Body

NEW YORK, NY (Nov 25, 2015) --What doesn't kill you could cure you. A growing interest in the therapeutic value of animal venom has led a pair of Columbia University data scientists to create the first catalog of known animal toxins and their physiological effects on humans.

Research from Case Western Reserve University indicates sensory organs on the backs of flies not only provide information crucial to body rotation and flight maneuvers, but are essential to some species when climbing.

The findings suggest these mallet-shaped sensory organs, called halteres, may play multiple roles in how flies behave, providing clues to how brains absorb and use multiple streams of information.

North American bison adjust their diet seasonally in order to take full advantage of the growing season when grasses become less nutritious, a new study led by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered.

The findings, which were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE, indicate that bison are not entirely reliant on grass for their nutritional needs and can selectively expand their foraging to include woody shrubs and flowering plants during the spring and fall.

Prices among 19 brand-name prescription dermatologic drugs increased rapidly between 2009 and 2015, with prices for topical antineoplastic drugs to prevent the spread of cancer cells increasing an average of 1,240 percent, according to an article published online by JAMA Dermatology.

Landmark health reform in the United States has done little to curb the rising price of prescription drugs. Patients across the United States have little protection from health plans excluding coverage for expensive prescription drugs.

The overall postoperative rate of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), a bacterium that can cause severe diarrhea and life-threatening intestinal conditions, was 0.4 percent per year among more than 468,386 surgical procedures at the Veterans Health Administration, according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery.

CDI can be a significant complication for surgical patients. Risk factors for CDI include older age, severe coexisting illnesses, hospitalization and antibiotic use.

NEW YORK (25 November 2015) - New data from a preclinical safety and efficacy study of the candidate microbicide gel MZC, which targets HIV, herpes simplex virus (HSV-2) and human papillomavirus (HPV), shows that the gel performs as well as, or in many cases, better than, tenofovir (TFV) 1% gel, a leading microbicide candidate.

Injections of hyaluronic acid (HA) are a common treatment of pain in osteoarthritis of the knee - a condition that affects 27 million Americans according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The injections replace natural HA that has depleted from one's joints, which can cause pain and stiffness due to the lack of lubrication between bones moving against each other.

A nugget of real 20 carats gold, so light that it does not sink in a cappuccino, floating instead on the milk foam - what sounds unbelievable has actually been accomplished by researchers from ETH Zurich. Scientists led by Raffaele Mezzenga, Professor of Food and Soft Materials, have produced a new kind of foam out of gold, a three-dimensional mesh of gold that consists mostly of pores. It is the lightest gold nugget ever created. "The so-called aerogel is a thousand times lighter than conventional gold alloys. It is lighter than water and almost as light as air," says Mezzenga.

In an article published in Small, researchers successfully applied a new qualitative and quantitative method for the detection of a DNA sequence characteristic of Leishmania infantum kinetoplast, a frequent parasite in veterinary that affects humans too. The work was led from the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), a research Center placed in the Campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in Bellaterra, and the UAB Spin Off company Vetgenomics.

New research by biologists at the University of York could lead to improved methods of detection for early-onset Parkinson's Disease (PD).

Recording the responses of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) to different visual patterns, using methods adapted from the study of vision in humans, scientists in York's Department of Biology investigated the nervous systems of flies with different types of Parkinson's mutations.

In a paper recently published in the European Journal of Cancer, EORTC researchers identified health related quality of life (HRQOL) components that should be considered as most relevant for achieving optimal care for older cancer patients.

The researchers reported the results of a meta-analysis of 68 chemotherapy trials for cancer treatment between 2000 and 2006 - before the gradual introduction of targeted cancer therapies (drugs that target specific molecular pathways in tumour cells) from 2007, which today can be prescribed alongside cytotoxic drugs.

Flexible working practices have infiltrated the ranks of the Australian Defence Force, debunking the myth it is a rigid and regimented employer, according to QUT research.

The study, presented at the Defence Human Sciences Symposium in Melbourne, involved in-depth interviews with 130 Army, Air Force and Navy personnel about how the timing, location and tasks of work are negotiated with managers.

New hope in the fight against cardiovascular disease has arrived, following breakthrough research identifying a pigment in our bile which could protect us.

A fluid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder, bile's function is to aid the digestion process.

Now Dr Andrew Bulmer from Griffith University's Menzies Health Institute Queensland (MHIQ) has found that mildly elevated levels of a bile pigment called bilirubin may provide natural protection from heart attacks and help to stave off cardiovascular disease.

Research led by Dr. Keiji Tanimoto from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, has brought us closer to understanding the mechanisms underlying the phenomenon of genomic imprinting. In this intriguing event, one copy of a gene is 'turned off', or silenced, depending on whether it was derived from the mother or the father. The research team has identified a segment of DNA that is essential in the imprinting process for the closely linked Igf2/H19 genes, two of the first imprinted genes to be discovered.