Scientists reveal the sex wars of the truffle grounds
|
|
They are one of the most highly prized delicacies in the culinary world, but now scientists have discovered that black truffles are locked in a gender war for reproduction. The research, published in New Phytologist as the truffle season begins, represents a breakthrough in the understanding of truffle cultivation and distribution.
The teams, led by Dr Francesco Paolocci and Dr Andrea Rubini from the CNR Plant Genetics Institute in Perugia and by Dr Francis Martin from INRA in Nancy, carried out their research on the reproduction strategy of the highly prized black truffle, Tuber melanosporum, which is grown across southern Europe. During the truffle season, between late autumn and winter, fruiting truffles can grow up to 7cm in diameter, weighing up to 100g with a value often measured in hundreds of Euros.
‘Fruiting’ is the crucial part of the truffle life cycle, occurring when the fungi interacts with and colonises host plants, usually at the roots. However, the process which causes this transition from vegetative to reproductive state remains unknown.
Rubbish crisis making us ill, say Naples residents
|
|
Clutching her sickly 1-1/2-year-old son, Anna Langella says the family doctor had this simple prescription for her: move somewhere else.
Langella says her toddler often vomits and she blames this on the foul smell and toxic waste piling up in a rubbish dump near her house in Terzigno, on the outskirts of Naples where the streets are strewn with mounds of garbage.
“We have to keep the children inside, with the doors and windows shut, but even then it’s not enough,” she told Reuters. “It’s terrible. The state has abandoned us.”
Many women missing out on the benefits of cardiac rehab
|
|
Cardiac rehabilitation is considered the pillar of preventing a second cardiac event yet those who stand to benefit the most – women and the elderly − are often missing out, Dr. Billie Jean Martin told the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2010, co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society.
“These two high-risk but universally undertreated groups are less likely attend cardiac rehab than their younger, male counterparts even when they are referred,” says Dr. Martin, PhD(c) and surgical trainee at University Calgary/Libin Cardiovascular Institute, speaking on behalf of her co-authors at the Cardiac Wellness institute of Calgary and APPROACH. “And when women do attend cardiac rehab, they tend to present later and at a more serious stage of the disease.”
The study of 6,000 people living with cardiovascular disease found that participation in cardiac rehab was associated with a decreased risk of emergency room visits and hospitalization and a significantly lower risk of death.
Practice-changing studies on how oncologists treat cancer to be presented at ASTRO Annual Meeting
|
|
The following are highlights of new cancer research being released at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s (ASTRO) 52nd Annual Meeting to be held October 31 through November 4, 2010, in San Diego.
For full copies of the abstracts and press releases, contact Nicole Napoli at [email protected] or Beth Bukata at [email protected]. Studies are embargoed until October 25, 2010, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time.
Adding radiation to hormone therapy for prostate cancer treatment will increase survival chances
Prostate cancer patients who are treated with a combination of hormone therapy and radiation have a substantially improved chance of survival compared to patients who do not receive radiation, according to interim results of the largest randomized study of its kind presented at the plenary session, November 1, 2010…
Falling in love is ‘more scientific than you think,’ according to new study by SU professor
|
|
A new meta-analysis study conducted by Syracuse University Professor Stephanie Ortigue is getting attention around the world. The groundbreaking study, “The Neuroimaging of Love,” reveals falling in love can elicit not only the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine, but also affects intellectual areas of the brain. Researchers also found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.
Ortigue is an assistant professor of psychology and an adjunct assistant professor of neurology, both in The College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University.
Results from Ortigue’s team revealed when a person falls in love, 12 areas of the brain work in tandem to release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopression. The love feeling also affects sophisticated cognitive functions, such as mental representation, metaphors and body image.
Graco recalls 2 million baby strollers after 4 deaths
|
|
Graco Children’s Products Inc, a unit of Newell Rubbermaid, is recalling about 2 million baby strollers sold before 2008 at major U.S. retailers, after four infants died of strangulation.
The news of the recall of the China-made strollers comes less than three weeks after Mattel Inc’s Fisher-Price recalled some 10 million toys and other items, renewing concerns about safety standards of infant products - a good chunk of which is made in low-cost centers like China.
The latest recall, made along with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, applies to Graco Quattro Tour and MetroLite strollers sold at retailers including Babies R Us, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart between November 2000 and December 2007.
Drug tests encourage unneeded transfusions: study
|
|
Some doctors are ordering unnecessary and potentially risky blood transfusions for cancer patients in order to make them eligible for research studies, researchers said on Wednesday.
Dr. Jeannie Callum of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto and colleagues uncovered the case of a young woman with advanced cancer whose doctor ordered a transfusion even though her hemoglobin level was not low enough to require one.
