Earth

What we eat has important implications for our health--and for what we spend on healthcare. New research suggests improving the quality of the average American's diet could substantially reduce costs associated with heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other major health problems.

June 10, 2018 - Atlanta, GA - Researchers from GeoVax have developed a flexible "Plug and Play" technology platform that delivers single-dose vaccines that fully protect against emerging infectious diseases such as Zika, Lassa fever, and Ebola. The research will be presented at ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, held from June 7th to June 11th in Atlanta, Georgia.

June 9, 2018 - Atlanta, GA - Researchers from the Emory Antibiotic Resistance Center describe the first strain of carbapenem-resistant, hypermucoviscous Klebsiella pneumoniae exhibiting colistin heteroresistance and enhanced virulence isolated from a patient in the United States. The research is presented at ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, held from June 7th to 11th, in Atlanta, Georgia.

June 9, 2018 - Atlanta, GA - Results from a pivotal trial of PRO 140, a new HIV therapy, show that PRO 140 is an effective, long-acting therapeutic in combination with antiretroviral treatment (ART) for previously treated HIV-1 infected patients. This is an ongoing randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. The research is presented at ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, held from June 7th to June 11th in Atlanta, GA.

The climate throughout Mars' early history has long been debated - was the Red Planet warm and wet, or cold and icy? New research published in Icarus provides evidence for the latter.

Mars is littered with valley networks, deltas and lake deposits, meaning it must have had freely flowing water at some point, probably around 4 billion years ago. But climate models of the planet's deep past haven't been able to produce warm enough conditions to allow liquid water on the surface.

About 250 million years ago, a massive volcanic eruption flooded modern-day Siberia with lava, creating the Siberian Traps, giant plateaus made of multiple layers of lava. The eruption also released huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that rapidly altered the climate and triggered the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event that wiped out more than 90% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species. After the eruption, however, the Siberian Traps began drawing atmospheric carbon dioxide back into the crust through weathering and erosion.

In a new study published in EPJ B, Basant Lal Sharma from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur provides a detailed analysis of how the flow of heat and electrons is affected at the interface between an 'armchair' shaped carbon nanotube and a zigzagging nanoribbon made up of a single-layer carbon honeycomb sheet of graphene. Applications of this method can help us understand the propagation of electrons and thermal flow in graphene and similar materials for electromagnetic devices.

Cancer cells in children tend to develop by following four main trajectories - and two of them are linked to relapse of the disease, research led by Lund University in Sweden shows. The four strategies can occur simultaneously in a single tumour, according to the study that is now published in Nature Genetics.

New research presented at this year's Euroanaesthesia congress in Copenhagen, Denmark shows that in patients undergoing a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, taking aspirin before and after surgery is associated with an 18% to 34% reduced mortality risk after 4 years. The study is by Professor Jianzhong Sun, Director of Clinical Outcomes Research at the Department of Anesthesiology, Thomas Jefferson University and Hospitals, Philadelphia, USA, and colleagues.

MAYWOOD, IL - A 21-gene test performed on tumors could enable most patients with the most common type of early breast cancer to safely forgo chemotherapy, according to a landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

CHICAGO - Matching targeted therapies to tumor-specific gene mutations across tumor types improved progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with advanced disease relative to those receiving non-matched treatment (NMT), according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The researchers also found that receiving matched targeted therapy (MTT) was an independent factor for predicting longer OS.

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers have visualised for the first time how the protein SOCS1 'switches off' cell signalling to dampen immune responses and block cancer growth.

The atomic-level structure of SOCS1 binding to its partner protein JAK could guide the development of drugs that alter disease-causing cell signalling pathways, and may have applications for treating some blood cancers, including leukaemias.

Highlights

Among living kidney donors, the post-donation concern that was considered most important was kidney health, followed by the surgical, lifestyle, functional, and psychosocial impacts of donation.

The hypothetical long-term risks associated with kidney removal--including mortality and cardiovascular disease--were of relatively lower importance.
Living kidney donor transplants comprise nearly one-quarter of kidney transplants performed worldwide.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Researchers in the Department of Earth Sciences at Syracuse University have confirmed that rising oceanic and atmospheric oxygen levels co-evolved with marine life hundreds of millions of years ago.

Wanyi Lu, a Ph.D. candidate studying under associate professor Zunli Lu (no relation) in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the lead author of a groundbreaking paper in Science magazine (American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, 2018).

Fires ignited by lightning have and will likely continue to increase across the Mediterranean and temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere under a warmer climate, according to a new study co-led by a Portland State University researcher.