Beta cells, which make insulin in the human body, do not replicate after the age of 30, indicating that clinicians may be closer to better treating diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is caused by a loss of beta cells by auto-immunity while type 2 is due to a relative insufficiency of beta cells. Whether beta cells replicate after birth has remained an open issue, and is critically important for designing therapies for diabetes.
Heavy smoking in middle age appears to be associated with more than double the risk for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia two decades later, according to a report posted online that will be published in the February 28 print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Current estimates suggest smoking is responsible for several million deaths per year from causes such as heart disease and cancer, according to background information in the article. Although smoking increases risks of most diseases and of death, some studies have shown a reduced risk of Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions among smokers. "The link between smoking and risk of Alzheimer's disease, the most common subtype of dementia, has been somewhat controversial, with some studies suggesting that smoking reduces the risk of cognitive impairment," the authors write.
A new meta-analysis study conducted by Syracuse University Professor Stephanie Ortigue 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.
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.
A new type of sound sensor system has been developed to predict the likelihood of a landslide.
Thought to be the first system of its kind in the world, it works by measuring and analysing the acoustic behaviour of soil to establish when a landslide is imminent so preventative action can be taken.
An international CSIRO-led team of astronomers has developed a new way to weigh the planets in our Solar System -- using radio signals from the small spinning stars called pulsars.
"This is first time anyone has weighed entire planetary systems -- planets with their moons and rings," said team leader Dr David Champion from Germany's Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie.
Galaxies like our own Milky Way formed easily and have also been the largest spiral galaxies in the universe for almost 4 billion years.
This is shown in a new study by associate professor Kambiz Fathi of the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University. The study is now published in the scientific journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Biomedical researchers at the University at Buffalo have engineered adult stem cells that scientists can grow continuously in culture, a discovery that could speed development of cost-effective treatments for diseases including heart disease, diabetes, immune disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.
UB scientists created the new cell lines -- named "MSC Universal" -- by genetically altering mesenchymal stem cells, which are found in bone marrow and can differentiate into cell types including bone, cartilage, muscle, fat, and beta-pancreatic islet cells.
Advances in screening for disease detection, better surgical techniques available to more women, and an increased number of therapies that reduce the risk of relapse in patients with both locally advanced and early stage disease, have collectively contributed to dramatic improvements in breast cancer's survival rates, according to a review of 60 years of patient records at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
The single institution study found increases in both five and 10-year survival at every stage of the disease in every decade studied. Aman Buzdar, M.D., professor in MD Anderson's Department of Breast Medical Oncology presented the data in advance of the 2010 Breast Cancer Symposium.
Healthy people who caught swine flu during the 2009 pandemic may have been protected against developing radiographically (x-ray) confirmed pneumonia by taking the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), concludes a study of cases in China published online in the British Medical Journal.
The researchers also show that oseltamivir treatment was associated with shorter duration of fever and viral RNA shedding (the period when a virus is contagious), although they stress that their findings should be interpreted with caution.
Not even light can escape a black hole's grip, but gas falling into a black hole can heat up and become an intense source of X-rays, at temperatures up to 1,000 times hotter than the sun. Astronomers use the Chandra X-Ray Observatory -- a NASA satellite -- to map these X-ray sources and study their properties
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- They are deep and dense, and not even light can escape their grip. We're talking about black holes, but they may not be as dark as you think.
Combining observations made with ESO's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope, astronomers have uncovered the most powerful pair of jets ever seen from a stellar black hole. This object, also known as a microquasar, blows a huge bubble of hot gas, 1000 light-years across, twice as large and tens of times more powerful than other known microquasars.
The discovery is reported this week in the journal Nature.
McMaster University researchers have discovered a central controller or processing unit (CPU) of a superbug's weaponry.
The team from the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research has revealed that a small chemical, made by the superbug Staphylococcus aureus and its drug-resistant forms, determines this disease's strength and ability to infect.
