Body

Consider the engineering marvel that is your foot. Be it hairy or homely, without its solid support you'd be hard-pressed to walk or jump normally.

You are the product of metamorphosis. During the third week of your embryonic existence, fateful genetic choices were made that began to transform a tiny ball of identical stem cells into a complex organism of flesh and blood, bone and sinew, brain and heart and gut and lung. But what directed this remarkable developmental choreography?

A group of protein kinases have been found to play an important role in embryo development and may even be a potential cancer drug target, says research led by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and the Francis Crick Institute, UK.

The study, published in Cell Reports, is the first description of knockouts of a whole family of protein kinases (PKN1-3) in mice and reveals roles in congenital birth defects such as spina bifida.

Three new species of chigger mites have been discovered in Thailand, and are described in an article in the Journal of Medical Entomology.

The new species were discovered as part of a broad sampling effort across 11 provinces in Thailand, and they were found on rodents. With the addition of these three species, there are now 99 known species of chiggers in Thailand.

EUGENE, Ore. -- Jan. 7, 2016 -- All it took was one mutation more than 600 million years ago. With that random act, a new protein function was born that helped our single-celled ancestor transition into an organized multicellular organism.

That's the scenario -- done with some molecular time travel -- that emerged from basic research in the lab of University of Oregon biochemist Ken Prehoda.

In solid-organ transplant recipients, the cancer death rate was higher than in the general population in a new study from Ontario, Canada, published online by JAMA Oncology. Nancy N. Baxter, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Toronto, Canada, and coauthors determined cancer mortality in patients who underwent solid-organ transplantation in Ontario, Canada, over a 20-year period between 1991 and 2010. The authors identified 11,061 solid-organ transplant recipients (SOTRs), including kidney, liver, heart and lung transplants, and 3,068 deaths, of which 603 were cancer-related.

CHICAGO: The cost of implementing an innovative quality improvement program that helps colorectal surgery patients recover faster is more than offset by savings from their reduced lengths of stay at hospitals of any size. The patient-centric program incurs sizable upfront investments in patient educational materials, dedicated time for frontline providers to develop and implement the pathway and develop a framework for measuring their performance.

AU School of Public Affairs assistant professor Taryn Morrissey conducted a study that links parental depression to increased safety risks for their children. Her article on the findings, 'Parents' Depressive Symptoms and Gun, Fire, and Motor Vehicle Safety Practices,' was published online by the Maternal and Child Health Journal on Jan. 5, 2016.

Boston-A gene that plays a role in the development of breast cancer to metastatic disease has been identified which may help to predict disease progression and serve as a target for the development of future breast cancer therapies.

These findings by Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers currently appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Pressure ulcers -- resulting from factors such as immobility by elderly patients and residents in hospitals and care homes -- can have serious medical consequences, requiring plastic surgery in extreme cases. Also, they pile huge extra costs on the healthcare system. Now research by University of Huddersfield experts has led to a call for nationwide improvements in education so that staff in nursing and care homes can develop the skills and knowledge that are needed to curtail the problem.

ATLANTA - Jan. 7, 2016 - Steady reductions in smoking combined with advances in cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment have resulted in a 23% drop in the cancer death rate since its peak in 1991. The drop translates to more than 1.7 million cancer deaths averted through 2012. The findings are included in Cancer Statistics, 2016, the American Cancer Society's latest annual report on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival. It is published early online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality in the United States, with a five-year survival rate of just 17 percent. Smoking causes approximately 85 percent of all lung cancer cases, only 15 percent of which are diagnosed at an early stage. Most efforts to obtain early diagnosis have been unsuccessful, largely due to the highly aggressive nature of the disease.

Forests can store as much as 45 percent of the world's terrestrial carbon, making them a critical part of the process of regulating climate change.

As global temperatures rise, though, the organic matter in forests appears to break down more quickly, accelerating the release of carbon into the atmosphere.

This surprising conclusion comes out of a long-term study that was intended to find means to mitigate global warming, not exacerbate it.

Precolombian seafarers left what is now mainland Panama to settle on Pedro González Island in the Perlas archipelago about 6,000 years ago, crossing 50-70 kilometers (31-44 miles) of choppy seas -- probably in dugout canoes. Dolphins were an important part of the diet of island residents according to Smithsonian archeologist Richard Cooke and colleagues from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA and Colombia's Universidad del Norte.

A world-first QUT study revealing light exposure plays a role in the weight of preschool children has been published by international research journal PLOS ONE.

PhD student Cassandra Pattinson and colleagues Simon Smith, Alicia Allan, Sally Staton and Karen Thorpe studied children aged three to five, from six Brisbane childcare centres. At time 1, they measured children's sleep, activity and light exposure for a two week period, along with height and weight to calculate their BMI, then followed up 12-months later