Body

Osteoporosis particularly affects elderly women: the bone's structure weakens and the risk of suffering fractures rises. As prophylaxis patients are advised to have a healthy diet and perform physical exercises; when the risk of bone fractures is high, medicine preventing further bone loss is prescribed in addition.

A study of an enzyme that helps build and repair DNA in living organisms increases our understanding of how these processes are controlled and how we can use this to combat infections.

September 2, 2016 -- Chronic wasting disease has caused significant declines in east-central Wyoming white-tailed deer populations, according to new research published this week by University of Wyoming scientists.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease of deer, elk and moose found in 24 states and two Canadian provinces.

Substances known as transcription factors often determine how a cell develops as well as which proteins it produces and in what quantities. Transcription factors bind to a section of DNA and control how strongly a gene in that section is activated. Scientists had previously assumed that gene activity is controlled by the binding strength and the proximity of the binding site to the gene. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin have now discovered that the DNA segment to which a transcription factor binds can assume various spatial arrangements.

Skinny lines of ants snake through the rainforest carrying leaves and flowers above their heads--fertilizer for industrial-scale, underground fungus farms. Soon after the dinosaur extinctions 60 million years ago, the ancestors of leaf-cutter ants swapped a hunter-gatherer lifestyle for a bucolic existence on small-scale subsistence farms. A new study at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama revealed that living relatives of these earliest fungus-farming ants still have not domesticated their crop, a challenge also faced by early human farmers.

Potential outbreaks of diseases such as Ebola and Lassa fever may be more accurately predicted thanks to a new mathematical model developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge. This could in turn help inform public health messages to prevent outbreaks spreading more widely.

Many of the major new outbreaks of disease, particularly in Africa, are so-called zoonotic infections, diseases that are transmitted to humans from animals. The Ebola virus, for example, which recently killed over 11,000 people across Africa, was most likely transmitted to humans from fruit bats.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Sept. 2, 2016 -- A new study by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) details the design and validation of a low-cost, rapid and highly accurate screening tool -- known as KlebSeq -- for potentially deadly healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs), such as Klebsiella pneumoniae. HAIs affect hundreds of thousands of patients annually and add nearly $10 billion in associated healthcare costs.

HOUSTON - (Sept. 2, 2016) - Flakes of graphene welded together into solid materials may be suitable for bone implants, according to a study led by Rice University scientists.

The Rice lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan and colleagues in Texas, Brazil and India used spark plasma sintering to weld flakes of graphene oxide into porous solids that compare favorably with the mechanical properties and biocompatibility of titanium, a standard bone-replacement material.

The discovery is the subject of a paper in Advanced Materials.

Researchers discovered a new snake species in Madagascar and named it "ghost snake" for its pale grey coloration and elusiveness. They found the ghost snake on a recently opened path within the well-traveled Ankarana National Park in northern Madagascar in February 2014. They studied the snake's physical characteristics and genetics, which verified that it is a new species.

Paul G. Allen's Vulcan Inc. today announced the results of the $7 million, three-year Great Elephant Census (GEC - http://www.greatelephantcensus.com/), the first-ever pan-African survey of savanna elephants using standardized data collection and validation methods. Managed by Elephants Without Borders (EWB,) the immense project's report confirms substantial declines in elephant numbers over just the last decade.

Scientists from Tohoku University's Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization (ToMMo) have published research about genetic diversity and metabolome in Scientific Reports.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- A new report from the UC Davis Institute for Population Health Improvement (IPHI) shows the impact of cancer screening over the past 15 years, identifying areas where increased screening and other cancer-control efforts would save lives and significantly benefit population health.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (September 1, 2016) - Whitehead Institute researchers have conducted the first genome-wide screen in Apicomplexa, a phylum of single-celled parasites that cause malaria, babesiosis, cryptosporidiosis, and toxoplasmosis. The screen sheds light into the vast, unstudied reaches of parasite genomes, uncovering for instance a protein common to all apicomplexans.

HOUSTON - (Sept. 1, 2016) - Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), a non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate, affects about half the men between 51 and 60 years of age, and nine out of 10 men older than 80. How BPH happens, however, is still open for debate. In a paper published today in Molecular Cell, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and other institutions report a new mechanism that can explain the development of BPH and suggest strategies to improve the response to androgen-targeting therapies, which are usually used to treat prostate cancer and BPH.

A special variant of a sugar molecule in the human nose might explain why pneumococcal infections are more common in humans than in other animals, researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report in a study published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe. The discovery can help in the search for a broader vaccine able to protect against all types of pneumococci.