Body

A team of international molecular scientists, led by a Monash University researcher has discovered a new, fast mechanism by which cells communicate change – for example their location during spreading of a cancer in the human body – to adjacent cells.

The discovery sheds new light on cell behaviour and could lead to the development on new drugs to combat diseases such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer's disease.

The evolution of altruism has long puzzled researchers and has mainly been explained previously from ultimate perspectives—I will help you now because I expect there to be some long-term benefit to me. However, a new study by researchers at the Primate Research Institute (PRI) and the Wildlife Research Center (WRC) of Kyoto University shows that chimpanzees altruistically help conspecifics, even in the absence of direct personal gain or immediate reciprocation, although the chimpanzees were much more likely to help each other upon request than voluntarily.

Washington, DC – Survivors and patients with cancers and heart disease, along with patient advocate organizations and physicians, today urged policymakers to enhance early diagnosis of deadly diseases by preserving access to advanced imaging, such as MRI and CT scans, in final health care reform legislation.

Researchers utilizing computed tomography (CT) scans have found that patients with severe cases of the H1N1 virus are at risk for developing severe complications, including pulmonary emboli (PE), according to a study to be published online Oct. 14, 2009, in the American Journal of Roentgenology. The study will be published in the December issue of the AJR.

A pulmonary embolism occurs when one or more arteries in the lungs become blocked. The condition can be life-threatening. However, if treated aggressively, anti-coagulants (blood thinners) can reduce the risk of death.

OTTAWA - A recent study led by Dr. Khaled El Emam, the Canada Research Chair in Electronic Health Information at the CHEO Research Institute, found that the information in hospital prescription records can quite easily re-identify patients.

Imagine the gruesome sound of bones snapping as a thirsty, 30-ton dinosaur tramples a heap of fresh carcasses on his way to a rapidly shrinking lake.

That's the scene revealed by a painstaking analysis of thousands of bones unearthed near Moab, Utah by geologists from Brigham Young University.

So far the researchers have identified 67 individual dinosaurs representing 8 species – and they have only scratched the surface of this diverse quarry. Mysteriously, nearly all of the 4,200 bones recovered so far are fractured, as reported in the scientific journal Palaeo.

After 15 years of research in the waters of the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and an international coalition of organizations have unveiled the largest genetic study of humpback whale populations ever conducted in the Southern Hemisphere.

Later diagnosis, less first-course treatment and race are the main reasons for the difference in mortality between rich and poor breast cancer patients. A new study, published in the open access journal BMC Cancer, suggests that targeted interventions to increase breast cancer screening and treatment coverage in worse-off patients could reduce much of the socioeconomic disparity in survival.

The rate of undesirable events in teaching hospitals increases at the beginning of the academic year, regardless of trainees' level of clinical experience, concludes new research from Australia published on bmj.com today.

An international group of researchers from the University of Leicester (UK), and the Geological Institute, Beijing (China) have identified a new type of flying reptile – providing the first clear evidence of an unusual and controversial type of evolution.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Cowpea, a protein-rich legume crop, is immensely important in many parts of the world, particularly drought-prone regions of Africa and Asia, where it plays a central role in the diet and economy of hundreds of millions of people.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Animals shelter officials housing lost pets that had been implanted with a microchip were able to find the owners in almost three out of four cases in a recently published national study.

According to the research, the return-to-owner rate for cats was 20 times higher and for dogs 2 ½ times higher for microchipped pets than were the rates of return for all stray cats and dogs that had entered the shelters.

Sometimes people can gain influence by expressing uncertainty, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

"These days, you can easily find recommendations from experts or even other consumers about any product or service you might be interested in," write authors Uma R. Karmarkar and Zakary L. Tormala (Stanford University). "But what are the factors that can make these people's recommendations more or less influential?"

If you think choosing between a candy bar and healthy snack is totally a matter of free will, think again. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that the choices we make to indulge ourselves or exercise self-control depend on how the choices are presented.

Author Juliano Laran (University of Miami) tested subjects to determine how certain words and concepts affected consumers' decisions for self-control or indulgence. He found that consumer choices were affected by the actions most recently suggested to them by certain key words.

Overweight women's self-esteem plummets when they view photographs of models of any size, according to a new study in Journal of Consumer Research. And underweight women's esteem increases, regardless of models' size.

Authors Dirk Smeesters (Erasmus University, the Netherlands), Thomas Mussweiler (University of Cologne, Germany), and Naomi Mandel (Arizona State University) researched the ways individuals with different body mass indexes (BMIs) felt when they were exposed to thin or heavy media models.