Insidious in Biological News

UTSA, Health Science Center collaborate with Merck & Co. to develop chlamydia vaccine

... to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. A highly infectious and insidious organism, C. trachomatis frequently causes only mild or moderate symptoms in infected individuals, especially females, and those infected often do ...

The sunlight solution for better health

... School of Medicine says, "The reader will be enlightened by the historical perspective and how our sunphobic attitudes have resulted in this insidious vitamin D deficiency." The production of Vitamin D from sun exposure is crucial to maintaining the body's calcium levels and is an important ...

Lab-on-a-chip homes in on how cancer cells break free

... to settle in other tissues. Scientists have learned much about how cancer cells attach to these surfaces, but they know little about how these insidious cells detach because no one had created a simple way to study the process. Searson and two other scientists from Johns Hopkins' Whiting School of ...

Discovery could lead to a new animal model for hepatitis C

... path yet for developing a much-needed vaccine as well as tailored treatments for the 170 million people across the globe living with the tenacious, insidious and rapidly changing virus. By using a genetic screen, the group, led by Charles M. Rice, head of the Laboratory of Virology and Infectious ...

Queen's University biologists find new environmental threat in North American lakes

... Kingston, ON A new and insidious environmental threat has been detected in North American lakes by researchers from Queen's and York universities. Along with scientists from ...

In Vietnam, alongside progress, a battle for life

... capital of Vietnam, a battle is raging. In the hospitals crowded wards, treatment rooms and corridors, doctors are struggling against a powerful and insidious enemy: cancer. And right now the disease is winning. Each year in this country of 84 million as many as 75,000 people die of cancer and another ...

Getting better with a little help from our 'micro' friends

... for inflammatory bowel disease, according to scientists at the California Institute of Technology. "Most people tend to think of bacteria as insidious organisms that only make us sick," says Sarkis K. Mazmanian, an assistant professor of biology at Caltech, whose laboratory examines the symbiotic ...

Screw worm outbreak in Yemen

... An outbreak of the insidious screw worm fly in Yemen, is threatening livelihoods, in a country where rearing livestock is a traditional way of life. In recent weeks, a ...

Breakthrough research turns the tide on water-borne pathogen

... Waltham, MACryptosporidium parvum is a tiny yet insidious waterborne parasite that wreaks havoc worldwide. This parasite is a major cause of diarrhea and malnutrition in small children in developing ...

February Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... Zealand. Pages 115-118. Meteor impact is popularly linked with catastrophic extinction events, but some effects can be harmful in a more subtle and insidious manner. As Leybourne shows, the shattering impact of a meteor on rocks results in increased groundwater-rock surface interaction. This has a direct ...

Story ideas from the Journal of Lipid Research

... syndrome) excess bile acids enter the colon and impair water absorption, leading to diarrhea. What makes bile acid malabsorption particularly insidious is that if enough bile acids dont reabsorb, the liver churns out even more acids to compensate, which produces even more problems. Antonio ...

Too few women scientists achieving academic leadership positions

... biases and archaic university structures, Handelsman and Birgeneau support the Academys recommendation for educating the academic community about the insidious role of unconscious bias in decision-making. Furthermore, they point to the antiquated tenure system, in which women are often held back from ...

Blood test may help signal tumor's remission, return in throat cancer patients

... cancer early on, when there is still time to pursue a second line of treatment, such as surgery or drug therapy. “Cancers of the head and neck are insidious because surgical removal of the tumor can severely impair a person’s ability to talk and to swallow,” said NIDCD Director, James F. Battey, Jr., ...

Extra-aggressive form of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis identified

... (IPF) is a chronic and progressive lung disorder from which most patients die within 5 years after diagnosis. The disease is characterized by the insidious onset of dyspnea or cough and usually evolves slowly. Now, Selman and coworkers present in an article published in the online, open-access ...

Wheat can fatally starve insect predators

... in lost wheat in one year after the fly overcame the plants' resistance gene used in the area at the time. The Hessian fly is particularly insidious because it actually can control the wheat plant's development. The adult fly lays eggs on the plant leaves. After the eggs hatch, the resulting ...

Can engineered immune cells stop AIDS?

... Twenty years after its introduction, gene therapy still holds great promise as a way to harness the insidious power of viruses such as human immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV). But scientists have yet to solve a vexing problem: developing an efficient transport ...

The subtleties of tropical forest demise

... in Panama, who co-edited the book along with Carlos Peres, a Brazilian biologist with the University of East Anglia, U.K. "It's astonishing how insidious many of the threats are," said Peres. "We rely on satellite images or aerial photos to tell us how fast tropical forests are disappearing, but many ...

Mutant mouse provides insights into breast cancer

... genes, however, allow Chaos3 mice to live normal lives but greatly increase the rate of faulty DNA replications and genomic instability. "It's insidious because there is no warning that one might have this cancer predisposing allele [DNA codings at a given site] because the mice live normally," said ...

Successful lung cancer surgery not enough to break nicotine dependence in many smokers

... author, Mark S. Walker, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University. "Their choices are driven by insidious cravings for nicotine." The investigators found that those smokers who were the last to give up their cigarettes - some on the same day as their ...

HIV infection requires an accomplice: B cells with special protein direct HIV to T cells

... infection of T cells requires activation of a molecule on the surface of B cells, a finding that reveals yet another pathway the virus uses in its insidious attack on the immune system, University of Pittsburgh researchers will report at the XVI International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2006). "The research ...

Marine mammals are on the frontline of failing ocean health

... exposure to brevetoxins suppresses respiratory and immune systems, making manatees and other animals more susceptible to new diseases. "The insidious effect of chronic exposure is what worries me the most," says Bossart. "This infers that you could really open a Pandora's box in these animals, and ...

Climate change: The rice genome to the rescue

... as one of the main drivers for national development," Dr. Zeigler said. "In turn, agriculture is very dependent on climate. "Another more insidious effect may be more frequent extreme weather events such as typhoons, floods and droughts," Dr. Zeigler warned. "IRRI's research has shown that even ...

Molecular cabal contributes to stroke damage

... on the surface of brain cells. Now, researchers exploring the detailed mechanism of this excitotoxicity and acidotoxicity have discovered how an insidious chain of molecular events contributes to its damage. In an article in the November 23, 2005, issue of Neuron, Jun Gao and colleagues say that their ...

Scientists must offer solutions for conserving tropical forests in a rapidly changing world

... different ways. Forests are being cleared, burned, logged, fragmented, and overhunted and an unprecedented pace, and they are also being altered in insidious ways by global climatic and atmospheric changes. "The evidence for global effects suggests that a massive reorganization of the structure and ...

Study: Plants use dual defense system to fight pathogens

... molecules effectively shut down the PAMP pathway. But the plant's R-proteins detect this, and come to the rescue. "The R-proteins detect the insidious activity by which the pathogen's effectors block the PAMP pathway," Mackey said. "PAMP defense responses are probably often effective, but they may ...

Primates on the brink

... be the major factor in the declining number of primates, according to the report. Hunting for subsistence and commercial purposes also is a major and insidious threat, especially in Africa and Asia. Live capture for the pet trade also poses a serious threat, particularly to Asian species. "Southeast ...

First technology to remove prions that cause vCJD from blood launched

... with health authorities, starting with the nations hardest hit by vCJD, to help protect the safety of the blood supply and prevent the spread of this insidious disease." The new prion reduction filter will be evaluated by the United Kingdom (UK) National Blood Service and the Irish Blood Transfusion ...