Women pondering hormone-replacement therapy also should consider regular exercise. A new study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suggests that being physically fit offsets cognitive declines attributed to long-term therapy.
“This study not only tells us that there is a benefit to being highly fit, it pinpoints where in the brain it matters for postmenopausal women who have been using the two strategies,” said lead author Kirk I. Erickson, a postdoctoral re
In the continuing battle against antibiotic resistance, two new studies shed light on the complex defense mechanisms pathogenic bacteria use to evade antibiotic attack, an understanding of which could lead to new, more effective antibiotics to help save lives and combat the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. The studies, both of which target chemical components in the protective membrane surrounding bacterial cells, will appear in the February 17 inaugural print issue of ACS Chemical Biolog
A fascinating new study from the forthcoming issue of The American Naturalist attempts to explain the mysterious persistence of two forms of females in many diving beetle populations. Their findings have important implications for theories of sexual conflict, which arises when the costs and benefits of multiple matings differ for males and females.
“The male versus female arms race (involving physical structures, behaviors, chemicals, etc.) for control over mating may take place over ev
In an important new study forthcoming from The American Naturalist, biologists from the University of Oxford tracked a colony of mute swans for more than two decades to explore a longstanding evolutionary question: whether the number of eggs laid by a female bird – known as “clutch size” – changes in accordance with natural selection.
“Extensive debate in the literature…was first focused on the question: Why does a population’s average clutch size differ from the most prod
Amidst all the talk about the risk of an influenza pandemic, little has been said about the difficult decisions that would have to be made in an overwhelming health care crisis. An article in the February issue of Academic Emergency Medicine, the Official Journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, outlines a sample set of guidelines for prioritizing the use of a piece of equipment likely to be in short supply in a pandemic: mechanical ventilators.
Drs. John L. Hi
Long-term, low-quality marriages have significant effects on overall well-being, according to a recent study by Penn State researchers.
Daniel Hawkins, graduate student, and Alan Booth, distinguished professor of sociology, human development and family studies, and demography, said that people who remain unhappily married suffer from lower levels of self-esteem, overall health, overall happiness, and life satisfaction along with elevated levels of psychological distress, in cont
OHSU scientists using Xenopus eggs demonstrate Fanconi genes’ importance to DNA duplication, repair
A large, clawed frog is helping Oregon Health & Science University researchers gather a princely sum of knowledge on Fanconi anemia, a rare, genetic, cancer-susceptibility syndrome.
Scientists in the OHSU School of Medicine’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology are the first to report a new approach using eggs of the African clawed frog, which goes
A newer antibiotic medication proved more effective at knocking out community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in patients 65 and older than the antibiotic that has been the front-line CAP treatment the last decade, according to a national study coordinated at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
CAP is the fifth-leading cause of death in the elderly, is diagnosed in 5.6 million adults annually in the U.S., and is 60 percent more likely to occur in the elderly th
A team based in Livermore has shed some new light on the phase diagram of carbon at high pressure and temperature.
In particular, the authors determined the solid/liquid and solid/solid phase boundaries for pressures up to 20 million Earth atmospheres and more than 10,000 degrees Kelvin. The simulations provide results on the physical properties of carbon, which are of great importance for devising models of Neptune, Uranus and white dwarf stars, as well as of extrasolar carbon-
Low-tech, at-home preparation in the last month before childbirth could help pregnant mothers avoid one of the more common surgeries performed on women in the United States, a new review suggests.
The review looked at studies in which women used a massage technique in the last four or five weeks of pregnancy to train the lower genital tract for childbirth. During perineal massage a women kneads the tissue below the vagina to prepare the tissue to expand more easily during birth
A combination of older malaria drugs could treat malaria efficiently in some parts of Africa until a newer antimalarial drug called is widely available in those areas, a new review of recent studies suggests.
After 28 days of treatment, there were fewer cases of malaria among children taking a combination of the older sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (sold under the brand name Fansidar) and amodiaquine than among patients taking a combination of Fansidar and artesunate, a drug based on t
Flowers are innately beautiful to the human eye, but how does a sunflower achieve its stunning disc of intersecting spirals or a daisy its delicate symmetry?
That was the question tackled by University of Calgary computer scientists, who have answered one of biology’s enduring questions with an animated model that provides the most detailed simulation of how plants grow into recognizable shapes.
In the article “A plausible model of phyllotaxis” published in this we
NASA scientists are leading an airborne field experiment to a warm tropical locale to take a close look at a largely unexplored region of the chilly upper atmosphere. This area is critical to the recovery of the ozone layer and predicting future climate change. This very cold region far above the Earth’s equator (54,000 feet), a few miles higher than commercial aircraft can fly, is the main pathway where the lower part of the atmosphere, known as the troposphere, flows into the stratosphere.
Results from a new study indicate that hybrid laboratory antibodies derived from chimpanzees and humans may provide a potentially safe and effective way to treat the serious complications that can occur following smallpox vaccination–and possibly may even protect against the deadly disease itself. The study, led by researchers with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), appears online this week in the Proceedings of th
The human body has a unique immune system response to foreign DNA, suggesting that DNA viruses and RNA viruses are detected by different mechanisms, Yale School of Medicine researchers report this week in Immunity.
The researchers also found that DNA recognition might be used to detect invasive bacteria in addition to viruses, according to Daniel Stetson, a post doctoral fellow in the Section of Immunobiology and lead author of the study.
Although there are countless
When activated, a specific protein in the brain enhances long-term storage of fearful memories and strengthens previously established fearful memories, Yale School of Medicine researchers report this week in Nature Neuroscience.
“This report is the first to demonstrate evidence of enhancements in memory reconsolidation in the brain,” said the senior author, Jane Taylor, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry. “Understanding these molecular mechanisms may provide cr
Feedback
