Body

A new process for making a three-dimensional microstructure that can be used in the analysis of cells could prove useful in counterterrorism measures and in water and food safety concerns.

The research, conducted by members of Virginia Tech's Microelectromechanical Systems Laboratory (MEMS) Laboratory in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is the focus of a recent article in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Journal of Microelectomechanical Systems.

When a new species emerges following adaptive changes to its local environment, the process of choosing a mate can help protect the new species' genetic identity and increase the likelihood of its survival. But of the many observable traits in a potential mate, which particular traits does a female tend to prefer?

A new study from the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis finds that a female's mating decisions are largely based on traits that reflect fitness or those that help males perform well under the local ecological conditions.

SYRACUSE, N.Y., June 19, 2013 –In the first effort to estimate the overall impact of a city's urban forest on concentrations of fine particulate pollution (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns, or PM2.5), a U.S. Forest Service and Davey Institute study found that urban trees and forests are saving an average of one life every year per city. In New York City, trees save an average of eight lives every year.

Advances in emergency medicine and trauma surgery have had a significant impact on survival of patients in the days immediately after major injuries, including burns. Patients who survive the immediate aftermath of their injuries now are at greatest risk from infections – particularly the overwhelming, life-threatening immune reaction known as sepsis – or from inflammation-induced multiorgan failure.

Crawley, UK-- New data, published today in Menopause International, suggests that post-menopausal women in Britain are experiencing less sex, and less satisfying sex compared to their European and North American counterparts1, because they are considerably less likely to access appropriate treatment for a common, taboo condition called vaginal atrophy1.

Osteomyelitis – a debilitating bone infection most frequently caused by Staphylococcus aureus ("staph") bacteria – is particularly challenging to treat.

Now, Vanderbilt microbiologist Eric Skaar, Ph.D., MPH, and colleagues have identified a staph-killing compound that may be an effective treatment for osteomyelitis, and they have developed a new mouse model that will be useful for testing this compound and for generating additional therapeutic strategies.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – June 19, 2013 – The role of dietary fructose in the development of obesity and fatty liver diseases remains controversial, with previous studies indicating that the problems resulted from fructose and a diet too high in calories.

However, a new study conducted in an animal model at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center showed that fructose rapidly caused liver damage even without weight gain. The researchers found that over the six-week study period liver damage more than doubled in the animals fed a high-fructose diet as compared to those in the control group.

Slipping bacteria some silver could give old antibiotics new life, scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University reported June 19 in Science Translational Medicine.

In a study published in the June 19 online edition of the journal Nature, a scientific team led by researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine visually monitored the dynamic cellular events that take place when cardiac regeneration occurs in zebrafish after cardiac ventricular injury. Their findings provide evidence that various cell lines in the heart are more plastic, or capable of transformation into new cell types, than previously thought.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half take two, Mayo Clinic researchers say. Antibiotics, antidepressants and painkilling opioids are most commonly prescribed, their study found. Twenty percent of patients are on five or more prescription medications, according to the findings, published online in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

A new study challenges the orthodoxy of microbiology that in response to environmental changes, bacterial genes will boost production of needed proteins and decrease production of those that aren't. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found that for bacteria in the laboratory there was little evidence of adaptive genetic response. In fact, most bacterial genes appear to be regulated by signals unrelated to their function.

Long before plants and animals inhabited the earth, when life consisted of single-celled organisms afloat in a planet-wide sea, bacteria invaded these organisms and took up permanent residence. One bacterium eventually became the mitochondria that today power all plant and animal cells; another became the chloroplast that turns sunlight into energy in green plants.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new understanding of the genetic process that can lead to cervical cancer may help improve diagnosis of potentially dangerous lesions for some women, and also raises a warning flag about the use of anti-viral therapies in certain cases – suggesting they could actually trigger the cancer they are trying to cure.

AMHERST, Mass. – In the cover story for the journal Genetics this month, neurobiologist Dan Chase and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst describe a new experimental technique they developed that will allow scientists to study the function of individual proteins in individual cell types in a living organism.

Montreal, June 19, 2013 – A study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism is the first report of an oral probiotic supplement significantly increasing circulating vitamin D levels in the blood.

The lead author on the study, Mitchell Jones, MD, PhD, received the Early Career Investigator Poster Presentation Prize from the New York Academy of Sciences and the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at last week's Probiotics, Prebiotics, and the Host Microbiome: The Science of Translation conference in New York City(1).