news 2013

Scientists have for the first time provided proof of principle for a drug-based treatment of acute pancreatitis - a disease for which currently there is no treatment. Each year around 20,000 people in the UK are admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis. One in five of these cases are severe, resulting in around 1000 deaths annually.

Study from Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry shows no evidence to support an effect of the main active constituent of cannabis on MS progression: but there may be some benefit to those at the lower end of the disability scale. The first large non-commercial clinical study to investigate whether the main active constituent of cannabis (tetrahydrocannabinol or THC) is effective in slowing the course of progressive mul

Salmonella bacteria - most frequently spread to humans by infected food - that develop a resistance to one group of antibiotics are also less susceptible to killing by other, unrelated antibiotics and a biocide used in common household items, including soap and washing up liquid, new research from the University of Birmingham has shown.

For the first time scientists have identified how a pathway in the brain which is unique to humans allows us to learn new words. The average adult's vocabulary consists of about 30,000 words. This ability seems unique to humans as even the species closest to us - chimps - manage to learn no more than 100.

22 Jul 2013 High levels of arsenic in rice have been shown to be associated with elevated genetic damage in humans, a new study has found. Over the last few years, researchers have reported high concentrations of arsenic in several rice-growing regions around the world. Now, University of Manchester scientists working in collaboration with scientists at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology in Kolkata, have proven a link between rice containing high levels of arsenic and chromosomal damage, as measured by micronuclei* in urothelial cells, in humans consuming rice as a staple.

UCL scientists have carried out the first successful transplant of light-sensitive photoreceptor cells extracted from a synthetic retina, grown 'in a dish' from embryonic stem cells. When transplanted into night-blind mice these cells appeared to develop normally, integrating into the existing retina and forming the nerve connections needed to transmit visual information to the brain.

Researchers at UCL and University College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust are involved in a landmark study to unlock the secrets of lung cancer, tracking in real time how lung tumours develop and evolve as patients receive treatment. This is one of the largest ever studies of lung cancer patients globally and over nine years it will examine exactly how lung cancers mutate, adapt and become resistant to treatments.

The mystery of the hexagonal shape of honeycomb cells has been revealed by simple mechanics. The honeybee comb is a widely studied natural cellular structure. The rounded hexagonal shape of its cells has intrigued natural scientists and philosophers for millennia. They have suggested many explanations some of which would need the bees to have an uncanny ability ("forethought" according to Pappus of Alexandria in 4 AD) to perform mathematical calculations or the magical quality to measure lengths and angles.

The discovery of a protein that encourages blood vessel growth, and especially 'bad' blood vessels - the kind that characterise diseases as diverse as cancer, age-related macular degeneration and rheumatoid arthritis - has been reported in the journal Nature . The team at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology discovered the new protein, called LRG1, by screening for mouse genes that are over-expressed in abnormal retinal blood vessels in diseased eyes.

Bees under threat from disease-carrying bumblebee imports, research reveals Stricter controls over bumblebee imports to the UK are urgently required to prevent diseases spreading to native bumblebees and honeybees, University of Sussex scientists have warned. The call follows the discovery of parasites in over three-quarters of imported bumblebee colonies tested.

18 Jul 2013 Manchester is set to play a key role in a world-first Cancer Research UK study that will unlock lung cancer's secrets. The project, involving experts from the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Manchester, The Christie and the University Hospital South Manchester, will track how lung tumours develop and evolve in real time as patients receive treatment.

We may have more in common with pigeons than previously thought, according to research showing both animals' brains are wired in a similar way. A researcher from Imperial College London and his colleagues have developed for the first time a map of a typical bird brain, showing how different regions are connected together to process information.

A 30-million-year-old fossil has revealed how remoras - also called sharksuckers - evolved the sucker that enables them to stick to other fish and 'hitch a ride'. Previous evidence, such as the segmented structure of the sucker and how it develops in a similar way to fins in normal fish, led scientists to believe that it must be a modified dorsal fin - the fin located on the back of normal fish.

A pandemic that is threatening amphibian populations around the world could be intensifying in virulence as it spreads according to new research. The chytrid fungus is responsible for the major decline in frog populations most notably in Australia and Central America. Now a new study by academics from Plymouth University and James Cook University, Queensland, has found that evolution and climate change could be contributing to the intensification of the disease.

Senses of smell and vision interact in the eye, Sussex researchers find New research by Sussex neuroscientists suggests that the interaction between smell and sight occurs not just in the brain, but starts in the eye. The study, carried out by Professor Leon Lagnado's research group in the School of Life Sciences and published in the journal Neuron , has furthered our understanding of how the senses interact with one another.

A new study says Europe's first farmers used far more sophisticated practices than was previously thought. A research team led by the University of Oxford has found that Neolithic farmers manured and watered their crops as early as 6,000 BC. It had always been assumed that manure wasn't used as a fertiliser until Iron Age and Roman times.

An international team of researchers has discovered why people with a variation of the FTO gene that affects one in six of the population are 70 per cent more likely to become obese. A new study led by scientists at UCL, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and King's College London Institute of Psychiatry shows that people with the obesity-risk FTO variant have higher circulating levels of the 'hunger hormone', ghrelin, in their blood.

Researchers in Oxford have demonstrated a significant improvement in the treatment of advanced Parkinson's disease with deep brain stimulation. Deep brain stimulation involves permanently inserting electrodes into the brain to deliver electrical impulses that cancel out the brain signals causing symptoms of Parkinson's.

Unlike their male counterparts, the female Heliconius butterflies have taste receptors on their legs in order to pick the best plants on which to lay their eggs. It appears that a new set of taste receptor genes have evolved to help identify toxic plants and are used by females to find the plant that will increase their caterpillars chance of survival.

New research backs the idea that a group of celibate animals can survive without sex because they can dry up and lie dormant to evade disease. Published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B , the study looked at microscopic organisms called bdelloid rotifers, which reproduce by laying eggs that hatch into identical clones of themselves.