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Solving the mystery of blood clotting
Link between cadmium in food and breast cancer
Time to invest in trauma care - Study shows that a significant number of lives could be saved by improvements in trauma care globally
Marine Protected Areas are keeping turtles safe
Researchers Reveal How a Single Gene Mutation Leads to Uncontrolled Obesity
Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues have discovered an unsuspected way that protons can move among molecules
Genetic Variation in East Asians Found to Explain Resistance to Cancer Drugs
Columbia Engineering and Penn researchers increase speed of single-molecule measurements
Process Makes Polymers Truly Plastic
Hazy shades of life on early Earth
Looking at quantum gravity in a mirror
Scientists discover multitude of drug side effects, interactions using new computer algorithm
Revolution in personalized medicine: First-ever integrative 'omics' profile lets scientist discover, track his diabetes onset
Stanford researchers boost potency, reduce side effects of IL-2 protein used to treat cancer

Posted: 19 Mar 2012 06:34 AM PDT

How and when our blood clots is one of those incredibly complex and important processes in our body that we rarely think about. If your blood doesn't clot and you cut yourself, you could bleed to death, if your blood clots too much, you could be in line for a heart attack or stroke. Dr. Hans Vogel, a professor at the University of Calgary, has thought a lot about blot clotting and recently published research in the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society that helps to better understand the clotting process.

Link between cadmium in food and breast cancer

Posted: 19 Mar 2012 06:25 AM PDT

New research from Karolinska Institutet in suggests that there is a link between dietary cadmium and breast cancer. The results, which are presented online in Cancer Research, are based on data from over 55,000 women.

Time to invest in trauma care - Study shows that a significant number of lives could be saved by improvements in trauma care globally

Posted: 19 Mar 2012 06:12 AM PDT

Up to two million lives, annually, could be saved globally with improvements in trauma care, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This estimate by Charles Mock, from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his team provides support for investment in and greater attention to strengthening trauma care services globally. Their work is published online in Springer's World Journal of Surgery.

Marine Protected Areas are keeping turtles safe

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 08:58 PM PDT

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are providing sea turtles with an ideal habitat for foraging and may be keeping them safe from the threats of fishing. A study by an international team of scientists led by the University of Exeter, published today (Thursday 15 March), shows that 35 per cent of the world's green turtles are found within MPAs. This is much higher that would be expected as only a small proportion of shallow oceans are designated as MPAs.

Researchers Reveal How a Single Gene Mutation Leads to Uncontrolled Obesity

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 06:27 PM PDT

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have revealed how a mutation in a single gene is responsible for the inability of neurons to effectively pass along appetite suppressing signals from the body to the right place in the brain. What results is obesity caused by a voracious appetite.

Their study, published March 18th on Nature Medicine’s website, suggests there might be a way to stimulate expression of that gene to treat obesity caused by uncontrolled eating.

Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues have discovered an unsuspected way that protons can move among molecules

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 04:49 PM PDT

When a proton – the bare nucleus of a hydrogen atom – transfers from one molecule to another, or moves within a molecule, the result is a hydrogen bond, in which the proton and another atom like nitrogen or oxygen share electrons. Conventional wisdom has it that proton transfers can only happen using hydrogen bonds as conduits, “proton wires” of hydrogen-bonded networks that can connect and reconnect to alter molecular properties.

Genetic Variation in East Asians Found to Explain Resistance to Cancer Drugs

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 02:21 PM PDT

A multinational research team led by scientists at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School has identified the reason why some patients fail to respond to some of the most successful cancer drugs.

Tyrosine kinase inhibitor drugs (TKI) work effectively in most patients to fight certain blood cell cancers, such as chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLC) with mutations in the EGFR gene.

Columbia Engineering and Penn researchers increase speed of single-molecule measurements

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 02:06 PM PDT

As nanotechnology becomes ever more ubiquitous, researchers are using it to make medical diagnostics smaller, faster, and cheaper, in order to better diagnose diseases, learn more about inherited traits, and more. But as sensors get smaller, measuring them becomes more difficult—there is always a tradeoff between how long any measurement takes to make and how precise it is. And when a signal is very weak, the tradeoff is especially big.

Process Makes Polymers Truly Plastic

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 01:45 PM PDT

Just as a chameleon changes its color to blend in with its environment, Duke University engineers have demonstrated for the first time that they can alter the texture of plastics on demand, for example, switching back and forth between a rough surface and a smooth one.

By applying specific voltages, the team has also shown that it can achieve this control over large and curved surface areas.

Hazy shades of life on early Earth

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 01:18 PM PDT

A 'see-sawing' atmosphere over 2.5 billion years ago preceded the oxygenation of our planet and the development of complex life on Earth, a new study has shown.

Research, led by experts at Newcastle University, UK, and published today in the journal Nature Geoscience, reveals that the Earth's early atmosphere periodically flipped from a hydrocarbon-free state into a hydrocarbon-rich state similar to that of Saturn's moon, Titan.

Looking at quantum gravity in a mirror

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 01:11 PM PDT

Scientists discover multitude of drug side effects, interactions using new computer algorithm

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 01:02 PM PDT

A week ago, you started a new prescription medication for acne. Today, you feel dizzy and short of breath and have difficulty concentrating. Your symptoms are not listed in the package insert as possible side effects of the drug, but why else would you be feeling so odd?

Revolution in personalized medicine: First-ever integrative 'omics' profile lets scientist discover, track his diabetes onset

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 12:55 PM PDT

Geneticist Michael Snyder, PhD, has almost no privacy. For more than two years, he and his lab members at the Stanford University School of Medicine pored over his body’s most intimate secrets: the sequence of his DNA, the RNA and proteins produced by his cells, the metabolites and signaling molecules wafting through his blood. They spied on his immune system as it battled viral infections.

Stanford researchers boost potency, reduce side effects of IL-2 protein used to treat cancer

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 12:47 PM PDT

The utility of a naturally occurring protein given, sometimes to great effect, as a drug to treat advanced cancers is limited by the severe side effects it sometimes causes. But a Stanford University School of Medicine scientist has generated a mutant version of the protein whose modified shape renders it substantially more potent than the natural protein while reducing its toxicity.

The findings will appear online March 18 in Nature.