Body

Teaching parents bedtime techniques to encourage healthy sleep habits in their infants may help prevent obesity, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. Strong links exist between inadequate sleep and childhood obesity.

A gene which forms part of our body's first line of defence against infection may be associated with an increased risk with a type of kidney disease, research involving academics at The University of Nottingham has discovered.

The work, which is published in the academic journal Science Translational Medicine, found that the difference in the number of copies of the alpha-defensin genes was a major genetic factor in developing the condition IgA nephropathy.

The image that comes to mind when we think of new species being discovered is that of scientists sampling in remote tropical forests, where humans have barely set foot in. However, new species waiting to be discovered can in fact be very close to us, even if we live in a strongly humanized continent like Europe.

• Surprising discovery points to way to prevent life-threatening consequences of C. difficile infections
• C. diff kills one in seven infected in North America
• But probiotics that ensure the presence of certain cells in the gut may stave off infection
• Finding 'as unexpected as it is important,' with 'immediate implications for therapy'

A new twist on the use of renewable energy is saving children's lives in Africa. The innovation--a solar powered oxygen delivery system--is providing concentrated oxygen in hospital for children suffering from severe pneumonia.

The device created by Dr. Michael Hawkes, an assistant professor in the University of Alberta's Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, is the focus of a recently published study in The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and is already in use in two hospitals in Uganda.

Johns Hopkins researchers report they have figured out a root cause of the lung damage that occurs in up to 10 percent of premature infants who develop necrotizing enterocolitis, a disorder that damages and kills the lining of the intestine. The finding, they say, led them to identify and successfully test a potential treatment for the lung damage in a mouse, which may one day be offered to human infants.

For their colonies to survive at high altitudes, army ants keep their underground nests as much as 13 degrees F warmer than surface temperatures, according to a new study by Drexel University scientists.

Although they're a nomadic species -- which is relatively rare for ants -- Labidus praedator create underground nests (called bivouacs) that harbor their eggs and young offspring (brood). How hot or cold that bivouac gets may be critical for the ability of the ants to stay mobile and raise their young.

University of Illinois dining halls voluntarily label foods with nutrition information.Although 45 percent of students noticed the labels, only 20 percent used the labels. Rates of label awareness and use did not change over the course of the semester.Students who practice health-promoting behaviors like tracking what they eat or exercising frequently are most likely to use nutrition information on food items in the dining hall.Placement of the labels directly in front of the food or above the sneeze guard doesn't affect label awareness or use.

DALLAS - June 29, 2016 - UT Southwestern Medical Center cell biologists have identified a new method for determining the length of telomeres, the endcaps of chromosomes, which can influence cancer progression and aging.

The spread of cancer from a tumor's original location to other parts of the body can play a major role in whether the disease turns deadly. Many steps in this process, called metastasis, remain murky. But now scientists are gaining new insights into how cancer cells might squeeze through and even divide within narrow blood vessels while travelling in the body. They report their study using microtubular nanomembranes in the journal ACS Nano.

Anxiety over the Zika virus is growing as the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro approach. To better diagnose and track the disease, scientists are now reporting in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry a new $2 test that in the lab can accurately detect low levels of the virus in saliva.

Overeating can lead to health issues that can shorten one's life, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. On the other end of the spectrum, several studies have shown that restricting calorie intake below what a normal diet would dictate may lead to a longer life. In an animal study, scientists now report in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research the metabolic reasons why these opposite diets may lead to such differences in longevity.

June 29, 2016 - Last year, the most extensive clinical face transplant to date was successfully carried out at NYU Langone Medical Center.

June 29, 2016 - Plastic surgeons see some clear advantages of using Google Glass in the operating room, reports a survey study in the July issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

Tumor DNA is cluttered with genomic alterations, the vast majority of which have little or no functional or clinical relevance. This means that even when cancer researchers discover an alteration in a tumor or a line of cancer cells, the alteration may or may not be relevant to the progression of the disease - chances are good (and history has shown) that many alterations that are correlated with cancer are not causative of cancer; many alterations are "passengers" rather than "drivers".