Body

Higher monthly doses of vitamin D were associated with no benefit on low extremity function and with an increased risk of falls in patients 70 or older in a randomized clinical trial, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

Lower extremity function that is impaired is a major risk factor for falls, injuries and a loss of autonomy. Vitamin D supplementation has been proposed as a possible preventive strategy to delay functional decline. However, definitive data are lacking.

The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) was associated with more nutritious school lunches chosen by students with no negative effect on school meal participation, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.

Minor variants of flu strains, which are not typically targeted in vaccines, carry a bigger viral punch than previously realized, a team of scientists has found. Its research, which examined samples from the 2009 flu pandemic in Hong Kong, shows that these minor strains are transmitted along with the major strains and can replicate and elude immunizations.

How can life originate from a lifeless chemical soup? This question has puzzled scientists since Darwin's 'Origin of species'. University of Groningen chemistry professor Sijbren Otto studies 'chemical evolution' to see if self-organization and autocatalysis will provide the answer. His research group previously developed self-replicating molecules -- molecules that can make copies of themselves -- and have now observed diversification in replicator mutants. They found that if you start with one ancestral set of replicator mutants, a second set will branch off spontaneously.

Volunteers in the north-east of England have created a benchmark survey of common plants with which to identify change in the countryside, its result and causes. This survey will be used in future to monitor the effects of climate change on plants; assess the success of conservation measures and predict future change. Its findings are published in the open-access journal Biodiversity Data Journal, contributing an additional 35,000 observations to the 200,000 observations collected by local recorders since the turn of the millennium .

COLUMBIA, Mo. (Jan. 4, 2016) - A gene that is known to suppress the growth and spread of many types of cancer has the opposite effect in some forms of colorectal cancer, University of Missouri School of Medicine researchers have found. It is a finding that may lay the foundation for new colorectal cancer treatments.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have taken what they hope will be the first step toward preventing and reversing age-related stem cell dysfunction and metabolic disease. That includes diabetes, which affects 12.2 million Americans age 60 and older, according to the National Council on Aging. In this study, researchers discovered methods for reducing these conditions in naturally aged mice. Their findings appear in the online journal eLife.

Our bodies look symmetrical, but most internal organs are asymmetric in shape or in position. In mouse embryos, a model animal that is closest to humans, cell groups, which are a source of organs, are symmetrical, but become asymmetric some 8 days after fertilization.

Human material from the Anatolian site Kumtepe was used in the study. The material was heavily degraded, but yielded enough DNA for the doctorate student Ayca Omrak to address questions concerning the demography connected to the spread of farming. She conducted her work at the Archaeological Research Laboratory.

January 4, 2016 - The burden of recurrent acute and chronic pancreatitis in children may be higher than previously thought, with high costs related to repeated hospitalizations, report a pair of studies in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.

ANN ARBOR -- If they successfully invade Lake Erie, Asian carp could eventually account for about a third of the total weight of fish in the lake and could cause declines in most fish species -- including prized sport and commercial fish such as walleye, according to a new computer modeling study.

An antiscarring paste when applied to the skin of mice halts fibrosis caused by the radiation used in cancer therapy. That is according to a study led by researchers at Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center to be published tomorrow in the January edition of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, or FASEB.

Generally, organic conductors has disorder structures so charge transfers from one place with high conductivity to another place with high conductivity. In such occasions, Coulomb blockade of charge transport takes place. It was thought that Coulomb blockade took place in low dimensional aggregates of inorganic particulates only at very low temperatures.

Biologists at the universities of York and Exeter have published new research which shows that an ancient symbiosis is founded entirely on exploitation, not mutual benefit.

The researchers concluded that a single-celled protozoa called Paramecium bursaria benefits from exploiting a green algae which lives inside it, providing its host with sugar and oxygen from photosynthesis.

Scientists have been debating for decades whether symbioses, like the Paramecium-Chlorella association, are based on mutual benefit or exploitation.

Certain threats -- such as starvation or an attack by enemies -- turn on genes in carpenter ants that change their behavior in ways that help their colony survive, according to a study co-authored by NYU Langone researchers and published in the Jan. 1, 2016, edition of the journal Science. With related molecular pathways present in humans, the study may provide insights into mechanisms behind behavioral disorders.