Body

TORONTO, Oct. 22, 2015--Acromio-clavicular joint dislocation is one of the most common shoulder injuries orthopedic surgeons treat. Severe dislocations are often treated with surgery, but patients who opt for non-surgical treatment typically experience fewer complications and return to work sooner, according to new research published today in the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma.

Between any two people, there are likely to be at least 10 million differences in the genetic sequence that makes up their DNA.

Most of these differences don't alter the way cells behave or cause health problems. But some genetic variations greatly increase the likelihood that a person will develop cancer, diabetes, colorblindness or a host of other diseases.

Despite rapid advances in our ability to map an individual's genome -- the precise coding that makes up his or her genes -- we know much less about which mutations or anomalies actually cause disease.

Howler monkeys are about the size of a small dog, weighing around seven kilos, yet they are among the loudest terrestrial animals on the planet, and can roar at a similar acoustic frequency to tigers.

Evolution has given these otherwise lethargic creatures a complex and powerful vocal system. For males, a critical function of the roar is for mating: to attract females and scare off rival males.

Plants can't get up and run away when they're being attacked by insects or harsh weather conditions. So they need mechanisms to rapidly respond to a stressful event - being eaten by a bug, for example - and then quickly transition back to "normal" conditions when the stress level subsides.

Stem cell therapies for post-heart attack tissue repair have had modest success at best. Clinical trials have primarily used bone marrow cells, which can promote the growth of new blood vessels, but many studies have shown no benefit. A better alternative may be to use human heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes), suggests a study published October 22 in Stem Cell Reports, the journal of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Older black men with localized prostate cancer were more likely to have poorer quality care, incur higher costs and have worse postoperative outcomes than white men but that did not translate to worse overall or cancer-specific survival, according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology.

Tropical fish may hold clues that could aid research into motor neuron disease and paralysis caused by spinal cord injury.

Scientists have discovered that a hormone called serotonin -- better known for its role as a mood booster -- can help zebrafish to recover from a spinal cord injury.

They have found that serotonin sends signals to stem cells found in the spinal cord to boost the growth of new motor neurons -- nerve cells that are vital for controlling muscle activity and movement.

A small molecule in cells that was previously believed to have no impact on animal behaviour could in fact be responsible for controlling precise movements, according to new University of Sussex research.

The team at Sussex, led by Dr Claudio Alonso, found that fruit flies had difficulty in righting themselves when placed upside down after changes were made to tiny pieces of their genetic material encoding microRNAs (miRNAs).

MiRNAs are molecules encoded in the genome of all animals, including humans, that regulate the activity of individual genes.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- About half of all tumors are missing a gene called p53, which helps healthy cells prevent genetic mutations. Many of these tumors develop resistance to chemotherapy drugs that kill cells by damaging their DNA.

MIT cancer biologists have now discovered how this happens: A backup system that takes over when p53 is disabled encourages cancer cells to continue dividing even when they have suffered extensive DNA damage. The researchers also discovered that an RNA-binding protein called hnRNPA0 is a key player in this pathway.

Hercules, CA -- October 19, 2015 -- Bio-Rad's Droplet Digital PCR (ddPCR™) technology identifies viral RNA mutations in clinical samples with greater precision, sensitivity, and reproducibility than quantitative reverse-transcription PCR (RT-qPCR), according to a new study in the Journal of Virological Methods (November 2015).

22 October 2015 If a foal has race-winning parents it is more likely to have a champion career, research into complex traits shows.

The research, which was unveiled last night in a Sydney Science Forum talk, Galloping Genes, has not only focused on racing performance, but also for the first time considered a range of traits including career length and susceptibility to diseases.

Scientists have identified a gene that could potentially open the door for the development of new treatments of the lethal disease sepsis.

Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research worked with Genentech, a leading United States biotechnology company, to identify a gene that triggers the inflammatory condition that can lead to the full-body infection sepsis.

"Isolating the gene so quickly was a triumph for the team," said Professor Simon Foote, Director of The John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) at ANU.

Bremerhaven (Germany), 22 October 2015. In a new study, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) show for the first time that marine litter can even be found at the sea surface of Arctic waters. Though it remains unclear how the litter made it so far north, it is likely to pose new problems for local marine life, the authors report on the online portal of the scientific journal Polar Biology. Plastic has already been reported from stomachs of resident seabirds and Greenland sharks.

As anyone who has ever taken a long car trip knows, frequent rest and refueling stops are needed to make it to the destination. For migratory birds, this is the case as well, only they fuel up on food during their rest stops and put on large amounts of fat in the process. However, not all bird species have the same migration strategy, that is, in terms of their stopping times and eating rates. Some birds stop and feed for weeks at a time, and some do so for brief periods of one or two days.

October 22, 2015 - A minimally invasive implant procedure is highly effective in reducing pain and disability for patients with sacroiliac joint (SIJ) dysfunction, reports a clinical trial in the November issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, published by Wolters Kluwer.