Cancer spread cut by 75% in tests
By James Gallagher
Health and science reporter, BBC News website
Photo Credit: BBC News
The deadly spread of cancer around the body has been cut by three-quarters in animal experiments, say scientists.
Tumours can “seed” themselves elsewhere in the body and this process is behind 90% of cancer deaths.
The mouse study, published in Nature, showed altering the immune system slowed the spread of skin cancers to the lungs. Read more.
Published by BBC News January 12, 2017
Calorie restriction lets monkeys live long and prosper
Written By Emily Kumlien
A 2009 image of rhesus monkeys in a landmark study of the benefits of caloric restriction. The 27-year-old monkey on the left was given a diet with fewer calories while the 29-year-old monkey on the right was allowed to eat as much as it liked. Both animals have since died of natural causes. Photo credit: Jeff Miller
Settling a persistent scientific controversy, a long-awaited report shows that restricting calories does indeed help rhesus monkeys live longer, healthier lives.
A remarkable collaboration between two competing research teams — one from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and one from the National Institute on Aging — is the first time the groups worked together to resolve one of the most controversial stories in aging research. Read more.
Published by University of Wisconsin – Madison January 17, 2017
Death rate from cancer now 25% lower than it was 25 years ago, report says
Written by Melissa Healy
A researcher works with donor cells to test a new treatment for blood cancer, in this file photo. Photo Credit – (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
In the year to come, an estimated 1,688,780 people in the United States are expected to get a cancer diagnosis, and cancer will claim the lives of a projected 600,920.
That death toll, however grim, represents a death rate from cancer that is 25% lower than it was a quarter-century ago — a drop driven by steady reductions in smoking rates and advances in early detection and treatment. Between 1991 and 2014, that boost in cancer survivorship translates to approximately 2,143,200 fewer cancer deaths than might have been expected if death rates had remained at their peak. Read more.
Slimy, squirmy creatures: the unsung heroes of medical research
Fish. Frogs. Worms.
While you’d expect to find them in your local pond, they’re also some of the biggest contributors to modern medical research. And there’s a reason these so-called “lower” organisms have been swimming, hopping and squirming their way into labs at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation: They’re key players in the war against disease.
“Humans are incredibly complicated and it’s difficult to do experiments with them, so we have to use animal models instead,” said OMRF researcher David Jones, Ph.D. Read more.
Published by edmondsun.com December 26, 2016
New Ebola Vaccine Gives 100 Percent Protection
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
DECEMBER 22, 2016
Health workers in November 2015 with Mibemba Soumah, infected by Ebola, at a treatment center in Conakry, Guinea.
Photo Credit: SAMUEL ARANDA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
In a scientific triumph that will change the way the world fights a terrifying killer, an experimental Ebola vaccine tested on humans in the waning days of the West African epidemic has been shown to provide 100 percent protection against the lethal disease.
The vaccine has not yet been approved by any regulatory authority, but it is considered so effective that an emergency stockpile of 300,000 doses has already been created for use should an outbreak flare up again. Read more.
Animals can do ‘almost math’
Scientists are searching for the evolutionary roots of human math in the barnyard and the zoo
By: Susan Milius Dec 12, 2016 — 7:00 am EST
Cats and other animals show quantity-related abilities. Without training, kitties can pick out differences between groups of a few small objects, such as 2 versus 5. However, the felines may be using visual shortcuts.
Photo Credit: S. Zielinski and B. Brookshire
When Christian Agrillo runs number-related experiments in his lab, he wishes his undergraduate subjects good luck. For certain tests, that’s about all he says. Giving instructions to the people would be unfair to the fish.
Yes, fish.
Agrillo works at the University of Padua in Italy. There, he studies how animals process information. He is finishing up several years of pitting humans against fish in trials. Those trials test their abilities to compare quantities. He can’t, of course, tell his angelfish to choose, say, the larger array of dots. He can’t tell them to do anything. So in recent tests he made his bemused students use trial and error too, just like the fish. Read more.
Scientists accelerate immune response to tuberculosis in mice
This photomicrograph reveals Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria using acid-fast Ziehl-Neelsen stain; Magnified 1000 X. The acid-fast stains depend on the ability of mycobacteria to retain dye when treated with mineral acid or an acid-alcohol solution such as the Ziehl-Neelsen, or the Kinyoun stains that are carbolfuchsin methods specific for M. tuberculosis. Photo Credit Medical Express
New research findings provide insight into the immune system pathways that may be key to developing an effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccine. The study, to be published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications, was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Globally, an estimated 10.4 million new TB cases occurred in 2015, according to the World Health Organization. A TB vaccine called bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is currently used in countries with a high prevalence of TB to prevent severe forms of the disease in children. However, the protection provided against pulmonary TB in adults is very variable, and people vaccinated with BCG are more likely to give false positives on skin tests for TB. Read More.
Beating Alzheimer’s With Brain Waves
Written by Ed Yong
Neurons firing. Photo courtesy of The Atlantic and Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
When a crowd starts to applaud, each person initially does so to their own rhythm. But in some cases, those claps can synchronize, with hundreds or thousands or millions of hands striking in unison.
Something similar happens in the brain. When a single neuron fires, it sends an electrical pulse down its length. But large networks of neurons can also fire together, creating regular cycles of electrical activity that resemble the synchronized applause of a rapturous crowd. Formally, these are called neural oscillations; more colloquially, they’re brain waves. Read more.
Parkinson’s disease ‘may start in gut’
By James Gallagher
Health and science reporter, BBC News website
Immune cells in the brain – microglia – may be activated by bacteria in the gut. Photo courtesy of BBC News and CALTECH.
Scientists in California say they have transformed understanding of Parkinson’s disease.
Their animal experiments, published in the journal Cell, suggest the brain disorder may be caused by bacteria living in the gut.
The findings could eventually lead to new ways of treating the disease, such as drugs to kill gut bugs or probiotics.
Experts said the results opened an “exciting new avenue of study”. Read more.
Published by BBC News December 2, 2016
Rats giggle when tickled — but only when the mood is right
By ERIC BOODMAN
At parties and bars, he introduces himself as a “rat tickler.”
The title makes Shimpei Ishiyama sound like he belongs in some forgotten guild of yore, with the Victorian “pure-finders,” who collected dog dung for a living, and the “flankers and flaggers,” who kept partridges in the range of hunters’ guns.
But he is, in actual fact, a neuroscientist, and his rat-tickling is anything but antiquated. By trying to titillate these rodents — and recording how their neurons respond — Ishiyama and his adviser are unraveling a mystery that has puzzled thinkers ever since Aristotle posited that humans, given their thin skin and unique ability to laugh, were the only ticklish animals. Read more.