Body

COLUMBIA, Mo. - More than 15 million Americans live within a one-mile radius of unconventional oil and gas (UOG) operations. UOGs combine directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to release natural gas from underground rock. Scientific studies, while ongoing, are still inconclusive on the potential long-term effects fracturing has on human development.

WHAT:

PHOENIX - Researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute have traced the roots of humane medical practices to a pioneering French physician who treated people with deformities as humans instead of "monsters," as they were commonly called.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A new device developed by researchers at MIT and a physician at Connecticut Children's Medical Center could greatly improve doctors' ability to accurately diagnose ear infections. That could drastically reduce the estimated 2 million cases per year in the United States where such infections are incorrectly diagnosed and unnecessary antibiotics are prescribed. Such overprescriptions are considered a major cause of antibiotic resistance.

Human noroviruses - the leading viral cause of acute diarrhea around the world - have been difficult to study because scientists had not found a way to grow them in the lab. Now, more than 40 years after Dr. Albert Kapikian identified human noroviruses as a cause of severe diarrhea, scientists at Baylor College of Medicine have, for the first time, succeeded at growing noroviruses in laboratory cultures of human intestinal epithelial cells.

Despite years of research, cellular mechanisms contributing to cancers like esophageal adenocarcinoma have remained elusive. What has puzzled researchers was how genes in the healthy cells lining the esophagus turned the normal cells into malignant ones. Now, researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have characterized structurally abnormal genes in esophageal adenocarcinoma, the findings of which could pave way for developing new biomarkers in this fatal disease.

Researchers from the RAND Corporation and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have joined forces to combine high-performance computing with innovative public policy analysis to improve planning for particularly complex issues such as water resource management.

In 1963, Irish surgeon Denis Parson Burkitt airmailed samples of an unusual jaw tumor found in Ugandan children to his colleague, Anthony Epstein, at Middlesex Hospital in London. Epstein, an expert in chicken viruses and an early adopter of the electron microscope, cultured the tissue and took a look. What he found has become known as Epstein-Barr virus, the cause of mononucleosis, the "kissing cold", and also, it turns out, an ingredient of the jaw tumor in which it was originally found, now known as Burkitt's lymphoma.

MADISON, Wis. -- Collagen makes up the cartilage in our knee joints, the vessels that transport our blood, and is a crucial component in our bones. It is the most abundant protein found in the bodies of humans and many other animals. It is also an important biomaterial in modern medicine, used in wound healing, tissue repair, drug delivery and more.

AURORA, Colo. (Aug. 25, 2016) - While it is clear that there is a strong genetic component to the human face, there are relatively few genes known to impact normal human facial development and facial shape.

In a study published today in PLOS Genetics, an international team of researchers led by a University of Colorado School of Medicine scientist have identified two significant genes associated with measures of human facial size and have identified 10 additional candidates for location of genes affecting human facial shape.

Ultrasound imaging is used around the world to help visualize developing babies and diagnose diseases. Sound waves bounce off the tissues, revealing their different densities and shapes. The next step in ultrasound technology is to image not just anatomy, but specific cells and molecules deeper in the body, such as those associated with tumors or bacteria in our gut.

University of Hawai'i Cancer Center researchers discovered new genetic markers associated with a fast rate of nicotine metabolism, which potentially leads smokers to smoke more, thereby, increasing their risk for lung cancer.

A study shows that stimulating the production of interleukin-17A (IL-17A), one of the cytokines released by cells of the immune system, can be an effective strategy for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis, considered one of the six most important parasitic diseases affecting humans.

A disorder known as Barrett's esophagus (BE) affects some 200,000 Americans each year. The condition, which is caused by stomach acid damaging the lining of the esophagus, can lead to the development of a serious, potentially fatal cancer of epithelial tissue, known as esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC).

In a new study, Carlo Maley, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, uses evolutionary theory to make predictions about which BE patients will go on to develop cancer.

Researchers have identified a gene that appears to curb coffee consumption.

People with a DNA variation in a gene called PDSS2 tend to drink fewer cups of coffee, the study found.

Experts say the findings suggest that the gene reduce the ability of cells to breakdown caffeine, causing it to stay in the body for longer.

This means that a person would not need to consume as much coffee to get the same caffeine hit, the team says.