Scientists have reported that an experimental vaccine targeting one of the most common genetic drivers of pancreatic cancer, called mutant KRAS, is safe and generated a durable immune responses aimed at preventing the cancer.
Scientists say they have done laboratory resurrections of several 2 to 3 billion-year-old proteins, ancient ancestors of the enzymes that enable today's antibiotic-resistant bacteria to shrug off huge doses of penicillins, cephalosporins and other modern drugs.
Antibiotic resistance existed long before Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic in 1928. Genes that contain instructions for making the proteins responsible for antibiotic resistance have been found in 30,000-year-old permafrost sediment and other ancient sites. The new study research focused on beta-lactamases, enzymes responsible for resistance to the family of antibiotics that includes penicillin, which scientists believe originated billions of years ago.
Older people who don't expect a satisfying future may be more likely to live longer, healthier lives than those who see brighter days ahead, according to a paper in
Psychology and Aging.
Scholars examined data collected from 1993 to 2003 for the national German Socio-Economic Panel, an annual survey of private households consisting of approximately 40,000 people 18 to 96 years old. The researchers divided the data according to age groups: 18 to 39 years old, 40 to 64 years old and 65 years old and above.
Through mostly in-person interviews, respondents were asked to rate how satisfied they were with their lives and how satisfied they thought they would be in five years.
Trust fools you into remembering that your partner was more considerate and less hurtful than they actually were, say psychologists who examined the role of trust in biasing memories of transgressions in romantic partnerships.
People who are highly trusting tended to remember transgressions in a way that benefits the relationship, remembering partner transgressions as less severe than they originally reported them to be. People low on trust demonstrated the opposite pattern, remembering partner transgressions as being more severe than how they originally reported them to be, they concluded.
Preclinical, laboratory studies suggest immunotherapy could potentially work like a vaccine against metastatic cancers.
Results from the recent study show the therapy could treat metastatic cancers and be used in combination with current cancer therapies while helping to prevent the development of new metastatic tumors and train specialized immune system cells to guard against cancer relapse.
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, say life expectancy changes have been so rapid since 1900 that "72 is the new 30" - by that, they mean primitive hunter gatherers had the same odds of dying at age 30 as a modern man in the developed world faces at age 72.
The English know they drink too much alcohol, but they all think it is someone else doing it. In actuality, as many as 75% of people in England are drinking in excess of the recommended daily alcohol limit, according to a new paper in the European Journal of Public Health.
The scholars investigated the potential public health implications related to the under-reporting of alcohol consumption. International surveys have shown that self-reported alcohol consumption only accounts for between 40 and 60 per cent of alcohol sales- that discrepancy reveasl the potential impact of this 'missing' alcohol on public health.
In January of 2012, the United States Department of Agriculture passed a series of regulations designed to make school lunches more nutritious, which included requiring schools to increase whole grain foods and forcing students to select either a fruit or vegetable with their purchased lunch.
This led to athletes and other students to claim they were not getting enough calories and complaints from advocates for poor children that, since it is the best meal some children might get during the day, it should not be focused on social engineering. Trash cans filled with fruit didn't help things.
In a two-year sub-study of the STAMPEDE (Surgical Therapy And Medications Potentially Eradicate Diabetes Efficiently) trial, researchers evaluated the effects of bariatric surgery and intensive medical therapy on blood sugar levels, body composition, and pancreatic beta-cell function
and found that gastric bypass surgery reverses diabetes by uniquely restoring pancreatic function in moderately obese patients with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes.
Striking metabolic changes were observed in patients who underwent bariatric surgery compared with intensive medical therapy, particularly in the gastric bypass treatment group.
A group of progenitor cells in the inner ear that can become the sensory hair cells and adjacent supporting cells that enable hearing have been identified, a potential breakthrough for people suffering from hearing loss due to damaged or impaired sensory hair cells, according to a paper in Development.
The inner ear is a highly specialized structure for gathering and transmitting vibrations in the air. The auditory compartment, called the cochlea, is a snail-shaped cavity that houses specialized cells with hair-like projections that sense vibration, much like seaweed waving in the ocean current. These hair cells are responsible for both hearing and balance, and are surrounded by supporting cells that are also critical for hearing.
A new paper in the Journal of Pediatrics
says low-birth-weight babies with a particular brain abnormality are at greater risk for autism, and it could provide a signpost for early detection of the poorly understood disorder.
The authors found that low-birth-weight newborns were seven times more likely to be diagnosed with autism later in life if an ultrasound taken just after birth showed they had enlarged ventricles, cavities in the brain that store spinal fluid.
Activists love wind power the way they once loved ethanol and natural gas - it is good until scientists show them it is not.
Claims that there is no upper bound for wind power, that it is scalable because gusts and breezes don't seem likely to "run out" on a global scale, are not based on reality. And neither are claims that the generating capacity of large-scale wind farms is unlimited.
Climate change causing every weather event enjoyed the kind of fallacious media coverage in late 2012 it hadn't gotten since 2006 - it remains bad science. While short-term weather is notoriously volatile, climate is more of an average weather pattern over a long period of time. This dichotomy provides the analytical framework for scientific thinking about atmospheric variability, including climate change.
