Body

Scientists have discovered that a mother's nutrition during pregnancy can strongly influence her child's risk of obesity many years later.

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2011 — Mention vitamin D-fortified foods and most people think of milk, which has been fortified with the sunshine vitamin since the 1930s. A new episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions" podcast series says that vitamin D-fortified bread could join milk as a mainstay for providing an essential nutrient that is difficult to get naturally in foods.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Melding nanotechnology and medical research, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of New Mexico, and the UNM Cancer Research and Treatment Center have produced an effective strategy that uses nanoparticles to blast cancerous cells with a mélange of killer drugs.

In the cover article of the May issue of Nature Materials, available online April 17 , the researchers describe silica nanoparticles about 150 nanometers in diameter as honeycombed with cavities that can store large amounts and varieties of drugs.

BOSTON--An innovative experimental treatment for boosting the effectiveness of stem-cell transplants with umbilical cord blood has a favorable safety profile in long-term animal studies, report scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), and Children's Hospital Boston (CHB).

People who are medically vulnerable -- those with low incomes or chronic health problems -- who enroll in high-deductible health plans are at no more risk for cutting back on needed health care than other people who enroll in the plans, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

The findings, from the largest national study to examine the affects of high-deductible health plans, contradicts some of the earlier small studies that found medically vulnerable individuals cut back more than other people enrolled in the health plans.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Policymakers are very familiar with land-use planning. But what is the best approach for planning uses of America's coastal waters and oceans? That question has gained importance since President Obama formed the National Ocean Council last summer and charged it with developing an ecosystem-based stewardship policy for the nation's oceans, coastal waters and the Great Lakes.

A reptile that lived 275-million years ago in what is now Oklahoma is giving paleontologists a glimpse of the oldest known toothache.

Led by Professor Robert Reisz, the chair of the Department of Biology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, scientists found evidence of bone damage due to oral infection in Paleozoic reptiles as they adapted to living on land. Their findings, published online in the journal Naturwissenschaften – The Nature of Science, predate the previous record for oral and dental disease in a terrestrial vertebrate by nearly 200 million years.

Our susceptibility to oral infection has some parallels to those of ancient reptiles that evolved to eat a diet incorporating plants in addition to meat. That's according to Robert Reisz from the University of Toronto and his colleagues who found evidence of bone damage due to oral infec-tion in Paleozoic reptiles as they adapted to living on land. Their findings, published online in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften – The Nature of Science, predate the previous record for oral and dental disease in a terrestrial vertebrate by nearly 200 million years.

During the development of organisms, a particular event repeatedly occurs: a signal appears temporarily, but the processes it triggers must be maintained – for example, when the fate of cells in the embryo is established. The plant hormone auxin plays an important role as a signalling molecule during embryo development of the thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), a model plant widely used in genetic studies.

Just in time for the 100th anniversary to commemorate the discovery of superconductivity by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes on April 8, 1911, scientists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and the TU Dresden published their research results in the journal Physical Review B. Headed by Dr. Thomas Herrmannsdörfer, the team from the HZDR's High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD) examined a material consisting of the elements bismuth and nickel (Bi3Ni) with a diameter of only a few nanometers – which is unique since it has not been achieved elsewhere so far.

Monday, April 18, 2011, Cleveland: Researchers have identified a genetic mutation found in the Ohio Amish population as the cause of a fatal developmental disease in fetuses and infants, according to research published in the April 8, 2011, issue of Science.

(NEW YORK, NY, April 15, 2011) – Many genes that cause human diseases have parallel genes in other organisms, including yeast. Now Columbia University researchers have used an innovative yeast-based screening method to identify a possible treatment for the fatal childhood disease Niemann-Pick C (NP-C). This "exacerbate-reverse" approach can potentially be used to study any disease. The findings were published online in the Journal of Chemical Biology on April 13, 2011.

Despite steadily improving methods for its diagnosis and treatment, cancer still represents one of the most frequent causes of death in humans. What is less well known is that this also holds true for pets such as dogs. Each year, an estimated 4,000 dogs in Austria develop cancer and about half the dogs over 10 years old die because they develop a carcinoma that is biologically similar to a human tumour.

Flame retardants are chemical compounds added to fabrics and plastics to keep them from burning easily, but these can be toxic. Now a team of researchers from Spain and Canada has detected some of these emerging pollutants for the first time in peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) eggs in both countries.

Cancer researchers at the University of Calgary are investigating a new tool to use for the prognosis of breast cancer in patients. This new digital tool will help give patients a more accurate assessment of how abnormal and aggressive their cancer is and help doctors recommend the best treatment options.