ANN ARBOR, Mich.---To watch a magician transform a vase of flowers into a rabbit, it's best to have a front-row seat. Likewise, for chemical transformations in solution, the best view belongs to the molecular spectators closest to the action.
Body
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 1, 2010 -- Applying employment contract theory to symbiosis, a new paper suggests mutually beneficial relationships are maintained by simple self-interest, with partners benefiting from healthy hosts much as employees benefit from robust employers. The new work discounts the theory that host species have evolved to promote symbiosis by promising rewards or threatening punishment.
HIV-infected children receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) may require revaccination to maintain immunity against preventable diseases. There remains no standard or official recommendation on revaccination of children receiving HAART, an effective intervention in reducing morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected children.
Previous research has claimed that the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 is helping restore quaking aspen in risky areas where wolves prowl. But apparently elk hungry for winter food had a different idea. They did not know they were supposed to be responding to a "landscape of fear."
According to a study set to be published this week in Ecology, a journal of the Ecological Society of America, the fear of wolf predation may not be discouraging elk from eating aspen trees after all.
Reston, Va.— A series of studies published in the September Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM) show that molecular imaging plays a critical role in the evaluation and treatment planning for a broad spectrum of cancers, including thyroid cancer and lymphoma.
Portland, Ore. August 31, 2010. "My job was to locate the previously marked study trees. . .and record data on the activity of treated blister rust cankers," wrote Charles "Terry " Shaw. "The work took [me] in rickety four-wheel drive vehicles to remote locations scattered across the white pine forests of northern Idaho." Shaw, now editor of a recently published special issue of Forest Pathology, described how 44 years ago, he and other young forestry students collected data about a destructive forest disease for senior scientists.
Providing body armor to all law enforcement officers in the United States would provide enough benefit to justify the cost, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
Analyzing police officer shootings over a four-year period, the study found that wearing body armor more than tripled the likelihood that an officer would survive a shooting to the torso and estimated that providing such equipment to all officers nationally would save at least eight lives annually. While most police departments already use body armor, many still do not.
PHOENIX, Ariz. — Aug. 31, 2010 — The first study of Ewing's sarcoma that screened hundreds of genes based on how they affect cell growth has identified two potential anti-cancer drug targets, according to a scientific paper by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) published this month in the journal Molecular Cancer.
One of the most difficult aspects of working at the nanoscale is actually seeing the object being worked on. Biological structures like viruses, which are smaller than the wavelength of light, are invisible to standard optical microscopes and difficult to capture in their native form with other imaging techniques.
A multidisciplinary research group at UCLA has now teamed up to not only visualize a virus but to use the results to adapt the virus so that it can deliver medication instead of disease.
A "game-changing" technique using near infrared light enables scientists to look deeper into the guts of cells, potentially opening up a new frontier in the fights against cancer and many other diseases.
University of Central Florida chemists, led by Professor Kevin Belfield, used near infrared light and fluorescent dye to take pictures of cells and tumors deep within tissue. The probes specifically target lysosomes, which act as cells' thermostats and waste processors and which have been linked to a variety of diseases, including types of mental illnesses and cancers.
DARIEN, Ill. – A study in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that teens who slept less than eight hours per weeknight ate higher proportions of fatty foods and snacks than adolescents who slept eight hours or more. The results suggest that short sleep duration may increase obesity risk by causing small changes in eating patterns that cumulatively alter energy balance, especially in girls.
Chemotherapy is the best broad defense against cancer recurrence after surgical resection. However, it is difficult to predict which patients will benefit from which regimen of anticancer drugs, if at all. Building on existing knowledge, a study published in the September edition of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO), analyzed the usefulness of adjuvant chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) based on the histoculture drug response assay (HDRA).
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, and the prognosis is generally poor, even if surgery is successful. Furthermore, the incidence of one type of lung cancer, adenocarcinoma, has been increasing in recent years. A better understanding of the changes in tumor cell biology that result in a more aggressive neoplastic phenotype (characteristic of an abnormal mass of tissue) that have been completely surgically removed may help identify patients at risk for recurrent disease and lead to the development of more effective therapeutic treatments.
Hispanic middle school students may be more likely to smoke, drink or use marijuana than their peers of other races and ethnicities, whereas Asian students seem to have the lowest risk, according to new research in the September issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
