Body

Washington, DC - November 18, 2015 - Coconut oil may be effective at combating infection with Candida albicans, according to a study published November 18th in the American Society for Microbiology's new open access journal mSphere. The study found that coconut oil consumption reduced gastrointestinal colonization by C. albicans in mice.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A team of Florida State University researchers found that the endurance competition called the Ultraman can lead to large reductions in body fat, but also causes temporary muscle damage and potentially insulin resistance.

In the European Journal of Applied Physiology, Assistant Professor of Exercise Science and Sports Nutrition Michael Ormsbee and a team of student researchers detail how the human body responds to the competition.

Researchers from the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore (Duke-NUS) and Duke Medicine have identified a potential treatment strategy for an often-fatal inherited glycogen storage disease.

E-published ahead of print recently in the Journal of Hepatology, the study provides much-needed hope for the management of glycogen storage disease Ia, known as GSDIa or von Gierke disease, a genetic metabolic disorder that requires lifelong dietary therapy.

Early diagnosis, targeted therapeutics, and more personalized multimodal treatments have boosted survival rates of patients with cancer and have led to a large and rapidly increasing number of cancer survivors. This is particularly true for patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma, where successive EORTC trials have registered continuous progress in the development of treatment strategies for this disease.

Spider webs are notoriously sticky. Although they only take a second to swat down, shaking them off your hands can be an exercise in frustration. But that stubborn tackiness could come in handy when designing smart synthetic adhesives that could work even in the most humid conditions. In the journal ACS Nano, scientists report new insight toward that goal.

Some parts of the Twin Cities can spike temperatures up to 9°F higher than surrounding communities thanks to the "urban heat island" effect, according to a new study from the University of Minnesota.

A method to better trace changes in cancers and treatment of the prostate and lung without the limitations associated with radiation has been developed by Georgia State University researchers.

Their findings were published Wednesday, Nov. 17 in Scientific Reports by Nature.

The researchers developed a new imaging agent they named ProCA1.GRPR, and demonstrated that it leads to strong tumor penetration and is capable of targeting the gastrin-releasing peptide receptor expressed on the surface of diseased cells, including prostate, cervical and lung cancer.

Some of the most urgent issues that American society faces today -- including obesity, consumer debt, risk of terrorism, and climate change -- are fundamentally influenced by decision making and behavior at both the individual and institutional levels. Despite this, policymakers have only recently begun to capitalize on insights from research in the behavioral sciences in developing policies that address these issues.

The recent boom in 3-D printing has driven innovations in fields as disparate as haute couture and medical implants. But little is known about the safety of the materials used. In a new study in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, scientists showed that some 3-D printed parts are highly toxic to zebrafish embryos. Their findings could have implications not only for aquatic life but also for hobbyists, manufacturers and patients.

Farmers can maintain high yields and boost nature by signing up to a wildlife-friendly scheme, new research published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology has found.

A team of researchers, from the University of Southampton and the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research (CAER) at the University of Reading, found that farms signed up to Conservation Grade's 'Fair to Nature' farming scheme supported 20 per cent more species of butterflies, while still producing the same amount of crops as conventional farms.

"The sperm of rodents is at least twice as long as sperm of large mammals like primates, tigers, and even whales. We wanted to know why sperm sizes differ so dramatically when they all have the same task -- to fertilize eggs", says John Fitzpatrick, associate senior lecturer at Stockholm University.

London, November 18, 2015 - Gram-negative bacteria (MDRGNB) include common types such as E. coli that all of us carry in our bowels. When these bacteria get into other parts of the body they can cause infections, including common infections such as cystitis or urinary tract infections. The bacteria can also be readily spread from person to person. Multi-drug-resistant strains are resistant to most, or all, of the common antibiotics that we use to treat infections.

Many cancer therapies are highly toxic, and even when they appear to work, a significant percentage of patients will experience a relapse after only a few months.  Typically these relapses result from small subpopulations of mutated cells which are resistant to therapy, and doctors who try to address this problem with combinations of therapies find that therapeutic toxicity typically limits their ability to stop most cancers.  

In the animal world, if several males mate with the same female, their sperm compete to fertilize her limited supply of eggs. Longer sperm often seem to have a competitive advantage. However, a study conducted by researchers from the Universities of Zurich and Stockholm now reveals that the size of the animals also matters. The larger the animal, the more im-portant the number of sperm is relative to sperm length. That's why elephants have smaller sperm than mice.

A study that tracked tens of thousands of midlife and older men for more than 20 years has found that vigorous exercise and other healthy lifestyle habits may cut their chances of developing a lethal type of prostate cancer by up to 68 percent.