repair an organ, or to swap it out for an entirely new one, is rapidly transitioning from science fiction to fact. Tissue engineering techniques are improving in their ability to generate three-dimensional masses of cells and provide them with vascular systems for keeping them alive, but a more mathematically rigorous approach for designing these tissues is still needed.

Networks of nanometer-scale machines offer exciting potential applications in medicine, industry, environmental protection and defense, but until now there's been one very small problem: the limited capability of nanoscale antennas fabricated from traditional metallic components.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy is an extremely powerful non-destructive technique for the characterization of molecules. Widely used by chemists from its origin, it is now essential in the synthesis and analysis laboratories and sees its scope extended in biological laboratories.

Bethesda, Md. (Dec. 12, 2013)—Researchers and athletes have long known that living at altitude holds the potential to improve athletic performance. Many competitive endurance athletes follow a "Live High – Train Low" training regimen, in which they live at moderate altitudes and do their easiest workouts there, saving their most intense training for altitudes closer to sea level. However, though several studies have shown the promise of this type of training philosophy, it's been unknown what specific living altitude is best for enhancing athletic performance at sea level.

What are the limits to longevity? New research in simple animals suggests that combining mutants can lead to radical lifespan extension. Scientists at the Buck Institute combined mutations in two pathways well-known for lifespan extension and report a synergistic five-fold extension of longevity in the nematode C. elegans. The research, done at the Buck Institute and published online in Cell Reports on December 12, 2013, introduces the possibility of combination therapy for aging and the maladies associated with it.

(Philadelphia, PA) – When things go wrong, cells turn to built-in safety mechanisms for survival. One of those mechanisms involves calcium uptake by mitochondria, the energy-producing powerhouses of cells. Long a mystery, new research by scientists at the Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) Center for Translational Research shows exactly how mitochondria handle damaging excess calcium from the intracellular environment, and how problems with calcium regulation can lead to vascular damage.