The thought of coral reefs tends to conjure up images of tropical vacations, complete with snorkeling among tropical fish in crystal clear waters.
Rapid climate change, and increased pollution, ocean acidification and overfishing threaten to darken this picture considerably. These factors heavily stress corals, and thus put both the countless marine organisms that count on corals for habitat and shelter, and the $1 billion dollar tourism industry fueled by coral reefs at significant risk.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Staphylococcus epidermidis is quite an opportunist. Commonly found on human skin, the bacteria pose little danger. But S. epidermidis is a leading cause of infections in hospitals. From catheters to prosthetics, the bacteria are known to hitch a ride on a range of medical devices implanted into patients.
We can only marvel at the way that dolphins, whales and porpoises scythe through water. Their finlike flippers seem perfectly adapted for maximum aquatic agility. However, no one had ever analysed how the animals' flippers interact with water; the hydrodynamic lift that they generate, the drag that they experience or their hydrodynamic efficiency. Laurens Howle and Paul Weber from Duke University teamed up with Mark Murray from the United States Naval Academy and Frank Fish from West Chester University, to find out more about the hydrodynamics of whale and dolphin flippers.
Researchers at Radboud University Medical Centre, together with UK Medical Research Council scientists at Oxford University, have uncovered some of the central characteristics of genes underlying mental retardation. The research, which shortens the list of genes whose changes lead to this disorder from thousands to several dozen, is published June 26 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes of Virology and Immunology (GIVI) have found another clue that may lead to eradication of HIV from infected patients who have been on antiretroviral therapy. A real cure for HIV has been elusive because the virus can "hide" in a latent form in resting CD4-T cells. By understanding this "latency" effect, researchers can identify ways to reactivate the virus and enable complete clearance by current or future therapies.
People who eat lots of soy products have better lung function and are less likely to develop the smoking-associated lung disease COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). A study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Respiratory Research has shown that consumption of a wide variety of soy products can be associated with a reduction in the risk of COPD and other respiratory symptoms.
The recent decline in invasive breast cancer in the US was significantly less pronounced in the poor and those who live in rural areas. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Medicine suggest this may be due to varying reductions in the numbers of women taking hormone therapy (HT).
Christina Clarke, Ph.D., led a team of researchers from the Northern California Cancer Center who studied breast cancer incidence data from the largest cancer database available in the US for the years 1997-2004, comparing poor areas against rich and urban areas against rural.
More pieces in the complex autism inheritance puzzle are emerging in the latest study from a research team including geneticists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and several collaborating institutions. This study identified 27 different genetic regions where rare copy number variations – missing or extra copies of DNA segments – were found in the genes of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), but not in the healthy controls.
Kidney injury that can arise after undergoing certain medical imaging procedures increases a patient's risk of having a stroke or heart attack over the next year or two, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). The findings indicate that seemingly minor and reversible kidney damage from these common clinical procedures is a serious health threat.
Rockville, MD – Like many diseases, causes for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) can be categorized as either "nature" or "nurture". Researchers think these factors, when used in the proper model, can be strong predictors of the disease.
AMD is the leading cause of vision loss in Americans 60 years of age and older.
New Rochelle, NY, June 25, 2009—Excess medical expenses and reduced productivity due to diabetes costs the U.S. economy more than $174 billion annually, a figure that could be reduced by lifestyle modifications and preventive care and by pay-for-performance incentives that reward improved disease management, as supported by three articles in the recent issue of Population Health Management, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com).
Frequent binge drinking may dramatically increase the risk of hemorrhagic stroke, according to a South Korean study published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
In this study, binge drinkers were men who drank six or more glasses (60 grams or 2.1 ounces) and women who drank four or more glasses (40 grams) of alcohol on one occasion at least once a week. Most of the alcohol was soju, a native Korean distilled liquor similar to vodka. It is 25 percent alcohol by volume. Vodka in the United States is about 35 percent to 50 percent alcohol by volume.
Even when patients recover most functional ability in the first months after a blood-clot related stroke, they gradually become more dependent over the next five years – especially those with Medicaid or no private insurance – according to a large study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
DURHAM, N.C. – How did piranhas — the legendary freshwater fish with the razor bite — get their telltale teeth? Researchers from Argentina, the United States and Venezuela have uncovered the jawbone of a striking transitional fossil that sheds light on this question. Named Megapiranha paranensis, this previously unknown fossil fish bridges the evolutionary gap between flesh-eating piranhas and their plant-eating cousins.
WASHINGTON, DC—Research published today in Science Express from the journal Science demonstrates the first definitive link between mutations in the gene DICER1 and cancer. By studying the patterns of DNA from 11 families with an unusual predisposition to the rare childhood lung cancer pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB) investigators found that children with the cancer carried a mutation in one of their two DICER1 gene copies.