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Results from a landmark international study using state of the art technology has revealed new genetic mutations that cause epilepsy. The findings could help to advance treatments for the most severe forms of epilepsy.

The global study, led by the University of Melbourne and Austin Hospital (Aus), Duke University and the University of California, San Francisco (US), used advanced gene technology known as exome sequencing to identify new genes that cause severe childhood epilepsies.

Epilepsy is a brain condition that affects an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

Singapore, 12 August 2013 – A team of scientists from the National Cancer Centre Singapore, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore, and Taiwan's Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, LinKou, have made a breakthrough in understanding the cancer-promoting action of Aristolochic Acid (AA), a natural product of Aristolochia plants traditionally used in some Asian herbal remedies for weight loss and slimming.

NEW YORK, August 11 – Neurologists and epilepsy researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center were among scientists who have 329 random genetic mutations associated with two of the most severe forms of epilepsy, according to a paper published today in Nature. Though well-known that many forms of epilepsy are strongly influenced by genetics, there has been relatively little progress in identifying the genetic differences that contribute to most forms of epilepsy.

A new analysis of dinosaur fossils by University of Pennsylvania researchers has revealed that a number of specimens of the genus Psittacosaurus — once believed to represent three different species — are all members of a single species. The differences among the fossil remains that led other scientists to label them as separate species in fact arose from how the animals were buried and compressed, the study found.

SALT LAKE CITY – A multistate study led by researchers at the University of Utah has revealed that the risk for childhood cancer is moderately increased among children and young adolescents with certain types of major birth defects. Children born with non-chromosomal birth defects have a twofold higher risk of cancer before age 15, compared to children born without birth defects, according to this study published in July in PLOS ONE. However, cancer risk varies by the specific type of birth defect, and is not significantly increased in many of the more common birth defects.

An algorithm capable of diagnosing heart rhythm with just 3 seconds' worth of signal, and the demonstration that it is possible to come up with the diagnosis without stopping cardiac massage, constitute the types of solutions and proposals being developed by researchers in the Signal and Communications Group of the Faculty of Engineering in Bilbao (UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country).

New Rochelle, NY, August 5, 2013—Violent and abusive behavior against women, which can be both physically and emotionally harmful, gain societal acceptance when they are glamorized and normalized in popular culture such as books and movies. The main characters' relationship in the best-selling novel Fifty Shades of Grey, for example, helps perpetuate the problem of intimate partner violence against women, according to an article in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

NEW YORK CITY — Tolerance toward gays and lesbians is growing within the evangelical community — long a stronghold against homosexuality — with many expressing ambivalent views about the issue, according to a Baylor University study.

The emerging voice of the so-called "Messy Middle" — evangelicals who oppose homosexuality on moral grounds but support equal rights such as civil unions for gays — has strong implications for the gay marriage debate, say Baylor researchers, who will present their paper at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

A new analysis has found that a type of radiation therapy called carbon ion radiotherapy can control cancer growth and prolong survival in patients with spinal tumors. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that the treatment is a promising alternative for patients whose spinal tumors cannot be surgically removed.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — "Fifty Shades of Grey," the best-selling novel that's promoted as a tale of erotic romance, actually perpetuates the problem of violence against women, a new study finds.

Reporting in the Journal of Women's Health, Amy Bonomi and co-authors conclude that emotional and sexual abuse is pervasive in the novel, with the main female character, Anastasia, suffering harm as a result.

About 25 percent of women are victims of violence by intimate partners.

KANSAS CITY, MO—A decade ago, gene expression seemed so straightforward: genes were either switched on or off. Not both. Then in 2006, a blockbuster finding reported that developmentally regulated genes in mouse embryonic stem cells can have marks associated with both active and repressed genes, and that such genes, which were referred to as "bivalently marked genes", can be committed to one way or another during development and differentiation.

A genetic study of childhood epilepsies has linked two new genes to severe forms of disease and provides a novel strategy for identifying therapy targets. This study used a cutting-edge genetic technique, called exome sequencing, to search for new mutations that are not inherited. The results suggest this may be a highly effective way to find and confirm many disease-causing gene mutations.

New insights into the development of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques could lead to better treatment or prevention of heart attacks and strokes. In a report being published online in Nature Medicine, researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Systems Biology re-evaluated previous assumptions regarding the role of inflammatory cells in atherosclerosis and found that the process relies on proliferation of certain immune cells within plaques and not exclusively on the uptake of cells from the blood.

The largest genome-wide study of its kind has determined how much five major mental illnesses are traceable to the same common inherited genetic variations. Researchers funded in part by the National Institutes of Health found that the overlap was highest between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; moderate for bipolar disorder and depression and for ADHD and depression; and low between schizophrenia and autism. Overall, common genetic variation accounted for 17-28 percent of risk for the illnesses.

A large-scale international study on the genes involved in epilepsy has uncovered 25 new mutations on nine key genes behind a devastating form of the disorder during childhood. Among those were two genes never before associated with this form of epilepsy, one of which previously had been linked to autism and a rare neurological disorder, for which an effective therapy already has been developed.