Ever wondered where your family’s ancestors roamed 60,000 years ago?

Now you can find out by participating in the world’s most ambitious project tracing the genetic and migratory history of the human race. Members of the general public from all over the world can supply their DNA to the Genographic Project, and scientists at The University of Arizona in Tucson will do the genetic analysis. The public DNA sampling is part of a larger undertaking to unravel the origins and migra

Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a way to test whether the new targeted therapy Tarceva and the widely used chemotherapy drug Taxol are effectively killing tumor cells. They say that with further refinement, the test may make it possible to accurately assess whether patients are responding to these agents, as well as potentially others, within days of beginning therapy.

In two different studies being presented at the annual meetin

AZTI has drawn up some 40 tables for freshness specific for the most important commercial species in southern Europe, including fish and shellfish. The sensorial method, known as QIM (Quality Index Method) and introduced into Europe some years ago, is being applied to a greater number of species, including some in the frozen state. Concretely, for species of interest in our waters, AZTI has specific schemes for each species of commercial importance that the inspectors use.

Evaluat

Potentially deadly blood clots are being missed in children, and more research and awareness is needed in the medical community, according to a study done in part at the University of Alberta.

“We don’t think of blood clots occurring in children, but they do,” said Dr. Patricia Massicotte, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta, and one of the study’s authors.

A review of treatments for pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) in children, conducted by

Researchers from the Viikki Biocenter, University of Helsinki, show that atomic structures can reveal evolutionary history of viruses in a similar fashion as fossils did for the dinosaurs and reptiles. Their article is published in the April 15 issue of Molecular Cell.

These “molecular fossils” also revealed that viruses and proteins of immune system share the same structure. One plausible explanation may be that viral building blocks served as precursors for the evolutionary more re

University of California, San Diego biologists and their colleagues have discovered that the genetic system controlling the development and repair of insect cuticle—the outer layer of the body surface in insects—also controls these processes in mammalian skin, a finding that could lead to new insights into the healing of wounds and treatment of cancer.

The UCSD biologists’ study, published April 15 in the journal Science identifies a master gene called grainyhead that activates

If you took a survey of life’s small annoyances, surely those unpopped kernels at the bottom of the popcorn bag would rank high on the list. But perhaps not for long.

“We think the secret to maximizing ‘pop-ability’ is found in the special chemistry of the corn kernel,” says food chemist Bruce Hamaker, Ph.D., of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. Hamaker is part of a team of scientists at the school who have identified a key crystalline structure in popcorn that appears t

Study of unique reproductive-cell protein in mice could lead to new contraceptives for women and men

Mice lacking a special protein found only in germ-line cells results in infertility in both males and females, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Norman Hecht, PhD, Professor of Human Reproduction in Penn’s Center for Research in Reproduction and Women’s Health, and colleagues say that these investigations point

Finding could lead to treatments for viral hemorrhagic fevers

Ebola virus reproduction in laboratory-grown cells is severely hampered by enzyme-inhibiting chemicals, and these chemicals deserve further study as possible treatments for Ebola virus infections in humans, report scientists supported in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The researchers, whose paper is published o

Decreased activity within the Transforming Growth Factor Beta (TGF-beta) pathway is associated with increased breast cancer risk, according to a study published by researchers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University’s Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center in today’s Cancer Research journal. This is the first study aimed at determining whether various combinations of two naturally-occurring variants of the TGF-beta pathway may predict breast cancer risk. It is also the

Researchers Conduct First Large Study Defining Premature Ejaculation by Stopwatch & Patient Reported Outcomes

In a four-week study of 1,587 men, researchers report that men who suffer from premature ejaculation (PE) had an average intravaginal ejaculatory latency time (IELT) of 1.8 minutes, compared to 7.3 minutes in men who did not. Men with PE and their female partners also had higher ratings for personal distress, interpersonal difficulty with their partner, lack of ejaculation

A research team consisting of nurses, pharmacists and biomedical engineers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital recently published a study showing that while “smart pumps” are a necessary component to a safe medication system, they won’t generate meaningful improvements in patient safety until they are interfaced with other systems, such as the electronic health record, computerized provider order entry (CPOE), bar coded medication administration systems and pharmacy information systems. Smart pu

Detailed analysis of tissue chemistry could identify most appropriate treatment; more study needed

A new way of evaluating prostate tumors may help physicians determine the best treatment strategy. Using magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy, which provides detailed information on the chemical composition of tissue samples, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have shown that chemical profiles of prostate tissue can determine a tumor’s prognosis better than sta

We all know that a viral infection can be developed extremely quickly, but in fact it’s even more dramatic than that – the process is literally explosive.

The pressure inside a virus is 40 atmospheres, and it is just waiting for an opportunity to blow up. The virus is like a living DNA cannon. How this cannon functions has been mapped by Dr. Alex Evilevitch at the Department of Biochemistry at Lund University in Sweden. This is knowledge that will have applications in ge

Although not widely appreciated as a disease of the genes, cancer is always rooted in genetic errors or problems in gene regulation. Scientists have identified some of the first genetic triggers for cancer as mutations in specific oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. Full-blown tumors and metastatic cancers, however, often exhibit many genetic mutations, sometimes dozens in a given tumor. An important scientific question, and one with significant clinical implications, has been what happens afte

Finding could lead to new therapeutic strategies

Scientists have discovered the mechanism that enables some CD4 T cells — the main target of HIV — to thwart the virus. The discovery, reported on April 13 in the online version of Nature, could open the door to an entirely new strategy for preventing the spread of HIV infection in the body’s cells, according to the senior author of the study, Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology Director Warner C. Greene, MD, PhD.