Why do leopards have rosette shaped markings but tigers have stripes? Rudyard Kipling suggested that it was because the leopard moved to an environment "full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-blatchy shadows" but is there any truth in this just-so story?
A child's likelihood of developing food allergies can be traced back to the season during which s/he completes their first three months of life in the womb, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
The Finnish researchers base their findings on just under 6000 children, all of whom were born between 2001 and 2006 and lived in one area of Finland.
Low testosterone levels seem to be linked to a heightened risk of premature death from heart disease and all causes, suggests research published online in Heart.
The finding refutes received wisdom that the hormone is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
The researchers base their findings on 930 men, all of whom had coronary artery heart disease, and had been referred to a specialist heart centre between 2000 and 2002. Their heart health was then tracked for around 7 years.
WASHINGTON, D.C., (Oct. 19, 2010) -- In remote, rural areas of southwestern China, villagers cook and dry their clothes by burning pieces of coal they pick up off the ground. This fuel releases a toxin that may be poisoning millions of people, according to an ongoing investigation by chemists at the University at Buffalo in New York. The researchers are presenting their work today at the AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition, which takes place this week at the Albuquerque Convention Center in New Mexico.
How parasites use different life-history strategies to beat our immune systems may also provide insight into the control of diseases, such as elephantiasis and river blindness, which afflict some of the world's poorest communities in tropical South-East Asia, Africa and Central America. The research is due to be published next week in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology.
Intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) accounts for 10% and 20% of strokes in high and low-to-middle income countries respectively, but ICH incidence and case fatality do not seem to be declining. In a Health in Action paper published in this week's PLoS Medicine magazine, Colin Josephson, Rustam Al-Shahi Salman, and colleagues (from the University of Edinburgh) discuss the effectiveness of treatments for intracerebral haemorrhage.
TORONTO, October 19, 2010 – Pharmaceutical promotion may cause doctors to prescribe more expensively, less appropriately and more often, according to a new study co-authored by York University professor Joel Lexchin.
The findings, published today in the journal, PLoS Medicine, offer a broad look at the relationship between doctors' prescribing habits and their exposure to information provided by drug companies. Researchers analyzed 58 separate studies of this phenomenon from Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia, dating from the 1960s.
Princeton engineers have developed a sensor that may revolutionize how drugs and medical devices are tested for contamination, and in the process also help ensure the survival of two species of threatened animals.
To be fair, some of the credit goes to an African frog.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Millions worldwide die each year because they can't afford a pacemaker. Meanwhile heart patients in the United States say they'd be willing to donate theirs after death to someone in need.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 – When the military needs to send the key to encrypted data across the world, it can't necessarily rely on today's communication lines, where the message could be covertly intercepted. But physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta are developing a new, more secure way to send such information across far distances, using existing cables and the laws of quantum mechanics.
Proton beam therapy is safe and effective and may be superior to other conventional treatments for Stage I inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, according to a study in the October issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, the official journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
URBANA – University of Illinois scientists think they have solved an interesting problem: how to get protein-deficient Indian schoolchildren to consume soy, an inexpensive and complete vegetable protein. What's more, they've joined forces with an Indian foundation that can get the high-protein soy snack they've developed into the hands of 1.2 million hungry kids who need it.
"Although the country has decidedly vegetarian tastes, the Indian people just don't care for soy," said Soo-Yeun Lee, a U of I associate professor of food science and human nutrition.
UPTON, NY — Many studies have suggested that genetic differences make some individuals more susceptible to the addictive effects of alcohol and other drugs. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory provide the first experimental evidence to directly support this idea in a study in mice reported in the October 19, 2010, issue of Alcoholism Clinical Experimental Research.
Follow-up of about 11 years of participants in the Women's Health Initiative finds that among postmenopausal women, use of estrogen plus progestin is associated with an increased incidence of breast cancers that are more advanced, and with a higher risk of deaths attributable to breast cancer, according to a study in the October 20 issue of JAMA.
