Study finds men who consume more dairy products have lower incidence of diabetes

The consumption of low-fat dairy foods may reduce men’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study in the May 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. The report from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) – the first large-scale, prospective examination of a relationship between dairy intake an

Mayo Clinic ophthalmologists have found commercially available Class 3A green laser pointers can cause visible harm to the eye’s retina with exposures as short as 60 seconds. The findings will be published in the May issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

Dennis Robertson, M.D., Mayo Clinic ophthalmologist, conducted investigations with a green laser pointer directed to the retina of a patient’s eye; the eye was scheduled for removal because of a malignancy. The green laser damaged t

A new blood screening test could help to identify ovarian cancer in its early stages when few symptoms are present, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the May 10 issue of Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS).

Epithelial ovarian cancer is the leading cause of gynecologic cancer deaths in the United States and three times more lethal than breast cancer. It is usually not diagnosed until its advanced stages and has come to be known as the “silent killer.

Penn State researchers have discovered an extraordinary new flower that lives longer than an ordinary one. Named Elegance Silver by the researchers, the plant could be the Superman of the flower world.

Elegance Silver is a Regal Pelargonium, a very beautiful flower that is used as a flowering houseplant, and belongs to the genus Pelargonium, the same genus as geraniums. It has a glistening white flower with two burgundy feathers on the top two petals. In terms of flower shape

Compounds that occur naturally in cranberries may be good for the heart, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found.

Early results from studies indicate that feeding cranberry juice powder seems to relax and open blood vessels in pigs that are genetically susceptible to developing atherosclerosis, or clogged arteries. Kris Kruse-Elliott, a veterinary anesthesiologist at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, presented her results at the American Physiolog

A powerful laboratory technique used by fruit fly geneticists for more than a decade is now available to scientists studying genes and diseases in mice.

Writing in the May 6 edition of the journal Cell, researchers from Stanford University describe a streamlined method for creating a “genetic mosaic mouse”–a rodent whose body is genetically engineered to produce small clusters of cells with mutated genes.

The new technique, called Mosaic Analysis with Double Markers (M

By designing a molecular bridge, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have forged a successful pathway through a complex ocean of barriers: They’ve changed the function of a protein using a co-evolution approach.

In a study to be published in the Journal of Molecular Biology, doctoral student Zhilei Chen and Huimin Zhao, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, describe what they call a “simple and efficient method for creation of novel

Compared with a long-used linear model, a correlation-based statistical method is a more reliable way to map complex gene interactions and pinpoint genes that may be potential cancer treatment targets, according to new Brown University research.

The research is important because it describes a promising new tool for tracing human gene connections, a task critical for understanding and treating cancer and other diseases. Results appeared this week in the online edition of the P

Persistent use of ecstasy leads to a loss of everyday memory, researchers from Northumbria University have discovered. For the study 23 regular users of ecstasy were compared to 30 people who had never used the drug.

They were then asked to complete a questionnaire to assess long and short-term aspects of memory for future events such as remembering to meet with friends, posting a letter or switching off lights. They were also asked to take part in a video-based (objective) me

While patients hospitalized for a heart attack have long been treated with morphine to relieve chest pain, an analysis by researchers from the Duke Clinical Research Institute has shown that these patients have almost a 50 percent higher risk of dying.

The researchers call for a randomized clinical trial to confirm their analysis. Meanwhile, they advise cardiologists to begin treatment with sufficient doses of nitroglycerin to relieve pain before resorting to morphine. In their an

Although there is the potential for tollbooth workers at the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel to be exposed to high levels of cancer-causing air toxins emitted from the thousands of vehicles that pass under their nose, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the tollbooth ventilation system was effective in keeping air toxins out of the tollbooth and away from the workers. The researchers measured levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particle-bound po

Research is first to test effectiveness of a new ’patch’ for treating ADHD

A new University at Buffalo study of treatments for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has found that combining behavior modification therapy with medication is the most effective way to improve the behavior of many ADHD children.
In fact, when the two are combined, the study showed, the amount of medication required to achieve the same results as use of medication alon

Children who have been abused are at risk of recurrence and effective prevention strategies are urgently needed, say the authors of a randomized trial published online today by The Lancet.

Recurrence of child maltreatment is a major problem.

In a study involving 163 Canadian families with confirmed child physical abuse or neglect, Dr. Harriet MacMillan, professor of psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences at McMaster University, and colleagues tested whether regular ho

By designing a molecular bridge, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have forged a successful pathway through a complex ocean of barriers: They’ve changed the function of a protein using a co-evolution approach.

In a study to be published in the Journal of Molecular Biology, doctoral student Zhilei Chen and Huimin Zhao, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, describe what they call a “simple and efficient method for creation of novel prote

The humble snail is helping scientists at the University of Sussex to explore ways of treating memory loss in humans.

Drug manufacturers are looking at ways to create a “Viagra for the brain”, which could alleviate memory loss, one of the distressing symptoms of diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Work carried out by Dr George Kemenes, Senior Fellow in the Department of Biology and Environmental Science at the University of Sussex, will hopefully help to show how such drugs could

In their extraordinary annual migration from North America to Mexico, monarch butterflies are known to use the angle of polarized sunlight as a celestial guide to help them keep to a straight and true path southward. But details of their navigational machinery have remained a mystery.

Now, researchers, led by Steven Reppert of University of Massachusetts Medical School, Ivo Sauman of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Adriana Briscoe of the University of California at Irvine, have