Body

Metal on metal hip replacements implanted since 2006 are more prone to failure and the need for further surgery, finds research looking at revision rates at one hospital trust for the DePuy Pinnacle device, and published in the online journal BMJ Open.

A higher rate of manufacturing issues since 2006, with more than a third of hips manufactured outside the stated specifications, may be to blame, suggest the researchers.

The number of hospital cases of self-inflicted harm, such as cutting and overdosing on prescription meds, has risen steadily since 2008 in England among men, reveals research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

But only around half of those who go to hospital after the incident receive a specialist mental health assessment, as national guidelines stipulate they should, the data show.

This is of particular concern as episodes of self-harm precede death in one in every two cases of suicide, the researchers point out.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Can a cell sense its own shape? Working in the Marine Biological Laboratory's Whitman Center, scientists from Dartmouth College developed an ingenious experiment to ask this question. Their conclusion - Yes - is detailed in a recent paper in the Journal of Cell Biology.

Boston, MA - Human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers occur more frequently, and sometimes with more deadly consequences, among Hispanics, blacks, and American Indian and Alaska Natives than among whites. A new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health finds that HPV vaccination is expected to reduce the cancer burden across all racial/ethnic groups. However, some disparities in cancer burden may persist and widen in the years to come if their causes--such as lack of access to diagnoses and treatment--aren't addressed.

A research team led by an award-winning genomicist at Western University has developed a new method for identifying mutations and prioritizing variants in breast and ovarian cancer genes, which will not only reduce the number of possible variants for doctors to investigate, but also increase the number of patients that are properly diagnosed.

These potentially game-changing technologies, developed by Peter Rogan, PhD, students and his collaborators from Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, reveal gene variants that were missed by conventional genetic testing.

PHILADELPHIA - The discovery of shared biological properties among independent variants of DNA sequences offers the opportunity to broaden understanding of the biological basis of disease and identify new therapeutic targets, according to a collaboration between the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Arizona Health Sciences, and Vanderbilt University. The group published their findings this month in npj Genomic Medicine.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Getting more nutritious meals on the tables of low-income Americans could depend on the hours the stores in their neighborhoods keep.

Stores likely to sell fresh produce aren't open as long in areas with more socioeconomic struggles, and that problem is more pronounced in neighborhoods where many African Americans live, new research from The Ohio State University has found.

In affluent neighborhoods, 24-7 access to a wide array of foods is far more common.

PHILADELPHIA - The discovery of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) has dramatically changed the understanding of the biology of diseases such as cancer. The human genome contains about 20,000 protein-coding genes - less than 2 percent of the total - but 70 percent of the genome is made into non-gene-encoding RNA.

Scientists have used a novel gene therapy to halt the progression of pulmonary hypertension, a form of high blood pressure in the lung blood vessels that is linked to heart failure, according to a study led by Roger J. Hajjar, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The study was published online this week, and will appear in the May 3 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) hijacks the host's fat metabolism for its own survival, growth, and transport in the human body. A study published on April 28th in PLOS Pathogens identifies a host gene involved in the formation of HCV virus particles and helps explain why humans with a rare mutation in the gene have problems with their fat metabolism.

This Special Issue on the microbiome features three reports, three Reviews and a Perspective that capture the many ways in which the microbes within our gut influence our health, and what in turn shapes this complex community.

Researchers have induced human fibroblasts into cardiomyocyte-like cells using just nine compounds, and show that these modified cells can be used to partially heal mouse hearts following a heart attack. Cardiomyocytes are muscle cells in the heart that help it beat, but these can become damaged following heart attack. Inducing non-cardiac cells to act as cardiomyocytes and transferring them to the heart could open new avenues for cardiac regenerative therapies, similar to how stem cells have contributed to regenerative medicine.

In this investigative news piece from Science, contributing correspondent John Bohannon dives into data from Sci-Hub, the world's largest pirate website for scholarly literature. For the first time, basic questions about Sci-Hub's millions of users can be answered: Where are they and what are they reading? Bohannon's statistical analysis is based on server log data supplied by Alexandra Elbakyan herself, the neuroscientist who created Sci-Hub in 2011.

Everything you eat or drink affects your intestinal bacteria, and is likely to have an impact on your health. That is the finding of a large-scale study led by RUG/UMCG geneticist Cisca Wijmenga into the effect of food and medicine on the bacterial diversity in the human gut, which is published this Friday in the prestigious research journal Science.

Work by an internationally renowned University of Rochester professor may offer an alternative to the way in which researchers have approached some photonics applications.