Scientists have developed a new paper device that analyzes DNA and could rapidly and inexpensively assess disparate conditions including hepatitis B and male infertility, which together affect millions of people around the world. The test, reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could be of particular help diagnosing people in low-income areas.
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The rate of growth in children varies with the season while higher latitude and greater summer daylight exposure makes a significant difference in results for children treated with growth hormone, according to new research from The University of Manchester.
The study of children with growth hormone deficiency from 14 countries measured their rate of growth for a year whilst being treated and mapped their response against the amount of summer daylight exposure typical to the latitude at which they live.
700 million year-old DNA sequences from ancient animals have been unearthed by researchers at the Universities of Leicester and Warwick, shedding new light on our earliest animal ancestors and how they influenced modern species - including the sponge.
The team, led by Dr Eran Tauber (Leicester) and Dr Sascha Ott (Warwick) has discovered highly conserved sequences in non-coding DNA by analysing the genome sequences of 12 different insects - and have identified a set of 322 non-coding DNA regions which have been evolutionarily preserved for at least 180 million years.
Scientists at Oxford University have identified the key groups of bacteria responsible for the majority of meningococcal disease cases in England and Wales over the past 20 years.
Genome analysis of 899 individual bacterial isolates revealed the presence of 20 families, or lineages, of the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis in England and Wales over the two-year period between 2010 and 2012. But only three of these lineages caused 59% of cases. Researchers were able to compare this with previous data to shed light on disease fluctuations over more than 20 years.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Every heart beat and step in our daily lives is dependent on the integrity of muscles and the proteins that keep them strong and free of injury as they contract and relax.
Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System have identified a new way of triggering the instructions normally given by the muscle protein dystrophin, which is found in the muscles used for movement and in cardiac muscle cells.
Proteins usually responsible for the destruction of virally infected or cancerous cells in our immune system have been found to control the release from cells of a critical growth factor governing head and tail development in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster). This may help explain how these perforin-like proteins function in human brain development and neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder.
A large international study shows that breastfeeding is associated with a lower risk of developing an aggressive form of breast cancer called hormone-receptor negative. This new combined evidence shows the risk was reduced by up to 20% in women who breastfed. Published in Annals of Oncology, this breastfeeding meta-analysis is a collaboration between Breastcancer.org; Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Washington University, St. Louis; and the American Cancer Society.
ORLANDO, Fla. Oct. 28, 2015 -- A radiotherapeutic bandage is being evaluated by researchers for efficacy against squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in an animal model. These results could confirm the viability of a new and improved strategy for the radiotherapeutic treatment of skin cancer in the clinic. This work is being presented Oct. 28 at the 2015 American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting and Exposition, the world's largest pharmaceutical sciences meeting, in Orlando, Fla. Oct. 25-29.
PULLMAN, Wash. - New research finds that economically disadvantaged immigrant neighborhoods of non-English speaking Latinos are more likely to be exposed to cancer-causing air toxics than comparable communities of any other racial group in the United States.
The work, to be published in the November edition of Social Science Research, was done by Washington State University assistant professor of sociology Raoul Liévanos, who married maps of toxic air pollution hotspots with demographic clusters across the United States.
(PHILADELPHIA) - To the frustration of busy pregnant women everywhere, estimates of when she'll actually give birth can be off by as much as two to three weeks, early or late. This leaves women with a window of more than a month in which carefully laid plans can be thrown into disarray, with only 5 percent of women delivering exactly on their due date.
A new study of chickens overturns the popular assumption that evolution is only visible over long time scales. By studying individual chickens that were part of a long-term pedigree, the scientists led by Professor Greger Larson at Oxford University's Research Laboratory for Archaeology, found two mutations that had occurred in the mitochondrial genomes of the birds in only 50 years. For a long time scientists have believed that the rate of change in the mitochondrial genome was never faster than about 2% per million years.
Snakebite claims thousands of lives in the world's poorest communities every year but remains a 'forgotten killer,' according to a new editorial published in the British Medical Journal.
University of Melbourne researcher Doctor David Williams, who heads up the Australian Venom Research Unit, has urged governments to take snakebite seriously and says the World Health Organization (WHO) must re-list snake bite as a tropical disease.
Researchers studying banded mongooses in Uganda have discovered that pups born to females that experienced elevated stress hormones during the later stages of pregnancy are much less likely to survive their first month.
Dr Jennifer Sanderson, now a science teacher at Bedminster Down School in Bristol, spent four years observing wild banded mongooses to understand the effects that maternal stress may have on the survival of mongoose pups.
Barcelona -- The intriguing story of the recently-discovered protein, zonulin, advances a chapter today as Italian scientists announce the results of their latest research linking zonulin with two common inflammatory bowel conditions. The researchers have discovered that people with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have higher than normal blood levels of zonulin, suggesting an important role for the protein in the development of these conditions.
Earlier this year, antivenom manufacturer Sanofi-Pasteur announced it was no longer able to produce antivenom for snake bite. However, "the reality is that for the vast majority of Africa's snake bite victims, the loss of Sanofi's antivenom will mean little, if anything at all," argues David Williams, head of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne.
This is because the product simply never reached them in the first place.