San Francisco, CA - Whether chemotherapy is given before or after breast-conserving therapy (BCT) does not have an impact on long-term local-regional outcomes, suggesting treatment success is due more to biologic factors than chemotherapy timing, according to a study by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
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With the increasing availability of sophisticated technologies to rapidly diagnose and treat infectious diseases, the duties and the role of clinical laboratory microbiologists, who traditionally perform these tests, could see significant changes in the next few years. That is one of the conclusions of a series of reports published in a special supplement to the September 2011 Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
When diving during their courtship dances, male hummingbirds exceed their usual flight speeds--with birds of at least some hummingbird species reaching their possible maximum speeds during dives. Also, the faster a male hummingbird dives, the louder his fluttering sounds become.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, September 8, 2011 -- For a century, scientists have watched European gypsy moth caterpillars infected with a virus use their last strength to do something that a healthy gypsy moth caterpillar would never do in daylight hours – climb high into a tree and onto a leaf. This behavior in infected caterpillars was so consistent that it inspired the term "Wipfelkrankheit," or "tree top disease," to describe the virus that caused it. For scientists, the question has been how does a virus change its host's behavior?
The way in which plants space out the pores through which they breathe depends on keeping a protein active during stem cell growth, according to John Innes Centre scientists.
Plant pores, called stomata, are essential for life. When they evolved about 400 million years ago, they helped plants conquer the land. Plants absorb carbon dioxide through stomata and release oxygen and water vapour as part of the Earth's carbon and water cycles.
Gypsy moth caterpillars infected with baculovirus forfeit safety and stay in the treetops during the day because a virus gene manipulates their hormones to eat continuously and forego molting, according to entomologists. The caterpillars die where they climb and infect other gypsy moth caterpillars. "Normally, gypsy moth caterpillars are active at night," said Kelli Hoover, professor of entomology, Penn State. "They hide during the day in the soil or bark crevices protected from birds.
A gene responsible for regulating chronic pain, called HCN2, has been identified by scientists at the University of Cambridge.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and EU funded research, published today (09 September) in the journal Science, opens up the possibility of targeting drugs to block the protein produced by the gene in order to combat chronic pain.
Using live but weakened malaria parasites as the basis of a vaccine represents a potentially encouraging anti-malaria strategy, according to results of follow-up animal studies performed after the conclusion of a recent clinical trial in humans. The research was conducted by scientists at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, working in concert with a large team of collaborators. The findings were published online September 8 in Science Express.
An international team of scientists, led by Dr Stephen Barker of Cardiff University, has produced a prediction of what climate records from Greenland might look like over the last 800,000 years.
Drill cores taken from Greenland's vast ice sheets provided the first clue that Earth's climate is capable of very rapid transitions and have led to vigorous scientific investigation into the possible causes of abrupt climate change.
A University of Alberta-led research team has dramatically expanded the palette of fluorescent highlighters that can be used to track the movement of messengers inside of single cells.
University of Leeds researchers have used next-generation DNA sequencing techniques to discover what causes a rare form of inherited eye disorders, including cataracts and glaucoma, in young children.
The findings should make it easier to identify families with this condition who are at risk of conceiving children with severely impaired vision, so they can receive appropriate genetic counselling. The work, co-led with colleagues at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, may also lead to new treatments for adults and children with this form of inherited blindness.
Narcolepsy is a rare disorder characterized by an excessive urge to sleep at inappropriate times and places. Narcoleptics are also often subject to "cataplexy," a sudden muscle weakness that is triggered by strong emotions. Although most cases of narcolepsy are thought to be caused by complex mechanisms, a small percentage of cases are associated with unidentified inherited mutations. Now, a new study published by Cell Press on September 8th in the American Journal of Human Genetics uncovers a mutation that causes narcolepsy in a large family affected by the disorder.
Less than two months after publishing findings about a new gene linked to late-onset Parkinson's disease, the same team of scientists at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute have discovered another gene responsible for the neurodegenerative disease – providing yet another target for potential treatments.
A team of researchers from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Xiao-Liang Wang and Yi-Jian Yao), summarized all the available information on the insect species associated with the Tibetan medicinal fungus Ophiocordyceps sinensis through an extensive literature survey and analyzed their relationships with the fungus. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.
Girls are growing up faster than ever – and not only when it comes to their taste in fashion and music. Their bodies are reaching puberty at an increasingly earlier age, and this trend to rapid maturity continues through women's adult lives. That's bad news, according to Tel Aviv University researchers. Women today are more likely to develop Hyperostosis Frontalis Interna (HFI), a hormonal condition once typically found in post-menopausal women, earlier and more frequently than the female population a century ago.