BOSTON – The concepts now at the center of the health care quality movement, adopted in large part from the airline industry, should be used to standardize the processes and the equipment for in-flight medical emergencies, according to two Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center physicians.
Body
HOUSTON - A protein known as WWP2 appears to play a key role in tumor survival, a research team headed by a scientist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports in an advance online publication of Nature Cell Biology.
Their research suggests that the little-studied protein binds to the tumor-suppressing protein PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homologue deleted on chromosome 10), marking it for destruction by proteasomes, which degrade proteins and recycle their components.
SAN ANTONIO (May 3, 2011) — Since the 1930s scientists have proposed food restriction as a way to extend life in mice. Though feeding a reduced-calorie diet has indeed lengthened the life spans of mice, rats and many other species, new studies with dozens of different mouse strains indicate that food restriction does not work in all cases.
Diet and fat loss
Plants adapt to the local weather and soil conditions in which they grow, and these environmental adaptations are known to evolve over thousands of years as mutations slowly accumulate in plants' genetic code. But a University of Rochester biologist has found that at least some plant adaptations can occur almost instantaneously, not by a change in DNA sequence, but simply by duplication of existing genetic material.
Ramsey's findings are published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Durham, NC – Most of us wouldn't consider slow-moving snails to be high-metabolism creatures. But at one point in the distant past, snail metabolism sped up, says a new study of marine snails in the journal Paleobiology.
"Many of the marine snails we recognize today — such as abalone, conchs, periwinkles and whelks — require more than twice as much energy to survive as their ancestors did," said co-author Seth Finnegan of the California Institute of Technology.
LOS ANGELES, May 3, 2011 – When it comes to healthy snacking and weight management, a new study bolsters the long-held view that not all calories are created equal. According to nutrition researchers at UCLA, choosing to snack on pistachios rather than pretzels as part of a healthy diet not only supports your body mass index (BMI) goals, but can support heart health too.
Rutgers researchers have developed an innovative new treatment that could help minimize nerve damage in spinal cord injuries, promote tissue healing and minimize pain.
After a spinal cord injury there is an increased production of a protein (RhoA) that blocks regeneration of nerve cells that carry signals along the spinal cord and prevents the injured tissue from healing.
New Rochelle, NY, May 3, 2011—Researchers at last month's AACR conference in Orlando demonstrated that they are intensifying their efforts to identify and validate various types of biomarkers that are detectable in readily accessible bodily fluids such as blood and urine, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN).
An ancient, bipedal hominid needs a new nickname. Paranthropus boisei, a 2.3 million to 1.2 million-year-old primate, whom researchers say is an early human cousin, probably didn't crack nuts at all as his common handle suggests.
"Nutcracker Man" most likely ate grass and possibly sedges, said geochemist Thure Cerling, lead author of a study published in the May 2 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A small Johns Hopkins Children's Center study of children and teens with cystic fibrosis (CF) shows that simple exercise, individually tailored to each patient's preference and lifestyle, can help improve lung function and overall fitness.
Frequent lung infections, breathing problems and decreased lung function are the hallmark symptoms of CF, a genetic disorder marked by a disruption in the body's ability to transport chloride in and out of cells that leads to the buildup of thick mucus in the lungs and other organs.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT chemical engineers have designed a new type of drug-delivery nanoparticle that exploits a trait shared by almost all tumors: They are more acidic than healthy tissues.
Such particles could target nearly any type of tumor, and can be designed to carry virtually any type of drug, says Paula Hammond, a member of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the particles in the journal ACS Nano.
Drugs known as thiazolidinediones, or TZDs for short, are widely used in diabetes treatment, but they come with a downside. The drugs have effects on the kidneys that lead to fluid retention as the volume of plasma in the bloodstream expands.
"TZDs usually increase body weight by several kilograms," said George Seki of the University of Tokyo. "However, TZDs sometimes cause massive volume expansion, resulting in heart failure."
HOUSTON (May 2, 2011) – Colorectal cancer screening rates increased for Medicare beneficiaries when coverage was expanded to average-risk individuals, but racial disparities still exist, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
NEW YORK – May 3, 2011 –A study by Columbia Business School Professors Amit Khandelwal, a Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business senior scholar and assistant professor, Finance and Economics, and Shang-Jin Wei, director, Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business, and N.T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy, Finance and Economics, alongside JaeBin Ahn, a Ph.D.
WASHINGTON, DC (May 3, 2011) – A coalition of 30 leading global health organizations that work on vaccines, drugs, and other tools and technologies that save lives today released a list of recommendations for US policymakers and regulators, calling for acceleration of scientific innovations and streamlining the approval of safe and affordable inventions in order to save more lives around the world.