Body

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and Oxford University have found a hormone that may offer an effective treatment for type 2 diabetes.

The incidence of diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes, has skyrocketed over the last few decades, according to a report from the World Health Organization. The report says that there were 108 million adults with diabetes in 1980, but by 2014, that number had grown to 422 million.

What used to be dismissed by many as "junk DNA" is back with a vengeance as growing data points to the importance of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) -- genome's messages that do not code for proteins -- in development and disease. But our progress in understanding these molecules has been slow because of the lack of technologies that allow the systematic mapping of their functions.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - If you're a rattlesnake, you want to bring the right weapon to a squirrel fight.

And that venomous weapon varies from place to place, evolutionarily calibrated to overpower the local squirrels' defenses, according to new research from The Ohio State University.

• Acute bright light results in higher insulin resistance
• Excess blood glucose over time can result in weight gain and diabetes risk
• Lighting impacts health outcomes

CHICAGO --- Exposure to bright light could affect your metabolism, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

Northwestern scientists found bright light exposure increased insulin resistance compared to dim light exposure in both the morning and the evening. In the evening, bright light also caused higher peak glucose (blood sugar) levels.

Evolutionary science stresses the contributions biology makes to our behavior. Some anthropologists try to understand how societies and histories construct our identities, and others ask about how genes and the environment do the same thing. Which is the better approach? Both are needed, argues Agustin Fuentes, University of Notre Dame biological anthropologist.

Scientists have mapped changes in composition of plant cell walls over space and time, providing new insights into the development and growth of all plants.

The work is a first step towards precision-breeding to enhance the properties of plant-based products such as timber and biofuels.

Conducted by an international research team using the model laboratory plant Arabidposis, the study is published today in the journal Current Biology.

LOS ANGELES - A study published today by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) Roski Eye Institute in JAMA Ophthalmology found that the U.S. prevalence in visual impairment (VI) and blindness is expected to double over the next 35 years. By 2050, the number of Americans with a variety of eye disease and impairment issues, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy (DR) and cataracts, will dramatically increase impacting both individuals and society.

Prediabetes is associated with increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia and cancer. However, the disease risk considerably varies among subjects. In The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology DZD scientists have now summarized information from the literature and have provided novel data indicating that in future the determination of the 4 major phenotypes fatty liver, visceral obesity and impaired production and action of insulin may help to improve prediction and prevention of cardiometabolic risk in prediabetes.

Research at the University of Leeds has identified a key gene that assisted the transition of plants from water to the land around 500 million years ago.

The ANR gene is required to tolerate 'extreme dehydration' in the moss Physcomitrella patens, a land plant that is used as an experimental model.

Researchers at the Centre for Plant Sciences at the University found that the ANR gene - present in the most ancient land plants - was inherited from ancestral fresh water algae.

African American parents and caregivers most often use messages of egalitarianism - emphasizing equal rights, opportunities, and shared humanity across lines of ethnicity and race - when talking with their young preschool-aged children about race, finds a study led by NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. The findings are published online in the Journal of Early Childhood Research.

A nation's electricity consumption has been seen as a useful proxy for measuring economic growth offering a useful alternative to conventional measures such as gross domestic product (GDP) by incorporating the assumption that greater consumption means a better quality of life. However, country-by-country analysis reported in International Journal of Global Energy Issues suggests that this may not necessarily be the case.

WHAT:

Tropical Cyclone 01B became more organized and was named Roanu early on Thursday, May 19, 2016. This makes it the first cyclone of the monsoon season. Before this storm was named it had already caused massive landslides and flooding in Sri Lanka.

An oral drug used to treat an illness unrelated to HIV eradicated infectious HIV-producing cells in lab cultures while sparing uninfected cells - and suppressed the virus in patients during treatment and for at least eight weeks after the drug was stopped, according to results of a clinical pilot trial and researchers at Rutgers University and Dartmouth College.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of childhood cancer in Switzerland. Despite intensive chemotherapy, one fifth of the patients suffer a relapse, which usually goes hand in hand with a poor prognosis. Researchers from the University of Zurich and the Children's Hospital Zurich have now found a way to kill off resistant leukemia cells: via necroptosis.