Tests of new drugs and other treatments often require volunteers to have blood values within certain limits, and the patient’s doctor was trying to alter hers to make her eligible for a study of a new drug.
AACR Colorectal Cancer Conference to Focus on Screening, New Treatments
|
|
The American Association for Cancer Research will hosts its first special conference on Colorectal Cancer: Biology to Therapy from Oct. 27-30, 2010, at the Loews Hotel, Philadelphia.
Colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer in men and women. While screening has brought mortality rates down, much work remains to be done.
“Colorectal cancer is still one of the deadliest cancers, and our current screening methods are not yet always efficient or complete,” said Anil Rustgi, M.D., chief of gastroenterology, T. Grier Miller Professor of Medicine and Genetics, and American Cancer Society Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a program chairperson of the AACR special conference.
Hormone therapy raises breast cancer deaths -study
|
|
Women who took hormone replacement pills had more advanced breast cancers and were more likely to die from them than women who took a dummy pill, raising new concerns about the commonly prescribed drugs, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the first to report more breast cancer deaths among women taking hormone replacement therapy.
And it contradicts prior studies that suggest women taking the drugs had less aggressive, easier-to-treat breast cancers.
Actor Tom Bosley of “Happy Days” dies: report
|
|
Actor Tom Bosley, whose career spanned five decades and included his role as the father of a typical American family on popular 1970s TV comedy “Happy Days,” has died at 83, according to media reports on Tuesday.
Celebrity news website TMZ cited family members as saying Bosley died at his home in Palm Springs, California and recently he had been battling a staph infection.
A spokesman for Bosley was not immediately available for confirmation.
Polish bishops wade into IVF debate
|
|
Bishops of Poland’s influential Roman Catholic Church have branded in vitro fertilisation (IVF) “the younger sister of eugenics” in a letter aimed at swaying lawmakers ahead of a parliamentary debate.
But their intervention, two weeks after the church condemned the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Prize for medicine to IVF pioneer Robert Edwards, triggered an unusually sharp response from lawmakers who say the clergy should not meddle in politics.
“The in vitro method comes at great human cost. To give birth to one child ... many humans suffer death at different stages of the medical process,” said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.
Areva, Gabon launch plan to help ill uranium workers
|
|
Gabon and French mining giant Areva have launched a health initiative to treat more than 1,000 former miners who fell ill after working in a uranium mine in the Central African nation.
The mine workers became ill after working in the COMUF mine, which produced more than 26,000 tonnes of uranium over 38 years and was controlled by Areva from 1986 until it closed down in 1999.
Production stopped due to falling uranium prices but Areva has since secured new permits to look for uranium in the region, in the south of Gabon.
Fish oil no help for mom’s mood, baby’s development
|
|
Fish oil capsules are a cheap and easy way to get omega-3 fatty acids, but they don’t help pregnant women steer clear of postpartum depression.
Nor do they boost mental development in their babies, according to researchers from Australia who tested the effect of daily supplements during the second half of pregnancy—a period that spans the growth spurt in the fetus’ brain.
The researchers gave more than 2,000 women either vegetable oil or fish oil containing docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which earlier studies have hinted—but not proved—might improve pregnancy outcomes.
Climate Change May Alter Natural Climate Cycles of Pacific
|
|
While it’s still hotly debated among scientists whether climate change causes a shift from the traditional form of El Nino to one known as El Nino Modoki, online in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists now say that El Nino Modoki affects long-term changes in currents in the North Pacific Ocean.
El Nino is a periodic warming in the eastern tropical Pacific that occurs along the coast of South America. Recently, scientists have noticed that El Nino warming is stronger in the Central Pacific rather than the Eastern Pacific, a phenomenon known as El Nino Modoki (Modoki is a Japanese term for “similar, but different”).
Last year, the journal Nature published a paper that found climate change is behind this shift from El Nino to El Nino Modoki. While the findings of that paper are still being debated, this latest paper in Nature Geoscience presents evidence that El Nino Modoki drives a climate pattern known as the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO).
Right foods aid memory and protect against disease
|
|
For the first time researchers have found out what effect multiple, rather than just single, foods with anti-inflammatory effects have on healthy individuals.
The results of a diet study show that bad cholesterol was reduced by 33 per cent, blood lipids by 14 per cent, blood pressure by 8 per cent and a risk marker for blood clots by 26 per cent. A marker of inflammation in the body was also greatly reduced, while memory and cognitive function were improved.
“The results have exceeded our expectations! I would like to claim that there has been no previous study with similar effects on healthy subjects”, says Inger Björck, professor of food-related nutrition at Lund University and head of the University’s Antidiabetic Food Centre.
