Body

High levels of "good" (high density lipoprotein) HDL cholesterol seem to cut the risk of bowel cancer, suggests research published online in Gut.

The association is independent of other potentially cancer-inducing markers of inflammation in the blood.

The researchers base their findings on participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study. This is tracking the long term impact of diet on the development of cancer in more than half a million people in 10 European countries, including the UK.

AMES, Iowa – L. Keith Woo is searching for cleaner, greener chemical reactions.

Woo, an Iowa State University professor of chemistry and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, has studied catalysts and the chemical reactions they affect for more than 25 years. And these days, his focus is on green catalysis.

Biologists tend to look at cells in bulk, observing them as a group and taking the average behavior as the norm — the assumption is that genetically identical cells all behave the same way. In a paper to be published in the online Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of March 7, 2011, Sam Sia, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering, presents the results of his four-year tissue-engineering study that show a surprising range of variation in how individual cells behave during formation of a blood vessel.

Researchers at the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and collaborators at the FBI, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and Northern Arizona University have published the first scientific paper based on their investigation into the anthrax attacks of 2001. The case was groundbreaking in its use of genomics and microbiology in a criminal investigation. More than 20 people contracted anthrax from Bacillus anthracis spores mailed through the U.S.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Despite the fears of some, a new study suggests that use of the internet in general does not make people more likely to believe political rumors.

However, one form of internet communication – e-mail – does seem to have troubling consequences for the spread and belief of rumors.

"I think a lot of people will be surprised to learn that using the internet doesn't necessarily promote belief in rumors. Many people seem to think that's self-evident," said R. Kelly Garrett, author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.

Durham, NC —For the vast majority of plants and animals, the 'bigger is better' view of evolution may not be far off the mark, says a new broad-scale study of natural selection. Organisms with bigger bodies or faster growth rates tend to live longer, mate more and produce more offspring, whether they are deer or damselflies, the authors report.

HOUSTON-(March 7, 2011)- Children without previous iron deficiencies or anemia who remained infected with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) had significantly lower levels of iron compared to children who had the infection eradicated, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).