Oxford, UK, July 18, 2016 - Increasing oxygen delivery to muscles can help athletes perform better and give them the edge needed to win elite competitions. One of the best ways to increase oxygen supply is through blood manipulation, undergoing a blood transfusion that provides extra red blood cells and boosts oxygen levels. These blood transfusions, popularly known as "blood doping," are illegal for professional athletes. While some transfusions and stimulants are identifiable with current testing methods, autologous blood transfusion (ABT) is not.
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Oncologic patients are now among the main users of ICUs in the world, and they're also among the most fragile and prone to complications that can lead to death, such as hospital infections and adverse drug reactions. But the risk of these problems can be reduced through relatively simple processes of organization, such as holding meetings to discuss clinical cases between oncologists and intensivists, using care protocols and the presence of pharmacists in ICUs.
The decade-long search by researchers worldwide for a gene, which is critical in controlling the formation of blood and blood vessels in the embryo, shows how fascinating science can be. It is more than 20 years since Didier Stainier, director at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, discovered a zebrafish mutant named cloche. This mutant lacks development of both blood vessels and blood cells, and was, until now, a unique phenomenon. Now, his research group has succeeded in finding the gene responsible for it.
Fresh insight into how ocean bacteria search for food could aid the development of a new generation of bacterial therapies programmed to treat disease.
The behaviour of marine bugs could inspire development of friendly bacteria engineered to carry out a range of tasks, such as searching organs for signs of illness, diagnosing diseases and delivering drugs to diseased tissue.
Scientists studied common ocean bacteria to understand how they can quickly and precisely propel themselves towards their source of food -- such as spots of algae in the water -- in order to survive.
An international team of researchers has succeeded for the first time in sequencing the genome of Chalcolithic barley grains. This is the oldest plant genome to be reconstructed to date. The 6,000-year-old seeds were retrieved from Yoram Cave in the southern cliff of Masada fortress in the Judean Desert in Israel, close to the Dead Sea. Genetically, the prehistoric barley is very similar to present-day barley grown in the Southern Levant, supporting the existing hypothesis of barley domestication having occurred in the Upper Jordan Valley.
DURBAN, South Africa (July 18, 2016) -- New data analyses announced at the AIDS 2016 conference today provide additional evidence suggesting that the monthly dapivirine vaginal ring developed by the nonprofit International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) provides significant protection against HIV infection in women when used consistently. The new data were released as two open-label studies of the ring begin and as IPM pursues regulatory approvals for the product for its use in developing countries.
Zika virus can infect numerous cell types in the human placenta and amniotic sac, according to researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley who show in a new paper how the virus travels from a pregnant woman to her fetus. They also identify a drug that may be able to block it.
KINGSTON, On. - Research by post-doctoral fellow Alexander Dececchi challenges long-held hypotheses about how flight first developed in birds. Furthermore, his findings raise the question of why certain species developed wings long before they could fly.
The quality of health care provided to US military veterans in Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities compares favorably with the treatment and services delivered outside the VA, according to a new study. In fact, VA facilities perform better in some cases when it comes to the safety and effectiveness of the treatment provided. Those findings are from a systematic review of 69 studies which weigh up the quality of health care provided in VA facilities compared to other settings. The review¹ was led by Dr.
Washington, DC (July 18, 2016) - Video Games are an ubiquitous part of our lives. You can find people wandering the streets playing Pokémon Go, or spending hours playing massive multiplayer online games. Because they hold such value in our everyday lives, how they reflect the everyday is more important than ever, especially for those who don't have much say in their creation. So how are underrepresented groups, like women, portrayed and utilized in games?
A Drexel University study found that huge disparities exist between the cost of sugary soft drinks and the price of the healthier alternative milk -- differences that could be reduced by taxes like the one just approved in Philadelphia.
Looking at the prices of soda in 1,743 supermarkets across the country, researchers from Drexel's Dornsife School of Public Health found that, on average, milk cost 160 percent more per fluid ounce than soda.
HOUSTON - (July 18, 2016) - Rice University researchers have developed gas biosensors to "see" into soil and allow them to follow the behavior of the microbial communities within.
In a study in the American Chemical Society's journal Environmental Science and Technology, the Rice team described using genetically engineered bacteria that release methyl halide gases to monitor microbial gene expression in soil samples in the lab.
With nearly 3.2 billion people currently at risk of contracting malaria, scientists from the Institut Pasteur, the CNRS and Inserm have experimentally developed a live, genetically attenuated vaccine for Plasmodium, the parasite responsible for the disease. By identifying and deleting one of the parasite's genes, the scientists enabled it to induce an effective, long-lasting immune response in a mouse model. These findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine on July 18, 2016.
An international team of scientists has solved a case of mistaken identity and discovered a new species of venomous snake.
The Ethics of Infection Challenges in Primates
Anne Barnhill, Steven Joffe, and Franklin G. Miller