The white horse is an icon for dignity which has had a huge impact on human culture across the world. An international team led by researchers at Uppsala University has now identified the mutation causing this spectacular trait and show that white horses carry an identical mutation that can be traced back to a common ancestor that lived thousands of years ago. The study is interesting for medical research since this mutation also enhance the risk for melanoma. The paper is published on July 20 on the website of Nature Genetics.
Body
A study performed by researchers at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), in collaboration with researchers at the Instituto de Biología Molecular of the CSIC, reveal a mechanism that controls the movement of cells in a tissue by regulating cell adhesion. This same mechanism may be defective in diseases such as cancer and its metastasis, when tumour cells lose their adhesion to neighbouring cells and migrate through the organism. The results of this research have been published in this week's Nature Cell Biology.
A way to turn off one gene at a time has earned acceptance in biology laboratories over the last decade. Doctors envision the technique, called RNA interference, as a tool to treat a variety of diseases if it can be adapted to humans.
Emory University researchers have discovered that antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones can make RNA interference more effective in the laboratory and reduce potential side effects. The results will be published online this week in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
DURHAM, N.C. – A new study from Duke University Medical Center finds that patients treated solely with medications after suffering from chest pain, heart attack or coronary artery disease are more likely to die during the first year following their initial hospitalization.
For the first time, researchers have successfully grown functional human blood vessels in mice using cells from adult human donors — an important step in developing clinical strategies to grow tissue, researchers report in Circulation Research: Journal of the American Heart Association.
PHILADELPHIA –By studying medication orders that are withdrawn ("discontinued") by physicians within 45 minutes of their origination, researchers at The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have demonstrated a systematic and efficient method of identifying prescribing errors. The method, they say, has value to screen for medication errors and as a teaching tool for physicians and physicians-in-training. The report is published in the July/August 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
Giving children preventive antibiotics within one hour before they undergo spinal surgery greatly reduces the risk for serious infections after the surgery, suggests a Johns Hopkins study to be published in the August issue of Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal (also available online ahead of print).
EAST LANSING, Mich. — New research led by a Michigan State University scholar refutes commonly held stereotypes that overweight workers are lazier, more emotionally unstable and harder to get along with than their "normal weight" colleagues.
With the findings, employers are urged to guard against the use of weight-based stereotypes when it comes to hiring, promoting or firing.
Humans have long been trying to make the dream of nanoscopic robots come true. The dream is, in fact, taking on some aspects of reality. Nanoscience has produced components for molecular-scale machines. One such device is a rotor, a movable component that rotates around an axis. Trying to observe such rotational motion on the molecular scale is an extremely difficult undertaking. Japanese researchers at the Universities of Osaka and Kyoto have now met this challenge.
Why do cancer patients develop resistance to chemotherapy drugs, sometimes abruptly, after a period in which the drugs seem to be working well to reduce tumors or hold them in check? Although largely a mystery to scientists, the result when this occurs is all too familiar: patients relapse and in many cases die when their cancers become resistant.
University of Queensland research is showing the benefits of resistance training in keeping older Australians in tip top form.
Dr Tim Henwood, a postdoctoral research fellow with UQ and Blue Care, said his recently completed PhD research investigated how people over the age of 65 responded to resistance training.
"What we were looking at was how simple resistance training can improve muscle strength, power and functional performance." Dr Henwood said.
The Heads of the International Space Station (ISS) Agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States met today at ESA Headquarters in Paris, France, to review ISS cooperation.
As part of their discussions, they noted the significantly expanded capability the ISS now provides for on-orbit research and technology development activities and as an engineering test-bed for flight systems and operations critical to future space exploration initiatives. These activities improve the quality of life on Earth by expanding the frontiers of human knowledge.
WASHINGTON, July 18 - Without immediate action to develop an integrated, comprehensive, national health workforce policy, the U.S. is at risk of losing its status as the global health care leader, states a new report released by the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC, www.aahcdc.org). The report was funded in part by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation.
Honolulu, HI – A new indicator of coral health has been discovered in a community of microscopic single-celled algae called dinoflagellates. The study, released in the July 8th edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals that a particular type of these algae renders corals more susceptible to disease.
Standards in stem cell research help both scientists and regulators to manage uncertainty and the unknown, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Efforts to standardise practices across different labs is, however, a balancing act where the autonomy of scientists and fragility of living material need to be weighed against the need for comparable data.