Body

A protein used by embryo cells during early development, and recently found in many different types of cancer, apparently serves as a switch regulating the spread of cancer, known as metastasis, report researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center in the June 15, 2013 issue of the journal Cancer Research.

Metastasis is responsible for 90 percent of cancer-related deaths. More than 575,000 Americans die of cancer each year, the second leading cause of death in the United States after cardiovascular disease.

Staph infections in hospitals are a serious concern, so much so that the term Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is as commonly known as MRI. Far less known is that in many of these cases, patients are infecting themselves.

In heart surgeries and knee and joint-replacement procedures, up to 85 percent of staph infections after surgery come from patients' own bacteria, according to a 2002 study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Sponsors and researchers will be given one year to act before independent scientists begin publishing the results themselves using previously confidential trial documents.

The BMJ and PLOS Medicine have already endorsed the proposal and committed to publishing restorative clinical trial submissions - and will discuss it in more detail at a meeting in London on Friday 14 June 2013.

However, the authors stress that the overall risk of severe problems is small and the results are significant only for women who have previously given birth – not for first-time mums.

The relative safety of planned home births is a topic of continuous debate, but studies have so far been too small to compare severe maternal complications between planned home and planned hospital birth among low risk women.

Of all Western countries, the Netherlands has the highest percentage of home births, assisted by a primary care midwife.

A study published in this week's PLOS Computational Biology reports that menopause is an unintended outcome of natural selection caused by the preference of males for younger female mates. While conventional thinking has held that menopause prevents older women from continuing to reproduce, the researchers, from McMaster's University, concluded that it is the lack of reproduction that has given rise to menopause.

HAMILTON, ON, June 13, 2013 — After decades of laboring under other theories that never seemed to add up, a team led by biologist Rama Singh has concluded that what causes menopause in women is men.

Singh, an evolutionary geneticist, backed by computer models developed by colleagues Jonathan Stone and Richard Morton, has determined that menopause is actually an unintended outcome of natural selection – the result of its effects having become relaxed in older women.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – June 13, 2013 – Hot weather may be the work environment for the 1.4 million farmworkers in the United States who harvest crops, but new research shows that these workers continue to experience excessive heat and humidity even after leaving the fields.

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers conducted a study to evaluate the heat indexes in migrant farmworker housing and found that a majority of the workers don't get a break from the heat when they're off the clock.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A medical test previously developed to measure a toxin found in tobacco smokers has been adapted to measure the same toxin in people suffering from spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, offering a potential tool to reduce symptoms.

The toxin, called acrolein, is produced in the body after nerve cells are injured, triggering a cascade of biochemical events thought to worsen the injury's severity. Acrolein (pronounced a-KRO-le-an) also may play an important role in multiple sclerosis and other conditions.

• Alveolar macrophage (AM) function plays a critical role in protecting the lungs by removing particulates.
• Chronic drinking causes persistent oxidative stress in the lungs, leading to impaired AM function.
• A new rodent study shows that chronic drinking appears to intensify lung damage caused by particulate matter.

• Both Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders and Autism Spectrum Disorder are neurodevelopmental in origin.
• A new rodent study has found that these disorders share common molecular vulnerabilities.
• Findings also suggest that a low dose of the thyroid hormone thyroxin (T4) to the pregnant mothers appears to alleviate some of the effects of alcohol exposure on their offspring.

• An early age at first drink (AFD) is associated with a greater risk for subsequent alcohol use disorders.
• A new study looks at the influences of genetics versus the environment on AFD and problem drinking among African American (AA) and European American (EA) women.
• Findings indicate that environmental factors play a larger role in the development of alcohol-related problems in EA than AA women.

PITTSBURGH, June 13, 2013 – Allowing all employees access to paid sick days would reduce influenza infections in the workplace, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health modeling experts.

States that want to reduce rates of adult smoking may consider implementing stringent tobacco restrictions on teens, suggests a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The researchers discovered that states with more restrictive limits on teens purchasing tobacco also have lower adult smoking rates, especially among women. And compared with states with less restrictive limits, they also tend to have fewer adult heavy smokers.

The study is published online June 13 in the American Journal of Public Health.

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Perhaps the hardest part of owning a pet is making difficult decisions when a beloved companion becomes seriously ill.

That's why Michigan State University researchers are developing a new tool to help people assess their ailing pets' quality of life, a key factor in decisions about when to order life-prolonging procedures and when an animal's suffering means it's time to let go.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shed new light on how diving mammals, such as the sperm whale, have evolved to survive for long periods underwater without breathing.

The team identified a distinctive molecular signature of the oxygen-binding protein myoglobin in the sperm whale and other diving mammals, which allowed them to trace the evolution of the muscle oxygen stores in more than 100 mammalian species, including their fossil ancestors.