To help satisfy consumer demand for more natural food products, researchers at Texas A&M University are investigating dried plums as a meat preservative. They are finding that dried plums, when pureed, have a good antioxidant capacity.
Since 2000, five women in North America who had medically induced abortions died from toxic shock caused by a Clostridium sordellii infection. This has led some people to question the safety of the combination of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol frequently used in MIA procedures.
Scientists at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have identified a protein that is critical to the development of inflammation during lung infection in patients with cystic fibrosis. The identification of this protein, called interleukin-23, is an important finding that gives researchers a specific target for developing new therapies.
An electrical imbalance caused by a malfunctioning gene triggers long QT syndrome, a potentially fatal heart rhythm disorder. A mutation in the gene Caveolin-3 can disrupt the heart’s electrical-muscular impulses and increase the risk of sudden cardiac death.
Why do we ignore public warnings and advertisements about the dangers of smoking, drinking alcohol, overeating, stressing out and otherwise persist in habits and behaviours that we know aren’t good for us?
Researchers who thought they had identified the bacterial perpetrator of the often severe disease caused by community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) had better keep looking: Scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have exonerated a toxin widely thought to be the guilty party.
Biologists have learned where and how some plant seeds store iron, a valuable discovery for scientists working to improve the iron content of plants. Their research helps address the worldwide problem of iron deficiency and malnutrition in humans.
An international group of ecologists and economists has shown that the loss of biodiversity is profoundly reducing the ocean’s ability to produce seafood, resist diseases, filter pollutants and rebound from stresses such as overfishing and climate change. Their results are published in this week’s issue of the journal Science.
Following a series of well documented natural disasters with grave human and economic consequences, the ability to predict these devastating events has once more come to the fore as a research priority for the European scientific community.This, amongst other things, is what leading scientists in ocean margin research came together to discuss at the recent EUROMARGINS conference in Bologna, Italy.
The eye can provide a very reliable way of diagnosing cerebral malaria, researchers in Malawi have shown. By looking at the changes to the retina, doctors are able to determine whether an unconscious child is suffering from this severe form of malaria or another, unrelated illness, leading to the most appropriate treatment.