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The long arm of the dendritic cell: A link between atherosclerosis and autoimmunity
Female students wary of the engineering workplace
Higher-spending hospitals have fewer deaths for emergency patients
Exercise can help when chronic illness gets you down
Serious complications after oesophageal surgery cause lasting health problems in long-term survivors
Arsenic turns stem cells cancerous, spurring tumor growth
‘Positive stress’ helps protect eye from glaucoma
New isotope measurement could alter history of early solar system
Darwin in the genome: Research on stickleback fish shows how adaptation to new environments involves many genes
Algae biofuels: the wave of the future
Lessons Shared from Transmission of Hepatitis C Infection to Patients
Mayo Clinic Reports Emerging Fungal Infection in Southwest That Mimics Cancer
Discovery paves way for improved pain-killers
Research team shines new light on photosynthesis
Study Reveals How Cancer Drug Rapamycin Causes Diabetic-Like State
Entrepreneurial Differences Between the Sexes: Data reveals men are most likely to start businesses for the money, women for social value
Activity in Brain Networks Related to Features of Depression
Moffitt Cancer Center Researchers Validate New Staging Classifications for Neuroendocrine Pancreatic Tumor Surgery Response
Being ignored online or in person, it's still exclusion
Arteries under pressure early on: Mice fed a high-fat diet show signs of artery damage after only six weeks

The long arm of the dendritic cell: A link between atherosclerosis and autoimmunity

Posted: 04 Apr 2012 06:43 AM PDT

Individuals who suffer from autoimmune diseases also display a tendency to develop atherosclerosis – the condition popularly known as hardening of the arteries. Clinical researchers at LMU, in collaboration with colleagues in Würzburg, have now discovered a mechanism which helps to explain the connection between the two types of disorder. The link is provided by a specific class of immune cells called plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs).

Female students wary of the engineering workplace

Posted: 04 Apr 2012 06:31 AM PDT

Why don’t more women enter the male-dominated profession of engineering? Some observers have speculated it may be due to the difficulties of balancing a demanding career with family life. Others have suggested that women may not rate their own technical skills highly enough.

Higher-spending hospitals have fewer deaths for emergency patients

Posted: 04 Apr 2012 06:21 AM PDT

Higher-spending hospitals do have better outcomes for their emergency patients, including fewer deaths, according to a Vanderbilt study released as a working paper through the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Vanderbilt’s John Graves, Ph.D., assistant professor of Preventive Medicine, along with colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University, examined Medicare ambulance and hospital data from 2002-2008, finding that higher-cost hospitals have significantly lower one-year mortality rates compared to lower-cost hospitals.

Exercise can help when chronic illness gets you down

Posted: 04 Apr 2012 06:16 AM PDT

Suffering from a chronic illness can drain a person's quality of life, but add in depression, and the results are debilitating. A new study from University of Georgia researchers shows that exercise training can reduce depression symptoms in patients with a chronic illness.

In a study published in a recent edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed the results of 90 randomized controlled trials involving more than 10,500 sedentary patients with a chronic illness. The study did not focus on patients diagnosed with depression.

Serious complications after oesophageal surgery cause lasting health problems in long-term survivors

Posted: 04 Apr 2012 06:09 AM PDT

Oesophageal cancer is a very serious form of cancer that, if not fatal, requires extensive surgery. A new study from Karolinska Institutet shows that when serious complications arise after surgery for oesophageal cancer, many patients suffer other health problems, such as breathlessness, fatigue, insomnia and eating problems, for five years afterwards.

Arsenic turns stem cells cancerous, spurring tumor growth

Posted: 04 Apr 2012 05:59 AM PDT

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered how exposure to arsenic can turn normal stem cells into cancer stem cells and spur tumor growth. Inorganic arsenic, which affects the drinking water of millions of people worldwide, has been previously shown to be a human carcinogen. A growing body of evidence suggests that cancer is a stem-cell based disease. Normal stem cells are essential to normal tissue regeneration, and to the stability of organisms and processes.

‘Positive stress’ helps protect eye from glaucoma

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 08:54 PM PDT

Working in mice, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have devised a treatment that prevents the optic nerve injury that occurs in glaucoma, a neurodegenerative disease that is a leading cause of blindness.

New isotope measurement could alter history of early solar system

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 12:02 PM PDT

The early days of our solar system might look quite different than previously thought, according to research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory published in Science. The study used more sensitive instruments to find a different half-life for samarium, one of the isotopes used to chart the evolution of the solar system.

