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People infected with a parasitic worm called Wuchereria bancrofti in areas where HIV is endemic may be more likely to acquire HIV than people who are not infected with the worm, according to a new study in southwest Tanzania, published in The Lancet. W bancrofti causes most cases of lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) in sub-Saharan Africa, and the authors say that the findings add a strong argument for tackling this neglected disease, which not only causes morbidity, but may also increase the risk of HIV infection.

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 2, 2016 - The microenvironment that supports a cancerous tumor also starves the immune cells that the body sends in to destroy the cancer, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) scientists revealed in a discovery that holds the potential to significantly boost the performance of breakthrough immunotherapy drugs.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center say they have developed a system that uses transformed human stem cells to speed up screening of existing drugs that might work against rare brain and other cancers.

Scientists studying how microbes evolve have long assumed that nearly all new genetic mutations get passed down at a predictable pace and usually without either helping or hurting the microbe in adapting to its environment. In a new study published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers studying tens of thousands of generations of E. coli bacteria report that most new genetic mutations that were passed down were actually beneficial and occurred at much more variable rates than previously thought. The finding could have implications for treating bacterial infections.

August 2, 2016 -- Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health with collaborators at the Federal University of Sao Paulo studied the relationship between psychiatric symptoms and patterns of substance use among high school students in Brazil and found that respondents with clinically significant scores on a behavioral screening questionnaire were more likely to use alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana in the past month compared to those without symptoms.

Imagine a nurse who gets the flu while working at a hospital. He goes home to recover -- and an uninfected replacement nurse comes in. This kind of substitution happens all the time in the real world -- teachers, doctors, firefighters and others with essential societal roles get sick and a substitute comes in to fill their role.

DALLAS - Aug. 2, 2016 - UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found an important innate immunity role for a gene linked to a rare, fatal syndrome in children. Their study has implications for a much more common disease: tuberculosis.

The study results, posted online today in the journal Immunity, could lead to new therapies for arthrogryposis-renal dysfunction-cholestasis (ARC) syndrome. It also suggests connections to tuberculosis (TB): a hard-to-treat bacterial illness that the World Health Organization calls "a top infectious disease killer worldwide."

Cancer cells need oxygen to survive, as do most other life forms, but scientists had never tracked their search for oxygen in their early growth stages until now -- a step toward a deeper understanding of one way cancer spreads that could help treat the disease.

In a paper published online by the

">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

BOSTON - August 2, 2016 - Researchers from the Harvard affiliated Hebrew SeniorLife Institute for Aging Research (IFAR) recently published a study in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, suggesting that hyperkyphosis may be heritable, or passed on from parents to offspring.

"Healthcare professionals in academia who are privy to formal mentorship by senior faculty early on in their careers enjoy a host of advantages, such as faster career advancement and higher job satisfaction," says Abraham Brody, PhD, RN, GNP-BC, an assistant professor at the New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing (NYU Meyers).

It's time to toast environmentally friendly grapes. A new UCLA study shows that eco-certified wine tastes better -- and making the choice even easier, earlier research shows it's often cheaper, too.

Though consumers remain reluctant to spend more on wine from organic grapes, the new study from UCLA researchers shows that in blind taste-tests professional wine reviewers give eco-certified wines higher ratings than regular wines.

There is new evidence that the "mother's curse" - the possibility that moms may transmit genes to their children that harm their sons but not their daughters - holds true in animals.

Such a possibility arises because there are two independent parts of the genome in the eukaryote cells, which are found in plants and animals, and the two are locked in a "conflict-driven molecular arms race" that impacts human health and wellness. The lion's share of the genome is located in the cell nucleus. But there is also a much smaller secondary portion located in the mitochondria.

The stress of birds' continent-spanning annual migrations, it appears, leads to faster aging and a potentially earlier death. A new study in The Auk: Ornithological Advances reveals that telomeres, structures on the ends of chromosomes that shorten with age, are shorter in migratory birds than in their non-migratory counterparts.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A team of Mayo Clinic researchers has identified evidence of bacteria in sterilely-obtained breast tissue and found differences between women with and without breast cancer. The findings are published in the Aug. 3 issue of Scientific Reports.

BOSTON - New research reveals that infection with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) may put some women at increased risk for developing breast cancer. The findings, published online in the July issue of the journal EBioMedicine, may have important implications for breast cancer screening and prevention.