News Articles

Transgenic goats' milk modified to produce higher levels of the human antimicrobial protein lysozyme is effective in treating diarrhea in young pigs, proof-of-concept that food products from transgenic animals could also benefit human health.The researchers say this is the first study showing that goats’ milk carrying elevated levels of lysozyme, a protein found in human breast milk, can successfully treat diarrhea caused by bacterial infection in the gastrointestinal tract. Human diarrheal diseases claim the lives of 1.8 million children around the world and impair the physical and mental development of millions more and these findings offer hope that genetically fortified milk could eventually help prevent such diseases.

Scientists have discovered another rare triple quasar system. 
Quasars are extremely bright and powerful sources of energy that sit in the center of a galaxy, surrounding a black hole. In systems with multiple quasars, the bodies are held together by gravity and are believed to be the product of galaxies colliding.
It is very difficult to observe triplet quasar systems, because of observational limits that prevent researchers from differentiating multiple nearby bodies from one another at astronomical distances. Moreover, such phenomena are presumed to be very rare.

Enriching crops by adding a naturally-occurring soil mineral to fertilizers in Malawi could potentially help to reduce disease and premature death caused by a dietary deficiency of the mineral selenium — which plays a vital role in keeping the immune system healthy and fighting illness. 
An international study has shown that dietary deficiency of selenium is likely to be endemic among the Malawi population and that most Malawi soils cannot supply enough selenium for adequate human nutrition. They call for further investigation into the benefits and costs of using selenium-enriched fertilizers and other strategies to boost levels within the country's food.

Unless we want continued runaway wildfires in dry regions like California, logging makes sense. But there is also an ecological upside, according to a new study. 
Retaining moderate levels of logging debris, also known as "slash," helped to both directly and indirectly increase the growth rate of Douglas-fir seedlings replanted after harvest. The findings, which are among the first to speak to the benefits of second-growth logging debris,
 show that the downed limbs and other woody debris that are inevitable byproducts of timber harvest could be among the most important components of post-harvest landscapes.   

New Yorkers are not happy about the boom in Pennsylvania due to increased natural gas in that state - but politicians have been against it. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he will soon decide whether to approve gas drilling but engineers writing in Energy Policy say that wind, water and sunlight could hypothetically be sustainable, inexpensive and reliable and save the state billions of dollars in pollution-related costs.

Familiarity with the unknown, even the scary unknown, reduces anxiety about everyday life, according to surveys of over 800 children ages 8 to 17 conducted by the  Mayo Clinic Department of Psychiatry and Psychology.
The scholars developed two eight-question surveys: the Children's Avoidance Measure Parent Report and the Children's Avoidance Measure Self Report. The questionnaires ask details about children's avoidance tendencies, for instance, in addressing parents, "When your child is scared or worried about something, does he or she ask to do it later?" It also asks children to describe their passive avoidance habits. For example: "When I feel scared or worried about something, I try not to go near it."

Regional spending is not linked to differences in survival of patients with advanced cancer, according to an analysis of Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked data in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Cancer care accounts for approximately 10% of Medicare spending, and costs are highest for cancer patients with late-stage disease. There are large regional differences in spending within the Medicare program - more seniors, more spending on Medicare, for example - however it is unknown if higher average regional spending for advanced cancer is linked to improved survival for individual patients with cancer.

The widespread introduction of a chicken pox vaccine in Australia in 2006 has prevented thousands of children from being hospitalized with severe chicken pox and saved lives, according to a national study of chicken pox admissions at four participating Australian children's hospitals.
Chicken pox is a highly contagious infection spread by airborne transmission or from direct contact with the fluid from skin lesions caused by the disease. In its most serious form, chicken pox can cause severe and multiple complications, including neurological conditions, and even death.

As Roman Catholics cardinals conclave to pick a new Pope, they should be thinking about a problem that is becoming more apparent - in the developed world, all organized religion continues to decline.
Religious affiliation in the US only began to be tracked in the 1930s but newly released survey data shows the curve continuing to go down. Last year, 20 percent of Americans claimed they had no religious preference, more than double the number reported in 1990. It doesn't mean they are atheists, that is 3% of the public, but that they do not subscribe to an organized religion. 'Spiritual' is the catch-all phrase they tend to use.

Pigs are not known for being picky - 'eats like a pig' is not a colloquial metaphor, they are messy and eat everything - but new research shows they avoid bitter tastes when they can.
In a new study of nursery pig diets, researchers offered pigs different amounts of soybean meal, napus canola meal and juncea canola meal. They found that pigs ate more soybean meal when given a choice. Of course, they choose to eat everything. They're pigs. 
Napus canola meal and juncea canola meal come from rapeseed and mustard greens, respectively. Canola meals are less expensive than soybean meal. If producers can replace soybean meal in swine diets, they could produce pork at a lower cost.

An analysis of data from the Framingham Offspring Study, which follows children of participants in the original Framingham Heart Study, may have answered a question that has been asked by doctors and smokers alike; do the health effects of any weight gained after quitting outweigh the known cardiovascular benefits of smoking cessation?  

HeLa cells, named after Henrietta Lacks, whose cells, which were cultured by George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research, are the world's most commonly used human cell lines and have served as a standard for understanding many fundamental biological processes.
In a new study published today, scientists announce they have successfully sequenced the genome of a HeLa cell line and their high-resolution genomic reference reveals the striking differences between the HeLa genome and that of normal human cells.