Body

Picture a stereotypical tough guy and you might imagine a man with a broad face, a square jaw, and a stoical demeanor. Existing research even supports this association, linking wider, more masculine faces with several less-than-cuddly characteristics, including perceived lack of warmth, dishonesty, and lack of cooperation. But a new study suggests that men with these wide, masculine faces aren't always the aggressive tough guys they appear to be.

The yeast Dekkera bruxellensis plays an important role in the production of wine, as it can have either a positive or a negative impact on the taste. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden, among others, have analyzed the yeast's genome sequenced by the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, giving wine producers the possibility to take control of the flavour development of the wine.

About 75 percent of children with leukemia who take chemotherapy face life-threatening heart problems as they age, but an international study led by a University of Rochester Medical Center investigator shows that giving a cardio-protective drug during cancer treatment may prevent the damage.

Researchers and physicians will debate how to make young cancer patients and their families aware of the risks of heart damage, and the best ways to manage the risks, in a special session today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago.

It's raining cats and dogs and even the short run out to the car leaves your vision obscured by rain on your spectacles. There might soon be no need to reach for a cloth to wipe them off. If the surface of the lens resembled that of a lotus leaf, the drops would all fall off by themselves. The practicality of such self-cleaning surfaces is not limited to eyewear. Corrosion coatings would put up a better fight against rust without the tiny puddles of water that tend to collect on top of them.

CHICAGO, June 4, 2012 – New data reveals that women treated with radiation to the chest for childhood cancer have a high risk of developing breast cancer similar to that of women with BRCA1/2 mutations. The study, led by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center biostatistician Chaya Moskowitz, PhD, was presented today at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting.

Cells do more than just sit there, one next to the other – they constantly exchange information. It has been shown recently that they communicate via complex messages, wrapped in a small vesicle, and as if it was a letter in an envelope. These vesicles are called exosomes.

Exosomes: small communication channels with a possible role in cancer

DURHAM, N.C. – A new cancer treatment that links chemotherapy with an agent that homes in on specific breast cancer cells was significantly better than the current drug regimen at keeping patients' advanced tumors from progressing, according to results from a Phase III clinical trial led by Kimberly Blackwell, M.D., of the Duke Cancer Institute.

Participants with invasive breast cancer who took the investigational drug, called trastuzumab emtansine, or T-DM1, also had fewer and less harsh side effects than study participants who received a standard treatment.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY and Washington, DC – An international research team involving 17 institutions including Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has published the most comprehensive analysis to date of the maize genome. It is an achievement that substantially increases scientists' understanding of differences across related but different species of the plant, which most North Americans call corn, as well as the nature of differences found within individual maize species.

New hope has arrived for migraine sufferers following a Griffith University study with the people of Norfolk Island.

Led by Professor Lyn Griffiths from the University's Griffith Health Institute,the team has identified a new region on the X chromosome as playing a role in migraine.

The research provides compelling evidence for a new migraine susceptibility gene involved in migraine. The study also indicated that there may be more than one X chromosomal gene involved and implicated a gene involved in iron regulation in the brain.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- High doses of the herb American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) over two months reduced cancer-related fatigue in patients more effectively than a placebo, a Mayo Clinic-led study found. Sixty percent of patients studied had breast cancer. The findings are being presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting.

Both the mature and immature virus shells are honeycomb-like lattices of hexagon-shaped units. Using a combination of electron microscopy and computer-based methods, Briggs and colleagues investigated which parts of the key proteins stick together to build the honeycomb of the immature shell. These turned out to be very different from the parts that build the mature shell. This knowledge will help scientists to unravel how the immature virus is assembled in the cell and how the shell proteins rearrange themselves to go from one form to the other.

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have conducted the first comprehensive census of human cells' export workers. In a study published online today in Nature Cell Biology, they found an unexpected variety of genes involved in transporting molecules to the cell membrane and beyond.

CHICAGO (June 2, 2012) - Many breast cancers depend on hormones including estrogen or progesterone for their survival and proliferation. Eight years of lab work at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and elsewhere suggest that the androgen (AR) receptor is an additional hormonal target in many breast cancers. Block AR+ breast cancer's ability to access androgen and you block the cancer's ability to survive.

That's what the drug enzalutamide does, according to a CU Cancer Center study, presented today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have identified an immune system deficiency whose presence shows someone is up to four times likelier to die than a person without it. The glitch involves an antibody molecule called a free light chain; people whose immune systems produce too much of the molecule are far more likely to die of a life-threatening illness such as cancer, diabetes and cardiac and respiratory disease than those whose bodies make normal levels. The study is published in the June issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Rochester, MN, June 4, 2012 – Micah True, legendary ultra-marathoner, died suddenly while on a routine 12-mile training run March 27, 2012. The mythic Caballo Blanco in the best-selling book, Born to Run, True would run as far as 100 miles in a day. On autopsy his heart was enlarged and scarred; he died of a lethal arrhythmia (irregularity of the heart rhythm).