Evidence from the Challenger Deep-– the deepest surveyed point in the world's oceans-– suggests that tiny single-celled creatures called foraminifera living at extreme depths of more than ten kilometres build their homes using material that sinks down from near the ocean surface.
The Challenger Deep is located in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. It lies in the hadal zone beyond the abyssal zone, and plunges down to a water depth of around 11 kilometres.
DURHAM, N.C. — Three years after the U.S. blood banking industry issued recommendations that discourage transfusing plasma from female donors because of a potential antibody reaction, Duke University Medical Center researchers discovered that female plasma actually may have advantages.
A key protein that causes the blood to clot is produced by blood vessels in the lungs and not just the liver, according to new research published today in the journal PLoS One, led by scientists at Imperial College London.
The findings may ultimately help scientists to develop better treatments for conditions where the blood's ability to clot is impaired, including deep vein thrombosis, where dangerous blood clots form inside the body, and haemophilia A, where the blood cannot clot sufficiently well.
Hamilton, Ont. (Feb. 5, 2010) — An intense three-week course of radiation therapy is just as effective as the standard five-week regimen for women with early-stage breast cancer.
Dr. Tim Whelan, a professor of oncology of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University, led a team of researchers to find that women who received the accelerated therapy have a low risk of the breast cancer for as long as 12 years after treatment.
The results of an innovative study to understand what factors may influence who contracts tuberculosis (TB)/HIV co-infection in San Diego show a significant shift in the ethnic makeup of the disease, with the majority of cases now coming from the Hispanic community.
The results of this paper, "HIV and Tuberculosis Co-infection Among Hispanics in Southern California: An Increasing Health Disparity," will appear in the February edition of the American Journal of Public Health.
ST. PAUL, Minn. – People with migraine may be at an increased risk of heart attack and other risk factors for heart disease, according to a study published in the February 10, 2010, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
February 10, 2010 – (BRONX, NY) – Migraine sufferers are twice as likely to have heart attacks as people without migraine, according to a new study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The study, published in the February 10 online issue of Neurology, found that migraine sufferers also face increased risk for stroke and were more likely to have key risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
RICHMOND, Va. (Feb. 10, 2010) – Electronic cigarettes should be evaluated, regulated, labeled and packaged in a manner consistent with cartridge content and product effect – even if that effect is a total failure to deliver nicotine as demonstrated in a study supported by the National Cancer Institute and led by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher.
The research was published in the Online First issue of the journal Tobacco Control. The article will appear in the February print issue of the journal.
A team of scientists, led by a virologist from the University of California, San Diego's Center for AID Research (CFAR), has discovered the origin of strains of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among men who have sex with men. The study, which may be important in developing prevention strategies for HIV, will appear in Science Translational Medicine on February 10, 2010.
One quarter of Ontario hospitals surveyed in a Queen's University-led study do not have an influenza pandemic plan and few plans that do exist have been tested. In addition, key players were not involved in developing the plans, and funding for pandemic preparedness was inadequate.
Professor Eske Willerslev and his PhD student Morten Rasmussen, from Centre of Excellence in GeoGenetics, The Natural History Museum at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, led the international team of scientists responsible for the findings.
WALNUT CREEK, CA—As the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) works toward developing sustainable sources of clean renewable energy, perennial grasses have emerged as major candidates for the commercial production of cellulosic biofuels from feedstocks. However, little is known about the specific biological traits of the grasses that might contribute to their usefulness for energy production, in part because such grasses typically have long lifecycles and possess large, complex genomes, making them difficult to study.
DURHAM, N.C. – Any way you look at it -- by sheer weight, species diversity or population -- the hard-shelled, joint-legged creepy crawlies called arthropods dominate planet Earth. Because of their success and importance, scientists have been trying for decades to figure out the family relationships that link lobsters to millipedes and cockroaches to tarantulas and find which might have come first.
A few grass species provide the bulk of our food supply and new grass crops are being domesticated for sustainable energy and feedstock production. However there are significant barriers limiting crop improvement, such as a lack of knowledge of gene function and their large and complex genomes.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 11, 2010—U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their colleagues at the Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute today announced that they have completed sequencing the genome of a kind of wild grass that will enable researchers to shed light on the genetics behind hardier varieties of wheat and improved varieties of biofuel crops. The research is published today in the journal Nature.