This week PLoS Medicine publishes the third in a four-part series of policy papers examining the ways in which global health institutions and arrangements are changing and evolving.
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A new study from the University of Leicester has found that most men in Europe descend from the first farmers who migrated from the Near East 10,000 years ago. The findings are published January 19 in the open-access journal PLoS Biology.
Yasuní National Park, located in the core of the Ecuadorian Amazon, shatters a range of world biodiversity records—from trees to amphibians to insects to mammals and an array of other plant and animal groups—new research from U.S. and Ecuadorian scientists shows.
The analysis, published in the journal PLoS ONE, also notes that the greatest threat to this diversity is proposed oil development projects—leased or proposed oil concessions cover the northern half of Yasuní, and four oil access roads have already been built into the park or its buffer zone.
Irvine, Calif., Jan. 19, 2010 – The parasite that causes malignant malaria in humans has been detected in gorillas, along with two new species of malaria parasites, reports a study co-authored by UC Irvine biologist Francisco Ayala.
New research suggests that the most common form of malignant brain cancer in adults, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is probably not a single disease but a set of diseases, each with a distinct underlying molecular pathology. The study, published by Cell Press in the January issue of the journal Cancer Cell, provides a solid framework for investigation of future targeted therapies that may improve the near uniformly fatal prognosis of this devastating cancer.
Repeated exposure to tobacco smoke makes lung cancer much worse, and one reason is that it steps up inflammation in the lung. Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have found that mice with early lung cancer lesions that were repeatedly exposed to tobacco smoke developed larger tumors – and developed tumors more quickly – than unexposed animals. The key contributing factor was lung tissue inflammation.
Scientists trying to understand how cancer cells invade healthy tissue have used the fruit fly's metamorphosis from maggot to flying insect as a guide to identify a key molecular signal that may be involved in both processes.
BOSTON—Even when their tumors are shrinking in response to therapy, some non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients have a scattering of cancer cells that are undeterred by the drug, causing the tumor to resume its growth, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center scientists report in the January issue of Cancer Cell. The findings suggest that identifying such patients and treating them with a combination of drugs from the very start of therapy can produce longer remissions.
BOSTON (January 19, 2010, 12:00 noon EST) — A study by researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine, the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts, and Tufts Medical Center improves our current understanding of the origins of breast cancer. The researchers propose a new model for breast cell differentiation that identifies two populations of progenitor cells, one of which appears to be the cell of origin for luminal-like breast cancer, the most common form of the disease.
January 19, 2010 -- Prenatal exposure to ambient levels of flame retardant compounds called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) is associated with adverse neurodevelopmental effects in young children, according to researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
The study is online in Environmental Health Perspectives and will be released in the April 2010 print issue.
Spanish and French researchers have defined the age, location, size and geochemistry of the volcanoes of Gran Canaria during the Holocene, 11,000 years ago, in order to draw up a map of volcanic hazards for the island. The research shows that the area of greatest volcanic activity is one of the most heavily populated areas in the north east of the island, which has suffered 24 eruptions over the period studied.
FAIRFAX, Va.—Given the current controversy over vertebroplasty—a minimally invasive treatment performed by interventional radiologists in individuals with painful osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures that fail to respond to conventional medical therapy—what's a patient to do? Trust your medical team to decide if you are an appropriate candidate for vertebroplasty and trust the experience of hundreds of thousands of other patients who have undergone the spine treatment successfully and received life-improving effects, says the Society of Interventional Radiology.
The sediments of the Kimmeridge Clay Formation were deposited during the Late Jurassic between around 160 and 145 million years ago, the age of the reptiles. They are the main oil source rock in the North Sea. However, within this unit beds rich in organic matter are interspersed with organic-poor sediments. New evidence demonstrates that organic-poor sediments were probably caused by post-depositional loss of organic matter during so-called 'burn-down' events.
When we believe two events are connected—such as drinking caffeine and getting a burst of energy—we tend to compress time, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
American culture venerates choice, but choice may not be the key to happiness and health, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
"Americans live in a political, social, and historical context that advances personal freedom, choice, and self-determination above all else," write authors Hazel Rose Markus (Stanford University) and Barry Schwartz (Swarthmore College). "Contemporary psychology has proliferated this emphasis on choice and self-determination as the key to healthy psychological functioning."