Science and Health News

In most societies, surnames are passed on from father to son, just like the Y chromosome. This suggests that men who share the same surnames may have Y chromosomes that are related to one another. A new study analyses this correlation in Spain and reveals that a large number of men who are bearers of the same unusual surnames are distant relatives.

Rikkunshito, a traditional Japanese herbal medicine, buffers the effects of ageing in mice by upping levels of the 'hunger hormone' ghrelin, according to a study by Japanese scientists. Their findings are similar to earlier research that also increased ghrelin levels and slowed ageing, leading the researchers to suggest that ghrelin — made when our stomach is empty and causes us to feel hungry — plays a key role in fending off ageing-related problems such as vascular disease.

A team of Rochester scientists has, for the first time, identified and isolated a stem cell population capable of skull formation and craniofacial bone repair in mice-achieving an important step toward using stem cells for bone reconstruction of the face and head in the future, according to a new paper in Nature Communications.

For older adults, driving a car is an important aspect of having control over one’s life. While 81 percent of the 29.5 million U.S. adults aged 65 and over continue to hold a license and get behind the wheel, age-related declines in cognition and physical function make driving more difficult, and many seniors reduce or eventually stop driving altogether. 

Researchers at Tulane University and Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System have developed a painkiller that is as strong as morphine but isn’t likely to be addictive and with fewer side effects, according to a new study in the journal Neuropharmacology.

Detecting molecular alterations in early breast cancer development is key in the development of more effective cancer prevention and early detection strategies. New research funded by The Eve Appeal and the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme, published today in science journal Nature Communications shows clear evidence that DNA changes are already present in the healthy tissue from women with breast cancer.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA-A new study from the Gladstone Institutes shows for the first time that impairments in mitochondria-the brain’s cellular power plants-can deplete cellular energy levels and cause neuronal dysfunction in a model of neurodegenerative disease.

Cancer is caused by the growth of an abnormal cell which harbours DNA mutations, «copy errors» occurring during the DNA replication process. If these errors do take place quite regularly without having any damaging effect on the organism, some of them affect a specific part of the genome and cause the proliferation of the mutant cell, which then invades the organism. A few years ago, scientists have identified an important mutagen which lies in our own cells: APOBEC, an endogenous protein that usually functions as protecting agent against viral infection. Today, a team of Swiss and Russian scientists led by Sergey Nikolaev, geneticist at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has deciphered how APOBEC takes advantage of a weakness in our DNA replication process to induce mutations in our genome.