Scientists have reported that an experimental vaccine targeting one of the most common genetic drivers of pancreatic cancer, called mutant KRAS, is safe and generated a durable immune responses aimed at preventing the cancer.
You know why soup tastes good - and your dogs love it too. It's bone marrow fat. Now it may be healthier to eat delicious.
A study has found that the fat tissue in bone marrow is a significant source of the hormone adiponectin, which helps maintain insulin sensitivity, break down fat, and has been linked to decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity-associated cancers.
Want to send a message to possible invaders? Pile dead bodies high and deep. A new species of wasp does just that.This wasp with a unique nest-building strategy was discovered in the forests of southeast China. The "bone-house wasp" shuts off its nest with a chamber full of dead ants in order to protect its offspring from enemies, as shown by Michael Staab and Prof. Dr. Alexandra-Maria Klein from the Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences of the University of Freiburg as well as scientists from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. No other such strategy has ever been discovered before in the animal kingdom.
The human genome and the messages coded by 3 billion letters that determine everything from how nutrients are metabolized to how neurons communicate in the brain.
The detection and characterization of the genes present in this mass of information is a complex task that has been a source of ongoing debate since the Human Genome Project completed its first mission. It's even unclear how many genes there are.
Iron is one of the essential elements of life. Found in enzymes like myoglobin and hemoglobin and cytochrome P450, iron is an essential cog in the biomachinery of every living cell.
Iron is present in tiny concentrations in seawater. On the order of a few billionths of a gram in a liter. Given that there is so little iron in seawater, one might conclude that its presence there is inconsequential, but its scarcity in the ocean, the earth's wellspring of life, only magnifies its importance.
Paleontologists of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich studying a new specimen of Archaeopteryx have found previously unknown features of the plumage, which shed light on the original function of feathers and their recruitment for flight.
Dyslexic adults in a representative sample of 13,054 adults aged 18 and over in the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey included 1,020 respondents who reported that they had been physically abused during their childhood and 77 who reported that they had been diagnosed by a health professional with dyslexia.
That translates to 35 percent of Canadian adults with dyslexia reporting they were physically abused before they turned 18. In contrast, 7 percent of those without dyslexia reported that they had experienced childhood physical abuse.
We know that ancient Japanese gold leaf artists were truly masters of their craft - their works are ornate and delicate.
What remains a mystery is how artifacts were gilded with gold leaf that was hand-beaten to the nanometer scale. Gold leaf refers to a very thin sheet made from a combination of gold and other metals. It has almost no weight and can only be handled by specially designed tools. Even though the ancient Egyptians were probably the first to gild artwork with it, the Japanese have long been credited as being able to produce the thinnest gold leaf in the world.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of available data published in Diabetologia suggests that combined aerobic and resistance training, rather than either alone, is best for controlling both blood sugar and blood fat profiles among people with type 2 diabetes.
However, the authors stress that the strength of the results is weakened when studies with high risk of bias are removed, and thus more high quality trials are needed to make more definitive conclusions.
The UK government is in a deficit crisis. Unlike the US, they seem to worry about it.
In order to reduce the deficit, they have taken steps to make welfare less of a chronic lifestyle.
Since 2010 the UK government has introduced a raft of reforms to the welfare system in a bid to reduce the deficit, but a total of 1,056 GPs across the UK who completed a survey (out of 28,602 who were contacted) lead the authors of a recent paper in BMJ to suggest that people receiving welfare support due to illness or disability are struggling to cope with cuts to their benefits and are turning to their GP practices for help - which has increased the workload for doctors.
The argument for making marijuana legal despite its health risks is that so many people use it anyway that it creates a society of casual criminals at best - maybe they are getting a bogus prescription for 'pain' or glaucoma or inventing some way it helps them. And at worst it makes criminals rich and puts users at risk because the quality is unmonitored and perhaps even dangerous.
Scorpions build a platform on which to warm up before the evening hunt.
As older adults typically have one or more chronic health conditions that can affect dietary intake, malnutrition has been identified as a serious problem in older adults. This has given rise to the recommendation that nutrition screenings be a mandatory part of the comprehensive geriatric analysis (CGA).
The CGA, first developed in the 1930s, is a multidimensional diagnostic process that looks at a frail elderly person's medical, psychosocial, and functional capabilities in order to develop an overall plan for treatment and follow-up. While it has been used across health settings, the CGA is typically used in a geriatric specialty unit by a team that includes physicians, nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, therapists, and social workers.
