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NAIROBI, Kenya, November 2, 2009 – Marking its tenth anniversary year, the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) today unveiled a new strategy that sets the stage for an aggressive push targeting the long-term goal of eliminating and eradicating malaria. Malaria is one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases, killing nearly 900,000 people a year, most of them children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Why do so many animal species — including fish, birds and insects — display such rich diversity in coloration and other traits? In new research, Gregory Grether, UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Christopher Anderson, who recently earned his doctorate in Grether's laboratory, offer an answer.
DALLAS – Oct. 30, 2009 – Like savvy Wall Street money managers, bacteria hedge their bets to increase their chances of survival in uncertain times, strategically investing their biological resources to weather unpredictable environments.
If you keep twisting a straight elastic string, at some moment it starts kinking in a wild way. Something similar occurs when one increases the electrical current flowing in a magnetized plasma doughnut: it takes on a wild helical shape, which spoils its performance. This phenomenon concerns scientists exploring fusion power, who use powerful magnetic fields to confine plasma during their experiments.
ROSEMONT, Ill – When fractured bones fail to heal, a serious complication referred to as "nonunion" can develop. This occurs when the process of bone healing is interrupted or stalled. According to a new study published in the November 2009 issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), certain cases involving nonunions respond very well to shock-wave therapy. Researchers say this non-invasive treatment is equally effective as surgery when it comes to healing the bone.
CHICAGO (November 2, 2009)––Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers report that radiation therapy alone can reduce prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels below detectable amounts in prostate cancer patients. Patients who have an undetectable level of PSA after therapy have less chance of biochemical failure than other patients and a good chance of being cured. The data was presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology.
New insights into the biology of the platypus and echidna have been published, providing a collection of unique research data about the world's only monotremes.
University of Adelaide geneticist Dr Frank Grützner and his team have authored five of 28 papers which appear in two special issues of the Australian Journal of Zoology and Reproduction Fertility and Development.
The articles shed new light on the extraordinary complex platypus sex chromosome system.
One might say plants don't have a leg to stand on, but that may actually give them a leg up on the animal kingdom when it comes to environmental adaptability.
"Plants are rooted in the ground. They can't move away when it gets too hot, too dry or too wet," said Dr. Lee Tarpley, Texas AgriLife Research plant physiologist in Beaumont. "If we can understand how plants respond to the environment, that would give us some clues on how to breed plants more capable of adapting to extremes."
Short-term hormone therapy given prior to and during radiation treatment to medium-risk prostate cancer patients increases their chance of living longer, compared to those who receive radiation alone, however there is no significant benefit for low-risk patients, according to the largest randomized study of its kind presented at the plenary session November 2, 2009, at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
LEHI, UT- A new study published in Nutrition Journal indicates that XanGo® Juice, a market-leading, premium mangosteen beverage, has lowered levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) in overweight and obese people in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled human trial. CRP is a marker used to measure inflammation levels, and a reduction in CRP may indicate a corresponding reduction in the risk of heart disease and diabetes. This study also suggests that XanGo Juice has healthful properties for weight management.
After mastectomy, breast cancer patients who receive radiation treatment to the lymph nodes located behind the breast bone do not live longer than those who do not receive radiation to this hard-to-treat area, according to a randomized 10-year study presented at the plenary session, November 2, 2009, at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
High-risk melanoma patients who are treated with radiation after surgery have a significantly lower risk of their cancer returning to the lymph nodes (19 percent), compared to those patients who do not have radiation therapy (31 percent), according to the first randomized study of its kind presented at the plenary session, November 2, 2009, at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
Awareness of COPD—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—continues to grow in the United States, according to national survey results released today by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health.
Sixty-eight percent of adults are now aware of COPD, a disease that affects 1 in 5 people over age 45, compared with 64 percent last year, and 49 percent in a 2004 survey. Among a high risk group, those who are currently smoking, awareness rose to 74 percent compared to 69 percent a year ago.
November 2, 2009 (Downey, Calif.) – Aggressively managing patients at risk for osteoporosis could reduce the hip fracture rate in the United States by 25 percent, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the November issue of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The first step must be a more active role by orthopedic surgeons in osteoporosis disease management, researchers say.