#The secret of male beauty (in turkeys) The essence of male beauty is down to the way males use their genes rather than
what genes they have according to a new study into the sexual attractiveness of turkeys. Geneticists have puzzled long over why individuals of the same sex show a greater or lesser degree of sexual attractiveness.
This new fossil from eastern China is very similar to the Late Jurassic fossil teeth of multituberculates from Portugal in Western europe explained Dr. Luo.
It's also a potential gateway to new smokers particularly among teens and in emerging/foreign markets according to behavioral scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 6 percent of adults have tried e-cigarettes a number that has doubled nearly since 2010.
and thereby reducing their lung cancer risk. However MD Anderson cancer prevention experts Paul Cinciripini Ph d. director of the Tobacco Treatment Program and Alexander Prokhorov M d. Ph d. head of the Tobacco Outreach Education
Program caution that more research is needed to understand the potential role of e-cigarettes in smoking cessation.
and Drug Administration and this is concerning because it's impossible to know what you're really getting
and health officials alike adds Prokhorov. Once a young person gets acquainted with nicotine it's more likely that they'll try other tobacco products.
Cinciripini has more than 30 years'experience conducting basic and clinical research in smoking cessation and nicotine psychopharmacology.
and Tobacco Free Teens a smartphone app--both are new approaches to keeping young people free from the grips of nicotine addiction.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Texas M d. Anderson Cancer Center. Note:
By measuring the vibrations between atoms using femtosecond-long laser pulses the Rice lab of chemist Junrong Zheng is able to discern the positions of atoms within molecules without the restrictions imposed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging.
Typically when organic chemists synthesize a molecule they know its makeup but have no idea
--and one of the rarest--is also a key indicator of the health of some of the last great primary forests of Russia's Far east.
Blakiston's fish owl is a clear indicator of the health of the forests rivers
#Containing infectious disease outbreaksresearchers at the University of East Anglia have identified a rapid response which could help halt infectious diseases such as bird flu swine flu
and SARS before they take hold. Focusing on the avian flu virus strain H5n1 research published today in the journal PLOS ONE identifies key stages in the poultry trade chain which lead to its transmission to other birds animals and humans.
High risk times for the disease to spread include during transportation slaughter preparation and consumption.
It is hoped that the findings and recommendations will help stop the spread of other infectious diseases.
The H5n1 avian flu strain has been responsible for the deaths of millions of poultry as well as 375 confirmed human deaths.
Areas of Southeast Asia have been hardest hit with more than 2500 reported outbreaks among domestic poultry in Vietnam alone.
The disease has also spread rapidly from Southeast asia into Europe. However the way that the virus transmits from poultry to humans has been understood poorly.
The UEA research team adopted a system widely used in the food production industry known as Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP)
which act as huge reservoirs for the virus at bird vaccination centres and at cock fighting contests.
The research was led by Dr Diana Bell and Dr Kelly Edmunds from UEA's school of Biological sciences.
Dr Bell said: Since 1980 an average of one new infectious disease emerges in humans every eight months--representing a substantial global threat to human health.
Diseases which originate in birds and mammals such as SARS and bird flu represent 60 per cent of outbreaks.
As well as representing a significant global health threat they also create a burden to public health systems and the global economy.
We identified poultry transportation slaughter preparation and consumption as critical control points in response to HPAI H5n1 outbreaks in Vietnam.
Dr Edmunds added: We also showed that adopting the Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP) system
which is used already in the food production industry could work very effectively as a precursor to more time-consuming quantitative data collection and biomedical testing.
The research was conducted as part of a three year interdisciplinary study of the impact of H5n1 on mechanisms of transmission local livelihoods and food security.
#Bee venom: Biophysicists zoom in on pore-forming toxina new study by Rice university biophysicists offers the most comprehensive picture yet of the molecular-level action of melittin the principal toxin in bee venom.
The research could aid in the development of new drugs that use a similar mechanism as melittin's to attack cancer and bacteria.
The study appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Melittin does its damage by penetrating the outer walls of cells
This strategy of opening holes in the cell membrane is employed by a great number of host-defense antimicrobial peptides many
People are interested in using these peptides to fight cancer and other diseases in part because organisms cannot change the makeup of their membrane so it would be very difficult for them to develop resistance to such drugs.
