The less a child sleeps, the more likely he or she is to become overweight, according to researchers from Université Laval’s Faculty of Medicine in an article published in the latest edition of the International Journal of Obesity. The risk of becoming overweight is 3.5 times higher in children who get less sleep than in those who sleep a lot, according to researchers Jean-Philippe Chaput, Marc Brunet, and Angelo Tremblay.

These results come from data collected among 422 grade school

The sequencing of the rice genome could help mitigate the impact of climate change on the world’s poor

New evidence is emerging that climate change could reduce not only the world’s ability to produce food but also international efforts to cut poverty. However, the recent sequencing of the rice genome is already providing researchers with some of the tools they need to help poor rice farmers and consumers avoid the worst effects of the problem.

The new knowledge genera

Breakthrough method in growing replacement cartilage

A breakthrough self-assembly technique for growing replacement cartilage offers the first hope of replacing the entire articular surface of knees damaged by arthritis. The technique, developed at Rice University’s Musculoskeletal Bioengineering Laboratory, is described in this month’s issue of the journal Tissue Engineering.

“This has significant ramifications because we are now beginning to talk, for the first time, abou

Identifying alterations in DNA methylation may also be useful in determining cancer progression

Researchers at Mayo Clinic have narrowed the search for effective prostate cancer biomarkers (genetic variations that point to a specific disease or condition), identifying changes in the expression of genes of the whole genome closely correlated to prostate cancer development and progression. They also showed that DNA hypermethylation (DNA modification without changing sequence)

Enzymes that can harm the brain immediately after a stroke may actually be beneficial days later, according to new research. Insights from the study could change the way stroke is treated, extending the window for effective treatment from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks. The results may suggest new ideas for drug development.

Working with rats, a team from the Harvard Medical School Departments of Radiology and Neurology found that the enzyme matrix metalloproteinase-9 (M

Finding could help speed SARS drug discovery

The study was conducted by researchers from Scripps Research; the Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan; and the National Taiwan University. It is being published today in the journal Chemistry and Biology (Vol. 13, No. 3).

Chi-Huey Wong is currently the Ernest W. Hahn Chair in Chemistry at the Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology and directs the Scripps Research lab heading the study. He said the new finding

University of Michigan researchers have discovered how to measure the absorption of multi-walled carbon nanoparticles into worms and cancer cells, a breakthrough that will revolutionize scientists’ understanding of how the particles impact the living environment.

A team led by U-M chemical engineering professor Walter J. Weber Jr. tagged multi-walled carbon nanotubes—one of the most promising nanomaterials developed to date—with the carbon-14 radioactive isotope, which enabled

Using the unusual color properties of gold at the nanoscale, scientists at Northwestern University have developed a “litmus test” for DNA and small molecule binding that eventually could be used by pharmaceutical companies to rapidly identify promising candidates for new anti-cancer drugs.

The detection system, called colorimetric screening, can be used to detect a variety of targets, such as DNA, small molecules and proteins, that bind to DNA, and the strength of the bond is ind

Researchers at the University of Hertfordshire have found that individuals who signed up for a new group which could help those who have medically unexplained conditions to resolve them had a drastic reduction in symptoms as soon as they made the call.

The group, which began this month and uses the body’s movement expression to help participants to explore their symptoms, received ethical approval from Welwyn & Hatfield PCT earlier this year, making it the first group of its type in the re

Bolstered by recent laboratory findings, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center are embarking on a National Institutes of Health-funded clinical study to better understand the deceptive role environmental lead exposure plays in bone maturation and loss. The clinical trial is the latest in a growing body of research that is putting yet one more notch in the belt of diseases attributed to lead, and this time, researchers say, its target is older adults at risk for osteoporosis

Ultrasound provides a safe and accurate method of detecting breast cancers in pregnant women, as well as assessing response to chemotherapy, according to a study appearing in the April issue of Radiology. Investigators at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston recently studied the largest group of women to date who were both diagnosed and treated for breast cancer during pregnancy.

“Ultrasound identified 100 percent of cancers in our study, and mammography demonstrated 90

Rare metabolic diseases such as Tay-Sachs, Fabry and Gaucher syndromes are caused by enzyme deficiencies and typically have crippling, even fatal, consequences starting at very early ages. Now a team of University of Washington scientists has developed a relatively simple screening process to detect enzyme deficiencies in newborns that will allow treatment to begin before too much damage has been done.

“All of the damage from these diseases is permanent, so if you can start treatmen

Cancer vaccines are being investigated in early-phase clinical trials around the world, with many of those trials recruiting patients with melanoma. Although tumor regressions have been seen in 10% to 20% of patients with metastatic melanoma, the great promise of cancer vaccines – controlling tumor growth and cancer spread without serious side-effects – remains as yet unrealized. This could be set to change with the publication of a new mouse model technology in Cancer Research, the journal of t

One of the most effective chemotherapy drugs against cancer is cisplatin because it attaches to cancer DNA and disrupts repair. However, it also kills healthy tissue. Many scientists are creating alternative drugs or cisplatin analogs in attempts to find treatments without side effects. One approach to analog development is light activated drugs, or photodynamic therapy (PDT). Now a Virginia Tech chemistry-biology research team that has been working on both non-cisplatin drugs and cisplatin analog

In diverse ecosystems, packed with wildly different species, evolution whizzes along. As different species accumulate mutations, some adapt particularly well to their environment and prosper. It happens in marine sediments, mountain forests – and, as a new study illustrates, in precancerous tumors, too.

In a study published online today in Nature Genetics, Carlo Maley, Ph.D., a researcher at The Wistar Institute, and his colleagues report that precancerous tumors containing a po

Microscopic specs of lead are offering clues about the enormous cultural changes that swept across northern Africa a thousand years ago.

At The University of Arizona in Tucson, a young archaeologist is analyzing lead traces in artifacts to shed light on the relatively little-understood archaeology of Africa, especially the period marked by the spread of the new religion of Islam.

Thomas R. Fenn, a doctoral student in the UA anthropology department, is unraveling evidence o