fail in Biological News

Vitamins C and E and beta carotene again fail to reduce cancer risk in randomized controlled trial

Women who took beta carotene or vitamin C or E or a combination of the supplements had a similar risk of cancer as women who did not take the supplements, according to data from a randomized controlled trial in the December 30 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Epid...

Farmers can spot lame sheep, but fail to prevent footrot spread

Sheep farmers are highly able to spot even mildly lame sheep, but many do not take steps to prevent the spread of lameness in their flocks by catching and treating these animals. A study in the open access journal BMC Veterinary Research is the first to provide evidence for the accuracy of farme...

Exhausted B cells fail to fight HIV

Antibodies stick to HIV particles, preventing them from infecting other cells and triggering their destruction by immune cells. This antibody response starts out strong in HIV-infected individuals but eventually peters out. To find out why, scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Inf...

Why conservation efforts often fail

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Modern conservation techniques have brought us the resurgence of American bald eagles, sustainable forest harvests and the rescue of prized lobster fisheries. So how can modern conservation strategies also have wrought such failures, from the catastrophic loss of Guatemalan fo...

When smell cells fail they call in stem cell reserves

Hopkins researchers have identified a backup supply of stem cells that can repair the most severe damage to the nerves responsible for our sense of smell. These reservists normally lie around and do nothing, but when neighboring cells die, the scientists say, the stem cells jump into action. A repo...

PNAS study reveals why organs fail following massive trauma

Massive trauma, say from a sabertooth tiger attack, meant immediate death for the primitive human. Modern man is more likely to survive severe injury caused by a car crash, gunshot or fall thanks to high-tech emergency medicine. Unfortunately, the body does not know what to do when it survives an ...

Control measures fail to stop spread of new H5N1 virus

A new variant of the bird flu virus H5N1 emerged in late 2005 and replaced most of the previous variants across a large part of southern China, despite an ongoing program to vaccinate poultry, according to researchers at the University of Hong Kong in collaboration with scientists at St. Jude Child...

Many smokers fail to quit after cancer diagnosis

A new report says despite a growing body of evidence that continued smoking after a cancer diagnosis has substantial adverse effects on treatment effectiveness, overall survival, risk of other cancers, and quality of life, up to one-half of cancer patients who smoke continue to do so or relapse aft...

Biologists rediscover endangered frog population

...state Route 330 in the San Bernadino Mountains. "The emergency slope reconstruction project had the dual benefit of opening a road that was about to fail as well as helping to ensure that the last known population of the mountain yellow-legged frog in the San Bernardino Mountains had a program in place ...

University of Miami receives stimulus funds for study of hurricane impacts on structures, ecosystems

... MIAMI Hurricanes are the costliest natural disasters that strike the United States. A better understanding of how structures withstand -- or fail to withstand a hurricane could lead to improved construction standards and practices designed to protect human lives and enhance resiliency. The ...

Wolf reintroduction proposed in Scottish Highland test case

...can fundamentally change the movement and activities of grazing animals 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in ways that such approaches as human hunting fail to do. The native red deer in Scotland essentially the same animal as elk in the United States have not faced predation or fear such as that for ...

Researchers achieve major breakthrough with water desalination system

...omously adapt to almost any variation in source water, allowing the M3 system to operate in situations where traditional RO desalination systems would fail almost immediately," he said. Though the system is compact enough to be transported anywhere in the back of a van, it can generate 6,000 gallons...

New study ranks 'hotspots' of human impact on coastal areas

...sippi River, explained Halpern, with the other top 10 in Asia and the Mediterranean. "These are areas where conservation efforts will almost certainly fail if they don't directly address what people are doing on land upstream from these locations." Nutrient runoff from upstream farms has caused a persi...

Dietary supplements manufacturers gain new tool to help ensure quality products

...ing to any dietary supplement product represented as conforming to compendial specifications (and such products being deemed misbranded by FDA if they fail to so conform). USP has been setting quality standards for medicines for nearly 200 years. ...

Study finds DNA barcoding requires caution without closer examination

..., offers just such a cautionary note against accepting this technique without closer examination in his recent article, "DNA Barcoding will Frequently fail in Complicated Groups: An example in Wild Potatoes" in the June 2009 issue of the American Journal of Botany . One of the critical issues surrou...

Study on keeping nuclear bombs from US ports shows misplaced fear over cargo scanning cost

...rs, followed by a more careful secondary scan of only a few containers that fail the primary test) holds promise as a feasible solution for meeting the 100%...y radiographic portals as they enter an international port. Containers that fail will not be placed in stacks for outbound containers, but will be flagged i...

The bitter side of sweeteners

... Sewage treatment plants fail to remove artificial sweeteners completely from waste water. What's more, these pollutants contaminate waters downstream and may still be present in o...

Small molecules mimic natural gene regulators

...e, one appealing route involves turning genes on or off at will, directly intervening in ailments such as cancer and diabetes, which result when genes fail to turn on and off as they should. Scientists at the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley have taken a step forward ...

Next-generation software system for flood warning and risk analysis to be developed

...ith the development of a commercial prototype." While several software systems have been commercialized with significant market success, they often fail to (1) incorporate multiple weather forecasts and post-forecast data processing into one system to achieve reliable flood warning, (2) assess uncertai...

Design input accelerates new technologies' route to market

... replace the traditional stethoscope method of monitoring heart rate during childbirth, which is open to human error, interrupts resuscitation and can fail to detect sudden and serious changes to a baby's medical condition. The Mixed Reality Lab within the School of Computer Science has developed a p...

