Meckel's diverticulum (MD) is the most frequent congenital abnormality of the small bowel and it is often difficult to diagnose. It is usually asymptomatic but approximately 4% are symptomatic with complications such as bleeding, intestinal obstruction, and inflammation. Daniela Codrich et al presents a case of Meckel's diverticulum masked by a long period of intermittent recurrent subocclusive episodes. Their foundings will be published on June 14, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology.
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Acute hepatic radiation injury could lead to necrosis of hepatocytes, fatty degeneration and hepatic fibrosis. At the present, the gold standard test is liver biopsy. However, this procedure is invasive, uncomfortable for the patients and sometimes results in serious complications. 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) has been used to study liver metabolism in vivo for several years.
Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University Clinic Heidelberg, Germany, have produced a three-dimensional reconstruction of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which shows the structure of the immature form of the virus at unprecedented detail. Immature HIV is a precursor of the infectious virus, which can cause AIDS. The study, published in the 22-26 June online edition of PNAS, describes how the protein coat that packages the virus' genetic material assembles in human cells.
Berkeley -- Although it is known that infants are more susceptible than adults to the toxic effects of pesticides, this increased vulnerability may extend much longer into childhood than expected, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.
Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Bristol (UK) have developed a model of how errors are corrected whilst proteins are being built.
Ensuring that proteins are built correctly is essential to the proper functioning of our bodies, but the 'quality assurance' mechanisms that take place during this manufacturing process are not fully understood.
"Scientists have been puzzled as to how this process makes so few mistakes", says Dr Netta Cohen, Reader at the University of Leeds' School of Computing.
San Jose, California, June 23, 2009 – Chronix Biomedical today reported that a new study in a peer-reviewed journal further confirms the potential diagnostic and prognostic utility of using circulating fragments of DNA to detect early stage disease. These DNA fragments, referred to as serum DNA, are released into the blood stream in trace amounts during the disease process.
Appendicitis is the most common childhood surgical emergency, but the diagnosis can be challenging, especially in children, often leading to either unnecessary surgery in children without appendicitis, or a ruptured appendix and serious complications when the condition is missed. Now, emergency medicine physicians and scientists at the Proteomics Center at Children's Hospital Boston demonstrate that a protein detectable in urine might serve as a "biomarker" for appendicitis. Their report was published online June 23 by the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The effect of anxiety on academic performance is not always obvious but new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council suggests that there may be hidden costs. The research found that anxious individuals find it harder to avoid distractions and take more time to turn their attention from one task to the next than their less anxious peers.
According to the most recent report on the status of the world's fisheries by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, fisheries supply at least 15% of the animal protein consumed by humans, provide direct and indirect employment for nearly 200 million people worldwide and generate $US85 billion annually. This same report indicates that 28% of the world's fisheries stocks are currently being overexploited or have collapsed and 52% are fully exploited.
A study published this week in the open access journal PLoS Medicine shows that for elderly people at risk of cardiovascular disease, the presence of inflammatory markers in the blood can identify that an individual is at a higher risk of a fatal rather than a non-fatal heart attack or stroke.
NARRAGANSETT, R.I. – June 22, 2009 – An international oceanographic research expedition to the middle of the South Pacific Gyre – a site that is as far from continents as it is possible to go on Earth's surface – found so few organisms beneath the seafloor that it may be the least inhabited sediment ever explored for evidence of life.
Yet since half of the world's ocean is composed of similar gyres, biomass and metabolic activity may be equally low in sediment throughout much of the world.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists are focusing on a new concept in fighting airborne pathogens by manipulating what is called the "switching time," the point at which a highly regulated immune response gives way to powerful cells that specialize in fighting a specific invading bug.
"By putting mutant genes from human patients into fruit flies, we've created the first ever fly model for this kind of neuromuscular disease," says Albena Jordanova. "Now we have the opportunity to unravel the molecular mechanism behind Charcot-Marie-Tooth, as well as to start looking for substances with therapeutic value."
The breakthrough is the result of collaboration between VIB researchers working at the University of Antwerp and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Some of the substances that are helping to avert the destruction of theozone layer could increasingly contribute to climate warming, accordingto scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory and theircolleagues in a new study published today in the journal Proceedings ofthe National Academy of Sciences.
Nickel, an important trace nutrient for the single cell organisms that produce methane, may be a useful isotopic marker to pinpoint the past origins of these methanogenic microbes, according to Penn State and University of Bristol, UK, researchers.