In this week's issue of Science, researchers suggest an early human-Neanderthal split. The two species have a common ancestry, say the authors, but do not share much else after evolving their separate ways. The study also finds no evidence of genetic admixture between Neanderthals and humans.
Even after successful treatment for colon cancer, the very obese are about one-third more likely to have their cancer recur and to die prematurely from cancer than those of normal weight. The very thin were also at increased risk of death.
A drug used to treat kidney cancer can prevent the development of pulmonary hypertension in rodents. There is no curative therapy for this condition.
By combining the four bacterial surface proteins that generate the strongest immune response in mice, researchers at the University of Chicago have created a vaccine that significantly protects immunized animals from multiple disease-causing, drug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, the most common cause of hospital-acquired infections and a rapidly spreading source of community-associated illness.
Scientists from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the University of Chicago have uncovered a remarkably well-preserved fossil lamprey from the Devonian period that reveals today's lampreys as "living fossils" since they have remained largely unaltered for 360 million years.
Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who take medications as directed incur 12.5 percent lower medical costs than those who do not report University of Chicago researchers. A second study, however, suggests that there is no simple way to improve compliance.
The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago will host its 18th annual conference on Fri. and Sat., Nov. 10-11, 2006, on the chances of meaningful health care reform and the ethical challenges faced by caregivers and patients.
Researchers have deciphered the 3D structure of insulin-degrading enzyme, a promising target for new drugs because it breaks down not only insulin but also the amyloid-beta protein, which has been linked to the cognitive decline of Alzheimer's disease. The finding is exciting because it suggests ways to speed up this ubiquitous enzyme's activity by as much as 40-fold.
Adding the opiate blocker naltrexone to the combination of behavioral therapy and nicotine patches boosted smoking cessation rates for women by almost 50 percent when assessed after 8 weeks of treatment, but made no difference for men. Naltrexone helped reduce the craving and lessened the discomforts of withdrawal for women. It also reduced weight gain.
Researchers report that a newer operation, the duodenal switch, produced substantially better weight loss in super-obese patients (BMI greater than 50) than gastric bypass, the standard operation. Three years after surgery, 84% of duodenal switch patients had lost more than half of their excess weight, compared to 60% of those treated with gastric bypass.
Short or poor quality sleep is associated with reduced control of blood-sugar levels in people with diabetes, report researchers from the University of Chicago. One inexpensive way to improve the health of patients with type 2 diabetes might be to improve their sleep.
A multi-institutional team of researchers has found that people with long-standing, severe paralysis can generate signals in the area of the brain responsible for voluntary movement and these signals can be detected, recorded, routed out of the brain to a computer and converted into actions -- enabling a paralyzed patient to perform basic tasks.
The first study to assess the benefits of naps for medical residents during extended shifts found that although sleep time increased by only about one hour, interns felt that even small gains in sleep led to substantial improvements in fatigue, sleep quality and ability to care for patients.
The first long-term study shows that treatment with pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine during the first year of life leads to a lasting reduction in brain and eye damage for children born with toxoplasmosis. These findings renew the appeal for screening and early treatment for this infection in pregnant women and newborns.
A new way to preserve the cells that surround and protect nerves could lead to new treatments for demyelinating diseases such a multiple sclerosis.
Although 45 percent of physicians do not inquire about religious belief, 55 percent do; 10 percent of them do so "always." While 81 percent rarely or never pray with patients, 19 percent do. A survey of physicians' religious characteristics found no consensus about what is appropriate, suggesting that physicians will "need to grapple" with these deeply rooted differences.
Linguists have argued that certain patterns of language organization are the exclusive province of humans. These syntactical capacities have been used to define the boundaries between humans and other creatures. Now researchers have discovered the capacity to recognize such patterns in starlings.
Paleontologists have discovered fossils of a species that provides the missing evolutionary link between fish and the first animals that walked out of water onto land about 375 million years ago.
University of Chicago physicians propose the first general framework for withholding or discontinuing medications, adding life expectancy, goals of care, treatment targets and time until benefit to the usual equation of drug plusses and minuses.
Researchers have been able to confirm most but not all of the results of a high-profile study that brought new hope to diabetes patients. This study provides a boost for efforts to reverse type-1 diabetes in recently diagnosed patients but not for efforts to grow new islets from spleens.
Although their genes are virtually identical, humans and chimpanzees differ substantially. This study provides powerful new evidence for a 30-year-old theory, that the differences are due more to changes in gene regulation than differences in individual genes.
Scientists have found strong support that a disturbance of a specific neurochemical can lead to sudden infant death syndrome. They describe what happens during hypoxia when levels of the hormone serotonin are disturbed in the specific group of neurons showed to be responsible for gasping, which resets the normal breathing pattern for babies.
University of Chicago researchers have scanned the entire human genome in search of genetic variations that may signal recent evolution and found more than 700 that may be targets of recent natural positive selection during the past 10,000 years of human evolution.
The Jack Miller Center for Peripheral Neuropathy at the University of Chicago will present its second biennial scientific symposium on the "Frontiers of Peripheral Nerve Research," from 9 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. on Friday, April 28, 2006.
There is no difference between an over-the-counter decongestant and a prescription medication that costs almost four times as much in relieving hay fever symptoms. Daily doses of 240 mg of pseudoephedrine were just as effective as 10 mg daily of montelukast at relieving symptoms without additional side effects.
Five percent of deaths from SIDS in African Americans can be traced to defects in one gene. Half of those deaths result from a common variation that increases an infant's risk of developing an abnormal heart rhythm during times of environmental stress.
A multi-institutional team has taken a crucial step toward understanding and treating Rett syndrome, a rare and often-misdiagnosed neurodevelopmental disorder that affects 1 in 10,000 children, mostly females.
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