UCSF discovers new glucose-regulating protein linked with diabetes

...stimulation. Fat cells also form a GLUT4 compartment and take up glucose in response to insulin. In type 2 diabetes, however, the muscle and fat cells fail to respond appropriately to the insulin and the GLUT4 compartment is abnormal. This process was thought to be identical across mammal species. The ...

NIH announces new program to develop therapeutics for rare and neglected diseases

...e to clinical trials in patients. Unfortunately, the success rate in this preclinical process is low. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of projects fail there, never making it to clinical trials. And the costs are high: it takes 2-4 years of work and $10 million on average to move a potential medicine...

Scientists urge global action to preserve water supplies for billions worldwide

...nts in recent decades. Major rivers in both regions, like China's Yellow River and the Colorado River in the southwestern United States, routinely fail to reach the ocean now. These extremes are signs of the climate- and societally induced stresses that will be exacerbated in the future under continui...

Meet DNA's personal assistants

...ersonal assistants," microRNAs connect to the photocopied message and disrupts its delivery. "Sometimes they throw out perfectly good instructions, or fail to carry out orders," says Dr. Shomron. Why they do this is the mystery that biologists everywhere want to solve. Dr. Shomron is playing no small role...

Findings show insulin -- not genes -- linked to obesity

...lin attaches to binding sites on cell membranes, signaling the cells to take up glucose from the blood. Cells that are said to be resistant to insulin fail to take up glucose, the primary cause of Type II diabetes, a medical condition affecting nearly 24 million Americans. About two-thirds of U.S. adults ...

Biofuels could hasten climate change

...forests." As countries strive to meet obligations to reduce carbon emissions under one international agreement (Kyoto Protocol), they may not only fail to meet their obligations under another (Convention on Biological Diversity) but may actually hasten global climate change. According to the study...

Rutgers study finds many consumers ignore food product recalls

... NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. Rutgers' Food Policy Institute (FPI) released a study today showing that many Americans fail to check their homes for recalled food products. Only about 60 percent of the studied sample reported ever having looked for recalled food in their ho...

Chinese slimming capsules

...A man developed a psychosis after taking the capsules. Severe symptoms of poisoning mainly occurred in combination with other drugs. Patients often fail to inform their doctors that they are taking herbal products, as they regard these as harmless. Dieter Mller assumes that the consumption of food supp...

Study: Health undervalued in reproductive rights debate

...ttle between religious freedom, doctor's rights and women's health," she said. "As a result, they may downplay women's health as an interest, and thus fail to fully consider it in their decisions." Burkstrand-Reid says women's health will remain at risk even if President Obama rescinds a federal consci...

Missing piece of plant clock found

...k, on top of the redundancies, you have feedback loops that are interconnected. So it's difficult to perturb the system." Disrupting a protein will fail to reveal its function if the system can compensate for its loss, so the team took a different approach. They sorted through proteins with the ability...

Fighting global warming offers growth and development opportunities

...engthened, especially the sectors producing low-carbon technologies," he adds. "But global coordination is critical. Any single country's New Deal may fail if its extra demand for goods and services are met with imports. If we act together, everyone's exports will increase and we can recover employment mu...

Scientists discover why teeth form in a single row

... turn genes on or off. "Knocking out" (deleting) the Osr2 gene resulted in cleft palate, a birth defect where the two halves of the roof of the mouth fail to join up properly, leaving a gap. Secondly, and surprisingly, the Osr2 "knockout" mice developed teeth outside of the normal tooth row. Jiang decide...

American Institute of Physics announces awards for best science writing

...photographed in Alaska and New York and include one of the author's sons, as well as several of her sons' friends. Despite their young age, they never fail to convincingly depict the book's subject matter. "Children can fake a good sneeze on demand," says Siy. However, she warns, "It takes a couple of hou...

'Neurological work-arounds' offer hope to people with monoamine-related disorders

...lnesses such as depression, addiction, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease devastate millions of lives each year. Current treatment strategies often fail and remain poorly understood," said Krantz. "In our research, we have discovered a simple way to identify the functional changes that may be associate...

Abandon hope

...onmental disaster, Vucetich and Nelson point out. It also clarifies the connection between environmental and social problems, a connection many people fail to grasp. "Instead of hope, we need to provide young people with reasons to live sustainably that are rational and effective," they say. "We need ...

Scientists study full protein content of 'baker's yeast'

...ith each other. If researchers can quantify cellular proteins they will be able to understand more fully how cells operate and why in some cases they fail to perform their 'normal' function in the body. Proteins in the body participate in every process of a cell from the contraction of muscles to imm...

Evolution education for K-12 teachers needs beefing up, says CU-Boulder professor

...ondary education teaching license in four years. "A staggering percentage of the American public, ranging from plumbers to presidential candidates, fail to accept, at least in part because they don't understand, the evidence for and mechanisms behind evolutionary processes," said Klymkowsky. "Understa...

Toothsome research: Deducing the diet of a prehistoric hominid

...ndy. Driven by an interest in tooth restoration materials, they had been studying teeth using fracture mechanics, a field that considers how materials fail under excessive loads. Our analytical approach produces equations that predict how each mode of damage will occur under different conditions and this ...

Weizmann Institute scientists show extra copies of a gene carry extra risk

...ing better? A gene known as LIS1 is crucial for ensuring the proper placement of neurons in the developing brain. When an LIS1 gene is missing, brains fail to develop the characteristic folds; babies with lissencephaly or 'smooth brain' are born severely mentally retarded. But new research by Prof. Orly R...

Common soil mineral degrades the nearly indestructible prion

...ists almost every method of destruction from fire and ionizing radiation to chemical disinfectants and autoclaving, which reduce prion infectivity but fail to completely eliminate it. Now, however, a team of Wisconsin researchers has found that a common soil mineral, an oxidized from of manganese known a...