An estimated 25,000 Americans develop severe fungal infections each year, leading to 10,000 deaths despite the use of anti-fungal drugs. The associated cost to the U.S. health care system has been estimated at $1 billion a year.
Now two Syracuse University scientists have developed new brominated furanones that exhibit powerful anti-fungal properties.
Scientists in Canada are reporting the development of a fast, inexpensive "dipstick" test to identify small amounts of pesticides that may exist in foods and beverages. Their paper-strip test is more practical than conventional pesticide tests, producing results in minutes rather than hours by means of an easy-to-read color-change, they say.
Nearly 10 years after the discovery that birds make a hormone that suppresses reproduction, University of California, Berkeley, neuroscientists have established that humans make it too, opening the door to development of a new class of contraceptive and possible treatments for cancer or other diseases.
The hormone, gonadotropin inhibitory hormone (GnIH), has the opposite effect from gonadotropin releasing hormone, a key reproductive hormone. While GnRH triggers a cascade of hormones that prime the body for sex and procreation, GnIH puts a brake on the cascade.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Much like a tightly wound drum, red blood cells are in perpetual vibration. Those vibrations help the cells maintain their characteristic flattened oval or disc shape, which is critical to their ability to deform as they traverse blood vessels in the body to deliver oxygen to tissues.
Ultrasound-guided cortisone injections may be an effective treatment method for gluteus medius tendinopathy, a common, painful condition caused by an injury to the tendons in the buttocks that typically affects middle-aged to elderly women and young active individuals, according to a study published in the January issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
A large multicenter international trial found that the image quality of multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) scans, used for the noninvasive detection of coronary artery disease, can be significantly affected by patient characteristics such as ethnicity, body mass index (BMI), and heart rate, according to a study in the January issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
Computed tomography (CT), a highly accurate, readily available medical imaging technique, is the overwhelmingly preferred technique of emergency physicians and radiologists for the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE), according to a study in the January issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
Researchers used the placebo effect to successfully treat psoriasis patients with one quarter to one half of their usual dose of a widely used steroid medication, according to an early study published online today in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. Early results in human patients suggest that the new technique could improve treatment for several chronic diseases that involve mental state or the immune system, including asthma, multiple sclerosis and chronic pain.
To identify the hemophilia mutation that affected Queen Victoria and her European relatives, scientific detectives used a cutting-edge "deep sequencing tool." Able to trace rare genetic disease mutations, the tool can turn a single laboratory into a fertile genetic research center.
Now, Tel Aviv University has its own deep sequencer — one of the first in Israel — a Genome Analyzer housed in a new Genome Facility.
Earth has a limited amount of water that recycles itself in what is called the 'water cycle'. Climate change, weather and human life are highly affected by changes in this continuous, interconnected cycle.
Observing and monitoring the key variables governing the global water cycle is essential to our understanding of the Earth's climate, forecasting our weather, predicting floods and droughts, and improving water management for human use. Recent advances in Earth observation (EO) satellite technologies have made it possible to survey several of these variables from space.
Researchers from Children's Hospital Boston and Brigham and Women's Hospital have identified an important genetic cause of a devastating kidney disease that is the second leading cause of kidney failure in children, according to The NephCure Foundation.
Scientists have identified a strain of antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis that thrives in the presence of rifampin, a front-line drug in the treatment of tuberculosis. The bacterium was identified in a patient in China and is described in a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Chongqing Pulmonary Hospital, Lanzhou University and Fudan University. The researchers determined that the bacteria grew poorly in the absence of the antibiotic rifampin and better in the presence of the drug.
More than a hundred years after its discovery, the limbs and vertebrae of a fossil have been pulled off the shelf at the American Museum of Natural History to revise the view of early carnivore lifestyles. Carnivores—currently a diverse group of mostly meat-eating mammals like bears, cats, raccoons, seals, and hyenas—had been considered arboreal in their early evolutionary history. But now that the skeleton of 'Miacis' uintensis has been unpacked from its matrix of sandstone, it is clear that some early carnivores were built to walk on the ground at least part of the time.
A team of researchers working in a high containment laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, have solved a fundamental mystery about smallpox that has puzzled scientists long after the natural disease was eradicated by vaccination.: they know how it kills us. In a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), researchers describe how the virus cripples immune systems by attacking molecules made by our bodies to block viral replication.
Going back for a second dessert after your holiday meal might not be the best strategy for living a long, cancer-free life say researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. That's because they've shown exactly how restricted calorie diets—specifically in the form of restricted glucose—help human cells live longer. This discovery, published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) could help lead to drugs and treatments that slow human aging and prevent cancer.