Body

UCLA researchers report that tiny amounts of a specific type of lipid in the small intestine may play a greater role than previously thought in generating the high cholesterol levels and inflammation that lead to clogged arteries.

The team also found they could reduce the negative effects of these lipids in mice by feeding the animals a new genetically engineered tomato being developed at UCLA that is designed to mimic HDL ("good") cholesterol.

A team of scientists reports that a small molecule compound showed significant success in controlling the infectivity and spread of three polyomaviruses in human cell cultures. To date there has been no medicine approved to treat such viruses, which prey on transplant recipients, people with HIV, and others whose immune systems have been weakened.

A fusion protein engineered by researchers at KU Leuven combining proteins active in HIV and Moloney murine leukaemia virus (MLV) replication may lead to safer, more effective retroviral gene therapy.

Spreading of the epithelial cell layer is fundamental for epithelial closure and wound healing, as well as for embryonic development. The challenge presented here is that the cell layer needs to increase in surface area, but nevertheless maintain its integrity. For their research, the Heisenberg's team used the process of epiboly in zebrafish development to model cell spreading. Epiboly is a step in the embryonic development of zebrafish during which a thin epithelial cell layer spreads over the entire cell sphere within a space of only 6 hours.

The largest lake in Britain and Ireland, Lough Neagh, has lost more than three quarters of its overwintering water birds according to researchers at Queen's University Belfast.

The study by Quercus, Northern Ireland's Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, found the number of diving ducks migrating to the lake for the winter months has dropped from 100,000 to less than 21,000 in the space of a decade.

By observing the collective behaviors of social species, artificial self-organized systems are expected to exhibit some intelligent features that may have made social species so successful in the biosphere. However, it would never be easy to build an artificial self-organized network (SON) system as smart as a natural species. Professor ZHANG ZhongShan and his group from the Institute of Advanced Network Technology and New Services (ANTS), School of Computer and Communication Engineering (SCCE), University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB), set out to address this problem.

CLEVELAND, Ohio (November 13, 2013)—Hormones at menopause can help with sleep, memory, and more, but only when a woman also has hot flashes, find researchers at Helsinki University in Finland. Their study was published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

This biodegradable and bioabsorbable metal decomposes from 6 months to 2 years after being transplanted into human body and hence, medical devices made with these materials are expected to reshape the landscape in the field of fracture treatment, as it reminders second operation to take out the device after patient recovery obsolete. KIST Consortium Consortium participated by U & I (Co.), ASAN Medical Center and Seoul National University (led by Dr.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Herlev Hospital and Rigshospitalet have identified a clear link between narrowed heart valves and a special lipoprotein in the blood. In the long term, the research may well help to prevent valvular heart disease. The new findings have just been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Contrary to common belief, parents do not generally treat their stepchildren less favourably than their own. Until now, many researchers believed in the so-called "Cinderella effect." It states that it is biologically inevitable that parents care less for stepchildren because they do not spread their genes. However, researchers have discovered an important exception. If there is a reasonable chance of increasing wealth in the parents' environment then no difference is made between one's own children and stepchildren.

HOUSTON — Giving trastuzumab and anthracyclines at the same time is effective at treating HER-2-positive breast cancer, but there is concern that this combination can be associated with an increased risk of cardiac toxicity. New research from Aman Buzdar M.D., professor and vice president of clinical research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues in the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, shows these agents do not need to be given concurrently to achieve a high rate of complete pathological remission.

Research: Perinatal outcomes after bariatric surgery: nationwide population based matched cohort study

Women with a history of obesity surgery are at increased risk of giving birth to preterm or small-for-gestational age babies and should be regarded as an at-risk group, a paper published on bmj.com today suggests.

Babies born of women who have undergone bariatric (weight-loss) surgery are more likely to be premature and to be small for gestational age, according to a large registry study carried out at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and published in the BMJ. The researchers believe that these pregnancies should be considered risk pregnancies and that prenatal care should monitor them extra carefully.

A study published this week in PLOS Medicine suggests that epigenetic modification of the HAND2 gene plays a critical role in the development of endometrial cancer. HAND2 is active in the healthy endometrium (the tissue lining the uterus) where it antagonizes the growth-inducing effects of estrogen. By contrast, in more than 90% of endometrial cancers, the gene has undergone hypermethylation, an epigenetic modification that doesn't change its DNA sequence but renders it inactive.

A study published this week in PLOS Medicine reveals profound systemic dysregulation of the immune response induced by RSV infection in young children and suggest that molecular markers might be able to predict disease severity.

RSV is responsible for a substantial fraction of serious respiratory infections and deaths among young children worldwide and a top candidate for vaccine development.