Low vitamin D blood levels are linked to greater risk of heart disease in whites and Chinese, but not in blacks and Hispanics, according to a study appearing this week in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Growing evidence has suggested that low blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin are associated with higher risk of developing coronary heart disease among whites. Few of these studies included substantial numbers of people from other races. (more…)
In a year’s time, the 3-D printers at Yale’s Center for Engineering Innovation and Design (CEID) have churned out countless parts, prototypes, and curiosity-driven experiments in plastic — rotorheads and racecar uprights, cardiac pump pieces and thermostats, snowmen, keychains, and fantastical geometric shapes.(more…)
A study led by researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found for the first time that thirdhand smoke—the noxious residue that clings to virtually all surfaces long after the secondhand smoke from a cigarette has cleared out—causes significant genetic damage in human cells.(more…)
Ultrasound vibrations applied to the brain may affect mood, UA researchers have discovered. The finding potentially could lead to new treatments for psychological and psychiatric disorders.
University of Arizona researchers have found in a recent study that ultrasound waves applied to specific areas of the brain appear able to alter patients’ moods. The discovery has led the scientists to conduct further investigations with the hope that this technique could one day be used to treat conditions such as depression and anxiety.
A new technique for detecting cancer by imaging the consumption of sugar with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been unveiled by UCL scientists. The breakthrough could provide a safer and simpler alternative to standard radioactive techniques and enable radiologists to image tumours in greater detail.
The new technique, called ‘glucose chemical exchange saturation transfer’ (glucoCEST), is based on the fact that tumours consume much more glucose (a type of sugar) than normal, healthy tissues in order to sustain their growth. (more…)
Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death in American men: the American Cancer Society expects the disease will claim nearly 30,000 lives in 2013. The disease mainly affects older men—the median age of diagnosis is 67—and it’s a slow-growing cancer, so most men diagnosed with the disease are likely to die of other causes.(more…)
Physical activity reorganizes the brain so that its response to stress is reduced and anxiety is less likely to interfere with normal brain function, according to a research team based at Princeton University.
The researchers report in the Journal of Neuroscience that when mice allowed to exercise regularly experienced a stressor — exposure to cold water — their brains exhibited a spike in the activity of neurons that shut off excitement in the ventral hippocampus, a brain region shown to regulate anxiety. (more…)
A new study shows that common mutant forms of the deadly JC polyomavirus are not responsible for the pathogen’s main attack, which causes a brain-damaging disease in immunocompromised patients called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. But that finding raises the ominous question of what the mutants might be up to instead.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The JC polyomavirus is clearly opportunistic. It infects half the population but lethally destroys brain tissue only in immunocompromised patients — and it may be outright sneaky, too. Even as a new research paper allays fears that common mutant forms of the virus are the ones directly responsible for the disease’s main attack, that same finding raises new questions about what the mutants are doing instead. (more…)
