News Articles

For the first time, scientists have used a laboratory mouse model to mimic the development of human alcohol-induced breast cancer.
Alcohol (EtOH) consumption -- even moderate -- is a well-established risk factor for breast cancer in women. A recent study showed that 60 percent of female breast cancers worldwide were attributable to alcohol consumption. Nevertheless, the mechanisms of alcohol-induced breast cancer are poorly understood.

A new study, led by Felix Aigner, M.D., has identified a protein known as Lipocalin-2 (Lcn-2) as potentially responsible for regulating the body's inflammatory response during heart transplants.
One of the major complications involved with many transplantations is the damage done to the transplanted heart during and immediately following surgery, known as ischemia and reperfusion (IR). In particular, inflammatory cells infiltrate the donated heart, which then releases enzymes and other proteins that attack the transplanted tissue, and can seriously impair the viability of replacement organs and jeopardize the health of the patient.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that the same ingredient used in dandruff shampoos to fight the burning, itching and flaking on your head also can calm overexcited nerve cells inside your head, making it a potential treatment for seizures. Results of the study can be found online in Nature Chemical Biology.

In 1928, Alexander Fleming opened the door to treating bacterial infections when he stumbled upon the first known antibiotic in a Penicillium mold growing in a discarded experiment.
Nearly eight decades later, chemist Helen Blackwell and her research team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have devised a more deliberate method to tackle a newer bacterial conundrum - resistance to commonly used antibiotics. Early tests of their tool, called a "small-molecule macroarray," have already identified four promising new compounds with preliminary antibacterial activity comparable to that of some of the most potent antibiotics currently available.

The mouth is a tough environment, which is why dentists do not give lifetime guarantees. Despite their best efforts, a filling may eventually crack under the stress of biting, chewing and teeth grinding, or secondary decay may develop where the filling binds to the tooth. Fully 70 percent of all dental procedures involve replacements to existing repairs, at a cost of $5 billion per year in the United States alone.

In a breakthrough that could make the production of cellulosic ethanol less expensive, Cornell researchers have discovered a class of plant enzymes that potentially could allow plant materials used to make ethanol to be broken down more efficiently than is possible using current technologies.
There is a growing recognition that corn ethanol is unlikely to provide a long-term solution, or one that is environmentally sustainable, and so scientists are turning to cellulose as an alternative.

This schematic diagram shows the newly discovered class of plant enzymes with a cellulose-binding module (shown in blue), sticking to a plant cell wall.

This study examined whether a traditional low-impact mind–body exercise, Tai Chi, affects health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) and headache impact in an adult population suffering from tension-type headaches.
According to the National Headache Foundation, more than 45 million Americans suffer from chronic headaches, with losses of $50 billion a year to absenteeism and medical expenses and an excess of $4 billion spent on over-the-counter medications.
Tension-type headaches (TTH), which represent approximately 78% of all headaches, occur either in single episodes or chronically, and are often the result of temporary stress, anxiety, fatigue or anger.

The next 11-year cycle of solar storms will most likely start next March and peak in late 2011 or mid-2012—up to a year later than expected—according to a forecast issued by the NOAA Space Environment Center in coordination with an international panel of solar experts. The NOAA Space Environment Center led the prediction panel and issued the forecast at its annual Space Weather Workshop in Boulder, Colo. NASA sponsored the panel.

A study in Nature suggested that terrestrial plants may be a global source of the potent greenhouse gas methane, making plants substantial contributors to the annual global methane budget.
This controversial finding and the resulting commotion triggered a consortium (scientists from Plant Research International, IsoLife and Plant Dynamics in Wageningen, Utrecht University, and the Radboud University in Nijmegen) of Dutch scientists to re-examine this in an independent study. Reporting in New Phytologist, Tom Dueck and colleagues present their results and conclude that methane emissions from plants are negligible and do not contribute to global climate change.

Depression may be an early symptom of Parkinson's disease, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 59th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28 – May 5, 2007.
The study looked at whether people who are taking antidepressant medications are more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than people who are not taking the medications. It found that, in the year before their Parkinson's disease was diagnosed, people who were taking antidepressants were nearly twice as likely to develop Parkinson's disease as those who were not taking antidepressants.

Brains are able to adjust automatically to the demands of distinguishing between small differences in smell, new research at the University of Chicago shows.
The research, which was conducted on rats, suggests that the human brain may be more adept at distinguishing smells than previously thought. The work comes from studies in the laboratory of Leslie Kay, Assistant Professor in Psychology at the University, who is looking at the ways animals perceive sensory stimuli by focusing on the neural basis of olfactory perception and how context and experience influence it.

Vitamin C is possibly the most important small molecule whose biosynthetic pathway remained a mystery. That is until now.
A group of Dartmouth and UCLA researchers, who normally work on genes involved in aging and cancer in animals, discovered the last piece of the puzzle, they report in a study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.