rate in Biological News

Difference in fat storage may explain lower rate of liver disease in African-Americans

DALLAS March 27, 2009 Where different ethnic groups store fat in their bodies may account for differences in the likelihood they'll develop insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. According to research reported in th...

Measurement Specialties, Inc. Announces Impact of 'German Business Tax Reform 2008' Resulting in Lower Combined German Tax Rate - Impacts 2Q08 Reported Financial Results

HAMPTON, Va., Oct 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Measurement Specialties, Inc. (Nasdaq: MEAS ), a designer and manufacturer of sensors and sensor-based systems, announces the impact of the recently adopted German Business Tax Reform 2008 on current year financial statements. The German Busines...

Study finds a high rate of asthma in college athletes

COLUMBUS, Ohio More than a third of college athletes assessed for breathing problems had test results suggesting exercise-induced asthma, even in those athletes who had no previous history of asthma, a new study shows. The findings, published in the September issue of the journal Medicine & S...

Arctic sea ice thinning at record rate

The thickness of sea ice in large parts of the Arctic declined by as much as 19% last winter compared to the previous five winters, according to data from ESA's Envisat satellite. Using Envisat radar altimeter data, scientists from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University Co...

HPV DNA test identifies cervical pre-cancerous disease in developing countries with 90% success rate

Results of the first study to determine the accuracy of a new rapid screening test for HPV (Human Papilloma Virus), created specifically for use in the developing world, have shown it to be 90 per cent accurate in detecting precancerous cervical disease when tested on a group of local women in Sha...

Microbes churn out hydrogen at record rate

By adding a few modifications to their successful wastewater fuel cell, researchers have coaxed common bacteria to produce hydrogen in a new, efficient way. Bruce Logan and colleagues at Penn State University had already shown success at using microbes to produce electricity. Now, using starter...

Smoking rate has plummeted in New York City

New York City’s smoking rate has plummeted since a comprehensive program against smoking was launched in 2002, according to findings issued today in the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The 2006 rate was nearly 20% lower than the 2...

Double the death rate from cirrhosis for 'blue collar' men

School of Population Health Professors Jake Najman and Gail Williams and Stockholm University's Professor Robin Room examined death rates among Australian men from liver cirrhosis between 1981 and 2002. Their results were published in the May 2007 edition of the prestigious journal, Drug and Alc...

Syphilis rate on rise in US gay, bisexual men

Armed with more than a decade’s worth of statistics, researchers are sounding a new alarm about growing rates of syphilis among gay and bisexual men. The overall number of syphilis cases in the United States fell from 50,578 in 1990 to just 7,177 in 2003 perhaps because of a nationwide prevention...

More kidney cancer is detected and treated early, yet death rate rises

The number of cases of kidney cancer has been rising over the last two decades, and new research from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center shows that this increase is driven largely by the detection of small, presumably curable, kidney masses. But even though the rising incidence ...

US infant mortality rate fails to improve

Nearly 28,000 babies died before their first birthday, according to new infant mortality statistics for 2003 released by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The infant mortality rates showed no significant improvement in 2003 after increasing in 2002 for the first time since 1958. ...

St. Jude projects 90 percent cure rate for ALL

The cure rate for the once almost universally fatal childhood cancer acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) could reach 90 percent in the near future, thanks to improvements in diagnosis and treatment over the past four decades, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Almos...

Oil spills and climate change double the mortality rate of British seabirds

New research from the University of Sheffield has shown that major oil spills and a changing climate have had a far greater impact on populations of British sea birds than was previously thought. A team led by Professor Tim Birkhead from the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the Univers...

'Patient-choice' C-section rate rises 36%: HealthGrades study

More women choosing C-sections when no medical necessity exists - Florida, New York, New Jersey have highest rates;Nevada, Washington, Florida increase most The number of pregnant women choosing to have a "patient-choice" Cesarean section (C-section) rose by 36.6 percent from 2001 to 2003, acco...

