The loss of wetlands in the prairie pothole region of central North America due to a warmer and drier climate will negatively affect millions of waterfowl that depend on the region for food, shelter and raising young, according to research published today in the journal BioScience.
The new research shows that the region appears to be much more sensitive to climate warming and drying than previously thought.
New research on Type 2 diabetes by Trinity College Dublin researchers could benefit young adults (aged 18-25 years) with the condition. The research led by Professor John Nolan of Trinity College Dublin and St James's Hospital, Dublin, has just been published online in the leading international journal, Diabetes Care.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA— This month's Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, includes results from a large Kaiser Permanente study of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) treatments, the first global report on retinal vein occlusion, and new recommendations to help elders with vision loss avoid falls.
Kaiser Study Compares Effectiveness of Two AMD Drugs
COLUMBIA, Mo. – In 2009, soybeans represented an almost $30 billion industry in the U.S. alone, making soybeans the second-most profitable crop next to corn. Worldwide, soybeans have been used in human foods and livestock feed for centuries and have been a key component in industrial products, such as plastics and soy biodiesel, an environmentally friendly fuel.
Tampa, Fla. (Feb. 01, 2010) – A research team from the National Taiwan University Hospital has evaluated the efficiency of transplanted hepatocyte (liver) cells in animal models severely damaged by two kinds of chemical toxicity to see whether and how transplanted hepatocytes were able to efficiently repopulate the toxin-induced, severely damaged livers.
NEW YORK (February 1, 2010) -- NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital is the only medical center in the United States to offer minimally invasive liver donation for pediatric transplantation. Surgeons use a laparoscopic technique to remove a section of liver from a living donor for implantation in a pediatric patient -- typically a parent donating to their child. The innovative approach promises dramatically improved recovery for the donor.
CINCINNATI—Peptides that target blood vessels in fat and cause them to go into programmed cell death (termed apoptosis) could become a model for future weight-loss therapies, say University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers.
A research team led by Randy Seeley, PhD, of UC's Metabolic Diseases Institute, has found that obese animal models treated with proapoptotic peptide experienced decreased food intake and significant fat loss.
The study was published online ahead of print Jan. 26, 2010, in Diabetes, the official journal of the American Diabetes Association.
Not all plantations need to be the biological deserts that have come to characterize large-scale, industrial plantations. According to scientists in a paper out in February's issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, well-planned plantations can actually alleviate some of the social, economic and ecological burden currently being placed on natural forests.
In addition, these biologically diverse, multi-purposed plantations can mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon, off-setting deforestation and reducing ecological strain on natural forests.
Reston, Va.— Studies have shown positron emission tomography's (PET) value as a minimally invasive, painless and safe diagnostic tool for many pediatric conditions. In a study published in the February issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM), researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) gathered data that may provide clinicians with new formulas—specific to pediatrics—to calculate the amount of radiotracer that should be injected based on the patient's weight.
Heidelberg, 31 January 2010 – The last ancestor we shared with worms, which roamed the seas around 600 million years ago, may already have had a sophisticated brain that released hormones into the blood and was connected to various sensory organs. The evidence comes not from a newly found fossil but from the study of microRNAs – small RNA molecules that regulate gene expression – in animals alive today.
If a team of American scientists are right, bone marrow transplants may become safer and more available to people in need of donations.
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Scientists have long known that high blood sugar levels from diabetes damage blood vessels in the eye, but they didn't know why or how. Now a Michigan State University scientist has discovered the process that causes retinal cells to die, which could lead to new treatments that halt the damage.
Diabetic retinopathy is a common side effect of diabetes and the leading cause of blindness in young adults in the United States. It's estimated that between 40 percent and 45 percent of people diagnosed with diabetes have some degree of diabetic retinopathy.
Scientists at Georgia Tech and the Ovarian Cancer Institute have further developed a potential new treatment against cancer that uses magnetic nanoparticles to attach to cancer cells, removing them from the body. The treatment, tested in mice in 2008, has now been tested using samples from human cancer patients. The results appear online in the journal Nanomedicine.
Investment funds owned by national governments – known as "sovereign wealth funds" – now wield trillions of dollars in investment power globally, raising concerns that the funds could be used for political purposes and leading to calls for limits on where these funds can invest. But new research from North Carolina State University indicates that such concerns may not be warranted, and that one of the largest sovereign wealth funds has been driven by profit, rather than political considerations.