Gender May Be Reason Why More Men Get Skin Cancer
Ohio State University researchers have found that a naturally occurring amount of antioxidants in females may be the reason that males are three times more likely to get skin cancer.
The university scientists, led by assistant professor Dr. Tatiana Oberyszyn, investigated the incidence of squamous cell cancer -- a common type of skin cancer in humans -- in a controlled experiment on laboratory mice.
According to an Ohio State University news release, the researchers exposed the animals to UVB, a type of ultraviolet light that causes the most damage to the skin. They found that the naturally occurring amount of antioxidants produced by the female mice not only protected them three times as much from squamous malignancy, but also may have caused tumors that developed in females to be smaller than those in the male mice.
"It's given us clear evidence of a biological basis for the gender bias in developing squamous cell carcinoma," Oberyszyn is quoted as saying in the news release.
The study appears in the April 1 issue of the journal Cancer Research.
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Why Isn't Everyone Attractive? UK Scientists Say They Have the Answer
British scientists say they think they've figured out why Darwin's theory of natural selection hasn't made every human good looking.
BBC News reports that New Castle University researchers have discovered a natural mutation in genetic selection that explains why even if the most attractive men and women were selected by their future mates, the so-called "good genes" wouldn't become commonplace and everyone would be pretty or handsome.
The very act of people selecting each other through sexual attraction allows for greater diversity of DNA and genetic makeup, the lead researchers professor Marion Petrie and Dr. Gilbert Roberts maintain.
"We find that sexual selection can promote genetic diversity despite expectations to the contrary," BBC News quotes Petrie as saying.
The findings are published in the latest edition of the journal Heredity.
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Dramatic Increase of Deadly Dengue Fever in Mexico
A particularly deadly type of dengue fever is spreading rapidly in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, caused in part by climate changes and new migration patterns of mosquitoes that carry it.
The Associated Press reports that dengue fever, which causes high fever, nausea, severe joint pain and rashes, has increased by more than 600 percent in Mexico since 2001. To make matters worse, one-in-four cases of dengue is a particularly bad strain, a hemorrhagic type that causes both internal and external bleeding, increasing the chances of fatality.
In addition to the environmental changes, the wire service quotes Mexican health officials as saying that a failure in mosquito control has also caused an increase in dengue fever. An intensified effort to spray with insecticides in tourist areas before the Easter holiday season begins is being made, the A.P. reports.
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Biologic Drug Gets FDA OK to Fight Rare Clotting Disorder
Ceprotin, a protein-based biologic drug that combats a rare clotting disorder, has been given government approval.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration licensed Ceprotin, which the FDA describes as a concentrated form of Protein C, so it can attack a genetic defect that allows potentially life-threatening blood clots to form in the patient's body.
Ceprotin, made by Baxter Healthcare Corp. of Deerfield, Ill., prevents blood clots from forming in people who have the rare Protein C deficiency. According to an FDA news release, clinical trials demonstrated that Ceprotin was effective in stemming dangerous clotting in patients preparing for surgery and patients who were living with the Protein C deficiency.
About two newborns in every one million births have the deficiency, the FDA says, so the drug was granted "orphan drug" status, meaning that the pharmaceutical company was given special financial incentives to develop it.
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Mass. Gov to Ease Stem Cell Restrictions
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said he plans to reverse stem cell research restrictions put in place by his predecessor, Republican Mitt Romney.
Patrick, a Democrat, said Friday at a meeting of the Life Sciences Collaborative that he would ask the Public Health Council to change the stem cell research rules, the Associated Press reported.
"I believe that life sciences should be guided by science, not politics," Patrick said at the gathering of biotechnology officials.
The restrictions put in place last August by Romney, a presidential hopeful, said that embryos could not be created for the sole purpose of using them for research. That prompted complaints from researchers who said that could prohibit them from using some embryonic stem cells, the AP reported.
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HIV Cases in Asia Could Double in Five Years
Unless governments in Asia take action to halt the spread of HIV, the number of people infected with the virus could double within five years, experts warned Friday.
Currently, about 8.6 million people in Asia are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. If current levels of inadequate government response continue, that number could increase to about 20 million within five years, said the independent Commission on Aids in Asia.
The commission, which is funded by UNAIDS, issued the warning during a two-day workshop in Manila, Philippines, the Associated Press reported.
HIV/AIDS kills about 500,000 people a year in Asia and causes financial losses of about $10 billion a year. The commission said the economic cost could reach $29 billion a year if the epidemic is not brought under control within five years.
Despite the serious threat posed by HIV/AIDS, the commission noted that current spending on HIV control in Asia is only about 10 percent of the required $5 billion a year, the AP reported.
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