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UPTON, NY — A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Harvard University, and the Indian Institute of Science has made a major step in understanding how molecules locate the genetic information in DNA that is necessary to carry out important biological processes.
Grand Rapids, Mich. (Dec. 3, 2009) – Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) researchers have determined precisely how the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) works at the molecular level to help plants respond to environmental stresses such as drought and cold. Their findings, published in the journal Nature, could help engineer crops that thrive in harsh environments around the world and combat global food shortages. The findings could also have implications for stress disorders in humans.
Coral reef fish can undergo a personality change in warmer water, according to an intriguing new study suggesting that climate change may make some species more aggressive.
Experiments with two species of young damselfish on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have shown for the first time that some reef fish are either consistently timid, or consistently bold, and that these individual differences are even more marked as water temperatures rise.
Surgeons and other healthcare professionals specialising in solid organ transplants have been issued with expert advice to guide them through the complex clinical issues posed by the global H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic.
The paper, published online by the American Journal of Transplantation, also urges them to stay alert to the significant concerns that swine flu could combine with seasonal flu, and possibly even bird flu (H5N1), to develop into a strain with unpredictable virulence.
ST. LOUIS – The outlook for individuals with type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease is not as grim as originally believed, according to new Saint Louis University research published in Circulation, the Journal of the American Heart Association.
December 3 2009 (Oakland, Calif.) – Breastfeeding a child may lower a woman’s risk of developing Metabolic Syndrome, a condition linked to heart disease and diabetes in women, according to a Kaiser Permanente study that was published today online ahead of print and will appear in the February issue of Diabetes, a journal of the American Diabetes Association (link: http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/db09-1197).
PHILADELPHIA — Effective prevention of smoking among teenagers, particularly black teenagers, is narrowing the disparity in lung cancer rates between blacks and whites, according to a report published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. The December issue has a special focus on tobacco.
PHILADELPHIA – Despite popular belief and some marketing claims, researchers have found that Chinese "herbal" cigarettes that combine medicinal herbs with tobacco are just as addictive and no safer than regular cigarettes.
PHILADELPHIA – Children exposed to secondhand cigarette smoke have an increased risk of developing lung cancer in adulthood, even if they never smoked.
Results of this study are published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, as part of a special tobacco focus in the December issue.
PHILADELPHIA – New study results strengthen the evidence that people who smoke cigarettes over a long period of time have an increased risk for developing colorectal cancer, even after adjusting for other risk factors.
"This provides one more reason not to smoke, or to quit as soon as possible," said senior author Michael J. Thun, M.D., M.S., vice president emeritus, epidemiology and surveillance research at the American Cancer Society. "Colorectal cancer should be added to the list of cancers caused by smoking."
PHILADELPHIA – Cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption before head and neck cancer diagnosis strongly predicts the patient's future risk of death, according to published studies. Now, results of a new study show a similar effect among those who continued these habits after cancer diagnosis.
PHILADELPHIA – People who smoke their first cigarette within minutes after waking up have much higher levels of cotinine, a by-product of nicotine when processed by the body, than those who wait to smoke, regardless of the number of cigarettes smoked.
PHILADELPHIA – Exposure to secondhand smoke for a prolonged period of time and in high quantity may increase the risk of breast cancer, even in women who never smoked cigarettes themselves.
PHILADELPHIA – Assurance of a cancer-free status did not prompt people participating in a long-term computerized tomography (CT) lung-cancer screening program to pick up their cigarettes again, researchers wrote in a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. The December issue contains a special focus on tobacco.