Culture
East Hanover, NJ. March 12, 2020. Among the many challenges to independence and quality of life after spinal cord injury, two complications have emerged as top priorities for researchers - neurogenic bowel and neurogenic bladder. With funding from the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, researchers formulated a framework for planning and executing the research needed in these areas, and established recommendations for translating research findings into practical recommendations for community use by individuals with spinal cord injury.
Scientists have been realizing that bacteria can mutate and evolve in our intestines much faster than previously thought. But know, researchers from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, have found that certain bacteria cells can evolve to mutate at rates 1000-fold higher than normal - called mutators - and thus generate bursts of diversity at unprecedented amounts.
In Senegal, groundnut and maize are commonly contaminated with highly toxic, cancer-causing chemicals called aflatoxins, which are produced by fungi in the genus Aspergillus when they infect crops. The main aflatoxin-producing species is A. flavus. This contamination typically occurs before harvest and can worsen depending on storage conditions. Consumption of these crops when containing high aflatoxin levels can result in rapid death.
DURHAM, N.C. - Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz can decline for up to two years after a piracy attack, a new Duke University study finds, but the adverse effects of the slowdown are far greater on some Persian Gulf countries than others.
Brazilian researchers have just reported proving the potential of zika virus to combat advanced-stage central nervous system tumors in dogs. The study was published on Tuesday, March 10, in the journal Molecular Therapy.
Breathing dirty air takes a heavy toll on gut bacteria, boosting risk of obesity, diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders and other chronic illnesses, new University of Colorado Boulder research suggests.
The study, published online in the journal Environment International, is the first to link air pollution to changes in the structure and function of the human gut microbiome - the collection of trillions of microorganisms residing within us.
Life converts food into cells via dense networks involving thousands of reactions. New research uncovers insights as to how such networks could have arisen from scratch at life's origin. An international team of researchers in Germany, New Zealand and the U.S.A. has investigated metabolic networks of primitive microbes and identified autocatalytic sets (interconnected collections of self-reinforcing reactions) that are older than genes.
LA JOLLA, CA--Within two months, SARS-CoV-2, a previously unknown coronavirus, has raced around globe, infecting over a 100,000 people with numbers continuing to rise quickly. Effective countermeasures require helpful tools to monitor viral spread and understand how the immune system responds to the virus.
Driven by the discovery of mechanisms associated with the microbiota (the set of microbes that make up the intestinal flora) and its impact on health, the two scientific articles now published are the result of work previously developed at IGC and which involves three Research Groups. In 2014, when researchers first realized that the bacterium E. coli, when introduced into the host, developed genetic mutations with a speed and frequency never before anticipated, new questions arose: What is the influence of the other species of bacteria in the intestine in this process?
Placing limits on what hospitals can collect for out-of-network care could yield savings similar to more-sweeping proposals such as Medicare for All or setting global health spending caps, according to a new RAND Corporation report.
Because such an approach has the possibility to sharply cut hospital revenues, any cap would need to be set carefully as to not overly disrupt hospital operations, according to the study.
What people hear and do not hear can have a direct effect on their balance, according to new research from the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai (NYEE). The research, published in the March 12 issue of JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, provides a better understanding of the relationship between hearing loss and why people fall, especially in the elderly population. The findings could lead doctors to screen for hearing loss in patients at high risk for falls, detect hearing loss in its early stages, and treat it quickly.
Bottom Line: The estimated number of U.S. adults at high risk for vision loss increased from 2002 to 2017 in this observational study based on national survey data. Adults at high risk for vision loss included those who were 65 or older, had a self-reported diagnosis of diabetes, or had eye or vision problems. Researchers estimated there were more than 93 million adults in 2017 at high risk for vision loss compared with almost 65 million in 2002, an increase attributed in part to an aging population.
People with serious mental illness believe their physical health problems rather than psychological health make it difficult for them to find jobs, according to a Rutgers study.
"The study underscores the urgent need for integrated mental health and physical health care for people with serious mental illness, especially those with long-term, chronic conditions," said lead author Ni Gao, an associate professor at Rutgers School of Health Professions.
Every cell of any organism contains the complete genetic information, or the "blueprint", of a living being, encoded in the sequence of the so-called nucleotide building blocks of DNA. But how does a plant create tissues as diverse as a leaf that converts light into chemical energy and produces oxygen, or a root that absorbs nutrients from the soil?
Heterogeneity broadly exists in various cell types both during development and at homeostasis. Investigating heterogeneity is crucial for understanding the complexity of ontogeny, dynamics, and function of specific cell types.
However, traditional bulk-labeling techniques are incompetent to dissect heterogeneity within cell population, while the new single-cell lineage tracing methods invented in the last decade can hardly achieve high-fidelity single-cell labeling and long-term in-vivo observation simultaneously.