But the clinical use of the compounds is complicated by the lack of consensus about how the peptides work.
For example scientists have struggled to explain how different concentrations of melittin could yield such dramatically different effects said Huang Rice's Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics and Astronomy.
and its associated modern amenities may impact health and wellness. Studying short-term spikes in the testosterone levels of Tsimane men UC Santa barbara anthropologists Ben Trumble and Michael Gurven have found that the act of chopping down trees--a physically demanding task that is critical
The paper was written with Gurven a UCSB professor of anthropology and co-director of the Tsimane Health and Life history Project a collaboration between UCSB and the University of New mexico.
The same is true for infection he added. An infection from a pathogen or parasite--even injuries burns or surgery--all cause an immediate decrease in testosterone.
The body uses food energy for a number of critical processes. Among them are building muscle mass
In addition the Tsimane's regular exposure to pathogens and parasites requires additional calories for maintaining necessary immune function.
#Sugar toxic to mice in safe doses, test findswhen mice ate a diet of 25 percent extra sugar--the mouse equivalent of a healthy human diet plus three cans of soda daily--females died at twice the normal rate
and reproduce according to a toxicity test developed at the University of Utah. Our results provide evidence that added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic adverse impacts on mammalian health the researchers say in a study set for online publication Tuesday Aug 13 in the journal
Nature Communications. This demonstrates the adverse effects of added sugars at human-relevant levels says University of Utah biology professor Wayne Potts the study's senior author He says previous studies using other tests
just as harmful to the health of mice as being inbred the offspring of first cousins. Even though the mice didn't become obese
--and that are considered safe by regulatory agencies--impair the health of mice. The new toxicity test placed groups of mice in room-sized pens nicknamed mouse barns with multiple nest boxes--a much more realistic environment than small cages allowing the mice to compete more naturally for mates
and desirable territories and thereby revealing subtle toxic effects on their performance Potts says. This is a sensitive test for health
and vigor declines he says noting that in a previous study he used the same test to show how inbreeding hurt the health of mice.
One advantage of this assay is we get the same readout no matter if we are testing inbreeding
or added sugar Potts says. The mice tell us the level of health degradation is almost identical from added-sugar and from cousin-level inbreeding.
The study says the need for a sensitive toxicity test exists not only for components of our diet
but is particularly strong for both pharmaceutical science where 73 percent of drugs that pass preclinical trials fail due to safety concerns
and for toxicology where shockingly few compounds receive critical or long-term toxicity testing. The study was funded by the National institutes of health and the National Science Foundation.
A Mouse Diet Equal to What a Quarter of Americans Eatthe experimental diet in the study provided 25 percent of calories from added sugar--half fructose and half glucose--no matter how many calories the mice ate.
Both high-fructose corn syrup and table sugar (sucrose) are half fructose and half glucose. Potts says the National Research Council recommends that for people no more than 25 percent of calories should be added from sugar which means they don't count what's naturally in an apple banana potato or other nonprocessed food.#
since the 1970s accompanied by a dramatic increase in metabolic diseases such as diabetes obesity fatty liver and cardiovascular disease.
Mice typically used in labs come from strains bred in captivity for decades. They lack the territoriality shown by wild mice.
or OPA--uses mice in a more natural ecological context more likely to reveal toxic effects of whatever is being tested he says.
Human-made toxic substances in the environment potentially affect all of us and more are discovered continually Potts says.
and sensitive test to screen the potential toxic substances that are being released into the environment or in our drugs or our food supply.
#MRSA strain in humans originally came from cattlea strain of bacteria that causes skin and soft tissue infections in humans originally came from cattle according to a study to be published in mbio the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
The researchers who conducted the genetic analysis of strains of Staphylococcus aureus known as CC97 say these strains developed resistance to methicillin after they crossed over into humans around forty years ago.
Today methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strain CC97 is an emerging human pathogen in Europe North and South america Africa and Asia.
The findings highlight the potential for cows to serve as a reservoir for bacteria with the capacity for pandemic spread in humans.
The researchers sequenced the genomes of 43 different CC97 isolates from humans cattle and other animals and plotted their genetic relationships in a phylogenetic tree.
