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Much of what we know about Oetzi – for example what he looked like or that he suffered from lactose intolerance – stems from a tiny bone sample which allowed the decoding of his genetic make-up. Now, however, the team of scientists have examined more closely the part of the sample consisting of non-human DNA.

During a recent survey of organisms collected from Bajo de Sico, a mesophotic coral reef ecosystem in Mona Passage off Puerto Rico, one pontarachnid mite species new to science was discovered. The new species was named after the famous Puerto Rican singer Jennifer Lopez. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

A novel study reveals that more than half of liver transplant patients want to be informed of donor risk at the time a liver is offered for transplantation. Nearly 80% of those patients want to be involved in the decision of whether or not to accept the organ according to findings published in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society.

Montreal, July 15 2014 - Judes Poirier, PhD, C.Q., from the Douglas Mental Health Institute and McGill University in Montréal (Canada) and his team have discovered that a relatively frequent genetic variant actually conveys significant protection against the common form of Alzheimer's disease and can delay the onset of the disease by as much as 4 years. This discovery opens new avenues for treatment against this devastating disease.

Everyone knows that cholesterol, at least the bad kind, can cause heart disease and hardening of the arteries. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago describe a new role for cholesterol in the activation of a cellular signaling pathway that has been linked to cancer.

The finding is reported in Nature Communications.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – An after-action review of the Brigham and Women's Hospital emergency radiology response to the Boston Marathon bombings highlights the crucial role medical imaging plays in emergency situations and ways in which radiology departments can improve their preparedness for mass casualty events. The new study is published online in the journal Radiology.

Blood clots occur so rarely in children undergoing spine operations that most patients require nothing more than vigilant monitoring after surgery and should be spared risky and costly anti-clotting medications, according to a new Johns Hopkins Children's Center study.

Because clotting risk in children is poorly understood, treatment guidelines are largely absent, leaving doctors caring for pediatric patients at a loss on whom to treat and when.

European researchers have recovered a genome of the bacterium Brucella melitensis from a 700-year-old skeleton found in the ruins of a Medieval Italian village.

Crop spraying on British farms could be aiding a life-threatening fungus suffered by tens of thousand of people in the UK each year.

New research by British and Dutch scientists has found that Aspergillus – a common fungus that attacks the lungs and is found in soil and other organic matter – has become resistant to life - saving drugs in parts of rural Yorkshire.

Labelling people with moderately high blood sugar as pre-diabetic is a drastically premature measure with no medical value and huge financial and social costs, say researchers from UCL and the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota.

The analysis, published in the BMJ, considered whether a diagnosis of pre-diabetes carried any health benefits such as improved diabetes prevention. The authors showed that treatments to reduce blood sugar only delayed the onset of type 2 diabetes by a few years, and found no evidence of long-term health benefits.

Patients with serious heart and lung conditions don't have the normal range of facial expressions, particularly the ability to register surprise in response to emotional cues, finds preliminary research published online in Emergency Medicine Journal.

This finding could be used to help busy emergency care doctors decide whom to prioritise for treatment, and gauge who really needs often costly and invasive tests, suggest the researchers.

TORONTO, July 14, 2014 – Ontario spent nearly $110 million dollars between 2006 and 2010 on bonuses to motivate family doctors to screen more of their patients for cancer but these bonuses were associated with little or no improvement in actual cancer screening rates, according to researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Researchers at UC Davis, University of Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School have created a combination drug that controls both tumor growth and metastasis. By combining a COX-2 inhibitor, similar to Celebrex, and an epoxide hydrolase (sEH) inhibitor, the drug controls angiogenesis (blood vessel formation), limiting a tumor's ability to grow and spread. The study appears today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hoffman Estates, IL – Around the globe, fibre and calcium intakes are below the levels recommended by experts1,2,3 contributing to potential long-term public health implications1,3,4. New research, published this month in the British Journal of Nutrition, shows soluble corn fibre (SCF) may not simply boost fibre intake when added to foods, but can also increase the amount of beneficial bacteria present in the gut, while enhancing calcium absorption in adolescents5.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The return of LeBron James to the Cleveland Cavaliers may have riveted the sports world and social media, but the phenomenon of "going home," whether to a geographic location or a former job, is not unique to professional athletes.

According to two studies co-written by a University of Illinois expert in organizational behavior and human resources management, organizations of all types are beginning to recognize and embrace the value of recruiting and welcoming back former employees.