Body

Researchers from Children's Hospital Boston and Brigham and Women's Hospital have identified an important genetic cause of a devastating kidney disease that is the second leading cause of kidney failure in children, according to The NephCure Foundation.

Scientists have identified a strain of antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis that thrives in the presence of rifampin, a front-line drug in the treatment of tuberculosis. The bacterium was identified in a patient in China and is described in a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Chongqing Pulmonary Hospital, Lanzhou University and Fudan University. The researchers determined that the bacteria grew poorly in the absence of the antibiotic rifampin and better in the presence of the drug.

More than a hundred years after its discovery, the limbs and vertebrae of a fossil have been pulled off the shelf at the American Museum of Natural History to revise the view of early carnivore lifestyles. Carnivores—currently a diverse group of mostly meat-eating mammals like bears, cats, raccoons, seals, and hyenas—had been considered arboreal in their early evolutionary history. But now that the skeleton of 'Miacis' uintensis has been unpacked from its matrix of sandstone, it is clear that some early carnivores were built to walk on the ground at least part of the time.

A team of researchers working in a high containment laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, have solved a fundamental mystery about smallpox that has puzzled scientists long after the natural disease was eradicated by vaccination.: they know how it kills us. In a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), researchers describe how the virus cripples immune systems by attacking molecules made by our bodies to block viral replication.

Going back for a second dessert after your holiday meal might not be the best strategy for living a long, cancer-free life say researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. That's because they've shown exactly how restricted calorie diets—specifically in the form of restricted glucose—help human cells live longer. This discovery, published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) could help lead to drugs and treatments that slow human aging and prevent cancer.

DALLAS – Dec. 21, 2009 – When Craig Harrison found out he would be the first patient in North Texas to have robot-assisted lung-tumor surgery, an operation performed at UT Southwestern Medical Center, he wasn't nervous at all.

"I know most people would've been, but I was actually excited about it," Mr. Harrison said. "I had a rare chance to help other people."

Museum Victoria palaeobiologist Dr Erich Fitzgerald has made new groundbreaking discoveries into the origin of baleen whales, based on a 25 million year old fossil found near Torquay in Victoria.

Dr Fitzgerald's study, which is published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, is centred on Mammalodon colliveri, a primitive toothed baleen whale, one of a group of whales that includes the largest animal ever to have lived, the blue whale. Although Mammalodon was discovered in 1932 and named in 1939, it has remained relatively unknown until now.

Medicare beneficiaries with heart disease who attended more cardiac rehabilitation sessions had fewer heart attacks and were less likely to die within four years than those who went to rehab less, researchers report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Dispatchers should assertively give cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) instructions to bystanders who suspect someone is in cardiac arrest because the benefits from correctly recommending CPR for someone who needs it greatly outweigh the risks from recommending CPR for someone who does not, researchers said in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Giant rainforest trees, rare and beautiful orchids, spectacular palms, minute fungi, wild coffees and an ancient aquatic plant are among more than 250 new plant and fungi species discovered and described by botanists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in this, the botanical organisation's 250th anniversary year. The new species come from a wide-range of fascinating locations including Brazil, Cameroon, East Africa, Madagascar, Borneo and New Guinea. Nearly a third are believed to be in danger of extinction.

High-density lipoprotein (HDL), known as "good" cholesterol, isn't as protective for people with type 2 diabetes, according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

HDL carries cholesterol out of the arteries, and high levels are associated with a lower risk of heart disease. HDL also helps protect blood vessels by reducing the production of damaging chemicals, increasing the vessels' ability to expand, and repairing damage to the vessel lining.

The largest and longest running study of children born after preimplantation genetic diagnosis and screening has shown that embryo biopsy does not adversely affect the health of babies born as the result of a subsequent singleton pregnancy.

DALLAS – Dec. 22, 2009 – An international study authored by a UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher has concluded that the anemia drug darbepoetin alfa works no better than a placebo in several other applications previously thought to be promising.

Darbepoetin alfa is one of a class of drugs used to increase red blood cells in patients with type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease and anemia, but in a study of 4,038 patients, it did little to reduce cardiovascular problems, death or even the need for dialysis.

The use of a digital checklist for patients being administered emergency drugs during a pandemic or following a biological terrorist attack reduces the fatigue factor, according to a report in the International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, and could save lives.

MADISON — Some of the most common minerals in biology, including those in bones and shells, have a mysterious structure: Their crystals are positioned in the same orientation, making them behave as one giant crystal, even though they do not look like a faceted crystal.

It's as if grains of salt were spilled on a rug, yet instead of landing randomly, all wound up with exactly the same angle and rotation.