Body

Some forensic anthropologists thought the skull condition called cribra orbitalia (CO) was a thing of the past - but new research from North Carolina State University and the University of the Witwatersrand finds that it not only still exists, but is fairly common in both North America and South Africa.

CO is a condition in which the bone inside the eye sockets becomes porous. It is not known to cause any adverse health effects, but is generally regarded as being caused by iron deficiency anemia.

Visitors to the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics Summer Games (5-21 August and 7-18 September 2016) in Rio de Jan, Brazil will be most at risk of gastrointestinal illness and vector-borne infections. Consequently, travellers are advised to pay attention to standard hygiene measures and protect themselves against mosquito and other insect bites using insect repellent and wearing long-sleeved shirts and trousers.

Cancer cells have an abnormal cell division and survival machinery -- they grow faster than they die. For their permanent development, they produce an excess of growth factors and nutrients and block the body's own safety mechanisms. To do so, cancer cells harbour mutations, which enable a continuous cellular growth. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an activating mutation in the FLT3 tyrosine kinase is the most frequent mutation found in patients.

Retroviral DNAs integrate into host genomes, but their expression is normally repressed by cellular defense mechanisms. As an Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich team now shows, when these measures fail, accumulation of viral proteins may trigger programmed cell death.

Scientists from KU Leuven, Belgium, present a new therapeutic approach that may make it possible for HIV patients to (temporarily) stop their medication. The findings shed a completely new light on the search for a cure for HIV.

Existing antiviral inhibitors can suppress the replication of the HIV virus, but they cannot fully remove it from the human body. As a result, HIV patients have to take inhibitors for the rest of their lives. HIV researchers worldwide are currently developing new methods to eliminate the virus.

A new study, published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology, has found that prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) has a significant association with lower birth weight and gestational length. This was found to be in cases where mothers had taken the drug for two or more trimesters.

Most living organisms adapt their behavior to the rhythm of day and night. Plants are no exception: flowers open in the morning, some tree leaves close during the night. Researchers have been studying the day and night cycle in plants for a long time: Linnaeus observed that flowers in a dark cellar continued to open and close, and Darwin recorded the overnight movement of plant leaves and stalks and called it "sleep". But even to this day, such studies have only been done with small plants grown in pots, and nobody knew whether trees sleep as well.

ANNAPOLIS, MD (May 17, 2016)--The overall health of Chesapeake Bay improved in 2015, according to scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The largest estuary in the nation scored a C (53%) in 2015, one of the three highest scores since 1986. Only 1992 and 2002 scored as high or higher, both years of major sustained droughts.

Professor Hannes Lohi's research group at the University of Helsinki has discovered three novel canine genes for Caffey, Raine and van den Ende-Gupta syndromes. Research reveals close similarities of the canine models of human rare disorders and highlights the potential of comparative research approach for the development of rare disease diagnostics and treatments. Gene discoveries will benefit also veterinary diagnostics and breeding programs. The study was published in PLOS Genetics on May 17, 2016.

When you touch your phone's screen, you might not realize that you've set off a molecular chain reaction.

Your fingertip sends a jolt of electricity (albeit tiny) that disturbs rows of molecules meticulously assembled at the screen's surface and dictates the action, whether it's opening a new window or typing the next word on your text message.

But what if those molecules could be jostled more easily and rapidly snap back in formation, enabling quicker touches and swipes--and on smaller screens to boot?

TORONTO, May 17, 2016 - Tragedies like the E. coli outbreak in Ontario's Walkerton in May 2000 could be averted today with a new invention by researchers at York University that can detect the deadly contaminant in drinking water early.

"We have developed a hydrogel based rapid E. coli detection system that will turn red when E. coli is present," says Professor Sushanta Mitra, Lassonde School of Engineering. "It will detect the bacteria right at the water source before people start drinking contaminated water."

An international team of researchers under the leadership of the LIMES Institute and the excellence cluster ImmunoSensation of the University of Bonn unraveled a new regulatory mechanism how food components and environmental factors influence the immune system. Various substances present in the intestines can bind to an important controller, the Ah receptor. This system is in turn regulated by the Ah receptor repressor and as a result, it influences the degree of the immune response.

Conventional wisdom says removing beach debris helps sea turtles nest; now, as sea-turtle nesting season gets underway, a new University of Florida study proves it.

Clearing the beach of flotsam and jetsam increased the number of nests by as much as 200 percent, the study shows, while leaving the detritus decreased the number by nearly 50 percent.

While investigating a potential therapeutic target for the ERK1 and 2 pathway, a widely expressed signaling molecule known to drive cancer growth in one third of patients with colorectal cancer, University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers found that an alternative pathway immediately emerges when ERK1/2 is halted, thus allowing tumor cell proliferation to continue.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have identified key risk factors associated with patient readmission within 30 days after pediatric neurosurgery in a recent study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.

Of the 9,799 eligible neurosurgical procedures performed at 50 hospitals across the United States in patients younger than 18 years old, 11.2 percent were followed by an unplanned hospital readmission within 30 days.