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THE more children a woman has or whether a woman has had her fallopian tubes cut lowers the risk of different types of ovarian cancer to different levels, according to new research* presented at the 2015 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference today (Tuesday).

Data was collected from more than 8000 women with ovarian cancer as part of the UK Million Women Study.

Researchers then examined the risk of the four most common types of ovarian cancer - serous, mucinous, endometrioid and clear cell tumours - in women with different childbearing patterns.

A study of life and extinctions among woolly mammoths and other ice-age animals suggests that interconnected habitats can help Arctic mammal species survive environmental changes.

The study went online Nov. 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "Early Edition."

HOUSTON - (Nov. 2, 2015) - Chagas disease -- the third most common parasitic infection in the world -- affects approximately 7.5 million people, mostly in Latin America. To help reduce outbreaks of this disease in their countries, the United States and Mexican governments should implement a range of programs as well as fund research for the development of Chagas vaccines and treatments, according to a new policy brief by tropical-disease and science policy experts at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Boston, MA - Two new studies from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health shed light on critical dietary issues facing Americans. One study showed that while recent improvements in the U.S. diet have helped reduce disease and premature death, the overall American diet is still poor. Another, which analyzed interventions to reduce childhood obesity, found three that would save more in health care costs than they would cost to implement.

Both studies will be published November 2, 2015 in the November issue of Health Affairs.

To determine whether healthy food could help low-income people better control their diabetes, a pilot study by UC San Francisco and Feeding America tracked nearly 700 people at food banks in California, Texas and Ohio over two years.

The result: better diabetes control and medication adherence and an overall improvement in the consumption of healthy food.

West Nile virus is killing millions more birds and affecting many more bird species than previously thought, according to new research from a multi-university team of researchers.

Survival estimates dropped dramatically in populations exposed to West Nile virus for nearly half of the 49 bird species studied, the largest percentage of species yet found to be affected by the virus. Previous estimates have been closer to one-third of studied species. The research appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has shown that a method they developed to improve the usefulness and precision of the most common form of the gene-editing tools CRISPR-Cas9 RNA-guided nucleases can be applied to Cas9 enzymes from other bacterial sources.

Researchers at University of the Pacific have developed a biochemical trick that can significantly extend the lifespan of peptides, smaller cousins of proteins. The finding opens up new possibilities for creating peptides to treat cancer, infertility and other conditions.

The research, led by Mamoun Alhamadsheh, assistant professor of pharmacy at Pacific, is featured in the November issue of Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, a publication that spotlights high-impact papers from Nature, Cell and other major scientific journals.

Now, for the first time, UCLA researchers have described cost across an entire care process for low-risk prostate cancer - from the time a patient checks in for his first appointment to his post-treatment follow-up testing - using time-driven activity-based costing. And they found a wide variation in costs for the various available treatments that remained consistent over a 12-year period, indicating a better method to monitor costs could save valuable healthcare dollars, said study first author Dr. Aaron Laviana, a fifth year urology resident.

PRINCETON, N.J.--Despite advances in health care and quality of life, white middle-aged Americans have seen overall mortality rates increase over the past 15 years, representing an overlooked "epidemic" with deaths comparable to the number of Americans who have died of AIDS, according to new Princeton University research.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have discovered a cellular mechanism behind the surprising benefits of short, high-intensity interval exercise. Their findings, which are published in the scientific journal PNAS, also provide clues to why antioxidants undermine the effect of endurance training.

A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team, in collaboration with investigators at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, may have found a reason why the use of antiangiogenesis drugs - which has improved outcomes for patients with several types of cancer - fails to benefit some breast cancer patients. In their report published online in PNAS Early Edition, the investigators describe how preoperative treatment with the antiangiogenic drug bevacizumab primarily benefited patients whose tumors were highly perfused with blood vessels prior to treatment.

LA JOLLA--Scientists at the Salk Institute have uncovered a molecule whose mutation leads to the aggressive growth of a common and deadly type of lung cancer in humans.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A recent study suggests that obese people with metabolic syndrome face an unexpected quandary when it comes to vitamin E - they need more than normal levels of the vitamin because their weight and other problems are causing increased oxidative stress, but those same problems actually cause their effective use of vitamin E to be reduced.

It's called bird flu for a reason. Particular characteristics about the influenza virus known as H5N1 allow it to primarily affect avifauna, though in some worrying cases the disease has been passed to humans.

Similarly, many strains, known as serovars, of Salmonella bacteria are specific to certain types of animals. Some infect cows, others poultry and still others affect primarily humans.