News Articles

Studying the intricate fractal patterns on the surface of cells could give researchers a new insight into the physical nature of cancer, and provide new ways of preventing the disease from developing.
This is according to scientists in the US who have, for the first time, shown how physical fractal patterns emerge on the surface of human cancer cells at a specific point of progression towards cancer.
Publishing their results today, 11 March, in the Institute of Physics and Germany Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, they found that the distinctive repeating fractal patterns develop at the precise point in which precancerous cells transform into cancer cells, and that fractal patterns are not present either before or after this point.

New research has shown that patients having heart surgery do not benefit if doctors wait until a patient has become substantially anaemic before giving a transfusion.
In the UK, about half of all patients having cardiac surgery are given a red blood cell transfusion after the operation, using up to ten per cent of the nation's blood supply. The proportion of patients having a transfusion is high because blood loss and severe anaemia are common after cardiac surgery and transfusion is the preferred treatment. Blood loss causes anaemia which doctors detect by measuring the red cell count or haemoglobin level - a low level triggers transfusion.

Proteins from salt-loving, halophilic, microbes could be the key to cleaning up leaked radioactive strontium and caesium ions from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant incident in Japan. The publication of the X-ray structure of a beta-lactamase enzyme from one such microbe, the halophile Chromohalobacter sp. 560, reveals it to have highly selective cesium binding sites.

Exposure to hormone-altering chemicals called phthalates - which are found in many plastics, foods and personal care products - early in pregnancy is associated with a disruption in an essential pregnancy hormone and adversely affects the masculinization of male genitals in the baby, according to research led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

Prenatal exposure to low doses of the environmental contaminants polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, change the developing brain in an area involved in metabolism, and some effects are apparent even two generations later, a new study finds. Performed in rats, the research will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
Hereditary effects included increased body weight, but only in descendants of females--and not males--exposed to PCBs in the womb, said study co-author Andrea Gore, PhD, professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
"These endocrine-disrupting chemicals affect the developing brain differently in males and females," Gore said.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, though fortunately has a far shorter lifespan than the CO2 that is implicated in global warming. However, the prevalence of natural gas, cleaner energy which caused CO2 emissions to drop in America, have brought renewed concerns about its effects.
It is not just found in man-made wells, it is common in lakes and swamps, but natural-gas pipelines are the big concern. Understanding the sources of methane, and how the gas is formed, could give scientists a better understanding of its role in warming the planet.

Sitting for many hours per day is associated with increased coronary artery calcification, a marker of subclinical heart disease that can increase the risk of a heart attack, according to research scheduled for presentation at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session in San Diego. Coronary artery disease is the most common type of heart disease and the leading cause of death in the United States.

A tooth enamel abnormality in children, molar incisor hypomineralization (MIH), may result from exposure to the industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA), authors of a new study conclude after finding similar damage to the dental enamel of rats that received BPA. The study results will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
"Human enamel defects may be used as an early marker of exposure to BPA and similar-acting endocrine disruptors," Babajko said.
BPA is an endocrine disruptor, or hormone-altering chemical, that has been linked to numerous adverse health effects in humans. It appears in many plastic and resin household products and food containers, including until recently baby bottles, sippy cups and infant formula packages.

People with anorexia nervosa and with body dysmorphic disorder have similar abnormalities in their brains that affect their ability to process visual information, according to a new study.
People with anorexia have an intense fear of gaining weight and can starve themselves even when they are dangerously thin. Body dysmorphic disorder is a psychiatric condition characterized by an obsessive preoccupation with a perceived flaw in physical appearance.

The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital--Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project reports that a highly aggressive form of leukemia in infants has surprisingly few mutations beyond the chromosomal rearrangement that affects the MLL gene. The findings suggest that targeting the alteration is likely the key to improved survival. The research appeared online ahead of print this week in the scientific journal Nature Genetics.

In the absence of food, neurons that normally control appetite initiate complex, repetitive behaviors seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and anorexia nervosa, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers.
The findings are published in the March 5 online issue of the journal Cell.
Neural circuits are responsible for flexible goal-oriented behaviors. The Yale team investigated how a population of neurons in the hypothalamus that control food intake are also involved in other behaviors. Known as Agrp neurons, these cells also control repetitive, stereotypic behaviors in mice when food is not available, the researchers discovered.

A new testosterone nasal gel raises men's low testosterone levels to normal, with few side effects, according to the results of a phase 3 clinical trial to be presented Saturday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
Last May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the medication, now called Natesto, making it the only FDA-approved nasal testosterone replacement therapy, according to the manufacturer, Trimel Pharmaceuticals.