Loss in Biological News

New research finds possible genetic link to cause of pregnancy loss and disorders

KNOXVILLE -- Scientists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have published new findings about a cause of a condition at the root of genetic disorders such as Down Syndrome, pregnancy loss and infertility. Called aneuploidy, the condition i...

Seals quickly respond to gain and loss of habitat under climate change

Southern Elephant seals responded rapidly to climate and habitat change and established a new breeding site thousands of kilometres from existing breeding grounds, according to new research. An international research team, including post-doctorate Dr Mark de Bruyn and collaborators from the US,...

New supplement may help slow sight loss in elderly

Queen's University Belfast academics have helped develop an antioxidant supplement which may slow down sight loss in elderly people. The supplement may help those affected by the leading cause of blindness in the Western World, a five-year research programme has found. Professor Usha Chakravar...

Changing climate will lead to devastating loss of phosphorus from soil

Crop growth, drinking water and recreational water sports could all be adversely affected if predicted changes in rainfall patterns over the coming years prove true, according to research published this month in Biology and Fertility of Soils . Scientists from Biotechnology and Biological Scie...

Tree species composition influences nitrogen loss from forests

MADISON, WI, MARCH 16, 2009--Throughout the world, nitrogen compounds are released to the atmosphere from agricultural activities and combustion of fossil fuels. These pollutants are deposited to ecosystems as precipitation, gases, and particles, sometimes many hundreds of miles downwind of their ...

Village bird study highlights loss of wildlife knowledge from one

Our ability to conserve and protect wildlife is at risk because we are unable to accurately gauge how our environment is changing over time, says new research out today in Conservation Letters . The study shows that people may not realise species are declining all around them, or that their l...

Nutritional supplementation program helps prevent weight loss among children in African country

Children in Niger who received a daily nutritional supplement for three months had a lower rate of weight loss and a reduced risk of wasting compared to children who did not receive the supplementation, according to a study in the January 21 issue of JAMA . Wasting (defined as a certain deviat...

Wildfires result in loss of forests reserved by Northwest Forest Plan

PORTLAND, Ore. November 6, 2008. Although the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) significantly reduced cutting of old-growth forests on federal land, forests in the driest regions are now at greater risk of being lost to wildfire than to logging. A team of federal and university scientists recently comp...

Tooth loss strongly linked to risk of esophageal, head and neck, and lung cancer

PHILADELPHIA Studying thousands of patients, Japanese researchers have found a strong link between tooth loss and increased risk of three cancers esophageal, head and neck, and lung. They suggest that preservation of teeth may decrease risk of developing these diseases. In the May issue of Ca...

Continents loss to oceans boosts staying power

HOUSTON, April 1, 2008 -- New research suggests that the geological staying power of continents comes partly from their losing battle with the Earth's oceans over magnesium. The research finds continents lose more than 20 percent of their initial mass via chemical reactions involving the Earth's c...

Deep-sea species' loss could lead to oceans' collapse, study suggests

The loss of deep-sea species poses a severe threat to the future of the oceans, suggests a new report publishing early online on December 27th and in the January 8th issue of Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press. In a global-scale study, the researchers found some of the first evidence tha...

Weight loss -- not one size fits all

There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to weight loss through exercise, says Queensland University of Technology behavioural scientist Neil King. Dr Neil King, from QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, is the lead author of a study conducted in collaboration with the Univ...

'Twinkle after-effect' can help retinal patients detect vision loss quickly and cheaply

Boston, MAScientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, have discovered a simple and inexpensive way for patients with retinal and other eye disease to keep track of changes in their vision loss. In a study published in this weeks PLoS ONE (October 24, 2007...

Salmonid hatcheries cause 'stunning' loss of reproduction

CORVALLIS, Ore. The rearing of steelhead trout in hatcheries causes a dramatic and unexpectedly fast drop in their ability to reproduce in the wild, a new Oregon State University study shows, and raises serious questions about the wisdom of historic hatchery practices. The research, to be publ...

New drug makes weight loss safer

TEL AVIV More than 60 percent of American women are overweight, with nearly a third falling into the category of obese and at greater risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Until now, there has been no safe, long-term medical remedy that tackles unwanted weight gain. Dr. Nir Barak of T...

Diminuendo -- New mouse model for understanding cause of progressive hearing loss

The respective microRNA seed region influences the production of sensory hair cells in the inner ear, both in the mouse and in humans. The findings have been published ahead of print in the current online issue of Nature Genetics . This study represents a major step forward in elucidating the com...

New insights into progressive hearing loss

In parallel studies in human and mouse, two groups of researchers have come to the same conclusion: that a new kind of gene is associated with progressive hearing loss. The new gene - called a microRNA - is a tiny fragment of RNA that affects the production of hundreds of other molecules within se...

A diet rich in calcium aids weight loss

Qubec City, March 12, 2009 Boosting calcium consumption spurs weight loss, according to a study published in the most recent issue of the British Journal of Nutrition , but only in people whose diets are calcium deficient. Angelo Tremblay and his team at Universit Laval's Faculty of Medicine ...

Study offers clues to beating hearing loss

Researchers at the University of Leeds have made a significant step forward in understanding the causes of some forms of deafness. The Leeds team has discovered that the myosin 7 motor protein - found in the tiny hairs of the inner ear that pick up sound - moves and works in a different way from...

High Performance, Low-Cost VoIP Chips Address Critical Performance Issues Such as Echo, Latency, and Packet Loss

Adaptive Digital Technologies announces the availability of its complete suite of application-specific VoIP chips for Texas Instruments TMS320C64x+(TM) high performance DSPs PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Adaptive Digital Technologies (Adaptive Digital), a leading provider of t...

