University of Utah
Providence, RI---In 1994, University of Utah mathematician Ken Golden went to the Eastern Weddell Sea for the Antarctic Zone Flux Experiment. The sea's surface is normally covered with sea ice, the complex composite material that results when sea water is frozen.
The Seismological Society of America (SSA) is an international scientific society devoted to the advancement of seismology and its applications in understanding and mitigating earthquake hazards and in imaging the structure of the earth.
SALT LAKE CITY - University of Utah researchers have found that delayed-enhancement magnetic resonance imaging (DE-MRI) holds promise for predicting treatment outcomes and measuring disease progression for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), a little known heart rhythm disorder that affects more than 3.5 million Americans and causes more than 66,000 deaths a year.
SALT LAKE CITY - When locked in mortal combat with infection, some mature white blood cells have a formidable weapon: they literally cast a DNA net--called a neutrophil extracellular trap (NET)--that captures and kills bacteria that invade the human body.
Hormonal changes and diminished sexual quality of life among obese men are related to the degree of obesity, and both are improved after gastric bypass surgery according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
A new review article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons should help convince many patients with low back pain to consider physical therapy as a first line of treatment for their condition, according to the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA).
If you have been stuck in traffic behind a motorist yakking on a cellular phone, a new University of Utah study will sound familiar: When young motorists talk on cell phones, they drive like elderly people, moving and reacting more slowly and increasing their risk of accidents.
Computer simulations show a close encounter with a passing star about 4 billion years ago may have given our solar system its abrupt edge and put small, alien worlds into distant orbits around our sun. Researchers simulated what would have happened if our sun and another star in our Milky Way galaxy had passed a relatively close 14 billion to 19 billion miles from each other a few hundred million years after our solar system formed. At that time, our solar system was a swirling ''planetary disk'' of gas, dust and rocks, with planets newly formed from the smaller materials.
Gene mutations that impair the ability of photoreceptor cells to properly dispose of waste -- and as a result cause the blinding eye disease retinitis pigmentosa -- have been identified by vision researchers at the University of Utah's Moran Eye Center. The discovery raises concerns that carbonic anhydrase inhibitors (medications often used to treat both heart and eye diseases) may adversely affect vision. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is one of the most common causes of blindness. It affects one in 3,500 people or approximately two million people worldwide. Patients with RP typically are diagnosed with night blindness and, as the disease progresses, they eventually lose all of their peripheral vision and a significant portion of their central vision.
A new study assembles evidence that humans evolved and human anatomy looks the way it does because our ancestors were more likely to survive if they could run. Humans evolved from ape-like ancestors because they needed to run long distances -- perhaps to hunt animals or scavenge carcasses on Africa's vast savannah -- and the ability to run shaped our anatomy, making us look like we do today.
Vision researchers at the University of Utah's John A. Moran Eye Center have discovered a gene mutation responsible for causing a rare disease in four generations of a single Utah family. The disease, which is informally being called Beehive Syndrome because of its connection to Utah (the Beehive State), causes both vision and hearing loss in patients. Officially, patients with the disease are described as suffering from optic atrophy (optic nerve degeneration), deafness, ptosis (drooping of the upper eyelid), and ophthalmoplegia (loss of eye movement).
Deaths from cardiac valve diseases appear to run in families, suggesting a significant genetic component, according to a study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. ?These findings suggest that unknown genetic factors contribute to death due to mitral valve disease and death due to non-rheumatic aortic valve disease,? said Benjamin Horne, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. candidate in genetic epidemiology at the University of Utah?s department of medical informatics in Salt Lake City. ?Future studies will attempt to discover the genes responsible for such risk.?
A new study showing how lice evolved with the people they infested reveals that a now-extinct species of early human came into direct contact with our species about 25,000 years ago and spread the parasites to our ancestors. The study found modern humans have two genetically distinct types of head lice. One type is found worldwide and evolved on the ancestors of our species, Homo sapiens. The second type is found only in the Americas, evolved on another early human species (possibly Homo erectus) and jumped to Homo sapiens during fights, sex, sharing of clothes or perhaps cannibalism.
Mutations in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) tumor suppressor gene have been found to cause 85 percent of colon cancers. Now researchers know why. In a new paper, they explain that APC controls the conversion of dietary vitamin A into retinoic acid. If this process is impaired, colon cancer can result. ''For a long time, scientists believed they knew what the APC gene did -- that it regulated cell growth and division -- but now we know we've been missing a big piece of the picture. What we didn't know was that it converts vitamin A into retinoic acid, which is vital for normal colon cell development.''
Hotspots in two areas of a gene that encodes a specific signaling enzyme, or kinase, are vulnerable to a variety of mutations found in five types of brain cancers, according to a report published in the August 1 issue of the journal Cancer Research. Mutations in the gene PIK3CA occur spontaneously as part of the brain tumor development rather than being passed genetically between generations, said Hai Yan, M.D., Ph.D., the senior scientist of the studies. ''PIK3CA mutations are known to occur in as much as 30 percent of colorectal and gastric cancers and glioblastomas and they are also present, to a lesser extent, in breast and lung cancer,'' Yan noted. ''Our studies defined the association of mutant PIK3CA gene in a wider spectrum of adult and pediatric brain tumors as well.''
