Culture

Micro-organisms in the gut support healthy digestion by helping nerve cells within the intestine to regulate the contraction and relaxation of the muscle wall of the colon, according to new research from the Crick and Bern University.

The recognition of bacterial infections or foreign substances is mediated and controlled by the human immune system. This innate and adaptive immune system comprises the most important metabolic and cellulare processes to fight against infections and other diseases. Paradoxically, this immune system is also involved in the development of systemic diseases and cancer.

Researchers from the University of East Anglia have helped to carry out the first comprehensive survey of viruses found within different types of cancer.

An international team systematically investigated the DNA found within more than 2,600 tumour samples from patients with 38 different types of cancer.

They discovered traces of viruses in 13 per cent of the samples studied, and also further identified some of the mechanisms that viruses use to trigger carcinogenic mutations.

The abuse of prescription and illegal opioids, such as morphine and heroin, is a major problem in the U.S., with devastating public health, economic and social consequences. That's why scientists are searching for new medicines to help break the cycle of addiction. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry have re-engineered the structure of vincamine, a plant-derived compound, so that it reduces morphine-seeking behaviors in mice. 

HOUSTON - (Feb. 5, 2020) - When city councils are elected by district rather than at large, spending on noninfrastructure projects increases, and the impact is not necessarily good, according to new research from a Rice University economist.

"The Impact of Court-Ordered District Elections on City Finances" will appear in a recent edition of the Journal of Law and Economics and is authored by Richard Boylan, a professor of economics at Rice.

PHILADELPHIA, PA. - A key factor of solid patient/doctor relationships is a notion of empathy that drives a feeling of shared humanity.

According to the Mohammadreza Hojat, PhD, empathy in the context of patient care is "a cognitive attribute that involves an ability to understand the patient's pain, suffering, and perspective combined with a capability to communicate this understanding and an intention to help."

While viruses and bacteria regularly manage to infect the human organism, fungi only very rarely succeed. The reason for this is that the human immune system can recognize them very easily because their cells are surrounded by a solid cell wall of chitin and other complex sugars. Chitin is, so to speak, the alarm signal for our immune system, to which it reacts with a whole arsenal of defensive weapons.

Oncotarget Volume 11, Issue 5: The authors determined that tumor-derived ANGPTL2 stimulates lung epithelial cells, which is essential for primary tumor-induced neutrophil recruitment in lung and subsequent pre-metastatic niche formation.

When metal atoms form small clusters of a particular size, they show interesting and potentially useful electromagnetic characteristics, which are different from those of the actual bulk metal. To fully explore the potential of these properties, it is necessary to find ways to assemble precise macroscopic structures out of these clusters. But, how do these clusters bind together, and what exactly dictates their properties? These questions have remained unanswered, until now.

Maunakea, Hawaii - An international team of astronomers led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has found an unusual monster galaxy that existed about 12 billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old, or 13 percent of its current age of 13.8 billion years.

Using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii, the team found that the galaxy, dubbed XMM-2599, formed stars at a high rate and then died. Why it suddenly stopped forming stars is unclear.

The study published today in the Astrophysical Journal.

Increasing chronic pain patients' opioid prescription doses does not seem to improve pain, according to a Veterans Affairs study. Researchers from the Central Arkansas and Minneapolis VA health care systems and three universities looked at prescribing data of more than 50,000 VA patients taking opioids. They found that patients who had their opioid dosage increased did not have meaningful improvements in pain, compared with patients who continued to take the same dose.

HOUSTON - (Feb. 5, 2020) - Some people facing the loss of a loved one try to maintain their composure, but it's healthier to ditch the stiff upper lip and freely express your emotions, according to a new study from Rice University.

"Emotion Regulation and Immune Functioning During Grief: Testing the Role of Expressive Suppression and Cognitive Reappraisal in Inflammation Among Recently Bereaved Spouses" examined 99 people who had recently lost a spouse.

Elk have antlers. Rams have horns. In the animal kingdom, males develop specialized weapons for competition when winning a fight is critical. Humans do too, according to new research from the University of Utah. Males' upper bodies are built for more powerful punches than females', says the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, suggesting that fighting may have long been a part of our evolutionary history.

WASHINGTON (Feb. 5, 2020) - An online survey of nearly 500 veterans with Gulf War illness (GWI) suggests a high burden of disease almost three decades after the conflict.

GWI affects 25% to 30% of the 693,826 military personnel who were deployed to the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War. The diagnosis of GWI - according to the standard "Kansas" criteria - includes a combination of fatigue, sleep, cognitive, pain, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and skin problems, among others.

Germline variants are present in every single cell of our body. By contrast, somatic mutations occur in individual body cells during an organism's lifetime and only affect the tissue that is derived from that cell. They can be driven by external factors like UV light or tobacco smoking. "The main finding of our study is that a person's genetic background can influence the changes we see in the genome of their cancer cells," says Sebastian Waszak; a postdoctoral fellow in the Korbel group at the time the research began.

A clock-like mutational process