A BBVA Foundation project comes up with a system enabling detection of cetacean hearing loss

December 17, 2008. A research project supported by the BBVA Foundation and led by Michel Andr, director of the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics at the UPC (Universitat Politcnica de Catalunya) has developed the world's first portable system for measuring cetacean hearing sensitivity. This aud...

Managing carbon loss

MADISON, WI, DECEMBER 1, 2008 -- As the United States continues to develop alternative energy methods and push towards energy independence, cellulosic-based ethanol has emerged as one of the most commercially viable technologies. Corn stover remains the most popular source available, but the loss ...

Calcium and vitamin D may not be the only protection against bone loss

Chevy Chase, MDDiets that are high in protein and cereal grains produce an excess of acid in the body which may increase calcium excretion and weaken bones, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism ( JCEM ). The s...

House Ear Institute, TGen and Belgian researchers identify gene in age-related hearing loss

LOS ANGELES, Calif. Dec. 2, 2008 Presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss, accounts for 30 percent of all hearing loss. So, why do some people lose their hearing as they get older but other people can still hear a pin drop? The answer may be in a study released online in the journal Human...

Genes that control cell death fingered in age-related hearing loss

Several genes that play a role in how our body's cells normally auto-destruct may play a role in age-related hearing loss, according to research published online in the journal Apoptosis a journal devoted to the topic of cell suicide, or programmed cell death. Doctors know that genetics play...

Sweat it out: UH study examines ability of sweat patches to monitor bone loss

Some health assessments that are routinely carried out on Earth are not practical when the "patients" are free-floating astronauts on long space flights, such as missions to Mars or the Moon. A new, NASA-funded study from the University of Houston department of health and human performance will e...

Accelerated bone turnover remains after weight loss

COLUMBIA, Mo. When a person is losing a significant amount of weight, they expect to notice changes in their body. However, they may overlook changes happening in their bones. During weight loss through calorie-restricted diets, bones are being remodeled - breaking down old bone and forming new b...

Nitrogen retained through loss

The nitrogen cycle plays a major role in seagrass fields. Dutch researcher Arie Vonk studied the nitrogen dynamics of seagrasses in Indonesia. He discovered that the interaction between seagrasses, animals and microorganisms results in an efficient nitrogen cycle in tropical seagrass fields. Conse...

Oxygen depletion: A new form of ocean habitat loss

An international team of physical oceanographers including a researcher from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered that oxygen-poor regions of tropical oceans are expanding as the oceans warm, limiting the areas in which predatory fishes and other marine organisms can ...

Hyperviscous fluids: Better treatment for severe blood loss

Intravenous administration of isotonic fluids is the standard emergency treatment in the U.S. for patients with severe blood loss, but UC San Diego bioengineering researchers have reported improved resuscitation with a radically different approach. Building on earlier studies in humans that have s...

A screening strategy using zebrafish targets genes that protect against hearing loss

A small striped fish is helping scientists understand what makes people susceptible to a common form of hearing loss, although, in this case, its not the fishs ears that are of interest. In a study published on February 29 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, researchers at the University of ...

Antarctic ice loss

Increasing amounts of ice mass have been lost from West Antarctica and the Antarctic peninsula over the past ten years, according to research from the University of Bristol and published online this week in Nature Geoscience. Meanwhile the ice mass in East Antarctica has been roughly stable, w...

Genes influence age-related hearing loss

Waltham, MAA new Brandeis University study of twins shows that genes play a significant role in the level of hearing loss that often appears in late middle age. The research, in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, examined genetic and environmental factors affecting hearing loss in the f...

Grub's passion for plastic causes water loss

Research by the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has found that a small white grub is responsible for water leaking from sub-surface drip irrigation pipes used by some lucerne growers. The Australian Entomological Society 38th annual scientific conference being held this week in Vict...

Gene responsible for common hearing loss identified for first time

A gene responsible for the single most common cause of hearing loss among white adults, otosclerosis, has been identified for the first time, a scientist told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Nice, France. Ms Melissa Thys, from the Department of Medical Genetics, ...

Researcher to study astronaut bone loss for space biology agency

Roger K. Long, MD, an endocrinology research fellow at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, was one of only three scientists named in January 2007 as 2006-2008 Postdoctoral Fellows by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). Long's ...

Record ozone loss during 2006 over South Pole

Ozone measurements made by ESA's Envisat satellite have revealed the ozone loss of 40 million tons on 2 October 2006 has exceeded the record ozone loss of about 39 million tons for 2000. Ozone loss is derived by measuring the area and the depth of the ozone hole. The size of this year's ozone ho...

St. Jude finds clues to hearing loss from chemotherapy

Children with cancer who suffer hearing loss due to the toxic effects of chemotherapy might one day be able to get their hearing back through pharmacological and gene therapy, thanks to work done with mouse models at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Mice with a variety of genetic mutations th...

One therapeutic dose of radiation causes 30 percent spongy bone loss in mice

Mice receiving just one therapeutic dose of radiation lost up to 39% of the spongy portion of their inner bone, reducing the inner bone's weight bearing connections by up to 64%, researchers reported. The study, which appears in the online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, has implicati...

First human study confirms that immune cells can be a primary cause of bone loss in gum disease

Researchers at The Forsyth Institute have confirmed in human gingival tissue that immune cells play a destructive role in periodontal disease. Although researchers had suspected the correlation between bone loss in periodontal (gum) disease and immune cells, this is the first time that this has be...