Tufts researchers recently reported that while the leading source of calories in the average American diet used to be from white bread, that may have changed. Now, according to preliminary research conducted by scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Americans are drinking these calories instead. The research was presented in abstract form at the Experimental Biology Conference in April of this year and a more comprehensive paper is being de

In a presentation today at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Biophotonics Research and Technology Development Laboratory described recent progress on a device that stimulates, collects and measures light emissions from body tissues to diagnose critical atherosclerotic plaques (vulnerable plaques) and aggressive brain tumors.

In both disease processes, early detection and precision can impact patient outcomes. Ath

All cells are encased within a protective lipid membrane. The membrane is studded with many hundreds of different proteins that transport nutrients, ions, and water into and out of the cell. Such membrane proteins also help cells recognize each other in the body, and make the nervous system work. Scientists at Stockholm University have now mapped out nearly all of the membrane proteins in the enteric bacterium Escherichia coli. Their study is published this week in Science magazine.

The t

A unique material based on cobweb proteins is being created by Russian researchers of the State Research Center of Russian Federation GosNIIgentics, Scientific Research Center “Coal-Chemical Fiber”, State Research Center of Applied Microbiology in cooperation with their colleagues from Michigan University with support form the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) (project 1033.2).

The spider’s hunting net is built from several different proteins. Researchers ar

Scientists at ETH Zurich have set a world record in mass spectrometry by observing the largest ever mass-to-charge ratio of over 1 Mio Dalton (MDa) using a special mass spectrometer. The researchers in the team of Prof. Renato Zenobi had to overcome two obstacles, the intact vaporization and ionization of the sample, as well as the detection of the very large ions. Modern soft ionization methods allow giant molecules such as proteins or DNA to be brought into the gas phase. The ETH researchers e

Scientists at The University of Manchester have today unveiled new research which claims that going out in the midday sun, without sunscreen, is good for you.

The research, led by ultra-violet radiation expert Ann Webb, supports claims that exposing unprotected skin to the sun for short periods helps the body to produce essential Vitamin D.

Dr Webb has produced new figures which not only predict when is the best time to expose unprotected skin to the sun in order to maxim

CE Marking of Pall Filter Heralds a New Era in Transfusion Safety

The risk of receiving blood contaminated with variant Cruetzfeldt-Jakob (vCJD) prions may no longer be a concern for the thousands of people who require a transfusion. Pall Corporation (NYSE: PLL) announced today the Council of Europe (CE) marking of its Leukotrap Affinity Prion Reduction Filter System. It is the first and only technology that removes infectious prions that may be the causative agent of vCJD from r

Owing to the system now being developed at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and that was presented this week at an international conference on biobanks, the university’s biobank will now be based on informatics as well as tissue and blood samples. The system will enable researchers to seek biobank samples linked to the vast databases of phenotype and genotype information on the individual donors and to a variety of other data sources.

The existence of large national epidemiological d

Scientists for the first time have watched agents of brain-wasting diseases, called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE), as they invade a nerve cell and then travel along wire-like circuits to points of contact with other cells. These findings will help scientists better understand TSE diseases and may lead to ways to prevent or minimize their effects. TSE, or prion, diseases include scrapie in sheep and goats; chronic wasting disease in deer and elk; mad cow disease in cattle; a

Findings offer new ideas on disease states

New research from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how a protein may be crucial to the regulation of genes in embryonic stem cells. The protein, called “eed,” is needed for an essential chemical modification of many genes. Embryos cannot survive without the modification.

The findings appear in the May 24 issue of the journal Current Biology.

The research offers an important contribution to a new wave

Women with breast cancer who engaged in an amount of physical activity equivalent to walking 1 or more hours per week had better survival compared with those who exercised less than that or not at all, according to a study in the May 25 issue of JAMA.

There is reason to believe that physical activity might extend survival in women with breast cancer, according to background information in the article. Physical activity has been linked to lower levels of circulating ovarian ho

The idea that your bladder shrinks as you get older may be nothing more than an old wives’ tale according to a University of Pittsburgh study. The feeling may, however, signal a treatable underlying condition. Results are to be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) in San Antonio, and will be published in abstract 1218 in the AUA proceedings.

“Many of us, after reaching a certain age, notice that we have to urinate more frequentl

Female lung transplant recipients are significantly more likely to suffer from a type of injury to the transplanted lung called primary graft dysfunction than male lung transplant patients, according to a study to be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference on May 24.

The study found that female lung transplant recipients who received a lung from either a male or female donor were almost 60% more likely to suffer from primary graft dysfunction, compa

More than half of people with asthma report that their symptoms are brought on by laughter, according to a study to be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference on May 24.

The study of 235 patients with asthma found that 56% had laughter-induced asthma (LIA). Asthma that is triggered by laughter doesn’t seem to cause more asthma flare-ups requiring emergency room visits or hospitalizations compared with other types of asthma, according to study

Fibrosis (scar tissue formation) is the determinant lesion in the subsequent evolution of the heart in a patient with high blood pressure. This item appeared in the latest edition of Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine, a journal that is part of the Nature group. The article published heart research recently carried out at the University of Navarra.

When arterial blood pressure rises, we have what is known as high blood pressure and the heart becomes overloaded,

The worldwide popularity of garlic as a food ingredient and its therapeutic stature in folklore both stem in part from the distinctive pungency associated with its raw, uncooked state. Researchers this week report that this pungency, manifested as a characteristic mixture of burning and prickling sensations and flavor, can be ascribed largely to the effects of a particular compound and its ability to activate specific protein thermoreceptors in the mouth.

The findings are reported