Corresponding author Ross Fitzgerald of the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland says strains of CC97 found in cows appear to be the ancestors of CC97 strains from humans.
Bovine strains seemed to occupy deeper parts of the phylogenetic tree--they were closer to the root than the human strains.
This led us to conclude that the strains infecting humans originated in cows and that they had evolved from bovine to human host jumps says Fitzgerald.
Although the CC97 strains from animals were quite genetically diverse the human isolates cluster together in two tight distinct clades
After they made the jump the human CC97 strains acquired some new capabilities says Fitzgerald thanks to genes encoded on portable pieces of DNA called mobile genetic elements.
the bovine strains have their own mobile genetic elements. Perhaps the most problematic new capability the human strains acquired is the ability to resist methicillin an important antibiotic for fighting staphylococcal infections.
Only human strains of CC97 were able to resist the drug which indicates that the bacteria acquired resistance after they crossed over into humans presumably through exposure to antibiotics prescribed for treating human infections.
This sequence of events contrasts with the case of A s. aureus strain from pigs Fitzgerald points out since a study in 2012 revealed that MRSA ST398 strains evolved the ability to resist methicillin before they crossed over into humans.
Any number of factors could create these differences making pigs--but not cattle--a source of a drug-resistant bacterium.
At this point though there isn't enough information to say whether differences in the S. aureus strains differences between pigs and cattle or differences between swine and dairy farming practices might be responsible.
Moving forward Fitzgerald says he and his colleagues plan to widen the investigation. We have a relatively small sample size
and the findings are robust but we want to extend the study now to include a greater number of clones to get a bigger picture of
A wider variety of S. aureus strains Fitzgerald says from a wider variety of locations
and hopefully prevent the birth of the next pandemic S. aureus strain. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Society for Microbiology.
These brightly coloured mothers also experienced relatively lower levels of stress hormones during arduous periods of chick rearing.
Author Dr Kathryn Arnold from the University of York's Environment Department said: Previous studies have shown that male blue tits prefer mates that exhibit highly UV-reflectant crown feathers.
Dr Arnold said: With up to 14 chicks to care for blue tit mothers in our study were feeding their broods every couple of minutes.
Dr Alison Gray and Magnus Peterson of Strathclyde's Department of mathematics and Statistics warn the figures ought to be of major concern
Dr Gray said: This is an extremely high loss rate. In fact the loss rate last winter is the highest we have found
Dr Gray told how bees face many challenges internationally. She said: Honey bees worldwide are having to contend with habitat loss
#Healthy diet, moderate alcohol linked with decreased risk of kidney disease in patient with diabeteseating a healthy diet
or progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus according to a report published by JAMA Internal medicine a JAMA Network publication.
Type 2 diabetes and associated CKD have become major public health problems. However little is known about the long-term effect of diet on the incidence and progression of early-stage diabetic CKD according to the study background.
Daniela Dunkler Ph d. of Mcmaster University Ontario Canada and colleagues examined the association of a healthy diet alcohol protein and sodium intake with incident or progression of CKD among patients with type
2 diabetes. All 6213 patients with type 2 diabetes in the ONTARGET trial were included in the observational study.
The study results indicate that 31.7 percent of patients developed CKD and 8. 3 percent of patients died after 5. 5 years of follow-up.
Compared with patients in the least healthy scoring group on an index that assessed diet quality patients in the healthiest group had a lower risk of CKD (adjusted odds ratio OR 0. 74) and lower risk of mortality
(OR 0. 61. Patients who ate more than three servings of fruits per week had a lower risk of CKD compared with patients who ate fruit less frequently.
Patients in the lowest group of total and animal protein intake had increased an risk of CKD compared with patients in the highest group.
Sodium intake was associated not with CKD while moderate alcohol intake reduced the risk of CKD (OR 0. 75) and mortality (OR 0. 69).
A healthy diet and moderate intake of alcohol may decrease the incidence or progression of CKD among individuals with type 2 diabetes.
Sodium intake within a wide range and normal protein intake are associated not with CKD the study concludes.
Commentary: Moving Dietary Management of Diabetes Forwardin a related commentary Holly Kramer M d. M p h. of Loyola University Chicago Maywood Ill. and Alex Chang M d. M
. S. of Johns hopkins university Baltimore write: Patients with both type 2 diabetes and kidney disease may be frustrated by the numerous dietary restrictions that are recommended by their health care team.
