Body

URBANA, Ill. - Love it or hate it, broccoli is touted as a superfood, offering an array of health benefits. And it's about to get even more super.

University of Illinois researchers have identified candidate genes controlling the accumulation of phenolic compounds in broccoli. Consumption of phenolic compounds, including certain flavonoids, is associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease, type II diabetes, asthma, and several types of cancer.

HOUSTON - (June 22, 2016) - Negative feedback is a universal control mechanism that lets a system's output throttle its input. If an engine revs up, negative feedback tapers its power source. But if the engine slows down, it re-opens the power source, keeping output reliably steady. This is an example of a negative feedback that can be found in many systems. In biology, for example, genes under negative regulatory feedback increase (or decrease) their expression in response to falling (or rising) concentrations of the gene product.

Nonmedical use of opioids (such as Vicodin, Percoset, and OxyContin) has become a major public health concern due to increases in treatment admissions, overdoses, and deaths. Data collected from high school seniors between 2009 and 2013 showed that 8.3% self-reported past-year nonmedical opioid use. Data have also shown a link from nonprescription opioid abuse to increased risk for heroin initiation and addiction, now widely considered one of the biggest public health challenges facing the U.S.

Plant breeders test their experiments by growing the seeds of their labor. They cross two different plants that have desirable traits. They sow the resulting seeds and evaluate the results, hoping to find a candidate variety that is better than anything currently available.

The "laboratory" is often an outdoor field with thousands of plants. Farmers have monitored their fields for millennia by simply walking among the rows of plants, observing changes over time, and noting which plants do better.

In a review of research on the effect of meal patterns on health, the few studies available suggest that eating irregularly is linked to a higher risk of metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and obesity). The limited evidence highlights the need for larger scale studies to better understand the impact of chrono-nutrition on public health, argue the authors of two new papers, particularly with the rise in shift workers and 'social jetlag' where many of us live by social clocks rather than our internal body clocks.

Most big-game animals in Wyoming and the West can assess the quality of vegetation during the spring green-up to select the best patches of habitat during the growing season, a team of researchers led by University of Wyoming and U.S. Geological Survey scientists has documented.

Women workers often rely on future spouses to organize their retirement finances, rather than making independent decisions now. Men and women working for private Japanese companies make decisions about their retirement savings plans differently based on their gender.

Fish have evolved the ability to live on land many times, challenging the perception that this extreme lifestyle shift was likely to have been a rare occurrence in ancient times, new UNSW Australia research shows.

"A fish out of water might seem an extraordinary thing, but in fact it is quite a common phenomenon," says study first author and UNSW evolutionary ecologist Dr Terry Ord. "Amphibious behaviour has evolved repeatedly in a wide diversity of present day fish, and the move onto land does not appear to be as difficult as has been presumed."

Novel adaptations discovered in hibernating animals may reveal ways to mitigate injuries associated with strokes, heart attacks and organ transplants, according to researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Duke University.

They described the adaptations in a paper published in the June issue of the journal Anesthesiology.

Finders, keepers: Mountain Bluebirds are more likely to defend nest cavities against competition from other birds such as swallows if they get there first, but climate change may disrupt the migratory timing that lets them beat their rivals to the punch, according to new research in The Auk: Ornithological Advances.

The role of red pigmented snow algae in melting Arctic glaciers has been strongly underestimated, suggests a study to be published in NATURE Communications on June 22. White areas covered with snow and ice reflect sunlight; the effect is called albedo. It has been known for quite some time that red pigmented snow algae blooming on icy surfaces darken the surface which in turn leads to less albedo and a higher uptake of heat.

A landmark study has given the most detailed picture yet of the genetics of bowel cancer - the UK's fourth most common cancer.

The study examined all the genes from more than 1,000 people with bowel cancer and is the largest of its type ever conducted.

A team led by scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, uncovered five new potential genes which, when mutated, appeared to cause bowel cancer in a very low proportion of cases.

PENSACOLA, Fla.--Captain Charles Moore introduced the world to the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" in the mid-1990s. Since then, there has been increasing interest from scientists, the public and policy makers regarding plastic debris in the environment. A focus article in the July issue of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry's journal, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, outlines the current research, identifies research gaps on plastic debris and reviews some of the weight of evidence regarding contamination, fate and effects of the material.

Folsom, Calif., (June 22, 2016) - A new study published in the Journal of Nutrition suggests that consuming 1-2 servings of walnuts per week (1/4 cup per serving) was associated with reduced risk of developing impairments in physical function, which helps enable older women to maintain independence throughout the aging process. (1)

T. rex is considered the most ferocious creature in the prehistoric jungle, but mammal-like reptiles outlived the scary beast - and a new study shows it may have been due to something as simple as growing hair.