Hormones and growth: The control of body size and developmental growth rate in fruit flies

A pair of research papers published this week report findings that increase our understanding of how an organism's body size is determined and how the speed of its development is controlled. In particular, the work sheds light on the molecular and cellular pathways that act to convey information ab...

AGU journal highlights -- Aug. 6, 2009

... by microbial activity. Although more than 30 years old, assessments of the rate of methane emitted by the ocean are included in the Intergovernmental Panel... extrapolating these values, they recently found that their estimate of the rate of methane emitted by the global ocean is about 10 times less than the valu...

University of Hawaii at Manoa researchers reveal ocean acidification at Station ALOHA

...n, accuracy and sampling intensity to document the rate of change of ocean pH and shed light on the factor... the surface ocean grew more acidic at exactly the rate expected from chemical equilibration with the atmosphere. However, that rate of change varied considerably on seasonal and inte...

Symposium to discuss geoengineering to fight climate change at the ESA Annual Meeting

...ensive dead zones in the oceans. In addition, he says, the maximum possible rate of ocean iron fertilization could only offset a small fraction of the current rate of carbon burning by humans. Ocean fertilization also does not alleviat...

Women often opt to surgically remove their breasts, ovaries to reduce cancer risk

...colleagues assessed the increase in risk-reduction surgery among women with breast cancer and evaluated the impact of cancer risk, timing and age. rate of increase was measured among 211 women with known unaffected BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are hereditary gene mutations that in...

Understanding how weeds are resistant to herbicides

...resistance evolves. "If you understand how it evolves, that can help you devise strategies that cannot prevent it from evolving, but at least slow the rate at which it happens," said Tranel. "If you use the same herbicide year after year, you're exerting selection pressure -- you're selecting for that ...

New hope for fisheries

... stocks. The work is a significant leap forward because it reveals that the rate of fishing has been reduced in several regions around the world, resulting ...ur oceans are not a lost cause. The encouraging result is that exploitation rate the ultimate driver of depletion and collapse is decreasing in half of th...

Global curbs on overfishing are beginning to work

...ocks. The work is a significant leap forward because it reveals that the rate of fishing has been reduced in several regions around the world, resulting ...t cause," Dr Worm says. "The encouraging result is that the exploitation rate the ultimate driver of depletion and collapse is decreasing in half of th...

'Microfluidic palette' may paint clearer picture of biological processes

...sred, yellow and blueseparately into the three inlets of the system. For each dye, an independent gradient forms that remains constant as long as flow rate into the system does not change. Overlapping the three gradients results in a blend of dye concentrations in which the combination of colors at one lo...

Naming evolution's winners and losers

...a real mystery to biologists how there can be any tuataras, given their low rate of speciation. They must have something working for them that has allowed t...for why there are so many mammals, birds and fish. "The timing of the rate increases does not correspond to the appearance of key characteristics that...

Study shows cancer vaccines led to long-term survival for patients with metastatic melanoma

...r stem cells or early progenitor cells that can create new depots of cancer throughout the body. Data showed that the projected five-year survival rate is 54% at a median follow up of 4.5 years (range 2.4 to 7.4) for the 30 surviving patients. Although not a direct comparison, the results are superior...

Early detection and quick response are key to defense against anthrax attack

..." The study predicts that a campaign initiated two days after exposure would protect as many as 87 percent of exposed individuals from illness -- a rate considered successful by the CDC. Each additional day needed to complete the campaign would result in an average of up to 2.9 percent more hospitaliza...

UTMB study identifies women at risk of gaining excessive weight with injectable birth control

...men use DMPA, including approximately 400,000 teens. DMPA is relatively inexpensive compared with some other forms of birth control, has a low failure rate and doesn't need to be administered daily, which contributes to the contraceptive's popularity. This study builds upon UTMB research released earl...

