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SAN ANTONIO (July 22, 2014) — Mouse models of human oral cancer treated with an agent called capsazepine showed dramatic tumor shrinkage without damage to surrounding tissues, researchers from the School of Dentistry and School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio found. The Health Science Center has claimed intellectual property on results of the study, which is described in the journal Oral Oncology.
Late diagnosis, low survival
Scientists with the NH Agricultural Experiment Station are working to restore New Hampshire and Maine's only native rabbit after new research based on genetic monitoring has found that in the last decade, cottontail populations in northern New England have become more isolated and seen a 50 percent contraction of their range.
Los Angeles, CA (July 23, 2014) Both short and tall men in the military are more at risk for depression than their uniformed colleagues of average height, a new study finds. This study was published today in the open access journal SAGE Open.
With nearly four in five older Americans living with multiple chronic medical conditions, a new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health finds that the more ailments you have after retirement age, the shorter your life expectancy. The analysis, one of the first to examine the burden of multiple chronic conditions on life expectancy among the elderly, may help explain why increases in life expectancy among older Americans are slowing.
The degree to which consumers perceive themselves to be knowledgeable about a product influences the likelihood that they will buy a particular product, researchers find in a series of studies published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Lipid emulsions are crucial for providing essential fatty acids and energy to infants and children who need intravenous feeding. There has been concern that soybean-based emulsions could compromise immune functions and promote liver damage due to its composition. Combination lipid emulsions based on triglyceride oil, fish oil, or olive oil have been developed to address this concern.
Heroic worldwide conservation efforts have made great strides in saving China's endangered national treasure, the giant panda. Now, in China, there are over 65 giant panda reserves that have been established and three large breeding centers. But despite these efforts, just 1596 pandas remain in the wild.
Breeding programs in conservation centers and zoos hope to save the panda by improving genetic diversity, avoid inbreeding and ultimately, introduce pandas back to the wild. Just how are these high-profile programs doing so far?
The Leishmania parasite, which causes the human disease leishmaniasis, acts as a probiotic in the insect that transmits it to humans, protecting them from bacterial disease. Findings published in the open access journal Parasites and Vectors suggest that using bacterial controls to stop the spread of leishmaniasis could sometimes have the opposite effect to that intended, by benefiting flies carrying the parasite.
Researchers studying banded mongooses in Uganda have discovered that those who work hard to care for pups may be less likely to invest in future offspring in the same way due to elevated stress hormones.
Dr Jennifer Sanderson, from the University of Exeter, has been observing wild banded mongooses to understand why working hard makes them less likely to work hard in the future.
Athens, Ga. – Scientists have long known that providing supplemental food for wildlife, or resource provisioning, can sometimes cause more harm than good. University of Georgia ecologists have developed a new mathematical model to tease apart the processes that help explain why. Their research, which has implications for public health and wildlife conservation, appears in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
PHILADELPHIA (July 22, 2014) – New research from the Monell Center reveals that simply believing that an odor is potentially harmful can increase airway inflammation in asthmatics for at least 24 hours following exposure. The findings highlight the role that expectations can play in health-related outcomes.
Freezing and thawing might not be good for the average steak, but it seems to help wood frogs each fall as they prepare to survive Alaska's winter cold.
"Alaska wood frogs spend more time freezing and thawing outside than a steak does in your freezer and the frog comes back to life in the spring in better shape than the steak," said Don Larson, University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student and lead author on a recent paper demonstrating that freeze tolerance in Alaska wood frogs is more extreme than previously thought.
Among women undergoing a minimally invasive hysterectomy using electric power morcellation, uterine cancers were present in 27 per 10,000 women at the time of the procedure, according to a study published by JAMA. There has been concern that this procedure, in which the uterus is fragmented into smaller pieces, may result in the spread of undetected malignancies.
A recent scientific discovery showed that mutations in prickle genes cause epilepsy, which in humans is a brain disorder characterized by repeated seizures over time. However, the mechanism responsible for generating prickle-associated seizures was unknown.
A new University of Iowa study, published online July 14 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals a novel pathway in the pathophysiology of epilepsy. UI researchers have identified the basic cellular mechanism that goes awry in prickle mutant flies, leading to the epilepsy-like seizures.