Engineers at Georgia Tech have used skin cells to create artificial bones that mimic the ability of natural bone to blend into other tissues such as tendons or ligaments. The artificial bones display a gradual change from bone to softer tissue rather than the sudden shift of previously developed artificial tissue, providing better integration with the body and allowing them to handle weight more successfully. The research appears in the August 26, 2008, edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Body
The tick-tock of your biological clock may have just gotten a little louder.
Researchers at the University of Georgia report that the number of genes under control of in living things than suspected only a few years ago. The biological clock in a much-studied model organism is dramatically higher than previously reported. The new study implies that the clock may be much more important
DAVIS--Mosquito traps that reek like latrines may be no more.
A University of California, Davis research team led by chemical ecologist Walter Leal has discovered a low-cost, easy-to-prepare attractant that lures blood-fed mosquitoes without making humans hold their noses.
The synthetic mixture, containing compounds trimethylamine and nonanal in low doses, is just as enticing to Culex mosquitoes as the current attractants, Leal said, but this one is odorless to humans.
How do blood vessel cells understand that they should organise themselves in tubes and not in layers? A research group from Uppsala University shows for the first time that a special type of "instructor" molecule is needed to accomplish this. These findings, published in the scientific journal Blood, might be an important step towards using stem cells to build new organs.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Cells become cancerous mainly because they lose control of their growth. To better understand how this happens, a new study at Ohio State University's Comprehensive Cancer Center looks at four genes that help regulate cell growth in embryos and that contribute to cancer in adults.
Children who are physically or sexually abused are more than twice as likely to have asthma as their peers, according to a recent study of urban children in Puerto Rico. In fact, physical and sexual abuse was second only to maternal asthma in all the risk factors tested, including paternal asthma and indicators of socioeconomic status.
There is a strong link between obesity and asthma and as the prevalence of both conditions has been increasing steadily, epidemiologists have speculated that there is an underlying condition that connects the two. But one long-suspected link, the systemic inflammation associated with obesity, has been ruled out by a recent New Zealand study that found no evidence of its involvement.
The widely-held perception that the influenza vaccination reduces overall mortality risk in the elderly does not withstand careful scrutiny, according to researchers in Alberta. The vaccine does confer protection against specific strains of influenza, but its overall benefit appears to have been exaggerated by a number of observational studies that found a very large reduction in all-cause mortality among elderly patients who had been vaccinated.
Alexandria, Va. - The American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) will issue the first comprehensive clinical guidelines to help health care practitioners identify patients with cerumen (commonly referred to as earwax) impaction. The guidelines emphasize evidence-based management of cerumen impaction by clinicians, and inform patients of the purpose of ear wax in hearing health.
PHILADELPHIA – Radiation from the atomic bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945, likely rearranged chromosomes in some survivors who later developed papillary thyroid cancer as adults, according to Japanese researchers.
Scientists based in Switzerland and South Africa have created a biophysical methodology that may help to overcome hearing deficits, and potentially remedy even substantial hearing loss. The authors propose a method of retuning functioning regions of the ear to recognize frequencies originally associated with damaged areas. Details are published August 29th in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology.
All drugs used to treat psychosis are linked to an increased risk of stroke, and dementia sufferers are at double the risk, according to a study published on bmj.com today.
Previous research has shown that second generation (atypical) antipsychotic drugs can increase the chances of patients having a stroke. But the risk of stroke associated with first generation (typical) antipsychotics, and whether the risk differs in people with and without dementia, is not known.
Last week the government in England closed its consultation on the effectiveness of vascular checks for high-risk individuals aged 40-74, to be rolled out in 2009-10, but will this strategy be worthwhile? Experts debate the issue on bmj.com today.
The Department of Health suggests that up to 9 500 heart attacks and strokes and 2 000 deaths could be prevented each year by vascular screening and managing high-risk individuals aged 40-74 in England.
Des Moines, Iowa – August 27, 2008 – What happens when linguistic tools used to analyze human language are applied to a conversation between a language-competent bonobo and a human? The findings, published this month in the Journal of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, indicate that bonobos may exhibit larger linguistic competency in ordinary conversation than in controlled experimental settings.
Shedding some genetically induced excess baggage may have helped a tiny fish thrive in freshwater and outsize its marine ancestors, according to a UBC study published today in Science Express.
Measuring three to 10 centimetres long, stickleback fish originated in the ocean but began populating freshwater lakes and streams following the last ice age. Over the past 20,000 years - a relatively short time span in evolutionary terms - freshwater sticklebacks have lost their bony lateral plates, or "armour," in these new environments.