Body

Six new species of Chinese dragon millipedes, including species living exclusively in caves, are described as a result of an international cooperation of research institutes from China, Russia and Germany. These cave species have unusually long legs and antennae, with one of them resembling a stick insect, only with a lot more legs. Others appear ghostly white and semi-transparent. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Increasing temperatures will enlarge Europe's seasonal window for the potential spread of mosquito-borne viral disease, expanding the geographic areas at risk for a dengue epidemic to include much of Europe. The findings by researchers at Umeå University in Sweden are published in the journal EBioMedicine.

Researchers from ITMO University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje have fabricated a new magnetically controlled material composed of enzymes entrapped directly within magnetite particles. Combined with water, it forms a stable solution that can be used for safe intravenous injection for medical purposes, in particular, for targeted treatment of cancer and thrombosis.

Children born to mothers who eat salmon when pregnant may be less likely to have doctor diagnosed asthma compared to children whose mothers do not eat it, new research has shown.

The study, led by Professor Philip Calder of the University of Southampton, was presented at the recent Experimental Biology Congress in San Diego.

The fixed-dose combination of sacubitril and valsartan (trade name: Entresto) has been approved since November 2015 for adults with symptomatic chronic heart failure with reduced pump function (ejection fraction). The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) now examined in an early benefit assessment whether this drug combination offers an added benefit for patients in comparison with the appropriate comparator therapy.

SPOKANE, Wash. - A graduate student at Washington State University Spokane is the lead author on a research paper that shows an overall drop in emergency room visits and hospitalizations by patients who are served by the Spokane Prescription Assistance Network, which helps low income people get free and reduced-price medications.

However, the decrease did not apply to all types of medications nor ages within the study group, and some actually saw increases in hospitalizations and ER visits.

DALLAS - April 5, 2016 - Administering heart resuscitation drugs to patients whose cardiac arrest is witnessed at the time of the attack can improve survival, but needs to be done through an IV line rather than directly into bone marrow as is more commonly done by paramedics, a new study involving UT Southwestern Medical Center emergency physicians and Dallas-Fort Worth Emergency Medical Services (EMS) agencies reveals.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- In two new papers in The Lancet that report dramatic worldwide increases in body-mass index (BMI) and type 2 diabetes, the U.S. territory of American Samoa and independent Samoa are mentioned for their especially high prevalence of both conditions. As a researcher who has studied these phenomena in Samoans since 1976, Stephen McGarvey contributed extensive data on temporal trends to both reports and helped to write the diabetes paper. He also sees in the global data some of the same patterns he's seen play out in the Samoan islands.

Solar cells are among the most established and widely-utilized alternative energy technologies due to their relative affordability and ease of integration into existing infrastructure. Inexpensive materials called hybrid perovskites show great promise as solar-cell absorbers, and they are getting more and more efficient. This week in ACS Central Science, researchers reveal they can improve the performance of these materials simply by applying external pressure.

Dublin, April 6th, 2016 - Biomechanics researchers from Trinity College Dublin have discovered how insects build internal bandages to repair their broken 'bones'. A DIY cuticle repair kit allows wounded insects to go about their day-to-day lives almost as efficiently as they would have done before meeting with mishap.

When an insect cuts one of its legs, it kicks into repair mode by laying a patch of new cuticle underneath the affected area. This new cuticle effectively functions as a bandage, which seals the wound and provides structural strength where it is required.

Doctors are overdiagnosing asthma, with inhalers frequently dispensed for no good reason, to the point that they have "almost become a fashion accessory," argue two leading respiratory doctors in a leading article published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

In the past asthma was undoubtedly underdiagnosed, but the evidence now is that the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction, insist Professor Andrew Bush and Dr Louise Fleming of Imperial College and Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, in the journal.

Use of cannabis during pregnancy is linked to low birthweight and the need for intensive care, reveals an analysis of the available evidence, published in the online journal BMJ Open.

As cannabis becomes more socially acceptable, it's important that prospective mums-to-be and clinicians are fully up to speed on the potential harms of using the drug during pregnancy, caution the researchers.

Cannabis "remains the drug of choice in developed and developing countries," with up to 5% of 15-64 year olds around the world thought to use it, the researchers point out.

While wheat has been much maligned recently for it's gluten content, and new suspicions casted about as to its nutritional value, scientists have been eager to trace the evolutionary history of wheat to better understand the pasta wheat currently available.

Since the dawn of agriculture, humans have been selecting plants to maximize both the crop yield and food benefits. But which has left the larger genomic footprint, and are there evolutionary tradeoffs with domestication?

Agricultural fields create a patchwork landscape that increases the potential for domesticated crop DNA to flood wild plant gene pools. This allelic introgression can cause significant evolutionary change in wild plant populations, and jeopardize naturally occurring genetic material, which is needed for conservation and for future agricultural practices.

The lining of the intestine is the most rapidly-renewing tissue in the body. Routine shedding of epithelial cells from this lining is a key element of tissue turnover, and is thus essential to maintaining optimal health. Altered shedding is associated with multiple disorders, ranging from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to colorectal cancer.