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Re-purposing mobile phone camera into mini-microscope for low-cost diagnostics
Date: Dec-09-2013Microscopy, being relatively easy to perform at low cost, is the universal diagnostic method for detection of most globally important parasitic infections. Methods developed in well-equipped laboratories are, however, difficult to maintain at the basic levels of the health care system due to lack of adequately trained personnel and resources.
Third-generation gene sequencing available to all in the future
Date: Dec-09-2013DNA sequencing seems to be an eternal theme for human due to the desire of ascertaining the nature of life. Professor QIAN Linmao and his group from Tribology Research Institute, Southwest Jiaotong University were working on the optimization of the third-generation sequencing technique based on nanopore. They found that long chain DNA with low salt concentration is more conducive to the nanopore sequencing process. Their work, entitled "Effect of chain length on the conformation and friction behaviour of DNA", was published in SCIENCE CHINA Technological Sciences. 2013, Vol 56(12).
Chemists crack the code of cataract creation
Date: Dec-09-2013Groundbreaking new findings by UC Irvine and German chemists about how cataracts form could be used to help prevent the world's leading cause of blindness, which currently affects nearly 20 million people worldwide. (PDF)"That's the dream, and this is a big step," said Rachel Martin, UC Irvine associate professor of chemistry and co-author of a paper featured on the December cover of the journal Structure.
Ruggedly built, tree-climbing human ancestor improves understanding of how humans evolved
Date: Dec-09-2013A human ancestor characterized by "robust" jaw and skull bones was a muscular creature with a gorilla-like upper body and more adaptive to its environment than previously thought, scientists have discovered.Researchers found a partial skeleton -- including arm, hand, leg and foot fragments -- dated to 1.34 million years old and belonging to Paranthropus boisei at the Olduvai Gorge World Heritage fossil site in Tanzania. The find, published in the latest edition of the scientific journal PLOS ONE, represents one of the most recent occurrences of P.
High-school seniors' use of crack and powder cocaine
Date: Dec-09-2013The use of crack and powder cocaine both varies and overlaps among high school seniors, researchers at New York University and NYU Langone Medical Center have found. Their findings, which appear in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, point to the need to take into account both common and different at-risk factors in developing programming and messaging to stem cocaine use.
Caffeine and alcohol can change a part of DNA linked to aging and cancer
Date: Dec-09-2013Coffee and beer are polar opposites in the beverage world. Coffee picks you up, and beer winds you down.Now Prof. Martin Kupiec and his team at Tel Aviv University's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology have discovered that the beverages may also have opposite effects on your genome. Working with a kind of yeast that shares many important genetic similarities with humans, the researchers found that caffeine shortens and alcohol lengthens telomeres - the end points of chromosomal DNA, implicated in aging and cancer.
Racial disparities revealed in pediatric liver transplant survival rates
Date: Dec-09-2013Novel research reveals racial and socioeconomic disparities among pediatric liver transplant patients. Findings published in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society, indicate that graft and patient survival was higher in white children than minorities.For patients with end-stage liver disease (ESLD) the only treatment option for survival is liver transplantation.
The impact of IOM report on nursing reforms assessed
Date: Dec-09-2013Two new studies by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) examine how well hospitals and other health care facilities are doing when it comes to a call to reform the nursing profession. A 2010 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report warned that the nursing profession must change or it would not be able to meet the growing demands that are emerging as a result of health reform, new technologies and an aging population.
The impact of IOM report on nursing reforms assessed
Date: Dec-09-2013Two new studies by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) examine how well hospitals and other health care facilities are doing when it comes to a call to reform the nursing profession. A 2010 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report warned that the nursing profession must change or it would not be able to meet the growing demands that are emerging as a result of health reform, new technologies and an aging population.
New insights into the functioning of the brain from recurring memory traces
Date: Dec-09-2013While the human brain is in a resting state, patterns of neuronal activity which are associated to specific memories may spontaneously reappear. Such recurrences contribute to memory consolidation - i.e. to the stabilization of memory contents. Scientists of the DZNE and the University of Bonn are reporting these findings in the current issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The researchers headed by Nikolai Axmacher performed a memory test on a series of people while monitoring their brain activity by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
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