A team of Spanish and Portuguese researchers has carried out molecular genetic analysis of the Y chromosome (transmitted only by males) of the aboriginal population of the Canary Islands to determine their origin and the extent to which they have survived in the current population. The results suggest a North African origin for these paternal lineages which, unlike maternal lineages, have declined to the point of being practically replaced today by European lineages.
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With would-be goblins and ghosts set to drape those huge fake spider webs over doorways and trees for Halloween, scientists in Wyoming are reporting on a long-standing mystery about real spider webs: It is the secret of spider web glue. The findings are an advance toward a new generation of biobased adhesives and glues — "green" glues that replace existing petroleum-based products for a range of uses. A report on the study is in the October issue of ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal.
A research work carried out at the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology of the University of Granada will speed up the identification of more than 2,000 missing persons in Kosovo during former Yugoslavia war, besides developing a new forensic technique based on the study of ribs and pubis, which will be very useful for the identification of persons in armed conflicts. This work, pioneer all over the world, has involved the study of one of the greatest forensic samples never before analysed.
Exposure to a combination of excess stress hormones and chemicals while in the womb could affect a man's fertility in later life, a study suggests.
Researchers looked at the effect of stress hormones – glucocorticoids – combined with a common chemical used in glues, paints and plastics. They found that the combination strikingly increased the likelihood of reproductive birth defects.
These include cryptorchidism, when the testes fail to drop, and hypospadias, when the urinary tract is wrongly aligned. The conditions are the most common birth defects in male babies.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (21 October 2009) — Reversing a downward trend, immunization rates are now at their highest ever and vaccine development worldwide is booming, according to a new assessment released today by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the World Bank.
Those pristine-looking Alpine glaciers now melting as global warming sets in may explain the mysterious increase in persistent organic pollutants in sediment from certain lakes since the 1990s, despite decreased use of those compounds in pesticides, electric equipment, paints and other products. That's the conclusion of a new study, scheduled for the Nov. 1 issue of ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.
A study published today in JAMA (October 21) by Nancy M. Albert and colleagues, exploring aldosterone antagonist usage among US patients hospitalised with heart failure, found that only one-third of patients meeting current US Clinical Practice Guidelines criteria were actually being treated (1).
Amsterdam, October 20, 2009 – Elderly people exhibiting memory disturbances that do not affect their normal, daily life suffer from a condition called "mild cognitive impairment" (MCI). Some MCI patients go on to develop Alzheimer's disease within a few years, whereas other cases remain stable, exhibiting only benign senile forgetfulness. It is crucial to develop simple, blood-based tests enabling early identification of these patients that will progress in order to begin therapy as soon as possible, potentially delaying the onset of dementia.
Computed tomography (CT) scans are better than standard radiography (X-rays) in showing the extent of disease in patients with the H1N1 virus, according to a study to be published online Oct. 21, 2009, in the American Journal of Roentgenology. The study will be published in the December issue of the AJR.
Baltimore, MD – Researchers from The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions have used short tandem repeat (STR) genotyping and p57 immunohistochemistry to distinguish hydatidiform moles. The related report by Murphy et al "Molecular Genotyping of Hydatidiform Moles: Analytic Validation of a Multiplex Short Tandem Repeat (STR) Assay," appears in the November 2009 issue of The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics.
Atlanta, GA – Current research suggests that latent cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection may exacerbate inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The related report by Onyeagocha et al, "Latent cytomegalovirus infection exacerbates experimental colitis," appears in the November 2009 issue of The American Journal of Pathology.
CMV infects between 50% and 80% of adults in the United States. Most people who are infected have no symptoms, and the virus remains hidden but inactive in the body for the rest of the person's life unless activated by suppression of the immune system.
Pacifier, baby bottle or finger sucking may hamper a child's speech development if the habit goes on too long.
In a study that took place in Patagonia, Chile, researchers associated the persistence of these sucking habits with an increased risk of speech disorders in preschool children. The children were more likely to have difficulty producing certain word sounds and to simplify their pronunciation.
The results were published Wednesday, Oct. 21, in BMC Pediatrics, an online, open-access medical journal.
Researchers from the United States and Slovenia have discovered a new, giant Nephila species (golden orb weaver spider) from Africa and Madagascar and have published their findings in the
In an article published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE on October 21, 2009, Dr Thomas Plummer of Queens College at the City University of New York, Dr Richard Potts of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History and colleagues report the oldest archeological evidence of early human activities in a grassland environment, dating to 2 million years ago. The article highlights new research and its implications concerning the environments in which human ancestors evolved.
The Durham and Northumbria Universities study, both based in the UK, suggests that a fear of prejudice made the Irish immigrants steer clear of giving their children Irish Catholic names, a trend also seen in today's society among other immigrant communities elsewhere in the world.
The study, which looked at over 30,000 records, found that the number of Irish Catholic names was dramatically lower among the second generation Irish in all seventeen counties studied, whilst the frequencies of English Protestant names went up.