Darwin in the genome: Research on stickleback fish shows how adaptation to new environments involves many genes

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 11:56 AM PDT

A current controversy raging in evolutionary biology is about whether adaptation to new environments is the result of many genes, each of relatively small effect, or just a few genes of large effect. A new study published in Molecular Ecology strongly supports the first “many-small” hypothesis.

Algae biofuels: the wave of the future

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 11:52 AM PDT

Researchers at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute have assembled the draft genome of a marine algae sequence to aid scientists across the US in a project that aims to discover the best algae species for producing biodiesel fuel. The results have been published in Nature Communications.

Lessons Shared from Transmission of Hepatitis C Infection to Patients

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 11:49 AM PDT

Findings of an extensive investigation at Mayo Clinic, published in the April 3 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, serve as a warning to other health care institutions that drug diversion by a health care worker can spread hepatitis C, a potentially fatal viral infection, to patients.

Mayo Clinic Reports Emerging Fungal Infection in Southwest That Mimics Cancer

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 11:46 AM PDT

An emerging fungal infection of the gastrointestinal tract that mimics cancer and inflammatory bowel disease appears to be emerging in the Southwestern United States and other desert regions, according to Mayo Clinic researchers in Arizona investigating the disease. The invasive fungus, Basidiobolus ranarum, is typically found in the soil, decaying organic matter and the gastrointestinal tracts of fish, reptiles, amphibians, and bats.

Discovery paves way for improved pain-killers

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 10:24 AM PDT

An international team of researchers involving the University of Adelaide has made a major discovery that could lead to more effective treatment of severe pain using morphine.

Morphine is an extremely important drug for pain relief, but it can lead to a range of side-effects - such as patients developing tolerance to morphine and increased sensitivity to pain. Until now, how this occurs has remained a mystery.

Research team shines new light on photosynthesis

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 10:17 AM PDT

Photosynthesis is one of the fundamental processes of life on Earth. The evolutionary transition from anoxygenic (no oxygen produced) to oxygenic (oxygen-producing) photosynthesis resulted in the critical development of atmospheric oxygen in amounts large enough to allow the evolution of organisms that use oxygen, including plants and mammals.

Study Reveals How Cancer Drug Rapamycin Causes Diabetic-Like State

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 10:04 AM PDT

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered why diabetic-like symptoms develop in some patients given rapamycin, an immune-suppressant drug that also has shown anti-cancer activity and may even slow ageing.

Rapamycin is widely used to prevent organ rejection and is being tested as a cancer treatment in clinical trials. About 15 percent of patients, however, develop insulin resistance and glucose intolerance after taking the drug; until now, scientists had not identified the reason.

Entrepreneurial Differences Between the Sexes: Data reveals men are most likely to start businesses for the money, women for social value

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 09:46 AM PDT

A study of the sexes reveals that when it comes to starting a business, women are more likely than men to consider individual responsibility and use business as a vehicle for social and environmental change.

Activity in Brain Networks Related to Features of Depression

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 09:35 AM PDT

Depressed individuals with a tendency to ruminate on negative thoughts, i.e. to repeatedly think about particular negative thoughts or memories, show different patterns of brain network activation compared to healthy individuals, report scientists of a new study in Biological Psychiatry.

The risk for depression is increased in individuals with a tendency towards negative ruminations, but patterns of autobiographic memory also may be predictive of depression.

Moffitt Cancer Center Researchers Validate New Staging Classifications for Neuroendocrine Pancreatic Tumor Surgery Response

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 09:16 AM PDT

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have carried out a study to validate the utility of new tumor classification systems for staging and predicting relapse-free survival for patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) and who may be candidates for surgery.

The results of their study were published in a recent issue of the Annals of Surgery.

Being ignored online or in person, it's still exclusion

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 09:12 AM PDT

People who are excluded by others online, such as on Facebook, may feel just as bad as if they had been excluded in person, according to researchers at Penn State and Misericordia University.

Arteries under pressure early on: Mice fed a high-fat diet show signs of artery damage after only six weeks

Posted: 03 Apr 2012 09:01 AM PDT

High fat diets cause damage to blood vessels earlier than previously thought, and these structural and mechanical changes may be the first step in the development of high blood pressure. These findings in mice, by Marie Billaud and colleagues from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in the US, are published online in Springer's Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research.