Body

And the winner is ... ZEB1! There are many actors involved in the process of adipogenesis, used by the body to store the fat that it absorbs from food. Up to now there had been some uncertainty as to how it was regulated. Yet, understanding this mechanism is of crucial importance to prevent the diseases related to fat accumulation in adipose tissue.

KNOXVILLE—More than one hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin hypothesized that species could cross oceans and other vast distances on vegetation rafts, icebergs, or in the case of plant seeds, in the plumage of birds.

Though many were skeptical of Darwin's "jump dispersal" idea, a new study suggests that Darwin might have been correct.

A new computational method, published in the journal Systematic Biology, tested two competing theories about how species came to live where they do and found strong evidence for jump dispersal, especially for island species.

WASHINGTON—Researchers plan and plot every considerable aspect of their work, but sometimes it's something unexpected and seemingly insignificant that leads to the real discovery. That was the case for Scott Powell, assistant professor of biology at the George Washington University.

A leading pollution expert is warning Australian governments not to use the existing national pollution standards when assessing new infrastructure projects.

The National Environment Protection Measures (NEPM) has set maximum daily limits, or 'standards', for six key outdoor pollutants, which QUT's Associate Professor Adrian Barnett says many authorities wrongly assume to be 'safe' thresholds for health.

The peptide —a small protein— beta-amyloid is strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease; however, researchers are still looking for unequivocal proof that this peptide is the causal agent of the onset and development of the disease. The main obstacle impeding such confirmation is that beta-amyloid is not harmful when found in isolation but only when it aggregates, that is when it self-assembles to form the so-called amyloid fibrils

An international team of scientists has shown that more than 80 per cent of bowel cancers could be treated with existing drugs.

The study found that medicines called 'JAK inhibitors' halted tumour growth in bowel cancers with a genetic mutation that is present in more than 80 per cent of bowel cancers. Multiple JAK inhibitors are currently used, or are in clinical trials, for diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, blood cancers and myeloproliferative disorders.

DURHAM, N.C. -- A Duke University team has found that nanoparticles called single-walled carbon nanotubes accumulate quickly in the bottom sediments of an experimental wetland setting, an action they say could indirectly damage the aquatic food chain.

ORANGE, Calif. – Researchers in Chapman University's Food Science Program have just published a study on pet food mislabeling. The study focused on commercial pet foods marketed for dogs and cats to identify meat species present as well as any instances of mislabeling. Of the 52 products tested, 31 were labeled correctly, 20 were potentially mislabeled, and one contained a non-specific meat ingredient that could not be verified.

Cyberbullying and hurtful 'fat jokes' are disturbingly prevalent in the social media environment, especially on Twitter, says Wen-ying Sylvia Chou of the National Institutes of Health in the US. Chou is lead author of a study in Springer's journal Translational Behavioral Medicine which analyzed well over a million social media posts and comments about weight matters. However, the researchers were also happy to find that the news was not all bad: many instances of support and advice were also observed, especially on blogs and forums.

Scientists have discovered a new form of non-genetic inheritance, showing for the first time that offspring can resemble a mother's previous sexual partner – in flies at least.

This confronting idea, known as telegony, dates back to ancient Greek times, but was discredited in the early 20th Century with the advent of genetics.

To test it out, UNSW Australia scientists Dr Angela Crean, Professor Russell Bonduriansky and Dr Anna Kopps manipulated the size of male flies and studied their offspring.

BOSTON (October 1, 2014) — Despite a policy focus on expanding access to care for adults with developmental disabilities, this vulnerable population continues to have significant dental disease. In this month's issue of The Journal of the American Dental Association, researchers from Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts University School of Dental Medicine report on the first large-scale survey to investigate factors influencing at-home oral care provided by caregivers to adults with developmental disabilities.

DURHAM, N.C. – A new genetic finding from Duke Medicine suggests that some people who are prone to hostility, anxiety and depression might also be hard-wired to gain weight when exposed to chronic stress, leading to diabetes and heart disease.

An estimated 13 percent of people, all of whom are Caucasian, might carry the genetic susceptibility, and knowing this could help them reduce heart disease with simple interventions such as a healthy diet, exercise and stress management.

Treating cancers with immunotherapy and radiotherapy at the same time could stop them from becoming resistant to treatment, according to a study published in Cancer Research* today (Wednesday).

The researchers, based at The University of Manchester and funded by MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, and Cancer Research UK, found that combining the two treatments helped the immune system hunt down and destroy cancer cells that weren't killed by the initial radiotherapy in mice with breast, skin and bowel cancers.

Australia needs to be proactive about potential disease outbreaks like Ebola and establish a national centre for disease control.

In an Editorial in the October issue of Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Allen Cheng from Monash University and Heath Kelly from the Australian National University question Australia's preparation for public health crises.

"Australia would do well to heed the lessons learned in other countries and be proactive in co-ordinating a consistent and outward looking response," the authors said.

The previous policy of setting a minimum unit price would have had a 40-50 times greater effect, particularly among harmful drinkers, say researchers.

Increasing the price of alcohol has been shown to be effective in reducing both consumption levels and harms, and the UK government has been considering different policy options for price regulation in England and Wales.