A study by researchers at New Zealand's University of Otago, Wellington shows that smokers who used a nicotine inhaler were twice as likely to quit smoking as smokers using a placebo inhaler.
The researchers developed and tested a novel nicotine inhaler to see whether it helps smokers to quit smoking. Participants in the study were randomly assigned to receive either a nicotine inhaler plus a nicotine patch, or a placebo inhaler plus a nicotine patch.
Virologists from KU Leuven, Belgium, have shown that an experimental antiviral drug against hepatitis C slows down the development of Zika in mice. The research team was led by Professor Johan Neyts from the Laboratory of Virology and Chemotherapy.
A ground-breaking study by University of Manchester and Liverpool scientists and published in the journal eLife has identified a new link between inflammation and cell division.
Two of the most important processes in the human body, their accurate control is a holy grail for scientists researching the prevention of infection, inflammatory disease and cancer.
People suffering from major depressive disorder may have altered purine metabolism, according to a new study from the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital. Purines are nitrogenous compounds that serve as building blocks for DNA and they also play a role in cellular signalling, among other things.
Compared to their surroundings, cities can be hot -- hot enough to influence the weather. Industrial, domestic, and transportation-related activities constantly release heat, and after a warm day, concrete surfaces radiate stored heat long into the night. These phenomena can be strong enough to drive thunderstorms off course. But it isn't only about the heat cities release; it's also about their spatial layout. By channeling winds and generating turbulence hundreds of meters into the atmosphere, the presence and organization of buildings also affect weather and air quality.
Climate change creates more shrub vegetation in barren, arctic ecosystems. A study at Lund University in Sweden shows that organisms, such as bacteria and fungi, are triggered to break down particularly nutritious dead parts of shrubbery. Meanwhile, the total amount of decomposition is reducing. This could have an inhibiting effect on global warming.
Holidays abroad may hold the key to tackling Scotland's vitamin D deficiency, research suggests.
People who take foreign breaks have higher levels of vitamin D in their blood, which has been linked to wide-ranging health benefits, a study has found.
Farmers also have higher levels of the vitamin -- which is produced in the skin after exposure to sunlight -- according to the findings.Researchers at the University of Edinburgh surveyed the vitamin D levels of around 2000 people in Orkney -- 1 in 10 of the population -- as part of the ORCADES study.
Some forensic anthropologists thought the skull condition called cribra orbitalia (CO) was a thing of the past - but new research from North Carolina State University and the University of the Witwatersrand finds that it not only still exists, but is fairly common in both North America and South Africa.
CO is a condition in which the bone inside the eye sockets becomes porous. It is not known to cause any adverse health effects, but is generally regarded as being caused by iron deficiency anemia.
Visitors to the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics Summer Games (5-21 August and 7-18 September 2016) in Rio de Jan, Brazil will be most at risk of gastrointestinal illness and vector-borne infections. Consequently, travellers are advised to pay attention to standard hygiene measures and protect themselves against mosquito and other insect bites using insect repellent and wearing long-sleeved shirts and trousers.
Cancer cells have an abnormal cell division and survival machinery -- they grow faster than they die. For their permanent development, they produce an excess of growth factors and nutrients and block the body's own safety mechanisms. To do so, cancer cells harbour mutations, which enable a continuous cellular growth. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an activating mutation in the FLT3 tyrosine kinase is the most frequent mutation found in patients.
Retroviral DNAs integrate into host genomes, but their expression is normally repressed by cellular defense mechanisms. As an Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich team now shows, when these measures fail, accumulation of viral proteins may trigger programmed cell death.
Scientists from KU Leuven, Belgium, present a new therapeutic approach that may make it possible for HIV patients to (temporarily) stop their medication. The findings shed a completely new light on the search for a cure for HIV.
Existing antiviral inhibitors can suppress the replication of the HIV virus, but they cannot fully remove it from the human body. As a result, HIV patients have to take inhibitors for the rest of their lives. HIV researchers worldwide are currently developing new methods to eliminate the virus.
A new study, published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology, has found that prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) has a significant association with lower birth weight and gestational length. This was found to be in cases where mothers had taken the drug for two or more trimesters.
Most living organisms adapt their behavior to the rhythm of day and night. Plants are no exception: flowers open in the morning, some tree leaves close during the night. Researchers have been studying the day and night cycle in plants for a long time: Linnaeus observed that flowers in a dark cellar continued to open and close, and Darwin recorded the overnight movement of plant leaves and stalks and called it "sleep". But even to this day, such studies have only been done with small plants grown in pots, and nobody knew whether trees sleep as well.
ANNAPOLIS, MD (May 17, 2016)--The overall health of Chesapeake Bay improved in 2015, according to scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The largest estuary in the nation scored a C (53%) in 2015, one of the three highest scores since 1986. Only 1992 and 2002 scored as high or higher, both years of major sustained droughts.