Patients may even ask 'what can I eat?''Perhaps the best dietary advice we can give to patients with type 2 diabetes
and kidney disease is the same as the advice for those who want to avoid chronic kidney disease
and the same advice for preventing and treating hypertension and the same dietary advice for everyone:
eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables low-fat dairy products and whole grains while minimizing saturated
and total fat they conclude. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Medical Association (AMA.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#Climate benefit for cutting soot, methane smaller than previous estimatescutting the amount of short-lived climate-warming emissions such as soot and methane in our skies won't limit global warming as much as previous
Focusing on soot and methane may be worth targeting for health reasons as previous studies have identified substantial health benefits from reducing those emissions Smith said.
#Irrigation in arid regions can increase malaria risk for a decadenew irrigation systems in arid regions benefit farmers
but can increase the local malaria risk for more than a decade --which is longer than previously believed
and implement long-term public health and safety programs when building large-scale irrigation projects according to the researchers.
In these dry fragile ecosystems where increase in water availability from rainfall is the limiting factor for malaria transmission irrigation infrastructure can drastically alter mosquito population abundance to levels above the threshold needed to maintain malaria transmission said lead
considering health impacts in the long-term planning assessment and mitigation of projects related to water resources Baeza said.
The researchers studied changes in land use and malaria risk around a large irrigation project under construction in a semiarid area in the northeast part of the Indian state of Gujarat.
Malaria risk in arid regions often rises when irrigation is introduced due to increased amounts of standing water that serve as mosquito breeding sites.
Globally the number of people at risk of contracting malaria due to proximity to irrigation canals and related infrastructure has been estimated at 800 million which represents about 12 percent of the global malaria burden.
Historical evidence shows that after irrigation is introduced into arid locations the increased malaria risk eventually subsides
and that this food versus disease dilemma is a temporary stage on the road to greater prosperity.
The new study demonstrates that this transition phase from high risk to low disease prevalence can last more than a decade.
The study is the first to combine satellite imagery of vegetation cover with public health records of malaria cases over a large region to track changes that occur as a mega-irrigation project progresses.
By following the changes in malaria incidence vegetation and socioeconomic data at the level of sub-districts we identified a transition phase toward sustainable low malaria risk lasting for more than a decade
and characterized by an enhanced environmental malaria risk despite intensive mosquito control efforts said Pascual the Rosemary Grant Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at U-M and a Howard
Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Pascual said the findings show that environmental methods for sustainable disease control are needed urgently.
Several of these methods--including intermittent irrigation and periodic flushing of canals--have proved to be affordable effective and feasible to implement at local levels.
The challenge ahead then will be to apply these methods over extensive regions and maintain them for long enough periods said Pascual a theoretical ecologist.
Malaria is caused by the Plasmodium parasite which is transmitted via the bites of infected Anopheles mosquitoes.
In the PNAS study the researchers examined epidemiological data on microscopically confirmed malaria cases from rural areas some dating back to 1997.
They were then able to determine how levels of malaria changed as the massive irrigation project progressed.
They showed that elevated disease risk --despite heavy use of insecticides--is concentrated in the areas adjacent to the main irrigation canal that have experienced the most pronounced change in irrigation levels in the last decade.
They tied the remote sensing and epidemiological findings to various socioeconomic factors. In general the high-risk areas had a lower proportion of literate people and more limited access to sources of clean drinking water.
and mature irrigation areas could provide the means to reduce the malaria burden and shorten the transition phase the authors concluded.
In addition to Baeza and Pascual the authors of the PNAS paper are Menno Jan Bouma of the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Ramesh Dhiman of India's National Institute of Malaria Research
U-M's Edward B. Baskerville Pietro Ceccato of Columbia University and Rajpal Yadav of India's National Institute of Malaria Research and the World health organization.
The findings by the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center will be published in the September issue of Pediatrics.
and decreasing screen time says cardiologist and senior study author Elizabeth Jackson M d. M p h. assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical school.
and higher heart rate recovery--indicating a lower level of fitness--compared to normal weight kids.
