Body

The human eye long ago solved a problem common to both digital and film cameras: how to get good contrast in an image while also capturing faint detail.

Nearly 50 years ago, physiologists described the retina's tricks for improving contrast and sharpening edges, but new experiments by University of California, Berkeley, neurobiologists show how the eye achieves this without sacrificing shadow detail.

Using simple robots to simulate genetic evolution over hundreds of generations, Swiss scientists provide quantitative proof of kin selection and shed light on one of the most enduring puzzles in biology: Why do most social animals, including humans, go out of their way to help each other? In next week's issue of the online, open access journal PLoS Biology, EPFL robotics professor Dario Floreano teams up with University of Lausanne biologist Laurent Keller to weigh in on the oft-debated question of the evolution of altruism genes.

UCLA scientists have discovered a way to wake up the immune system to fight cancer by delivering an immune system-stimulating protein in a nanoscale container called a vault directly into lung cancer tumors, harnessing the body's natural defenses to fight disease growth.

Between 2001 and 2008, the annual rate of coronary artery bypass graft surgeries performed in the United States decreased by more than 30 percent, but rates of percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI; procedures such as balloon angioplasty or stent placement used to open narrowed coronary arteries) did not change significantly, according to a study in the May 4 issue of JAMA.

In a study conducted to examine the health outcomes related to salt intake, as gauged by the amount of sodium excreted in the urine, lower sodium excretion was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular death, while higher sodium excretion did not correspond with increased risk of hypertension or cardiovascular disease complications, according to a study in the May 4 issue of JAMA.

Only about half of new drugs approved in the last decade had comparative effectiveness data available at the time of their approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and approximately two-thirds of new drugs had this information available when alternative treatment options existed, according to a study in the May 4 issue of JAMA.

Breast cancers that are first detectable in the interval between screening mammograms are more likely to be aggressive, fast-growing tumors according to a study published online May 3rd in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Philadelphia – New research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine shows a substantial decrease in one type of revascularization procedure, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, while rates of utilization of the other form, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), has remained unchanged. Coronary revascularization, the process of restoring the flow of oxygen and nutrients to the heart, is among the most common hospital-based major interventional procedures performed in the United States.

BOSTON – The concepts now at the center of the health care quality movement, adopted in large part from the airline industry, should be used to standardize the processes and the equipment for in-flight medical emergencies, according to two Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center physicians.

HOUSTON - A protein known as WWP2 appears to play a key role in tumor survival, a research team headed by a scientist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports in an advance online publication of Nature Cell Biology.

Their research suggests that the little-studied protein binds to the tumor-suppressing protein PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homologue deleted on chromosome 10), marking it for destruction by proteasomes, which degrade proteins and recycle their components.

SAN ANTONIO (May 3, 2011) — Since the 1930s scientists have proposed food restriction as a way to extend life in mice. Though feeding a reduced-calorie diet has indeed lengthened the life spans of mice, rats and many other species, new studies with dozens of different mouse strains indicate that food restriction does not work in all cases.

Diet and fat loss

Plants adapt to the local weather and soil conditions in which they grow, and these environmental adaptations are known to evolve over thousands of years as mutations slowly accumulate in plants' genetic code. But a University of Rochester biologist has found that at least some plant adaptations can occur almost instantaneously, not by a change in DNA sequence, but simply by duplication of existing genetic material.

Ramsey's findings are published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Durham, NC – Most of us wouldn't consider slow-moving snails to be high-metabolism creatures. But at one point in the distant past, snail metabolism sped up, says a new study of marine snails in the journal Paleobiology.

"Many of the marine snails we recognize today — such as abalone, conchs, periwinkles and whelks — require more than twice as much energy to survive as their ancestors did," said co-author Seth Finnegan of the California Institute of Technology.

LOS ANGELES, May 3, 2011 – When it comes to healthy snacking and weight management, a new study bolsters the long-held view that not all calories are created equal. According to nutrition researchers at UCLA, choosing to snack on pistachios rather than pretzels as part of a healthy diet not only supports your body mass index (BMI) goals, but can support heart health too.

Rutgers researchers have developed an innovative new treatment that could help minimize nerve damage in spinal cord injuries, promote tissue healing and minimize pain.

After a spinal cord injury there is an increased production of a protein (RhoA) that blocks regeneration of nerve cells that carry signals along the spinal cord and prevents the injured tissue from healing.