Research in monkeys suggests that the type of progestin in hormone therapy could dramatically affect heart attack severity. The study, by a Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center researcher and colleagues, was reported today at the annual meeting of the North American Menopause Society in Washington, D.C.
“One type of hormone therapy limited heart muscle damage to only 5 percent while another resulted in permanent damage to 35 percent of muscle,” said J. Koudy Williams, P
People who need cataract surgery, but don’t like the prospect of having their eyes sutured, may be in for some good news: A team of researchers has developed a novel, adhesive hydrogel that can be painted over incisions from cataract surgery and offers the potential for faster, improved repair, they say. The hydrogel may help avoid complications associated with sutures — the most common repair method for those types of incisions — or unsutured incisions that are left to heal on their own
New technology makes visualization possible
Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School and Howard Hughes Medical Institute have found a way to see proteins in cells that have been tagged by a molecular “sticky note” called ubiquitin. “This technology allows us to see, under a microscope, proteins modified by ubiquitin inside the cell,” says Tom K. Kerppola, Ph.D., an associate professor of biological chemistry in the Medical School and an HHMI associate investigator.
A study published in the October issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry by an Italian group of investigators headed by Professor Giovanni A. Fava (University of Bologna) suggests, that with appropriate psychosocial interventions, half of the patients with recurrent depression could be still well and drug free six years after termination of treatment, instead of being linked to long term drug treatment.
A number of controlled trials have suggested that cognitive behavior st
Open-field trials of genetically modified (GM) crop-plants are implemented only sparingly. This is done with due transparency and in the respect of strict regulations. They are initiated to meet one or other of the following objectives: obtain and evaluate fundamental knowledge on the biology of the plants concerned, guarantee the quality of plant varieties sold in France and identify and evaluate the risks for the environment. Hence they provide input to national expertise on these questions
Scientists from the University of California, Riverside have identified one of the key enzymes that trigger programmed cell death, an important process plants undergo in fighting off bacterial, fungal or viral infections. The development holds out hope of improving crop yields, which are dependent on plants being able to fend off multiple types of pathogens.
The findings, outlined in a paper titled “VPEg Exhibits a Caspase-like Activity that Contributes to Defense Against Pathogen
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a “central memory” form of “helper” T cells that can offer immunity to leishmaniasis, a disease that causes considerable death and disfigurement across the globe and has been found in U.S. military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the October issue of Nature Medicine, the Penn researchers describe how the discovery can offer immunity to leishmaniasis, even without the persistent presence of the pa
Within three years one of the most advanced data encryption systems developed to date could go into commercial use thanks to the work of OCCULT, and its gigantic strides forward in laser-based chaotic carriers to transmit data through fibre-optics.
The cutting-edge technique, which employs synchronised laser emitters and receivers to encrypt information at the hardware level, represents an important qualitative upgrade to existing security systems for protecting the transmission o
Research at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology has identified Dectin-1 as the beta-glucan receptor on immune cells. This finding may be of use in the prophylactic prevention of a variety of infections, especially in surgical patients, and in the treatment of cancer. The identification of Dectin-1 as the beta-glucan receptor may also provide a novel strategy for combating fungal infections.
b-Glucans are glucose polymers which possess immunomodulatory activities, although
One of sport’s greatest scientific mysteries has been solved, sort of. Two University of Northern British Columbia physicists have explained the centuries-old question of why a curling stone curls, or moves laterally, in a counter-intuitive direction.
The solution – published in the current issue of the Canadian Journal of Physics – isn’t an elegant equation of the kind mathematicians adore, say the scientists, but rather one that involved a lot of experimental sweeping.
MIT researchers have developed new metrics for assessing the performance of firms that recycle scrapped electronic equipment, a major source of toxic pollutants.
The metrics focus not just on how much of a firm’s incoming waste is processed but also on the quality and reusability of the materials produced from it, a consideration critical to overall resource efficiency.
To assess the performance of electronics recycling firms, people have focused mainly on the most e
MIT researchers and colleagues have identified three new chemical risk factors for bladder cancer in a study involving some 600 people in the Los Angeles area. The work was reported in the Oct. 6 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The newly discovered carcinogens are found in cigarette smoke, which is already known to be a major cause of bladder cancer, contributing to at least 50 percent of the approximately 60,000 cases in the United States every year.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies are reporting a possible answer to a longstanding question in research on the origins of life on Earth–how did the first amino acids form the first peptides?
Peptides and proteins are strings of amino acid building blocks, and they are one of the most important classes of biological molecules found in living things today. Fifty years of chemical research on the origins of life has shown that amino ac
Northwestern University researchers have discovered a mechanism that may help to explain how angiogenesis inhibitors work on normal, blood vessel-forming endothelial cells, but not on insidious, aggressive melanoma cells that masquerade as endothelial-like cells by forming their own vascular networks, called “vasculogenic mimicry.”
Mary J. C. Hendrix, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and president and scientific director of the Children
When memories are made and learning occurs, the connections between brain cells change. Scientists know that an influx of calcium is critical to this process. A theoretical model developed by a Brown University research team shows that cells’ ability to fine-tune this calcium flow not only sparks changes in synapses but also allows cells to maintain a working state of equilibrium.
A research team based at Brown University has created a theoretical model that may shed light on a brai
Research at Yale reported in the journal Science identifies a new riboswitch (RNA regulatory sequence) class in bacteria that operates as a rare “ON” switch for genetic regulation of the three proteins in a glycine processing system.
“This seems like something only a biochemist can appreciate, but what it really means is that modern RNA has what it takes to run the complex metabolism of life. It is like what would have been needed in an “RNA World” – or a period in evolution
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