Body

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- As rural communities struggle to obtain access to health services, a Kansas State University student is researching how medical, dental, social work and mental health providers can collaborate to meet the needs of teens.

Bryant Miller, master's student in marriage and family therapy, Goessel, said an integrative approach is critical in addressing hot topics for teens, including substance use, obesity, teen pregnancy and parenting, depression, anxiety, ADHD, self-harm, harm to others and suicide.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have isolated human antibodies against a type of bird flu that has killed more than 200 people in China since 2012 and which may pose a worldwide pandemic threat.

The antibodies against H7subtype viruses exhibit "remarkable neutralizing potency," and thus may represent a new way to protect people who have been exposed to or infected by avian influenza, they reported today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The number of overweight people is increasing worldwide -- and thus the risk of developing diabetes or cardiovascular disease. For this reason, many dream of an active substance which would simply melt off fat deposits. An international team of scientists has now come one small step closer to this dream: The team discovered a switch in the fat cells of mice and humans with which excess pounds can be burned off. If the Gq protein is blocked, undesired white fat cells change into energy-consuming brown cells.

More than two out of ten women who have been victims of sexual abuse as children are likely to stop breastfeeding before their babies reach four months, according to a new study.

In Norway, almost all mothers start with breastfeeding, and full breastfeeding for the first six months of a child's life is recommended. Breast milk contains many antibodies and vitamins not found in infant formula. The emotional intimacy of breastfeeding is important for both mother and child. Breastfeeding is also good for the mother's health.

But some mothers stop breastfeeding early.

A breakthrough in basic research and the first comprehensive study on the secretory activity of the human intestine: over a period of eight years, Dr. Dagmar Krüger of the Department of Human Biology at TU Munich has examined more than 2200 specimens from around 450 patients with bowel disease. Her findings are startling: contrary to common beliefs, the secretory capacity of the human gut doesn´t decline with age. Nor does gender play a role.

The way parasitoid wasps feed may be gruesome, but it is an extremely efficient way to exploit prey, University of Exeter research has found.

The wasps lay their eggs inside other animals and once the larvae hatches it starts feeding on the still living host from inside -- as portrayed in the movie Alien. This is an unpleasant way for the attacked animal to die but it is a clever way for the wasps to eat.

X-ray crystallographic analysis is one of the only methods that provides direct information on molecular structures at the atomic level. The method, however, has the intrinsic limitation that the target molecules must be crystalline, and high-quality single crystals must be prepared before measurement. These limitations have often caused considerable problems for scientists in their determination of molecular structures.

New research has identified a first step in the design of a new generation of anti-cancer drugs that include an agent to inhibit resistance to their effectiveness.

The research, by a team co-led by Professor Martin Michaelis of the University of Kent, in conjunction with Professor Jindrich Cinatl of the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, could pave the way for tailored combinations of drugs that would provide more effective treatment for patients suffering from therapy-resistant cancers.

The first vertebrate to be genetically sequenced in Spain, the Turbot (Scophthalmus maximus), has a much more highly developed sense of sight than other fish, since it has evolved in order to adapt itself to the lack of light on the sea bed. In addition, its genes show us that the levels of fat in its cellular membranes are far higher than in other species, so as to be able to withstand the low water temperatures in its habitat.

The use of meldonium--the substance taken by tennis star Maria Sharapova--is widespread among elite athletes, reveals research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The findings, which draw on information volunteered by athletes and individual medical teams, and lab data on anti-doping tests from the Baku 2015 European Games, indicate that up to 490 athletes may have been taking meldonium during the competition.

Scientists have devised a technique for visualising tissues that could aid diagnosis and treatment of diseases including cancer.

The new approach is more sensitive than existing tools and could help researchers detect illnesses at a much earlier stage.

Doctors may also be able to check how well a patient is responding to a treatment by monitoring changes occurring in cells.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Adding either tomosynthesis (a form of 3D mammography) or ultrasound scans to standard mammograms can detect breast cancers that would have been missed in women with dense breasts, according to an interim analysis of a trial comparing these two additional screening technologies.

In over 3,000 women with dense breasts where standard mammograms had not detected any cancer, the addition of tomosynthesis or ultrasound scans picked up an extra 24 cancers, the 10th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-10) heard today (Wednesday).

A research team led by Associate Professor Miyake Chikahiro and PhD student Takagi Daisuke from the Kobe University Graduate School of Agricultural Science have discovered that a certain gene within plants suppresses the toxic molecules formed as byproducts of photosynthesis. These findings have potential applications for plant growth in stressful environments. The research was published on Feb. 16, 2016 in the online version of Plant Physiology.

Led by Drs John Postlethwait and Ingo Braasch from the Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, US, in collaboration with the Broad Institute, the study of the Spotted Gar (Lepisosteus oculatus) genome reveals that it is small and manageable. Furthermore, it lacks much shuffling and duplication that occurred in the 'main' fish ancestral line; it conserved its genome.

An imbalance of certain gut microbes appears to be the underlying cause of a frequently fatal intestinal illness in premature babies, according to new research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.