Body

The meaning of the standard fecal coliform test used to monitor water quality has been called into question by a new study that identified sources of Escherichia coli bacteria that might not indicate an environmental hazard.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Most people have trouble telling them apart, but bumble bees, honey bees, stingless bees and solitary bees have home lives that are as different from one another as a monarch's palace is from a hippie commune or a hermit's cabin in the woods. A new study of these bees offers a first look at the genetic underpinnings of their differences in lifestyle.

WHAT:In a new study from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, scientists describe successfully mutating specific genes of Chlamydia bacteria, which cause the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States as well as a type of blindness common in developing nations. The procedure they used will help advance scientists' understanding of how these bacteria cause human disease and expedite the development of new strategies to prevent and control these infections.

A chance observation by a Queen's researcher might have ended a decades-old debate about the precise way antifreeze proteins (AFP) bind to the surface of ice crystals.

"We got a beautiful view of water bound to the ice-binding site on the protein," says Peter Davies, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and a world leader in antifreeze protein research. "In a sense we got a lucky break."

WASHINGTON – Fluctuations in penguin populations in the Antarctic are linked more strongly to the availability of their primary food source than to changes in their habitats, according to a new study published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Funded in part by the Lenfest Ocean Program, this research indicates that species often considered likely "winners" of changing conditions, such as large-scale ice melting, may actually end up as the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

FINDINGS: Certain differentiated cells in breast tissue can spontaneously convert to a stem-cell-like state, according to Whitehead Institute researchers. Until now, scientific dogma has stated that differentiation is a one-way path; once cells specialize, they cannot return to the flexible stem-cell state on their own. These findings hold true for normal mammary cells as well as for breast cancer cells.

A study appearing in the journal Investigational New Drugs and conducted by researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital, discovered that two new small molecule inhibitors are showing promise in blocking STAT3, a protein linked to the most common malignant bone tumor, osteosarcoma. These small molecule inhibitors – one derived from a portion of the turmeric spice – may serve as a new, non-toxic treatment for these deadly tumors.

New research published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) details research in rats and mice that offers hope for stopping the devastating, and often fatal, effects of sepsis in humans. In the study, University of Michigan researchers show how neutralizing the effects of a key protein fragment, called C5a, used by the immune system to attract white blood cells may ultimately prevent heart failure.

Ann Arbor, Mich. — In the first clinical trial of gene therapy for treatment of intractable pain, researchers from the University of Michigan Department of Neurology observed that the treatment appears to provide substantial pain relief.

In a study published online in the Annals of Neurology last week, the researchers showed that the novel agent NP2 is safe and well-tolerated. In addition, measures of pain in the treated patients suggested that NP2 may provide a substantial analgesic effect.

A new discovery published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) promises to help physicians identify patients most likely to benefit from breast cancer drug therapies. If the compound, called "Nanobody," proves effective in clinical trials, it would represent a significant advance for breast cancer drug therapy because some drugs are effective only in some people.

PHILADELPHIA (April 11, 2011) – Swallow the good, spit out the bad. A new study from the Monell Center highlights the vital role taste plays as the body's gatekeeper. The research shows that strong bitter taste in and of itself can cause people to both report the sensation of nausea and display a pattern of stomach activity characteristic of actual nausea.

Combining the chronic kidney disease markers of creatinine-based estimated glomerular filtration rate and urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio with the biomarker cystatin C was associated with improved prediction of end-stage kidney disease and all-cause death, according to a study that will appear in the April 20 issue of JAMA. The study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at the World Congress of Nephrology.

Many scientists are concerned that plant and animal species may face extinction due to global warming, but biologists at Washington University in St. Louis are trying to predict exactly what will happen to them. Which species will migrate? Which evolve? Which change their behavior? Which become extinct?

Rather than peer into the future, they are looking backward, exploring how species alive today survived global warming at the end of the Pleistocene and asking whether their responses provide any guidance for us today.

WASHINGTON, DC – Obese individuals typically suffer more medical problems than their leaner counterparts. They are more likely to be diagnosed with insulin resistance, diabetes, increased stress hormones, hypothyroidism, and sleep apnea. Researchers at the Georgia Health Sciences University in Augusta have also found the potential for something else, using an animal model. They have found that a master clock gene – which regulates the cardiovascular system – does not fluctuate regularly as it does in non-obese animals.

Patience may be a virtue in a person, but in an infectious disease, it is insidious. Witness tuberculosis, which can lie dormant in a human host for decades before bursting forth into infection. TB's stealthy nature has made it difficult to decipher how it spreads, seriously hampering efforts to control it. The World Health Organization estimates that a third of the people on Earth are infected.