Body

Philadelphia, PA, June 5, 2012 – Current screening strategies for Down syndrome, caused by fetal trisomy 21 (T21), and Edwards syndrome, caused by fetal trisomy 18 (T18), have false positive rates of 2 to 3%, and false negative rates of 5% or higher. Positive screening results must be confirmed by amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling, which carry a fetal loss rate of approximately 1 in 300 procedures. Now an international, multicenter cohort study finds that a genetic test to screen for trisomy 21 or 18 from a maternal blood sample is almost 100% accurate.

Carlos Gonzalez stands out from an athletic group gathered on a grassy field at the UCSF Mission Bay campus. The gregarious 32-year-old sports a stylish fauxhawk and walks with a confident yet understated swagger. He's training to become a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter.

The group looks like a slice of the Bay Area: a multiracial gathering – white, black, Latino, Asian, biracial – of men and women in their early 20s to late 40s.

By taking advantage of the unique patterns generated when two immiscible fluids flow together, scientists have developed a new tool for studying tiny biomolecules.

Washington — PETA today submitted official comments to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the agency's Draft Guidance for Industry: Modified Risk Tobacco Product [MRTP] Applications, which, as currently written, will lead to animal studies being conducted in support of MRTP applications.

"I'm 70, and with advanced age the hazards of surgery can increase, so I wanted the least invasive surgery possible," explained Mr. Carter. "The robotics provide more steadiness and precision, and I wanted my surgeon to be as steady and as precise as possible. It seems to me this is just a much wiser system."

How does it work? The Firefly technology uses near-infrared imaging to detect an injected tracer dye of indocyanine green (ICG) in the blood.

Two overfeeding diets, carb and protein, both result in insulin resistance

Insulin, produced by the pancreas, is the hormone that tells our cells to absorb glucose, a necessary sugar molecule that provides our body, particularly the brain, with the energy to function, make repairs, move and grow.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Rhode Island Hospital and Auburn University researchers found a link between restrictive food intake, or excessive dieting, and an increase in suicide attempts in people with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). The study focused on the acquired capability of suicide, which is one component of Joiner's (2005) interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide and is comprised of physical pain tolerance and lowered fear of death. The paper is published in the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, and is now available online in advance of print.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Patients with type 2 diabetes have a 20 percent increased risk of developing blood cancers, such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia and myeloma, according to a new meta-analysis led by researchers at The Miriam Hospital. The findings, recently published in the journal Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology, add to the growing evidence base linking diabetes and certain types of cancer.

Our bodies need about two litres of fluids per day, not two litres of water specifically. In an Editorial in the June issue of Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Spero Tsindos from La Trobe University, examined why we consume so much water.

Mr Tsindos believes that encouraging people to drink more water is driven by vested interests, rather than a need for better health. "Thirty years ago you didn't see a plastic water bottle anywhere, now they appear as fashion accessories."

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Wastewater from large dairy farms contains significant concentrations of estrogenic hormones that can persist for months or even years, researchers report in a new study. In the absence of oxygen, the estrogens rapidly convert from one form to another; this stalls their biodegradation and complicates efforts to detect them, the researchers found.

Athens, Ga. – Sex sells, or at least that is what advertisers hope. A recent study from the University of Georgia looked at sexual ads appearing in magazines over 30 years and found that the numbers are up.

"Advertisers use sex because it can be very effective," said researcher Tom Reichert, professor and head of the department of advertising and public relations in the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. "Sex sells because it attracts attention. People are hard wired to notice sexually relevant information so ads with sexual content get noticed."

A common point in all human tumors is that they produce an activation of oncogenes, genes that cause cancer and they also cause a loss of function of the protective genes, called anti-oncogenes or tumour suppressor genes. Normally both categories of anticancer and procancer genes are in different regions of our chromosomes.

Genetically modified crops that produce insect-killing proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) have reduced reliance on insecticide sprays since 1996. These proteins are lethal to some devastating crop pests, but do not harm most other creatures including humans.

Yet, just as insects become resistant to conventional insecticides, they also can evolve resistance to the Bt proteins in transgenic crops.

A new technique that accurately determines the risk of infants in endemic countries developing clinical malaria could provide a valuable tool for evaluating new malaria prevention strategies and vaccines.

The technique could even help to understand how anti-malarial vaccine and treatment strategies act to reduce malaria, say researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel and the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– A new study suggests that protein knots, a structure whose formation remains a mystery, may have specific functional advantages that depend on the nature of the protein's architecture.

"The presence of a knotted or slipknotted structure in a protein is relatively rare but really is very interesting," said Kenneth Millett, a professor of mathematics at UC Santa Barbara and a co-author of the paper, "Conservation of complex knotting and slipknotting patterns in proteins," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.