• Extreme heat linked to climate change may adversely affect pregnancy

    Pregnant women are an important but thus far largely overlooked group vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat linked to climate change, according to new research by Sabrina McCormick, PhD, an Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University.  

    >> Read the Full Article
  • Every breath you take: Air pollution from idling cars puts kids at risk

    Drivers who drop off their kids at school should turn off their engines

    We think of schools as safe places for children but an invisible hazard is lurking right outside the front door,  says a new study from the University of Toronto.

    >> Read the Full Article
  • Scientists reveal source of human heartbeat in 3D

    A pioneering new study is set to help surgeons repair hearts without damaging precious tissue.

    A team of scientists from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), The University of Manchester, Aarhus University and Newcastle University, have developed a way of producing 3D data to show the cardiac conduction system - the special cells that enable our hearts to beat – in unprecedented detail. The findings were published in Scientific Reports.

    >> Read the Full Article
  • Blood from MERS Virus Survivors May Help Target Treatments

    Since causing major outbreaks in Saudi Arabia in 2014, and in Korea a year later, the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome is laying low. But by no means has it disappeared: A recent cluster of 34 cases cropped up in July in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia’s capital. The dromedary camels who harbored the virus for more than 20 years aren’t going anywhere, and neither is MERS.

    >> Read the Full Article
  • New, more sensitive sensor for evaluating drug safety

    A new technique for evaluating drug safety can detect stress on cells at earlier stages than conventional methods, which mostly rely on detecting cell death. The new method uses a fluorescent sensor that is turned on in a cell when misfolded proteins begin to aggregate -- an early sign of cellular stress. The method can be adapted to detect protein aggregates caused by other toxins as well as diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. A paper describing the new method, by a team of researchers at Penn State University, appears in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

    >> Read the Full Article
  • Drug Short-Circuits Cancer Signaling

    Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have published a study in Nature Communications shedding new light on how K-80003 (TX803), an anti-cancer agent discovered at the Institute, prevents activation of the PI3K pathway, resulting in inhibition of cancer cell growth. Because the PI3K pathway is common to many cancers, K-80003 could have broad therapeutic applications. Tarrex Biopharma, Inc. has licensed the compound and announced they will soon begin Phase 1 clinical trials at the Dana Farber Cancer Center for patients with colorectal cancer.

    >> Read the Full Article
  • New dust sources resulting from a shrinking Salton Sea have negative ecological and health impacts

    Scientists at the University of California, Riverside investigating the composition of particulate matter(PM) and its sources at the Salton Sea have found that this shrinking lake in Southern California is exposing large areas of dry lakebed, called playa, that are acting as new dust sources with the potential to impact human health.

    “Playas have a high potential to act as dust sources because playa surfaces often lack vegetation,” said Roya Bahreini, an associate professor of environmental sciences, who led the research project. “Dust emissions from playas increase airborne PM mass, which has been linked to cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and mortality.”

    >> Read the Full Article
  • Natural compound coupled with specific gut microbes may prevent severe flu

    Microbes that live in the gut don’t just digest food. They also have far-reaching effects on the immune system. Now, a new study shows that a particular gut microbe can prevent severe flu infections in mice, likely by breaking down naturally occurring compounds — called flavonoids — commonly found in foods such as black tea, red wine and blueberries.

    >> Read the Full Article
  • Increasing Productivity by One Day Each Month

    Corporate wellness programs have been shown to save companies money by reducing absenteeism and health insurance costs. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, UCLA, and Washington University in Saint Louis, Mo., have now quantified an additional benefit to companies’ bottom line, showing that a wellness program they studied resulted in higher productivity for all participating employees. This improvement was dramatic: approximately equal to an additional productive work day per month for the average worker.

    Titled "Doing Well by Making Well: The Impact of Corporate Wellness Programs on Employee Productivity," the study's first author is Timothy Gubler, an assistant professor of management in the School of Business at UCR. It is forthcoming in the journal Management Science.

    >> Read the Full Article
  • Study in Nature demonstrates method for repairing genes in human embryos that prevents inherited diseases

    Scientists have demonstrated an effective way of using a gene-editing tool to correct a disease-causing gene mutation in human embryos and stop it from passing to future generations.

    The new technique uses the gene-editing tool CRISPR to target a mutation in nuclear DNA that causes hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a common genetic heart disease that can cause sudden cardiac death and heart failure. The research, published Aug. 2 in the journal Nature, demonstrates a new method for repairing a disease-causing mutation and preventing it from being inherited by succeeding generations. This is the first time scientists have successfully tested the method on donated clinical-quality human eggs.

    >> Read the Full Article