When they dive together, sperm whales make patterns of clicks to each other known as "codas". Recent findings suggest that, not only do different codas mean different things, but that whales can also tell which member of their community is speaking based on the sound properties of the codas. Just as we can tell our friends apart by the sounds of their voices and the way they pronounce their words, different sperm whales make the same pattern of clicks, but with different accents.
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Every year, between 3000 and 3500 children are physically abused in Germany. Many more, some 12,000 to 13,000, suffer sexual abuse. These are the figures from official criminal statistics, but in fact a high proportion of unreported cases is assumed for both offenses.
DURHAM, N.C. – Rising salinity in the primary source for desalinated tap water in North Carolina's Outer Banks has been traced to fossil seawater, not – as some have feared – to recent seawater intrusion.
This means the saline groundwater in the Yorktown aquifer can remain a valuable source of desalination for decades to come, without Dare County communities having to switch to the much more costly alternative of desalinating seawater, says Duke University researcher Avner Vengosh.
Men and women infected with HIV reduced the risk of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners by taking oral antiretroviral medicines when their immune systems were relatively healthy, according to findings from a large-scale clinical study sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
CHAPEL HILL, NC — A research study led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has made a major discovery in the effort to halt the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The study results show that early initiation of antiretroviral treatment in people infected with HIV prevents them from transmitting the virus to their partners.
DALLAS – May 12, 2011 – A cancer drug already used to treat adults and school-age children with sickle cell anemia is safe and significantly reduces pain and other complications of the disease in children as young as 9 months, according to a national study involving a UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher.
According to a new study released online today, a majority of Americans, including most African Americans, stand together in support of banning menthol in cigarettes just as other cigarette flavorings have now been banned by the FDA. According to established reports, 83 percent of African American smokers and 24 percent of white smokers smoke menthol cigarettes.
DURHAM, N.C. – Even when treated with hormone therapy to suppress tumor growth, obese men face an elevated risk of their prostate cancer worsening, researchers at Duke University Medical Center have found.
The research, reported at the American Urological Association annual meeting Sunday (May 15, 2011), advances the link between obesity and prostate cancer, which has generated research interest in recent years as the incidence of both conditions remains high and often overlaps.
ATS 2011, DENVER – Researchers have linked a variant in the vitamin D receptor gene (VDR) with the onset of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Caucasian men. The study population consisted of participants in the Veterans Administration Normative Aging Study, a multidisciplinary study of aging that began in 1963.
The VDR study will be presented at the ATS 2011 International Conference.
If pending clinical trials prove successful, a new discovery published in The FASEB Journal could represent a major scientific leap toward human tissue regeneration and engineering. In a research report appearing online, Yale scientists provide evidence to support a major paradigm shift in this specialty area from the idea that cells added to a graft before implantation are the building blocks of tissue, to a new belief that engineered tissue constructs can actually induce or augment the body's own reparative mechanisms, including complex tissue regeneration.
ATS 2011, DENVER – Changes in the ability of lung cells to divide may play a role in initiating or prolonging lung tissue inflammation, a hallmark of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a study conducted by researchers in France.
The results will be presented at the ATS 2011 International Conference in Denver.
ATS 2011, DENVER –A simple, minimally-invasive technique using cells from the interior of the nose could help clinicians detect lung cancer in its earliest – and most treatable – stages, according to a study conducted by researchers in Boston.
The study will be presented at the ATS 2011 International Conference.
ATS 2011, DENVER – Researchers in Baltimore have identified new compounds whichrelax airway muscles and may provide relief from shortness of breath for patients with COPD and asthma. The bitter-tasting compounds are at least as, if not more, effective than currently available agents used to manage these diseases, and may present new options for treatment.
The study will be presented at the ATS 2011 International Conference in Denver.
A team of researchers, led by King's College London and the University of Oxford, have found that a gene linked to type 2 diabetes and cholesterol levels is in fact a 'master regulator' gene, which controls the behaviour of other genes found within fat in the body.
As fat plays a key role in susceptibility to metabolic diseases such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes, this study highlights the regulatory gene as a possible target for future treatments to fight these diseases.
A team of researchers have found that pre-existing malaria prevents secondary infection by another Plasmodium strain, the parasite responsible for malaria, by restricting iron availability in the liver of the host. This discovery will be published this Sunday, May 15, in Nature Medicine and has important implications for the management and prevention of malaria, a condition which affects millions of individuals worldwide.