News Articles

Studies have shown that gastrointestinal (GI) tract function is often influenced by specific stimulants or reactors, which sometimes cause irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or constipation. Two studies presented today at Digestive Disease Week® 2007 (DDW®) take a closer look at GI stimulation, including one examining the role of serotonin and reactions to certain types of foods and another looking at the potential therapeutic value of nerve stimulation for constipation. DDW is the largest international gathering of physicians and researchers in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery.

As many homeowners know, when stacking firewood, pieces should be placed close enough to permit passage of a mouse, but not of a cat chasing the mouse.
Now, imagine a woodpile where all those mouse passageways are packed with ice, the wood carefully removed, and you have an idea of what the latest photonic structure built by researchers at the University of Illinois looks like.

Peering into the body and visualizing its molecular secrets, once the stuff of science fiction, is one step closer to reality.
The research team is reporting that by looking at images from radiology scans - such as the CT scans a cancer patient routinely gets - radiologists can discern most of the genetic activity of a tumor. Such information could lead to diagnosing and treating patients individually, based on the unique characteristics of their disease.

Extremely drug resistant TB, or XDR-TB, is a serious problem in India, according to a study presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, on Monday, May 21.
The study, the first in India to look at the prevalence of XDR-TB, found this type of TB accounts for 8% of multi-drug-resistant cases, compared with about 4% in the United States.

In people with mild cognitive impairment, up to one drink of alcohol a day may slow their progression to dementia, according to a study published in the May 22, 2007, issue of Neurology®. Mild cognitive impairment is a transitional stage between normal aging and dementia that is used to classify people with mild memory or cognitive problems and no significant disability.
Researchers evaluated alcohol consumption and the incidence of mild cognitive impairment in 1,445 people. They then followed 121 people with mild cognitive impairment and their progression to dementia. The participants, age 65 to 84, were part of the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging and were followed for three-and-a-half years.

A team of researchers has documented major changes in the behavior, ecology, and geographic range of the northern fur seal over the past 1,500 years using a combination of techniques from archaeology, biochemistry, and ecology. Among their findings is evidence of reproductive behavior in the past that is not seen in modern populations of northern fur seals.
"We were able to reconstruct this species' prehistoric range and see changes in biogeography and behavior over timescales longer than ecologists usually think about," said Seth Newsome, who worked on the study as a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Between 2000 and 2004, worldwide CO2 emissions increased at a rate that is over three times the rate during the 1990s—the rate increased from 1.1 % per year during the 1990s to 3.1% per year in the early 2000s.
The research also found that the accelerating growth rate is largely due to the increasing energy intensity of economic activity (the energy required to produce a unit of gross domestic product) and the carbon intensity of the energy system (the amount of carbon per unit of energy), coupled with increases in population and in per-capita gross domestic product. “No region is decarbonising its energy supply,” states the study.

The contents of the deep Earth affect the planet as a whole, including life at its surface, but scientists must find unusual ways to "see" it. Only recently have researchers been able to produce the extreme temperatures and pressures found inside our planet to understand how it is forming and evolving. A special online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explores the exotic world of high pressures as a window to understand a broad range of problems in Earth and planetary science.

Imagine if a naturally occurring chemical in your body could help make you feel more calm and relaxed – but it would only work during the long days of summer.
The same chemical would, instead, make you aggressive and nasty when you were exposed to less daylight during the winter.
That's exactly what occurs for a specific species of mouse, according to a new study at Ohio State University.

A patch of Martian soil analyzed by NASA's rover Spirit is so rich in silica that it may provide some of the strongest evidence yet that ancient Mars was much wetter than it is now. The processes that could have produced such a concentrated deposit of silica require the presence of water.
Members of the rover science team heard from a colleague during a recent teleconference that the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, a chemical analyzer at the end of Spirit's arm, had measured a composition of about 90 percent pure silica for this soil.

A new study in this month’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology explains why NPR listeners always think they are right. When it comes to financial decisions or even concerns about terrorism, people are likely to be influenced by what others think but repeated exposure to one viewpoint can have almost as much influence as exposure to shared opinions from multiple people.
Hearing an opinion multiple times increases the recipient’s sense of familiarity and in some cases gives a listener a false sense that an opinion is more widespread then it actually is.

The use of targeted nanoparticles offers promising techniques for cancer treatment. Researchers in the laboratory of Mark E. Davis at the California Institute of Technology have been using small interfering RNA (siRNA), sometimes known as silencing RNA, to "silence" specific genes that are implicated in certain malignancies.
One of the primary challenges associated with this type of therapy is delivering the therapeutic agent into the body and then to the tumor in a safe and effective manner. By using targeted nanoparticles, researchers have demonstrated that systemically delivered siRNA can slow the growth of tumors in mice without eliciting the toxicities often associated with cancer therapies.