Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered a survival mechanism in a common type of bacteria that can cause illness. The mechanism lets the bacteria protect itself by warding off attacks from antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which are defense molecules sent by the body to kill bacteria.
Body
It may not sound like a great thing for your backyard festivities but scientists have figured out how to make the fruit fly live longer. Luckily, humans will get something out of the deal -namely the discovery that a single protein can inhibit aging means we might live longer to be annoyed by insects.
Not this Superfly. A super fruit fly. © Warner Bros.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered a potential new target for treating type 2 diabetes. The target is a protein, along with its molecular partner, that regulates fat metabolism.
Breast cancer survivors who eat a healthy diet and exercise moderately can reduce their risk of dying from breast cancer by half, regardless of their weight, suggests a new longitudinal study from the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
Previous studies have looked at the impact of diet or physical activity on breast cancer survival, with mixed results. This study is the first to look at a combination of both in breast cancer.
By uncovering how one breast cancer drug protects the heart and another does not, Duke University Medical Center researchers believe they may have opened up a new way to screen drugs for possible heart-related side effects and to develop new drugs.
The Duke researches compared the actions of two breast cancer drugs in experiments involving human cells and rats. The drugs in question were the older drug trastuzumab, whose trade name is Herceptin, and the newer drug lapatinib, whose trade name is Tykerb.
Johns Hopkins researchers have found a way to directly observe cell migration -- in real time and in living tissue. The scientists say their advance could lead to strategies for controlling both normal growth and the spread of cancer, processes that depend on the programmed, organized movement of cells across space.
Key milk nutrients, calcium and vitamin D, may do more than just help keep your bones strong. Increasing intake of calcium and vitamin D could reduce the risk for cancer in women by at least 60 percent, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (1)
The four-year clinical trial included more than one thousand women over the age of 55 in one of three supplement groups:1) calcium (1400-1500mg) plus vitamin D (1100 IU vitamin D)2) calcium only (1400-1500 mg) or3) a placebo.
It's long been thought that humans hunted woolly mammoths to extinction. Anthropogenic global hunting, as it were. Or that a cataclysmic event did the trick.
It may be neither of those and just simple genetics.
DNA lifted from the bones, teeth, and tusks of the extinct mammoths revealed a “genetic signature” of a range expansion after the last interglacial period. After the mammoths’ migration, the population apparently leveled off, and one of two lineages died out.
They don't think these guys did it any more
A year-long clinical trial by Penn State researchers shows that diets focusing on foods that are low in calorie density - high in water and low in fat, like fruits, vegetables, soup, lean meat, and low-fat dairy products - can promote healthy weight loss while helping people to control hunger.
Researchers at UCLA have successfully manipulated nanomaterials to create a new drug-delivery system that promises to solve the challenge of the poor water solubility of today’s most promising anticancer drugs and thereby increase their effectiveness.
The poor solubility of anticancer drugs is one of the major problems in cancer therapy because the drugs require the addition of solvents in order to be easily absorbed into cancer cells. Unfortunately, these solvents not only dilute the potency of the drugs but create toxicity as well.
In flowers called columbines, evolution of the length of nectar spurs--the long tubes leading to plants' nectar--happens in a way that allows flowers to match the tongue lengths of the pollinators that drink their nectar, biologists have found.
Is ADHD over-diagnosed? Claims vary, with some people stating that ADHD prescriptions are substituting for parenting and teaching. No matter your opinion, ADHD medication is in greater use than ever and not just for children.
A recent study shows that treatment rates have been increasing in all age groups, and improved identification has contributed to rapidly growing treatment rates for adults. Female patients show the greatest increase of all.
The relative amount of protein, carbohydrate, and fat that people choose to eat may be influenced by genetics, according to new research.
A simple, cheap treatment using just oxygen could allow growers to store organic produce for longer and go a long way towards reducing the price of organic fruit and vegetables.
Currently UK shoppers have to pay twice as much for some organic products. Organic apples, for example, are around double the price of conventionally grown apples in Sainbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco.
Stem cell biology takes another exciting leap forward as scientists report that normal tissue cells can be reprogrammed to exhibit many of the properties that are characteristic of embryonic stem cells, including the ability to give rise to multiple cell types and contribute to the germline.
These findings provide strong support for the rationale that it may be possible to generate stem cells with nearly unlimited potential directly from a patient’s own cells, an idea that has significant implications for regenerative therapeutics.