BOZEMAN, Mont. -- New research indicates that the speed of early forest clearance following human colonisation of the South Island of New Zealand was much faster and more intense than previously thought.
Charcoal recovered from lake-bed sediment cores show that just a few large fires within 200 years of initial colonization destroyed much of the South Island's lowland forest. Grasslands and shrubland replaced the burnt forest and smaller fires prevented forests from returning.
Results from a government-sponsored clinical trial of inactivated 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine in people with asthma indicate that a single dose of vaccine was safe and induced a strong immune response predictive of protection. The findings also suggest that individuals over the age of 60 who have severe asthma may require a larger dose of vaccine.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Face-to-face workplace interactions may be the best way to educate and encourage people to consider becoming organ donors, according to new research from Purdue University.
For the first time ever, scientists have found a difference in the way males and females of the same species of vertebrate see things – and that sexes likely use that difference to select their mates.
Queen's PhD candidate Shai Sabbah, a Vanier Scholar, led a team of researchers who found that male and female cichlid fishes not only see things differently, but detect light in different ways as well.
Increased life expectancy in the United States has not been accompanied by more years of perfect health, reveals new research published in the December issue of the Journal of Gerontology.
Indeed, a 20-year-old today can expect to live one less healthy year over his or her lifespan than a 20-year-old a decade ago, even though life expectancy has grown.
UCSF researchers have identified an existing medication that restores key elements of the immune system that, when out of balance, lead to a steady decline in immunity and health as people age.
Boston, Mass. - In a paper that suggests a new strategy to prevent asthma, scientists at Children's Hospital Boston and their colleagues report that the influenza virus infection in young mice protected the mice as adults against the development of allergic asthma. The same protective effect was achieved by treating young mice with compound isolated from the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a bacterium that colonizes the stomach and is best known for causing ulcers and increasing the risk of gastric cancers.
Researchers at King's College London have discovered that leukaemic stem cells can be reversed to a pre-leukaemic stage by suppressing a protein called beta-catenin found in the blood.
They also found that advanced leukaemic stem cells that had become resistant to treatment could be 're-sensitised' to treatment by suppressing the same protein.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A drug currently approved for osteoporosis treatment has been shown to reduce bone loss in a study of mice with oral cancer, suggesting it could serve as an important supplemental therapy in patients with head and neck cancers that erode bone.
In this Ohio State University study, the drug treatment also was associated with smaller tumors – an unexpected result.
The drug, zoledronic acid, is known by the brand name Zometa. It is designed to inhibit bone resorption, the breaking down of bone caused by the release of a specific kind of cell.
Deleting the receptor, not the protein ghrelin itself, turns up the body's fat-burning thermostat, giving aging mice an exothermic boost toward a svelte physique, researchers reported at the American Society of Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
The protein's receptor, growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHS-R), might make a better target than ghrelin for treating obesity, according to Yuxiang Sun, M.D., Ph.D., of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX.
Long considered a freewheeling loner, the Trypanosoma brucei parasite responsible for African sleeping sickness has revealed a totally unexpected social side, opening a potential chink in the behavioral armor of this and other supposedly solitary human parasites, according to research presented at the American Society for Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
Small details between "in vivo" and "in vitro" studies make for big differences in understanding diabetes and other secretory dysfunctions
Exocytosis, the fundamental process by which cells secrete hormones such as insulin and other useful biological substances, is regulated far differently in life than in laboratory tissue cultures and explanted organs, according to research presented today at the American Society of Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
A study from New Delhi India has revealed high rates of vitamin D deficiency among hip fracture patients, confirming the conclusions of similar international studies which point to vitamin D deficiency as a risk factor for hip fracture.
