More men than women develop Parkinson’s disease and new work presented at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies says that it is do to sex differences in how brain cells change. Parkinson’s disease affects about 9 million people and becomes increasingly prevalent with age.
In computer models, European scholars estimate substantially different climate change impacts for global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C by 2100, the two temperature limits policy makers agreed on in the Paris climate agreement.
The simulation concluded that an additional 0.5°C would mean a 10-cm-higher global sea-level rise by 2100, longer heat waves, and would result in virtually all tropical coral reefs being at risk.
In The BMJ today, leading experts debate whether the food industry should fund health research, and if so, under what circumstances.
The food industry is crucial, fulfills key societal needs, and employs more people than any other sector in the UK, argue Paul Aveyard, professor of behavioral medicine at the University of Oxford, and Derek Yach, executive director at the Vitality Institute in New York.
"For these reasons, government policies seek to support the industry," they say, and "from this perspective, it would be absurd for health policy researchers to shun collaborating with the food industry."
Bremerhaven/Germany, 21 April 2016. Sea ice physicists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), are anticipating that the sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean this summer may shrink to the record low of 2012. The scientists made this projection after evaluating current satellite data about the thickness of the ice cover. The data show that the arctic sea ice was already extraordinarily thin in the summer of 2015. Comparably little new ice formed during the past winter. Today Dr Marcel Nicolaus, expert on sea ice, has presented these findings at a press conference during the annual General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna.
In rare instances, DNA is known to have jumped from one species to another. If a parasite's DNA jumps to its host's genome, it could leave evidence of that parasitic interaction that could be found millions of years later -- a DNA 'fossil' of sorts. An international research team led from Uppsala University has discovered a new type of so-called transposable element that occurred in the genomes of certain birds and nematodes.
The results are published in Nature Communications.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Most basal cell skin cancers are easily removed -- those on the arm, leg or back. But when the cancer is on the eyelid or when it starts to invade surrounding tissue, it's no longer straightforward.
A team of researchers who specialize in treating cancers of the eye wanted to identify a marker that would indicate aggressive basal cell skin cancer, and perhaps also provide a potential target for treatment.
"Basal cell carcinoma around the eye is very common. The eyelids seem to be a magnet for basal cell," says Alon Kahana, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center.
PHILADELPHIA (April 20, 2016) - During the past two decades, vitamin D status, defined as serum concentration of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, has emerged as a predictor of key clinical outcomes including bone health, glucose metabolism, cardiovascular health, immune health and survival. Now, a University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) team, including senior author Terri Lipman, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, the Miriam Stirl Endowed Term Professor of Nutrition, Professor of Nursing of Children and Assistant Dean for Community Engagement, has examined the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D and diabetes control in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes.
April 20, 2016 Sepsis, more commonly known as blood poisoning, is an exceptional healthcare problem. It is more common than heart attacks, and kills more people than any type of cancer and despite this, it remains largely unknown. According to a 2013 paper published in The New English Journal of Medicine1, it affects more than 19 million people around the world yearly and the number keeps increasing. There is hope for a reliable treatment, however, as researchers at the IBS Center for Vascular Health have developed a targeted therapy for mitigating sepsis by strengthening as well as protecting blood vessels.
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have invented a new way to create three-dimensional human heart tissue from stem cells. The tissue can be used to model disease and test drugs, and it opens the door for a precision medicine approach to treating heart disease. Although there are existing techniques to make three-dimensional tissues from heart cells, the new method dramatically reduces the number of cells needed, making it an easier, cheaper, and more efficient system.
How people think and feel about their lives depends on multiple factors, including genes. In a paper published in Nature Genetics, a multi-institutional team, including a researcher from Baylor College of Medicine, reports that they have found genetic variants associated with our feelings of well-being, depression and neuroticism.
This is one of the largest studies on the genes involved in human behavior. More than 190 researchers in 140 institutions in 17 countries analyzed genomic data from nearly 300,000 people.
Renewable energy may offer the imagery of a 'greener alternative' to traditional energy sources, but that hasn't really survived in the wild. The moment subsidies dry up, so do corporations reliant on government funding. And mounting evidence suggests that renewable energy infrastructure and the power transmission lines needed to serve them may impact avian populations, according to lead editor Jennifer Smith, a post-doctoral research associate at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute&State University writing in The Condor: Ornithological Applications.
Results of the Wellcome Trust funded trial of the experimental anti-Ebola drug TKM-130803 have been published today (April 19) in PLOS Medicine. Using a novel approach designed to get rapid indications of a drug's effectiveness, the trial showed that at the dose given the drug did not improve survival compared to historic controls.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Jeffrey Grossman thinks we've been looking at coal all wrong. Instead of just setting it afire, thus ignoring the molecular complexity of this highly varied material, he says, we should be harnessing the real value of that diversity and complex chemistry. Coal could become the basis for solar panels, batteries, or electronic devices, he and his research team say.
