Researchers at the North West Lung Centre, run by The University of Manchester and based at Wythenshawe Hospital, have discovered that vacuum cleaners with ‘high-efficiency particulate air’ or HEPA filters are no more effective than standard models at reducing exposure to dust-mites.
The team compared nasal air samples taken before and during vacuum cleaning using both HEPA and non-HEPA vacuum cleaners. They found a small increase in exposure to dust-mite during vacuuming with either type
Men who have a diet rich in soya products, beans and sunflower seeds run a much lower risk of contracting prostate cancer. New findings from Karolinska Institutet show that foods rich in phytoestrogens – plant-produced oestrogens – protect against the most common form of cancer in the western world.
Some 10,000 men develop prostate cancer in Sweden each year. Just why prostate cancer is so common is still something of a mystery, but age, ethnicity and genes are usually consider
The risk for a new cancer in the unaffected breast substantially increases in women diagnosed with unilateral, hereditary (non-BRCA1/2) breast cancer, according to a new study by researchers working at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. The study is the first in its kind and is published in the March 15, 2006 issue of CANCER.
Women with hereditary (non-BRCA1/2) breast cancer are estimated to be at up to six times greater risk of developing a second primary malignancy in the o
A landslide expert at Durham University, UK, is warning that further disasters are waiting to happen in North Pakistan because of the unstable ground conditions created by last October’s earthquake.
Professor Dave Petley, of the International Landslide Centre in Durham’s top-rated Geography Department, has returned from the earthquake zone after a reconnaissance mission with an US colleague. They have sent an urgent report to the Pakistan authorities with warnings and a
Cosmic space is filled with continuous, diffuse high-energy radiation. To find out how this energy is produced, the scientists behind ESA’s Integral gamma-ray observatory have tried an unusual method: observing Earth from space.
During a four-phase observation campaign started on 24 January this year, continued until 9 February, Integral has been looking at Earth. Needing complex control operations from the ground, the satellite has been kept in a fixed orientation in space, w
An international research team led by the University of Saskatchewan has discovered a signaling pathway in the brain involved in drug addiction, together with a method for blocking its action, that may point to a single treatment strategy for most addictions. Their findings appear in the March issue of the prestigious journal Nature Medicine.
The team, led by Xia Zhang, associate professor in the U of S department of psychiatry, found that a naturally occurring enzyme known as PTEN acts
Socioeconomic factors predominantly explain racial and ethnic disparities in prostate cancer outcomes, according to a new study. Published in the March 15, 2006 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study found race plays a minor role in prostate cancer survival, and that the most important factors related were education, community poverty, and income levels. Age, disease stage, and treatment method also independently impacted outcome.
Prosta
Anti-malarial drugs are most effective in people with lupus who are genetically predisposed to high levels of tumour necrosis factor alpha and low levels of the cytokine IL-10. A study published today in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy reveals that anti-malarial drugs, widely used to treat systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), bring serum levels of tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) back to normal in SLE patients. The research shows that these drugs are more effective in patients who
“Backward” DNA leads to DNA breaks associated with leukemia, study finds
When otherwise normal DNA adopts an unusual shape called Z-DNA, it can lead to the kind of genetic instability associated with cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, according to a study by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The study, issued in advance of the Feb. 21 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates for the first time th
By changing individual atoms in key places in proteins, Duke University chemists have found new evidence for the importance of comparatively weak “hydrogen bonds” in enabling stringlike proteins to fold into the maximally stable shape they need to assume their roles as biological workhorses. Such protein folding immediately after proteins are synthesized is central to their function in the cell.
Although they are much weaker than the preeminent “covalent” chemical bonds that bind atoms
An international team of astronomers released to the public the first data collected as part of the Radial Velocity Experiment, an ambitious spectroscopic survey aimed at measuring the speed, temperature, surface gravity and composition of up to a million stars passing near the sun.
The measurements, released at an astrophysics workshop at the Aspen Center for Physics in Colorado and available today online to other astronomers, includes examination of old “fossil” stars that were
They may not be able to make love last, but a team of University of Florida researchers has figured out how to at least make the flowers go the distance.
A UF environmental horticulturist has developed ways to extend flower quality and vase life by three or more days through post-harvest techniques so consumers see a difference in the flowers they purchase – not only on Valentine’s Day but throughout the year.
“Our research has shown that keeping flowers cold as they mov
New study reveals that perceptions of volume depend on which sense is being used to make the judgment
A fascinating new study from the March 2006 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research explores how our senses interact to gauge volume, with important implications for perception of consumer products and consumption patterns. Specifically, the article argues that “elongation effect” – the common tendency to think that a tall, thin glass holds more than a short, stout glass of equ
Genomewide evolutionary changes in farmed salmon adds further threats to wild populations
There is growing concern about the threats that farmed Atlantic salmon escapees constitute to wild salmon populations.
Consumers and environmentalists are concerned about farmed salmon yet heritable changes that have accumulated in farmed strains at the genetic level are largely unknown.
In new research published in the journal Molecular Ecology, researchers have found scie
Evanescent wave lithography enables optical imaging to smallest-ever level
A new computer chip lithography method under development at Rochester Institute of Technology has led to imaging capabilities beyond that previously thought possible.
Leading a team of engineering students, Bruce Smith, RIT professor of microelectronic engineering and director of the Center for Nanolithography Research in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, developed a method—known as evane
Six-year-olds whose parents displayed frequent disagreements in their relationship responded to subsequent parental conflicts with elevated distress and negative thoughts, according to a team of researchers from the University of Rochester and the University of Notre Dame.
In the latest issue of the journal Child Development, the team reported examining 223 children twice during a one-year period for their reactions to conflicts between their parents. First, their mothers and fathe
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