When fishing boats return with catches of increasingly less-valuable fish, the commonly held notion is that the more valuable species have been fished out. This, however, wasn’t true in two-thirds of the world’s large marine ecosystems selected for study by University of Washington researchers.
Instead, the composition of what was landed changed because fishermen chose to target additional kinds of fish. Landings of the more valuable fish remained the same, or even increased, but that
Regional disparities profoundly impact health of children, UF researchers say
Children living in the South are up to three times more likely to battle poor health and its consequences – including obesity, teen pregnancy and death – than those in all other regions of the United States, even if they receive the same medical care, a new University of Florida study reveals.
“Hurricane Katrina gave the world a glimpse of the disparities in the South,” says Jeffrey Goldhagen,
Following the recent detection of Saturnian radio bursts by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft that indicated a rare and powerful atmospheric storm, Cassini imaging scientists have spotted the storm in an unlikely fashion: they looked for it in the dark.
When lightning-generated radio noise from the storm was detected by Cassini on January 23, the spacecraft was at a place in its orbit where it was unable to image the sunlit side of Saturn. Instead, imaging scientists searched for
The widely used erectile dysfunction drug Levitra is now the second drug in its class found to protect the heart against tissue damage following acute heart attack, according to a new study by Virginia Commonwealth University researchers.
“Our findings further support the concept that the novel class of phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors, or PDE-5 inhibitors, including Levitra and Viagra, may have a new utility in cardiac protection, in addition to their well-known use for the m
Having a surgeon with four arms is one of the advantages of the latest robotic technology now being studied at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
The $1.4 million robot named da Vinci can hold a camera in one hand while manipulating tiny laparoscopic surgical tools in its other hands. And it never tires like its human counterparts.
With a human surgeon at the controls, da Vinci filters out tremor, enhances precision, offers three-dimensional imaging and eliminates the
Researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) have found that intravenous morphine used alone or with a topical anaesthetic (tetracaine) effectively reduced levels of pain in newborn infants undergoing insertion of central venous catheters (central lines). This research is reported in the February 15, 2006 issue of the journal JAMA.
About 10 to 15 per cent of newborns require prolonged hospitalization for conditions such as preterm birth, congenital defects and sepsis (a bloo
Information can be gathered in minutes using 12-question form in doctor’s waiting room
Researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center have created an index that is 81 percent accurate in predicting the likelihood of death within four years for people 50 and older.
The index, which weighs different mortality risk factors according to a simple point system, is potentially useful to health care providers, policymakers, and researchers, say the study authors.
New species of fish, seaweeds found on Caribbean’s Saba Bank
An underwater mountain that forms the world’s third-largest atoll has some of the richest diversity of marine life ever found in the Caribbean, according to scientists who recently explored the area.
The two-week expedition in January encountered new species of fish, seaweed and other ocean life at little-studied Saba Bank Atoll, a coral-crowned seamount 250 kilometers southeast of Puerto Rico in the Dutch Wind
Intakes of dietary or supplemental antioxidants were not associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer among men in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial, according to a study in the February 15 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute . The study did find that vitamin E and beta-carotene supplementation may be associated with reduced prostate cancer risk in certain population subgroups.
Research suggests that micronutrien
A contrast agent currently used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), called mangafodipir, may increase the cancer-killing ability of some chemotherapy drugs while protecting normal cells, according to a study in the February 15 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute .
Many anticancer drugs work by increasing the levels of tumor cell hydrogen peroxide. Tumor cells are particularly sensitive to hydrogen peroxide and die as a result. However, certain enzymes in the
Various forms of human muscular dystrophy result from mutations in genes encoding proteins of the nuclear envelope. A new paper in the February 15th issue of G&D reveals how.
Ten human hereditary laminopathies, including Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD), are associated with mutations in the LMNA gene that codes for the nuclear filament proteins, lamins A and C. Dr. Brain Kennedy and colleagues at the University of Washington have used a mouse model of EDMD to elucidate the
A new paper in the February 15th issue of Genes & Development lends novel insight into the cellular changes that occur in sperm while they reside in the female reproductive tract – providing a new understanding of the molecular genetics of successful fertilization.
It had been believed for decades that spermatozoa are translationally silent. However, Dr. Yael Gur and Haim Breitbart (Bar-Ilan University, Israel) now show that, in fact, protein translation does take place in mammalian
Of all of the materials that make up our bodies, nothing is more ubiquitous than collagen.
It is the most important structural protein in the body, reinforcing connective tissue, bones and teeth, and forming long, fibrous cables to strengthen tendons. Collagen forms sheets of tissue that support the skin and every internal organ. There is nothing in the body, in fact, that does not depend in some way on collagen.
In medicine, collagen from animals, principally cows, is us
Undergraduate is lead author of study in top national journal
In a significant advance for regenerative medicine, researchers at Rice University have discovered a new way to culture adult stem cells from bone marrow such that the cells themselves produce a growth matrix that is rich in important biochemical growth factors.
The research, which appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is notable not just because of the science – resear
Five years after warning that the famed ice fields on Tanzania ’s Mount Kilimanjaro may melt, Ohio State University researchers have sadly found that their prediction is coming true.
And the impact of the loss of that ice atop Africa ’s highest peak – disregarding the loss of tourism that will follow the vanishing ice – could add to the heavy drought burden already facing those living near that mountain.
For Lonnie Thompson, professor of geological scie
Men with cardiovascular disease may be at considerably increased risk for death even when their blood sugar level remains in the “normal” range, suggests a new study by a team of scientists at UCLA and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The study, a statistical analysis examining the connection between glucose (blood sugar) levels and death in patients with cardiovascular disease, will be published Feb. 15 in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the leading scientific journal in its f
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