Culture
Findings from a study of patients who received radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment for hyperthyroidism show an association between the dose of treatment and long-term risk of death from solid cancers, including breast cancer. The study, led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, was published July 1, 2019 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
PHILADELPHIA - For years, researchers have been trying to target a gene called MYC that is known to drive tumor growth in multiple cancer types when it is mutated or over-expressed, but hitting that target successfully has proven difficult. Now researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania have identified a new pathway that works as a partner to MYC and may be its Achilles' Heel. The pathway involves a protein called ATF4, and when it's blocked, it can cause cancer cells to produce too much protein and die.
A major 2009 revision to a federal nutrition program for low-income pregnant women and children improved recipients' health on several key measures, researchers at UC San Francisco have found.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Most of the well-studied proteins in our bodies are like metal; some can change shape easily, like aluminum foil, and others are rigid, like steel beams, but they typically have a solid, well-defined structure. Many other essential proteins are more like water -- able to change phase from liquid to solid ice.
Bottom Line: Radioactive iodine has been used since the 1940s to treat hyperthyroidism, an overactive thyroid. This study is an extension of one that has followed patients in the United States and the United Kingdom treated for hyperthyroidism for nearly 70 years. Researchers sought to determine the association of doses of radioactive iodine absorbed by organs or tissue with overall and site-specific cancer death. This analysis included 18,805 patients treated with radioactive iodine and with no history of cancer at the time of treatment.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurological condition that affects motor neurons -- the nerve cells that control breathing and muscles. Under a microscope, researchers have noticed that the motor neurons of patients with ALS contain excessive aggregation of a protein called TDP-43. Since TDP-43 proteins stuck in these aggregates can't perform their normal function, the scientists believe this build-up contributes to motor neuron degeneration, the hallmark of ALS.
Galaxies grow by accumulating gas from their surroundings and converting it to stars, but the details of this process have remained murky. New observations, made using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, now provide the clearest, most direct evidence yet that filaments of cool gas spiral into young galaxies, supplying the fuel for stars.
Even if we study them at school, oxidation numbers have so far eluded any rigorous quantum mechanical definition. A new SISSA study, published in Nature Physics, reverses this state of affairs by providing such a definition, based on the theory of topological quantum numbers, which was honoured with the 2016 Nobel prize in Physics awarded to Thouless, Haldane and Kosterlitz.
The best way to protect corals threatened by climate change is to conserve a wide range of their habitats, according to a study in Nature Climate Change. The finding likely applies to conservation efforts for many other species in the ocean and on land, including trees and birds.
In the U.S. state policies pertaining to alcohol use during pregnancy have been in effect for more than 40 years.
These policies include:
Mandatory warning signs
Priority access to substance abuse treatment for pregnant women
Requirements to report evidence of alcohol use during pregnancy to law enforcement or child welfare agencies-- or to a health authority for the purposes of data gathering and treatment
Laws that define alcohol use during pregnancy as child abuse/child neglect
RIKEN researchers have developed a promising method to deliver a drug to cancer cells without affecting surrounding tissues, involving a clever combination of an "artificial metalloenzyme" that protects a metal catalyst, and a sugar chain that guides the metalloenzyme to the desired cells.
Edible insects could be a key ingredient to avoiding a global food crisis, according to a new report, but there are significant barriers to overcome before they are part of the mainstream.
Researchers using the radio telescope ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) observed signals of oxygen, carbon, and dust from a galaxy in the early Universe 13 billion years ago. This is the earliest galaxy where this useful combination of three signals has been detected. By comparing the different signals, the team determined that the galaxy is actually two galaxies merging together, making it the earliest example of merging galaxies yet discovered.
Antonella Di Pizio and Maik Behrens of the Leibniz-Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich, together with their cooperation partners, have developed highly effective activators for the bitter receptor TAS2R14 in a German-Israeli research project. The new substances are used to investigate the as yet unknown physiological functions of the receptor, for example, in the human immune system.
Even on the scale of everyday life, nature is governed by the laws of quantum physics. These laws explain common phenomena like light, sound, heat, or even the trajectories of balls on a pool table. But when applied to a large number of interacting particles, the laws of quantum physics actually predict a variety of phenomena that defy intuition.