It's long been known that a woman's chance of getting breast cancer is related to family medical history.

It turns out that surviving it may also be inherited. Research published in the online journal Breast Cancer Research suggests that if a woman succumbs to breast cancer her daughters or sisters are over 60 percent more likely to die within five years if they develop the disease.

A research team including University of Central Florida Microbiology Professor Keith Ireton is using the bacterial pathogen Listeria Monocytogenes to understand the mechanisms of cell growth and cancer development.

In research published this month in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the team found that a Listeria protein called InlB induces internalization and degradation of a human receptor known as Met. Met has been implicated in the development of some cancers.

Tiny plastic fibers could be the key to some diverse technologies in the future -- including self-cleaning surfaces, transparent electronics, and biomedical tools that manipulate strands of DNA.

Ohio State University researchers describe how they created surfaces that, seen with the eye, look as flat and transparent as a sheet of glass. But seen up close, the surfaces are actually carpeted with tiny fibers.

The patent-pending technology involves a method for growing a bed of fibers of a specific length, and using chemical treatments to tailor the fibers' properties, explained Arthur J.

“There is an enormous amount of interest in using meditation as a form of therapy to cope with a variety of modern-day health problems, especially hypertension, stress and chronic pain, but the majority of evidence that seems to support this notion is anecdotal, or it comes from poor quality studies,” say Maria Ospina and Kenneth Bond, researchers at the University of Alberta/Capital Health Evidence-based Practice Center in Edmonton, Canada.

In compiling their report, Ospina, Bond and their fellow researchers analyzed a mountain of medical and psychological literature—813 studies in all—looking at the impact of meditation on conditions such as hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and substance abuse.

A new paper published in Journal of the American Ceramic Society proposes a new method of producing hydrogen for portable fuel cells.

This new method negates the need for the complicated and expensive equipment currently used. With their ability to work steadily for 10-20 times the length of equivalently sized Lithium-ion batteries, portable fuel cells are ideal energy suppliers for devices such as computers, cell phones and hybrid vehicles.

A new article in The Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics calls for a change in the regulations surrounding xenotransplantation, the transplanting of animal cells, tissues or organs into humans.

Although few xenotransplantation procedures have been done to this time, there appears to be a lack of awareness among potential xenotransplant patients about the risk of the procedures, and the required lifetime of infectious disease monitoring that come with it.

“When animal cells are transplanted into a human, there is always a risk of new diseases emerging, which is why the federal government requires that a recipient must always be monitored long-term,” says Dr. Monique Spillman, co-author of the study.