A paper published in the current issue of the International Journal of Environment and Pollution, explains how a DNA test can be used to detect harmful algal blooms across the globe. The approach outlined could help reduce the economic impact on fisheries, recreational activities, and aquaculture sites, such as salmon and shellfish farms, and pearl oyster farms. It could also help decrease the outbreaks of food poisoning due to contamination of seafood by the toxins some of these algae produce.
Body
With childhood obesity expanding to epidemic proportions in the United States, educators, researchers and health practitioners are actively seeking to identify effective means of addressing this public-health crisis.
NEW YORK (SEPTEMBER 30, 2008) – Black bears that live around urban areas weigh more, get pregnant at a younger age, and are more likely to die violent deaths, according to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
New research published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) suggests that pregnant women should think twice about high-fat foods. In a study from the University of Cincinnati and the Medical College of Georgia, scientists found that female mice fed high fat diets were more likely to have oversized offspring (a risk factor for overweight and obesity) because fat causes the placenta to go into "overdrive" by providing too many nutrients to the fetus.
A genetic fingerprint identified in patients with a gynecologic cancer may reveal candidates for targeted therapy. In a study in the journal Gynecologic Oncology, investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Obstetrics and Gynecology Service report that women with vulvar carcinoma whose tumors have extra copies of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene are at increased risk of dying from their cancer. The EGFR pathway is known to be critical in several types of cancer, but this is the first association of an EGFR gene alteration with this tumor.
Scientists are finding that particles that are barely there – tiny objects known as nanoparticles that have found a home in electronics, food containers, sunscreens, and a variety of applications – can breech our most personal protective barrier: The skin.
The particles under scrutiny by Lisa DeLouise, Ph.D., are almost unfathomably tiny. The particles are less than one five-thousandth the width of a human hair. If the width of that strand of hair were equivalent to the length of a football field, a typical nanoparticle wouldn't even belly up to the one-inch line.
INDIANAPOLIS –While obstetrical care providers are doing a good job working with their patients on smoking cessation, they are not doing as well on abuse of other substances that can harm a woman's unborn baby. A new study appearing in the September 2008 issue of the journal Patient Education and Counseling reports that patients don't volunteer information about substance abuse unless specifically queried.
A 10-year outlook for innovative and forward-looking glaucoma management, and the future of research into the condition: key topics put under the spotlight in a new supplement to International Glaucoma Review (IGR).
About the Supplement:
Much like a dashboard gives a good read on how your car is doing, researchers hope they'll soon give physicians a better idea of how they are doing with patients.
Reporting in Biology Letters, Steve Brusatte, Professor Michael Benton, and colleagues at the University of Bristol show that dinosaurs did not proliferate immediately after they originated, but that their rise was a slow and complicated event, and driven by two mass extinctions.
The Marine Board-ESF published its 13th Position Paper, which presents a view from marine mammal specialists on the research needed to assess the effects of anthropogenic sound upon marine mammals.
The research strategy presented in Marine Board Position Paper 13 results from the activities and proceedings of an Expert Group on anthropogenic sound and marine mammals convened at the joint European Marine Board and National Science Foundation (US) Workshop at Tubney House on October 4-8 2005 in Oxford, with financial and logistical support of the Marine Board.
The future use of land space worldwide and of natural resources in the light of climate change is the topic of a high level German-American scientific conference organised by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), taking place in Berlin this week.
The roadmap to the future of the gorgeously-decorated fish which throng Australia's coral reefs and help earn the nation $5 billion a year from tourism may well be written in their genes.
Of particular importance may be to protect 'pioneer' fish populations which are able to re-colonise regions of reef devastated by global warming and other impacts or settle new areas as the corals move south, says Dr Line Bay of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University (JCU) and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).
Waltham, MA—A novel Brandeis University study this week in PLoS Biology reports on some of the molecular gymnastics performed by a protein involved in regulating DNA transcription. Using state-of-the art tools, researchers observed the shape and behavior of individual DNA molecules bent into tight loops by Lac repressor, a protein from the bacterium E.coli that switches on and off individual genes.
Birth size, and in particular birth length, correlates with subsequent risk of breast cancer in adulthood, according to a new study published in PLoS Medicine by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Associations between birth size, perhaps as a marker of the pre-natal environment, and subsequent breast cancer risk have been identified before, but the findings from epidemiological studies have been inconsistent.