Body

Boston, MA -- Women in the U.S. who live in homes surrounded by more vegetation appear to have significantly lower mortality rates than those who live in areas with less vegetation, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital. The study found that women who lived in the greenest surroundings had a 12% lower overall mortality rate than those living in homes in the least green areas.

April 14, 2016 -- Lay health advisors who share similar social, economic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds and values with the medically underserved groups they interact with have been shown to reduce health disparities. Looking to identify elements that can help make these advisors and the programs they support as effective as possible, researchers from Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) and Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that support from the sponsoring organization and clear role expectations are critical for the success of these lay advisors.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, in part because it is very difficult for chemotherapy drugs to reach the pancreas, which is located deep within the abdomen.

LA JOLLA, CA - April 14, 2016 - Imagine attempting to bake a cake--except you have to go to different stores for flour and milk, drive across town to get eggs and call a friend to borrow a cake pan.

This is the kind of disjointed scenario many scientists face when they attempt to gather data scattered across small databases and hard-to-search PDF files.

"It's not that the data doesn't exist," said Andrew Su, associate professor at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI). "The data just isn't stored in a way that scientists can easily access."

DALLAS -- Protective mastectomies that preserve the nipple and surrounding skin prevent breast cancer as effectively as more invasive surgeries for women with a genetic mutation called BRCA that raises their risk of developing breast cancer, a multi-institution study led by Mayo Clinic found. The research should reassure patients and surgeons that nipple-sparing mastectomies, which leave women with more natural-looking breasts than other mastectomies, are a safe way to reduce breast cancer risk in BRCA carriers, the authors say.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions have uncovered a site of genetic variation that identified which patients with Parkinson's disease are more likely to have tremors versus difficulty with balance and walking. The Penn team also found that patients with this genetic variation had a slower rate of Parkinson's disease progression, and lower amounts of alpha-synuclein in the brain. Alpha-synuclein is a protein that experts know plays a role in the development of Parkinson's disease.

Using tracer compounds, scientists have been able to track the cellular production of NADPH, a key coenzyme for making fat, through a pathway that has never been measured directly before.

By tracking this pathway, known as malic enzyme metabolism, which is one of a few recognized routes to make NADPH, researchers from Rabinowitz lab discovered a novel switch in the way fat cells make NADPH depending on the presence of oxygen. The findings were published in Nature Chemical Biology.

High-volume lung transplant centers have lower transplantation costs and their patients are less likely to be readmitted within 30 days of leaving the hospital following surgery, according to a new study of more than 3,000 Medicare patients who received lung transplants.

"The Effect of Transplant Center Volume on Cost and Readmission in Medicare Lung Transplant Recipients" was published online ahead of print in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Standard treatment for prostate cancer can include chemotherapy that targets receptors on cancer cells. However, drug-resistant cancer cells can emerge during chemotherapy, limiting its effectiveness as a cancer-fighting agent. Researchers at the University of Missouri have proven that a compound initially developed as a cholesterol-fighting molecule not only halts the progression of prostate cancer, but also can kill cancerous cells.

Corals within the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have developed a thermal tolerance mechanism to adapt to sharp increases in sea surface temperatures in recent decades, but near-future temperature increases of as little as 0.5°C may result in this protective mechanism being lost, a new study finds. The results suggest that the occurrence of coral bleaching could dramatically increase in the near future. For optimal coral health and growth, a symbiotic relationship with algae-likes species called dinoflagellates that live within the coral structures takes place.

Parasites that develop resistance to the antimalarial drug atovaquone cannot pass this resistance on to offspring, a new study suggests, because their lifecycles are often disrupted by the drug's mechanism. Atovaquone is a drug that has been used to treat malaria, a mosquito-borne disease caused by parasites. But, the parasites can develop resistance to this drug, and there is concern that this resistance will spread, as it has for other antimalarials. Mutations in the cytochrome b (cytB) gene are known to drive resistance. Therefore Christopher Goodman et al.

Intestinal worms beneficially influence the composition of gut microbiota in the presence of inflammatory bowel disease, a new study suggests. The findings provide important insights into how intestinal worms, or helminths, manipulate the gut microbiota in a way that is beneficial for its host. Building upon previous research, Deepshika Ramanan and colleagues found that mice deficient in the gene Nod2, which are used to model Crohn's disease, develop abnormalities in their small intestines, including a compromised layer of mucus and changes to intestinal cell morphology.

ANN ARBOR--Suppose you were trying to design a vaccine to combat next season's influenza virus. Having a detailed map that tells you exactly how various strains of the flu bug will evolve would be extremely helpful.

Creating just that sort of map is the goal of evolutionary biologists who study a conceptual tool called the fitness landscape, which provides a way to visualize and predict evolution.

Scientists have mapped how thousands of genetic mutations can affect a cell's chances of survival.

The study involving yeast reveals how different combinations of mutations in a single gene can influence whether the cell lives or dies.

It is the first time scientists have been able to measure the effects of every possible combination of mutations in a gene.

Inorganic phosphate is an essential building block of cell membranes, DNA and proteins. It is also a main component of ATP, the "cell currency" of energy transfer. All cells therefore need to maintain a sufficient concentration of phosphate in their cytoplasm and have developed systems to transport and store this nutrient. But how does a cell know how much phosphate it actually needs?