Yale School of Medicine researchers report in Nature Immunology how infection fighting mechanisms in the body can distinguish between a virus and the healthy body, shedding new light on auto immune disorders.

The infection fighters in question, toll-like receptors (TLRs), function by recognizing viral, bacterial or fungal pathogens and then sending signals throughout the immune system announcing that an infection has occurred.

Viruses change features to avoid being r

Are you exceptionally creative when it comes to technology? Or do you know a woman that is? Britain’s top creative women will be celebrated at the upcoming 7th Annual British Female Inventors and Innovators Awards Ceremony in London on 21 February 2006.

There is a special award category aimed at Information Technology, Electronics and Communication (ITEC). This category was set up by the European funded project ’Equalitec – Advancing women in ITEC’ and aims to promote

Corporations like Enron that overemphasize outcomes such as profits might make their leaders blind to ethics and limit their abilities to recognize ethical or moral issues when they surface, according to a University of Washington study.

Scott Reynolds, an assistant professor of business ethics in the UW Business School, examined why some managers recognize a situation as involving moral issues whiles others do not. His research demonstrates it is not always obvious when an issue

Cross-cultural study compares cognitive development in 3-to-5-year-olds

Chinese children are better able to control impulsive behaviour than their North American counterparts, a new Queen’s University study shows.

But the development of a related ability – being able to connect what other people do with what they are thinking and feeling – shows no cross-cultural difference, says psychologist Mark Sabbagh, who led the international research team.

Their fi

When it comes to how much automobiles pollute, some makes are cleaner than others, according to new research.

A study using data on nearly 4 million cars that underwent government-mandated emissions test in three states found that cars manufactured by German auto maker BMW were the least likely to fail these state pollution tests. Cars manufactured by Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Chrysler and GM were most likely to fail.

While other studies have analyzed data from state

A multicenter international study, including Johns Hopkins, has found that after surgery for thyroid cancer, giving genetically engineered human thyroid-stimulating hormone (rhTSH) before radioiodine treatment avoids the previous need to stop thyroid replacement therapy and the miserable side effects that go with it.

The study, led by Paul Ladenson, M.D., director of the Division of Endocrinology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Furio Pacini at the Universi

Workplace alcohol use and impairment directly affects an estimated 15 percent of the U.S. workforce, or 19.2 million workers, according to a recent study conducted at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) and reported in the current issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol.

Information about workplace alcohol use and impairment during the previous 12 months was obtained by telephone interviews from 2,805 employed adults residing in the 48 con

Chances are good that a medication you take is one of several drugs that can be affected by genetic factors, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the St. Louis College of Pharmacy. They found that 29 percent of patients seen at local primary-care offices had taken at least one of 16 drugs that can cause adverse reactions in genetically susceptible people.

Finding that so many primary-care patients use such medications suggests that ph

Largest Study of Its Kind Proves Just Half a Pack per Day Harms Unborn Child

Women have yet another reason to stop smoking while pregnant. In the largest study of its kind, plastic surgeons found smoking during pregnancy significantly elevates the risk of having a child with excess, webbed or missing fingers and toes, according to the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). In fact, the

Nine out of ten men fitted with a penile prosthesis were able to have sexual intercourse and eight out of ten were satisfied with the overall results, according to research published in the latest issue of BJU International.

The researchers, from St Peter’s Hospital and The Institute of Urology in London, studied 447 men who had received 504 implants over a 25-year period.

Subjects ranged from 21 to 78 with an average age of 52 and were monitored for an average of just ov

Up to one third of women treated for breast cancer report fatigue symptoms up to 10 years after diagnosis, according to a new study. Published in the February 15, 2006 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study–the first 10 year follow-up study of fatigue in breast cancer to be published–reveals women who have concomitant medical conditions, specifically cardiovascular problems and depressive symptoms, or who were treated with combined radiation and chemot

Ants that tend and harvest gardens of fungus have a secret weapon against the parasites that invade their crops: antibiotic-producing bacteria that the insects harbor on their bodies.

Writing today in the journal Science, an international team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison bacteriologist Cameron Currie illustrates the intricate and ancient nature of this mutualistic relationship. The researchers found that the ants house the bacteria in specialized, highly adapted cavi

A new study done in the area burned in the catastrophic Biscuit Fire in Southwestern Oregon in 2002 found that allowing trees to naturally regenerate works about as well or better than logging and replanting, and that undisturbed areas may be at lower fire risk in the future.

The research will be published Friday in Sciencexpress and later presented in the journal Science, by scientists from Oregon State University and the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry in Hawaii. It pr

Down Syndrome and cleft lip and/or palate most prevalent defects studied

Cleft lip is a treatable birth defect, but for the families of the estimated 6,800 U.S. infants born with one, it’s a heartbreaking experience – not only because of the associated health problems, but because friends and family may ignore the condition or because of social stigma associated with facial defects.

Among the 18 major birth defects included in this study, cleft lip and/or palate

Study shows dogs ability to distinguish breast and lung cancer in people compared to healthy controls

In a society where lung and breast cancers are leading causes of cancer death worldwide, early detection of the disease is highly desirable. In a new scientific study, researchers present astonishing new evidence that man’s best friend, the dog, may have the capacity to contribute to the process of early cancer detection.

In this study which will be published in the

New study challenges previous reports of cannibalism as a worldwide selective force

In a new study published by the journal Genome Research, a team of scientists reports that ’mad cow’-like diseases have not been a major force in human history, nor have been cannibalistic rituals that are known to be associated with disease transmission. Prof. Jaume Bertranpetit, a scientist at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and his colleagues used a fresh set of genetic data to s