Body

Epigenetics is a fast-growing field of research all over the world. Ecological epigenetics has now been further advanced thanks to the development of a new research technique. 'This technique is cheaper and faster and enables research that was previously impossible to conduct.' The time has come to look at how important epigenetic changes are for dealing with climate change, plagues and other stress-factors. The research team led by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) is publishing its technique in the scientific journal Nature Methods.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- The only constant is change. In evolution, there are, however, some exceptions. While the enormous diversity of life suggests that organisms are constantly being refitted with new or modified parts, many of the tools used to build these new organisms are just too useful to tinker with. For this reason they are, as scientists say, "conserved" over evolutionary time.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- They may have made America their new home, but immigrants whose children have special medical needs appear to be having trouble finding a true "medical home" for their child, a new study finds.

AMES, Iowa - Engineers at Iowa State University have found a way to combine a genetically engineered strain of yeast and an electrocatalyst to efficiently convert sugar into a new type of nylon.

Previous attempts to combine biocatalysis and chemical catalysis to produce biorenewable chemicals have resulted in low conversion rates. That's usually because the biological processes leave residual impurities that harm the effectiveness of chemical catalysts.

Among primary care practices, the use of two socially motivated behavioral interventions - accountable justification and peer comparison - resulted in significant reductions in inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory tract infections, while an intervention that lacked a social component, suggested alternatives, had no significant effect, according to a study in the February 9 issue of JAMA.

Andrew Fenelon, Ph.D., of the National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville, Md., and colleagues estimated the contribution of 3 causes of injury death to the gap in life expectancy between the United States and 12 comparable countries in 2012. The researchers focused on motor vehicle traffic (MVT) crashes, firearm-related injuries, and drug poisonings, the 3 largest causes of U.S. injury death, responsible for more than 100,000 deaths per year. The study appears in the February 9 issue of JAMA.

An international team of scientists led by the University of Liverpool has produced a 'structural movie' revealing the step-by-step creation of an important naturally occurring chemical in the body that plays a role in some cancers.

S-Adenosylmethionine (SAMe) is a major methyl donor that is produced by the highly conserved Methionine Adenosyltransferase (MAT) family of enzymes. Methylation is an underpinning process of life and provides control for biological processes such as DNA synthesis, cell growth and apoptosis.

(Philadelphia, PA) - Cadavers have long been one of the most important resources for anatomy teaching in medical school. Now, they are also at the forefront of cutting-edge genetics teaching, thanks to innovative thinking by professors at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM).

For more than 70 years, fossilized arthropods from Quercy, France, were almost completely neglected because they appeared to be poorly preserved. With the help of the Synchrotron Radiation Facility ANKA at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers with substantial participation from the University of Bonn has now been able to X-ray the 30-million-year-old beetle fossils. The internal structures are shown in such detail that the scientists were able to create an extensive description and an evolutionary analysis of the beetles.

A recent analysis of 43,205 human tumours unveiled that 68% of solid tumours are aneuploid, that is to say, they have an altered number of chromosomes. In recent years, scientists have attempted to clarify whether this aneuploidy contributes to tumour development or whether it is a co-lateral effect of the genomic instability of cancer cells, which increase the rate of mutations and the likelihood of cancer.

PHILADELPHIA-- A new way of mapping the "transcriptome" -- the collection of RNA read-outs that are expressed by a cell's active genes -- has been devised by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. RNA is both the molecular bridge between DNA and the production of proteins that carry out the functions of life and the molecular toolbox that collectively helps those proteins do their work. As such, RNA exists in a variety of forms, each with a particular role and purpose, not all of which are fully understood.

WATCH AND USE ANIMATED EXPLAINER VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVuBil4OTSo

A recent study from Lund University in Sweden shows that barley can rapidly improve people's health by reducing blood sugar levels and risk for diabetes. The secret lies in the special mixture of dietary fibres found in barley, which can also help reduce people's appetite and risk for cardiovascular disease.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have created the first robotically driven experimentation system to determine the effects of a large number of drugs on many proteins, reducing the number of necessary experiments by 70%.

The model, presented in the journal eLife, uses an approach that could lead to accurate predictions of the interactions between novel drugs and their targets, helping reduce the cost of drug discovery.

In injured mouse intestines, specific types of bacteria step forward to promote healing, scientists have found.

One oxygen-shy type of bacteria that grows in the wound-healing environment, Akkermansia muciniphila, has already attracted attention for its relative scarcity in both animal and human obesity.

The findings emphasize how the intestinal microbiome changes locally in response to injury and even helps repair breaches. The researchers suggest that some of these microbes could be exploited as treatments for conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease.

Oxford, February 9, 2016 - Reducing the number of men who go to prison could help curb the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in a community, according to research published in Social Science & Medicine.

A new computer model developed by researchers at the University of Michigan in the US suggests that reducing incarceration in a community may also reduce the number of sexual partners men and women have, therefore reducing the spread of sexually transmitted infections.