News Articles

RAPID RESISTANCE to vemurafenib – a treatment for a type of advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer – could be prevented by blocking a druggable family of proteins, according to research* published in Nature Communications today (Thursday).
Scientists at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, based at the University of Manchester, have revealed the MLK family of four enzymes 'undoes' the tumour-shrinking effects of vemurafenib**.
Around half of metastatic melanomas – aggressive skin cancer that has spread to other parts of the body – are caused by a fault in the cell-growth gene BRAF, causing the signal telling cells to multiply to be permanently switched on.

The so-called symbiotic relationship between trees and the fungus that grow on their roots may actually work more like a capitalist market relationship between buyers and sellers, according to the new study published in the journal New Phytologist.

Melanin — and specifically, the form called eumelanin — is the primary pigment that gives humans the coloring of their skin, hair, and eyes. It protects the body from the hazards of ultraviolet and other radiation that can damage cells and lead to skin cancer, but the exact reason why the compound is so effective at blocking such a broad spectrum of sunlight has remained something of a mystery.

A new review
in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians
summarizes what is known about economic factors tied to the obesity epidemic in the United States.
It includes what most people knew; despite claims of 40 years ago that a population bomb was going to cause mass starvation, agricultural science instead caused the food curve to rise sharply. For the first time in the history of the world, the poorest people can afford to be fat, a privilege only available to the wealthy in past years.

The therapeutic potential of marijuana and pure cannabidiol (CBD), an active substance in the cannabis plant, for neurologic conditions is debatable - though so far the debate has mostly been anecdotes against science.
A series of articles published in Epilepsia examine the potential use of medical marijuana and CBD in treating severe forms of epilepsy such as Dravet syndrome.

Most schools in the United States provide simple vision tests to their students; not to prescribe glasses, but to identify potential problems and recommend a trip to the optometrist.
Researchers
at Duke University
are now on the cusp of providing the same kind of service for autism. They have developed software that tracks and records infants' activity during videotaped autism screening tests. 
Their results show that the program is as good at spotting behavioral markers of autism as experts giving the test themselves, and better than non-expert medical clinicians and students in training.

People exercise quite a lot, society has access to diverse fresh fruits and vegetables and yet most economic, educational, and racial or ethnic groups have seen their obesity levels rise at similar rates since the mid-1980s, so there is no demographic correlation to obesity. Yet the social sciences draw maps to city parks and farmer's markets and claim more of those would keep people from getting fat, or tout that economic redistribution would lead to less fast food.
Cars, fast food, iPads, city living, even women in the work force - if it is something in culture, someone has implicated it. 

Mu Delta Kappa is a key
brain receptor targets for opiates
because the mu opioid receptor is the primary target for morphine and endogenous opioids like endorphin. The delta opioid receptor shows the highest affinity for endogenous enkephalins. The kappa opioid receptor (KOR) is very interesting, but the least understood of the opiate receptor family.

Lubricants are used in motors, axels, ventilators and manufacturing machines. Although lubricants are widely used, there have been almost no fundamental innovations for this product in the last twenty years. Together with a consortium, the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg has developed an entirely new class of substance that could change everything: liquid crystalline lubricant. Its chemical makeup sets it apart; although it is a liquid, the molecules display directional properties like crystals do. When two surfaces move in opposite directions, the liquid crystal molecules between the two surfaces align themselves so that the frictional resistance is extremely low. This enables nearly frictionless sliding.

The decision to jettison the controversial approach to dying known as the Liverpool Care Pathway was "too extreme" given that its principles were considered by proponents as the best examples of palliative care in the world, argues a senior ethicist in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Whether an insect will have a male or female offspring depends on the weather and temperature, according to a study led by Joffrey Moiroux and Jacques Brodeur of the University of Montreal's Department of Biological Sciences.
As part of this study, which was funded by the Ouranos Consortium, Moiroux tried to understand the possible role of global warming on the relationship between crop pests and their natural enemies – parasitoids and predators. Among the issues addressed, he sought to determine whether there is an effect of "phenological asynchrony" between parasitoids and their hosts, and therefore an impact on the availability of host eggs and on pest control by their natural enemies. 

Following a genetic marker for breast cancer, the actress Angelina Jolie had a preventative double mastectomy. Cancer experts were horrified - and with good reason. About 70 percent of women who have both breasts removed following a breast cancer diagnosis do so against doctor recommendations, so healthy women certainly should not.  And they certainly should not take medical advice from a women who wrote her first husband's name in her blood on their wedding day. Yet she is not alone. Recent studies have shown an increase in women with breast cancer choosing this more aggressive surgery, called contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, which raises the question of potential over-treatment among these patients.