CHICAGO – Social media websites, such as Facebook and MySpace, may reveal information that could identify underage college students who may be at risk for problem drinking, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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Children with thinner parents are three times more likely to be thin than children whose parents are overweight, according to a new study by UCL researchers.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The bacterium that causes tuberculosis has a unique molecule on its outer cell surface that blocks a key part of the body's defense. New research suggests this represents a novel mechanism in the microbe's evolving efforts to remain hidden from the human immune system.
A new study suggests that openly gay men face substantial job discrimination in certain parts of the U.S.
The study, which is the largest of its kind to look at job discrimination against gay men, found that employers in the South and Midwest were much less likely to offer an interview if an applicant's resume indicates that he is openly gay. Overall, the study found that gay applicants were 40 percent less likely to be granted an interview than their heterosexual counterparts.
LA JOLLA, Calif., October 3, 2011 – Glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer. Rather than presenting as a well-defined tumor, glioblastoma will often infiltrate the surrounding brain tissue, making it extremely difficult to treat surgically or with chemotherapy or radiation. Likewise, several mouse models of glioblastoma have proven completely resistant to all treatment attempts.
Researchers in South East Asia have identified a novel mechanism whereby the organism Burkholderia pseudomallei – the cause of melioidosis, a neglected tropical infectious disease – develops resistance to ceftazidime, the standard antibiotic treatment. The change also makes the drug-resistant bacterium difficult to detect.
TORONTO, Ont., October 3, 2011— Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital have discovered a new function for an enzyme that may protect against organ injury and death from anemia.
"Identifying this mechanism may lead to new therapies and approaches to improving outcomes for anemic patients," said Dr. Greg Hare, a researcher at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of the hospital and one of the lead investigators of the study.
PHILADELPHIA -- There's more than one way to mop up after a flu infection. Now, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report in Nature Immunology that a previously unrecognized population of lung immune cells orchestrate the body's repair response following flu infection.
For one species of seabird in the Galápagos, the child abuse "cycle of violence" found in humans plays out in the wild.
The new study of Nazca boobies by Wake Forest University researchers provides the first evidence from the animal world showing those who are abused when they are young often grow up to be abusers. The study appears in the October issue of the ornithology journal, The Auk.
Cells making slippery mucus provide a sticking point for disease-causing bacteria in the gut, according to a study published on October 3 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (www.jem.org).
A foodborne bacterium called Listeria monocytogenes (sometimes found in stinky cheeses) invades the body by binding to a protein called E-cadherin. However, as E-cadherin is normally buried within the junctions between gut cells, and is thus hidden from the cell surface, it's not clear how the bug gains traction.
When a motor nerve is severely damaged, people rarely recover full muscle strength and function. Neuroscientists from Children's Hospital Boston, combining patient data with observations in a mouse model, now show why. It's not that motor nerve fibers don't regrow -- they can -- but they don't grow fast enough. By the time they get to the muscle fibers, they can no longer communicate with them.
The ability to obtain an accurate three-dimensional image of an intact cell is critical for unraveling the mysteries of cellular structure and function. However, for many years, tiny structures buried deep inside cells have been practically invisible to scientists due to a lack of microscopic techniques that achieve adequate resolution at the cell surface and through the entire depth of the cell.
They have been around since the dawn of time and are a model of evolutionary success: viruses. Viruses are extremely adaptable but they have a problem: They cannot reproduce, so they smuggle their genes into suitable host cells. In the case of some viruses, the viral DNA has to enter the cell nucleus to reproduce. This has been known for almost 50 years. We know, for instance, that the adenovirus disassembles its protein shell in the first step. Just how the DNA is exposed and infiltrates the host cell, however, remained unclear despite decades of research.
Neighborhood poverty is likely to make a mother more fearful about letting her children play outdoors, according to a new study by sociologists at Rice University and Stanford University.
"It's no secret that children play outdoors less now than in recent decades, and research shows maternal fear as one reason why," said Rachel Tolbert Kimbro, Rice assistant professor of sociology. She co-authored a paper in the October issue of the journal Family Relations with Ariela Schachter, a Ph.D. student in sociology at Stanford.
Awareness of male breast cancer is low and most men do not even know they are at risk despite an increase in cases, reveals new research from the University of Leeds.
Breast cancer is very much seen as a female disease with around 48,000 diagnoses in women in the UK each year. However around 340 men, equivalent to 30 football teams will be diagnosed with breast cancer each year and around 70 men will die.