Body

A new study by Weill Cornell Medical College scientists reveals a mechanism through which the expression of genes is controlled – a finding that highlights genetic mutations that can impair the timing of gene expression. Such mutations can affect the co-ordination of key events that are required for stepwise development of an organism, and can also give rise to cancer by turning on genes at the wrong time.

Boston, MA – A new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and University of Perugia (UNIPG) researchers has shown that egg development in the mosquito species primarily responsible for spreading malaria depends on a switch in the female that is turned on by a male hormone delivered during sex. Blocking the activation of this switch could impair the ability of the species, Anopheles gambiae, to reproduce, and may be a viable future strategy for mosquito and malaria control.

The study appears online October 29, 2013 in PLoS Biology.

Knowing what symptoms to look for may help women with pelvic floor disorders improve their chances of successful treatment. But knowledge of these disorders is lacking among most women, and especially among women of color, according to a new study by researchers at Yale School of Medicine.

The study appears in the October issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The Mortlock Islands flying fox, a large, breadfruit-eating bat native to a few remote and tiny Pacific islands, has long been regarded as one of the world's least studied bats. For more than 140 years nearly all that scientists knew about this animal was derived from one lonely specimen preserved in a jar of alcohol in the Natural History Museum, London.

WOODS HOLE, Mass.— A crucial component of wound healing in many animals, including humans, is the migration of nearby skin cells toward the center of the wound. These cells fill the wound in and help prevent infection while new skin cells regenerate.

WASHINGTON, October 29, 2013 ─ The October 2013 issue of Educational Researcher (ER), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), is now available on the association's website. Included in this issue is an unprecedented look at the role of sorting between boys and girls across public U.S. high schools in explaining the gender gap of college enrollment among black and Hispanic students. The October issue of ER includes four feature articles and one brief.

One of the commonest parasites in the world is Toxoplasma gondii. Toxoplasma can infect most warm-blooded animals, including humans, and causes significant damage to the unborn child if a woman becomes infected for the first time during pregnancy. The natural cycle of the organism depends on cats and on mice. Infection by Toxoplasma normally doesn't kill the animal, but there are some "virulent" strains that kill mice only a few days after infection.

Men who spend the most time engaged in sedentary behaviors are at greatest risk for recurrence of colorectal adenomas, benign tumors that are known precursors of colorectal cancers, according to results presented here at the 12th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held Oct. 27-30.

Men who are overweight or obese when they are diagnosed with prostate cancer are more likely to die from the disease than men who are of healthy weight, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in the journal Obesity Research & Clinical Practice. In patients with more aggressive forms of prostate cancer, the researchers also found an even stronger correlation between obesity and mortality.

Plastic litter is one of the most significant problems facing the world's marine environments. Yet in the absence of a coordinated global strategy, an estimated 20 million tons of plastic litter enter the ocean each year.

A species of humpback dolphin previously unknown to science is swimming in the waters off northern Australia, according to a team of researchers working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and numerous other groups that contributed to the study.

WASHINGTON — Like humans, young rats that give birth have a reduced risk of breast cancer later in life. But a new study shows that this protective effect in animals is negated if they're exposed to an obesity-linked hormone during pregnancy.

The study, to be published online Nov. 1 in Cancer Prevention Research by Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center scientists, suggests an important direction for research in women's health, particularly given obesity rates worldwide.

Most of us wouldn't consider bacteria a promising energy source of the future. That would be shortsighted, says Leonard Tender, a microbial-electrochemist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., who believes that the focus of his research – electrode reactions catalyzed by microorganisms – may one day provide cheap, clean and abundant energy by converting the carbon dioxide in seawater to fuel and the organic matter in wastewater into electrical power.

Many Canadian scientists and clinicians were unsung heroes during the early years (1977–1983) of research unfolding around verotoxigenic E. coli (VTEC). In an article published today in the Canadian Journal of Microbiology, Dr. Cimolai, a clinician and medical microbiologist, documents the history of this area of study, focusing on the key discoveries and major contributions made by Canadians to the science of what many people refer to as ‘hamburger disease’.

A specimen preserved in a jar of alcohol in The Natural History Museum, London has remained the only record of the Mortlock Islands flying fox, one of the least known bat species on the planet, for over 140 years. That is until now. A team of bat biologists led by Dr. Don Buden from the College of Micronesia has collected new information about this "forgotten" species, and studied it in the wild for the first time.