Technology improves salmon passage at hydropower dams

... in the river picked up small sounds, or "pings," that the tags emit. PNNL and NOAA Fisheries began developing JSATS in 2001 to determine the survival rate of subyearling Chinook salmon in the Columbia River estuary. PNNL researcher Tom Carlson will discuss the JSATS technology and more of the study's f...

Noise pollution negatively affects woodland bird communities, says CU-Boulder study

...r repelling rivals, pairing and nesting. The study indicated birds that were intolerant of noise and nested in quiet areas were subject to greater rate of nest predation than those in noisy areas, he said. Woodland birds that prefer noisy areas may even use the clamor of civilization as cues for nesti...

Bad mitochondria may actually be good for you

...ted amounts of reactive oxygen when young; that should spell disaster, yet according to a study in this week's JBC these mice actually age at a slower rate and live longer than normal mice. Mitochondrial oxidative stress is a popular theory explaining the aging process; over time, reactive oxygen speci...

Scripps-led study shows ocean health plays vital role in coral reef recovery

...om pollution, overfishing and sediment and nutrient run off from land. By using x-rays, the researchers were able to examine the coral's annual growth rate records since 1950, including the time before and after a major bleaching event in 1998. "It is clear that Mesoamerican corals really fell off a cl...

Penn-Wistar team gains insight into HIV vaccine failure

...munity in the form of neutralizing antibodies to the adenovirus 5 (Ad5) vector used to deliver the vaccine actually showed a trend toward an increased rate of HIV infection. Finding an explanation for this increased susceptibility to infection remains a major focus for HIV vaccine researchers. These i...

Iowa State University researchers develop process for 'surgical' genetic changes

...ted by zinc finger nucleases. This occurs about 1 in 50 attempts and is very efficient compared to unassisted methods that allow the same changes at a rate as low as 1 in 10 million. "I've been working in this field for 29 years, just when we started learning how to modify genes," said Townsend. "From t...

Promising new treatment for Alzheimer's suggested based on Hebrew University research

...ects of the disease, since the mutated protein (the enzyme that is the product of the gene) breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine at a slower rate than in those who have the normal gene. The result is that the carriers maintain higher levels of this neurotransmitter, so they should in principle b...

Slotted buses keep passengers cool

...nt seats receive airflow from the rear. The team has found that a wide vent at the front and rear of a bus will draw air into the bus at a much better rate than side windows. A similar boost can be obtained with adjustable roof vents. These modifications would allow cooling air to increase the comfort ...

Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology increases impact, international reach

...ternational Affiliate Program is being offered to those who are not currently SIR members and who live outside North America at a special introductory rate for the next 12 months. "SIR remains eager and interested in assisting all national societies through sharing of standards, strategy, research and exp...

Smaller plants punch above their weight in the forest, say Queen's biologists

...ve. Smaller plants are much more effective than large trees at utilizing available resources. They also produce seeds at a much younger age and higher rate than their bigger counterparts, and establish much more quickly thus competing with the seedlings of larger species. "A growing body of literature...

A 'heart healthy' diet and ongoing, moderate physical activity may protect against cognitive decline

...e impact of changes in physical activity levels on rate of cognitive decline. Deborah E. Barnes, PhD, ...n and baseline 3MS score, they found that the mean rate of decline in 3MS scores was 0.62 points/year in t...ction at the beginning and experienced the fastest rate of cognitive decline," Barnes said. "Cognitive dec...

UA pharmacy research shows prescribers miss potentially dangerous drug pairs

...than one-third of the respondents answered that they were "not sure," and two of these drug pairs were contraindicated. "The study found a very low rate of recognition of these particular interactions," says Malone, "and some of these interactions are very common." Use of several of the contraindica...

Results from trials of DHA in Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline

...ng them during the trial. Co-primary outcomes were rate of change on the Alzheimer's disease assessment scale-cognitive (ADAS-cog) and rate of change on Clinical Dementia Scale-sum of the bo...uid (CSF). However, DHA treatment did not slow the rate of change on tests of mental function (ADAS-cog), ...