Cardiovascular disease doesn't just start in adulthood and there may be factors that could help us identify during youth
or adolescence who might be increased at risk for developing health problems later on Jackson says. Other studies have linked eating school lunch with obesity
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Michigan Health System. The original story is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Dr Vanessa Adams says that late dry season wildfires in Australia's tropical north generate about 3%of the country's annual greenhouse gas emissions so strategic burning could be an important abatement activity.
and fires can burn up to five times hotter than a native wildfire Dr Adams said. We examined the spatial and financial extent of the threat of gamba grass
#Nanodrug targeting breast cancer cells from the inside adds weapon: Immune system attacka unique nanoscale drug that can carry a variety of weapons
a protein that stimulates the immune system to attack HER2-positive breast cancer cells. The research team developing the drug--led by scientists at the Nanomedicine Research center part of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical center--conducted the study in laboratory mice with implanted human
breast cancer cells. Mice receiving the drug lived significantly longer than untreated counterparts and those receiving only certain components of the drug according to a recent article in the Journal of Controlled Release.
Researchers from the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai the Division of Surgical Oncology at UCLA and the Molecular biology Institute at UCLA also participated in the study.
Unlike other drugs that target cancer cells from the outside often injuring normal cells as a side effect this therapy consists of multiple drugs chemically bonded to a nanoplatform that functions as a transport vehicle.
HER2-positive cancers--making up 25 to 30 percent of breast and ovarian cancers--tend to be more aggressive
and less responsive to treatment than others because the overactive HER2 gene makes excessive amounts of a protein that promotes cancer growth.
One commonly used drug Herceptin (trastuzumab) often is effective for a while but many tumors become resistant within the first year of treatment
and the drug can injure normal organs it contacts. But Herceptin is an antibody to the HER2 gene--it naturally seeks out this protein--so the research team used key parts of Herceptin to guide the nanodrug into HER2-positive cancer cells.
We genetically prepared a new'fusion gene'that consists of an immune-stimulating protein interleukin-2
and a gene of Herceptin said Julia Y. Ljubimova MD Phd professor of neurosurgery and biomedical sciences and director of the Nanomedicine Research center.
IL-2 activates a variety of immune cells but is not stable in blood plasma and does not home specifically to tumor cells.
By attaching the new fusion antibody to the nanoplatform we were able to deliver Herceptin directly to HER2-positive cancer cells at the same time transporting IL-2 to the tumor site to stimulate the immune system.
Attaching IL-2 to the platform helped stabilize the protein and allowed us to double the dosage that could be delivered to the tumor.
Ljubimova led the study with Manuel Penichet MD Phd associate professor of surgery microbiology immunology and molecular genetics at the University of California Los angeles David Geffen School of medicine.
Ljubimova said the UCLA collaborators developed the fusion gene and Cedars-Sinai chemists Eggehard Holler Phd professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and Hui Ding Phd assistant professor performed the technically difficult task of attaching it to the nanoplatform.
Ding is the journal article's first author. The researchers also attached other components such as molecules to block a protein (laminin-411) that cancer cells need to make new blood vessels for growth.
The nanodrug Polycefin is in an emerging class called nanobiopolymeric conjugates nanoconjugates or nanobioconjugates. They are the latest evolution of molecular drugs designed to slow
or stop cancers by blocking them in multiple ways. Polycefin is intended to slow their growth by entering cells and altering defined targets.
The new version also stimulates the immune system to further weaken cancers. We believe this is the first time a drug has been designed for nano-immunology anticancer treatment Ljubimova said.
Bioconjugates are drugs that contain chemical modules attached (conjugated) to a delivery vehicle by strong chemical bonds.
The nanoconjugate exists as a single chemical unit and the tight bonds prevent the components from getting damaged
With inventive drug engineering the anti-tumor components activate inside tumor cells. More study is needed to confirm our findings improve the effectiveness of this approach
but it appears that the nanobioconjugate may represent a new generation of cancer therapeutics in
which we launch a multipronged attack that directly kills cancer cells blocks the growth of cancer-supporting blood vessels
and stimulates a powerful antitumor immune response Ljubimova said adding that this and previous animal studies have found the nanodrug to be a safe and efficient delivery platform.
The above story is provided based on materials by Cedars-Sinai Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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