Body

New scientific evidence refutes the preconception that testosterone causes aggressive, egocentric, and risky behavior. A study at the Universities of Zurich and Royal Holloway London with more than 120 experimental subjects has shown that the sexual hormone with the poor reputation can encourage fair behaviors if this serves to ensure one's own status.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Dec. 8, 2009 — TGen Clinical Research Services at Scottsdale Healthcare (TCRS) is the world's first clinical trials site for a new drug designed to halt cancer cell division.

NMS-1286937 is produced by Nerviano Medical Sciences of Milan, Italy's largest pharmaceutical research and development facility. NMS-1286937 is designed to stop cancer from spreading by preventing mitosis, the process of cell division.

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is defined as the pathological retrograde movement of gastric contents into the esophagus. Various esophageal motility disturbances which may be important in reflux are observed in patients with GERD. The main esophageal motility disorder in these patients is ineffective esophageal motility (IEM). Increased acid clearance time and IEM have been shown to be strongly associated with isolated proximal reflux. However, there are no data that conclusively link motility disorders with isolated distal reflux (IDR).

In the pipefish, the male cares for the offspring.

Apart from the ones he sucks the life out of.

The discovery of filial cannibalism in the pipefish is now creating a stir in the research world.

The pipefish, which is related to the seahorse, has an unusual way of organising childcare. In this fish species it is the father who takes care of the eggs, which he receives from one or more females and then looks after in a brood pouch on the tail, where a kind of male equivalent of the placenta provides the embryos with oxygen and nutrients.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Dec. 8, 2009 — The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Scottsdale Healthcare are testing a new drug specifically for thymic cancer based on early promising results at Scottsdale Healthcare.

PHA-848125ac is produced by Nerviano Medical Sciences of Milan, Italy's largest pharmaceutical research and development facility. It is designed to stop abnormal cell division and duplication, a common feature of cancer.

BOSTON (December 8, 2009) — The parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (or T. cruzi), which causes Chagas' disease, will go to great lengths to evade death once it has infected human host cells, researchers have discovered. In a study published in the November 17 online issue of Science Signaling, the researchers describe how a protein called parasite-derived neurotrophic factor (PDNF) prolongs the life of the T. cruzi parasite by activating anti-apoptotic (or anti-cell-death) molecules in the host cell.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Females can be too attractive to the opposite sex –– too attractive for their own good –– say biologists at UC Santa Barbara. They found that, among fruit flies, too much male attention directed toward attractive females leads to smaller families and, ultimately, to a reduced rate of population-wide adaptive evolution.

In an article published in the December 8 issue of Public Library of Science Biology, the authors described their experiments on the sex lives of fruit flies.