In a first-of-its-kind study comparing human walking and running motions – and whether the hips, knees or ankles are the most important power sources for these motions – researchers at North Carolina State University show that the hips generate more of the power when people walk, but the ankles generate more of the power when humans run. Knees provide approximately one-fifth or less of walking or running power. (more…)
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Using a tiny bloodless worm, University of Maryland Associate Professor Iqbal Hamza and his team have discovered a large piece in the puzzle of how humans, and other organisms, safely move iron around in the body. The findings, published in the journal Cell, could lead to new methods for treating age-old scourges – parasitic worm infections, which affect more than a quarter of the world’s population, and iron deficiency, the world’s number one nutritional disorder. (more…)
As a researcher, Yale psychologist June Gruber has confirmed the many positive physical, social and psychological benefits of human happiness.
While working as a clinical scientist at the University of California-Berkeley, however, she witnessed extreme and damaging bouts of positive emotion during periods of mania in bipolar disorder. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — While recent studies have shown long-term exposure to estrogen can be a danger to women – overturning physicians’ long-held beliefs that the hormone was good for their patients’ hearts – the process by which estrogen induces high blood pressure was unclear.
In a new study, Michigan State University researchers found long-term estrogen exposure generates excessive levels of the compound superoxide, which causes stress in the body. The buildup of this compound occurs in an area of the brain that is crucial to regulating blood pressure, suggesting that the estrogen-induced buildup causes increased blood pressure. (more…)
Researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered a way to “amp up” the power of killer T cells known as CD8 cells in the immune system, making them more functional for longer periods of time and boosting their ability to multiply and expand within the body to fight melanoma. (more…)
*Intervention focuses on couples in which one partner is HIV-positive*
Intervention programs that promote healthier eating, increased physical activity and cancer screenings may be beneficial for African American couples that are at high risk for chronic diseases and that include one partner who is HIV-positive, according to new research.
With such inverventions, each partner appears to draw encouragement from the other to monitor his or her own lifestyle and health, according to study co-author Gail Wyatt, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and an associate director of the UCLA AIDS Institute. (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A team of researchers is beginning to see exactly what the response to threats looks like in the brain at the cellular and molecular levels. (more…)
Yale University researchers have identified four unique host defense proteins among thousands that seem to play a crucial role in mobilizing the immune system’s response to bacterial infections, they report in the May 6 issue of the journal Science.
The findings suggest it may be possible to find new ways to assist immune-compromised patients to fight off a variety of pathogens, the authors say.
“We can start to think about how to mimic these chemical processes and deliver them in drug form,” said John D. MacMicking, associate professor of microbial pathogenesis at Yale School of Medicine and senior author the study. (more…)
