A middle-aged woman with well-functioning lungs runs less risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. A new study carried out at the Sahlgrenska Academy in Göteborg, Sweden, shows a strong statistical correlation between lung capacity and dementia.

The findings are presented in the coming issue of the prestigious American journal Neurobiology of Aging.The study is based on the so-called Survey of Women in Göteborg, a population study that has been under way since 1968.

Th

Doctors should advise overweight moms considering another pregnancy to take off extra weight first because they are at greater risk of having big babies, a new Saint Louis University study finds.

Researchers found that moms who don’t lose the weight they gained during the first pregnancy and continue to gain after their first child is born are at risk of having bigger babies than mothers who do not gain weight between pregnancies. A patient’s prepregnancy weight remai

Modern-day doctors may soon start using smell to detect the early warning signs of different illnesses thanks to technology that replicates – and improves upon – the human olfactory system thanks to tiny bioelectronic sensors.

The new interdisciplinary technology approach, developed and tested by researchers in Spain, France and Italy with funding from the European Commission’s FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) initiative of the IST programme, will ultimately lead to el

Researchers of the University of Jaen, Almeria and Granada, who belong to the group “Nuevas Tecnologías aplicadas a la Investigación” (CTS-107, new technologies applied to research) led by Dr. Antonia Aránega, in collaboration with the University of Malaga, are working on the recovery of cartilaginous microlesions in elite sportspeople using adult and embryonic stem cells.

This one-year long project, called ‘Optimización de las condiciones y medios de cultivo de células madre con finalidad

Asterion Ltd (“Asterion”), a Sheffield, UK-based drug development company and part of the Biofusion portfolio, announces today that it has raised £355k to progress its novel therapies for hormone-related diseases. Biofusion plc (“Biofusion”), the University Intellectual Property (IP) commercialisation company, led the round, investing £250k. The White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund (“WRTSF”), the venture capital fund owned by the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, invested £105k. Following

Study holds promise for susceptibility test

Cell and animal studies conducted jointly by scientists at Johns Hopkins, Yale and other institutions have uncovered at least one important contributor to the severe anemia that kills almost half of the 2 million people worldwide who die each year of malaria. The culprit is a protein cells make in response to inflammation called MIF, which appears to suppress red blood cell production in people whose red blood cells already are infec

Sexual harassment is a burden that females of many species face, and some may go to extreme lengths to avoid it. In a new paper from the June issue of the American Naturalist, Darren Croft (University of Wales) and a research team from the University of Leeds suggest that female guppies, a popular aquarium fish, may risk their lives to avoid too much attention from males. Observing wild population of guppies in the rainforest of Trinidad, the researchers found that female guppies swim in habitat

BU biologist discovers diversity in mantis shrimp underestimated

There is a push to document the biodiversity of the world within 25 years. However, the magnitude of this challenge is not well known, especially when it comes to vast and often inaccessible marine environments. To date, surveys of species diversity in the world’s oceans have focused on adult organisms, but new research from Boston University has found that studying marine life in its larval phase with DNA b

New findings may one day advance treatments to prevent type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome

Insulin uses two distinct mechanisms to control glucose and the metabolism of blood fats (lipids) in the liver, a new Joslin Diabetes Center-led study has discovered. Failures in each of these networks can lead to serious health problems: the breakdown of glucose metabolism that can lead to type 2 diabetes, and the malfunction of lipid metabolism contributing to metabolic syndrome, which

A revolutionary breath analysis machine is going on trial in a clinical environment for the first time. The invention of Professor David Smith and Professor Patrik Spanel from Keele University’s Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, in Staffordshire, is a revolutionary technique known as SIFT-MS, which works by measuring trace gases or metabolites present in the breath.

It is so sensitive that it is capable of detecting a single molecule amid several billion molecules of air,

Finding and treating vulnerable plaque early could prevent heart attack and death

Virtual histology. Thermography. Palpography. Computed tomography. Today, during the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) 29th Annual Scientific Sessions in Chicago, Dr. Gregg W. Stone will explore these and other promising imaging techniques in a featured Hildner Lecture entitled, “Prospects for the Invasive and Non-Invasive Identification of Vulnerable Plaque.”

Female fish prefer brightly coloured males because they are easier to see and are in better shape concludes Dutch researcher Martine Maan following her study of fish speciation in the East African Lakes. Environmental variation subsequently leads to differences in preference and eventually to speciation.

Evolutionary theory predicts that species can diverge if different females choose different characteristics in males. Yet females often pay attention to traits that reveal something about

c-myc, a gene commonly involved in cancer onset, has been found to have a role in the immune system’s normal function according to a study published in the journal, Blood. The surprising finding, by a Swiss research team led by investigators from the Lausanne Branch of the international Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR), showed that c-myc functions in the immune system’s ‘memory’ of previous infections.

In order to rapidly and efficiently respond to new infections, the immune sy

CNRS researchers at the Institut Curie have shown in embryos that a cell-surface protein called ß1 integrin is essential for the formation of the enteric nervous system, which controls the passage of food through the gut. If the cells destined to form the future enteric nervous system lack ß1 integrin, their capacity to migrate is impaired and they fail to colonize the whole intestine. This anomaly resembles Hirschsprung’s disease, a rare human congenital malformation. These findings also shed ne

Now all they need is a really, really small corkscrew.

Like Lilliputian chemists, scientists have found a way to “cork” infinitesimally small nano test tubes. The goal is a better way to deliver drugs, for example, for cancer treatment. Scientists want to fill the teeny tubes with drugs and inject them into the body, where they will seek diseased or cancerous cells, uncork and spill their therapeutic contents in the right place.

“After making the nano test tubes, we saw the

Researchers from the Floral Genome Project at Penn State University, with an international team of collaborators, have proposed an answer to Charles Darwin’s “abominable mystery:” the inexplicably rapid evolution of flowering plants immediately after their first appearance some 140 million years ago. By developing new statistical methods to analyze incomplete DNA sequences from thirteen strategically selected plant species, the researchers uncovered a previously hidden “paleopolyploidy” event