In this week's PLoS Medicine, Jonathan Kimmelman from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and Alex London from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA argue that ethical reviewers and decision-makers pay insufficient attention to threats to validity in pre-clinical studies and consult too narrow a set of evidence.
Body
Lowering cholesterol could help the body's immune system fight viral infections, researchers have found.
Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have shown a direct link between the workings of the immune system and cholesterol levels.
Researchers found that when the body succumbs to a viral infection a hormone in the immune system sends signals to blood cells, causing cholesterol levels to be lowered.
In the thick of whale season, researchers from Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shed new light on the wintering grounds of the humpback whale. The primary breeding ground for the North Pacific was always thought to be the main Hawaiian Islands (MHI). However, a new study has shown that these grounds extend all the way throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago and into the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), also known as Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM).
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Passive news reporting that doesn't attempt to resolve factual disputes in politics may have detrimental effects on readers, new research suggests.
The study found that people are more likely to doubt their own ability to determine the truth in politics after reading an article that simply lists competing claims without offering any idea of which side is right.
Why should we care about butterflies and moths? Thanks to butterflies, bees, birds, and other animal pollinators, the world's flowering plants are able to reproduce and bear fruit. That very basic capability is at the root of many of the foods we eat. And, not least, pollination adds to the beauty we see around us.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – It took nearly a decade before University of Maryland researchers were allowed to talk about their work identifying the anthrax strain used in the 2001 deadly letter attacks. But now, they and the other key members of the high-powered science team have published the first account of the pioneering work, which launched the new field of "microbial forensics" and gave bioterrorism investigators a way to "fingerprint" bacteria.
Participants in the first hospital-initiated, low-intensity collaborative care program to treat depression in heart patients showed significant improvements in their depression, anxiety and emotional quality of life after 6 and 12 weeks, researchers report in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.
Depression is a common condition in cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients which can result in poor prognosis and quality of life.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE from the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTOMarch 8, 2011
TORONTO, ON – Communication technologies that help people stay connected to the workplace are often seen as solutions to balancing work and family life. A new study, however, suggests there may be a "dark side" to the use of these technologies for workers' health – and these effects seem to differ for women and men.
Bethesda, Md. (Mar. 8, 2011) -- What do you have when you line up a martial artist, acrobatic gymnast, police officer, firefighter, NASCAR driver, and NFL running back? "Watson," the IBM super-computer that recently routed humanity's best on Jeopardy might have guessed the answer was "the Village People," to which host Alex Trebek could have replied, "Sorry. The answer we were looking for is 'Batman'." At least that is the correct answer for physiologist E. Paul Zehr.
COLUMBIA, Mo. ADAM-12 is not only the name of a 1970's television police drama – it's also the gene that University of Missouri researchers believe could be an important element in the fight against cancer, arthritis, and cardiac hypertrophy, or thickening of the heart's walls.
NEW YORK CITY (March 7, 2011)— Paul Tesar, PhD, of Case Western Reserve University, a member of the inaugural class of The New York Stem Cell Foundation – Robertson Investigators, published his research on the ability to isolate epiblast stem cells from preimplantation mouse embryos. This research enhances our understanding of the many forms of pluriportent stem cells that scientists use for researching so many debilitating diseases.
WASHINGTON, DC, March 3, 2011 — Communication technologies that help people stay connected to the workplace are often seen as solutions to balancing work and family life. However, a new study in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior suggests there may be a "dark side" to the use of these technologies for workers' health—and these effects seem to differ for women and men.
MIDWAY ATOLL — The oldest known U.S. wild bird – a coyly conservative 60 -- is a new mother.
The bird, a Laysan albatross named Wisdom, was spotted a few weeks ago with a chick by John Klavitter, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and the deputy manager of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 8 2011) -- Researchers at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are making major strides toward understanding the life cycle of flaviviruses, which include some of the most virulent human pathogens: yellow fever virus, Dengue virus, and the West Nile Virus, among others.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 8 2011) -- Viruses can penetrate every part of the body, making them potentially good tools for gene therapy or drug delivery. But with our immune system primed to seek and destroy these foreign invaders, delivering therapies with viruses is currently inefficient and can pose a significant danger to patients.
Now scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have engineered a virus with potential to solve this problem. They describe the new virus today at the 55th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting in Baltimore, MD.