Body

Doctors and scientists at the University of Southampton have used advanced 3D X-ray imaging technology to give new insight into the way an aggressive form of lung disease develops in the body.

Originally designed for the analysis of substantial engineering parts, such as jet turbine blades, the powerful scanning equipment at Southampton's µ-VIS Centre for Computed Tomography, has been used to image Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) lung tissue samples for the first time.

A world-first University of Melbourne-led study into the health and wellbeing of more than 154 million Indigenous and tribal people globally reveals the extent of work that needs to be done if the United Nations is to meet its 2030 goals of ending poverty and inequality.

The Indigenous and tribal peoples' health (The Lancet-Lowitja Institute Global Collaboration): A Population Study, commissioned by Australia's Lowitja Institute, is the most comprehensive ever compiled by world health experts.

A research team led by Associate Professor Miyake Chikahiro and PhD student Takagi Daisuke from the Kobe University Graduate School of Agricultural Science have reproduced the reaction in which harmful reactive oxygen species are created during plant photosynthesis, and clarified a mechanism behind plant withering. This discovery could help to ensure stable food supplies by cultivating plants that can withstand environmental stresses such as global warming. The findings were published on March 2 in the online version of Plant Physiology.

A new study from the group of Holger Gerhardt (VIB/KU Leuven/Cancer Research UK/ MDC/BIH Berlin) in collaboration with Katie Bentley's Lab (Cancer Research UK/BIDMC-Harvard Medical School) addresses a long standing question in the wider field of developmental biology and tissue patterning in general, and in the vascular biology field in particular: 'What are the fundamental mechanisms controlling size and shape of tubular organ systems'.

A targeted therapy for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), the most aggressive form of breast cancer, has shown potential promise in a recently published study. TNBC is the only type of breast cancer for which there are no currently approved targeted therapies.

The new study led by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators has identified gene alterations that may explain why TNBC is resistant to most existing treatments, and suggests that a targeted therapy currently in clinical development may prove beneficial.

Scientists increasingly realize the importance of gut and other microbes to our health and well-being, but one University of California, Berkeley, biologist is asking whether these microbes - our microbiota - might also have played a role in shaping who we are by steering evolution.

MINNEAPOLIS - Athletes who have medical complaints, like aches and pains, that have no known physical cause may take longer to recover after a concussion, according to a study published in the April 20, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Called psychosomatic symptoms, such complaints are often described as psychological distress expressed as physical illness.

In rare instances, DNA is known to have jumped from one species to another. If a parasite's DNA jumps to its host's genome, it could leave evidence of that parasitic interaction that could be found millions of years later -- a DNA 'fossil' of sorts. An international research team led from Uppsala University has discovered a new type of so-called transposable element that occurred in the genomes of certain birds and nematodes.

The results are published in Nature Communications.

Cincinnati, OH, April 21, 2016 -- Sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), which includes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), is the leading cause of death in infants 1 month to 1 year of age in the United States. Although the reason is unknown, maternal age less than 20 years is associated with an increased risk of SIDS. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers found that although teenage mothers know the recommendations in regards to safe sleeping practices, many deliberately do not follow those recommendations.

Long-term exposure to cement dust at levels that are comparable to the present occupational exposure limits could cause a decline in lung volumes, according to a new study.

The research, published today (21 April, 2016) in the European Respiratory Journal, is the first study to assess whether differing levels of exposure have a different level of impact on lung health.

Deaths from violent conflict and lack of available care are major causes of mortality among pregnant women in war zones, warn doctors in an editorial published in The BMJ today.

More needs to be done to protect women from violence in conflicts, and to provide appropriate medical care required, they argue.

"In times of war, the focus is usually on the male soldiers", they explain, but an estimated 140,000 women die in conflict every year.

In The BMJ today, leading experts debate whether the food industry should fund health research, and if so, under what circumstances.

The food industry is crucial, fulfills key societal needs, and employs more people than any other sector in the UK, argue Paul Aveyard, professor of behavioral medicine at the University of Oxford, and Derek Yach, executive director at the Vitality Institute in New York.

For a majestic animal that looks equally at home as the monarch of the glen or astride the great American Plains, the wapiti's call is somewhat disconcerting. Sounding more like the shrieking cries of a Lord of the Rings Ringwraith, their haunting high-pitched screeches can carry great distances.

Phone calls and text messages reach you wherever you are because your phone has a unique identifying number that sets you apart from everybody else on the network. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using a similar principle to track cells being sorted on microfluidic chips.

How people think and feel about their lives depends on multiple factors, including genes. In a paper published in Nature Genetics, a multi-institutional team, including a researcher from Baylor College of Medicine, reports that they have found genetic variants associated with our feelings of well-being, depression and neuroticism.

This is one of the largest studies on the genes involved in human behavior. More than 190 researchers in 140 institutions in 17 countries analyzed genomic data from nearly 300,000 people.