Daily Research

Women who regularly use permanent hair dye could be increasing their risk of breast cancer up to 60 percent, according to scientists writing in the  International Journal of Cancer . A study based on the medical records of more than 45,000 women found a positive correlation between permanent hair dye and breast cancer—particularly among those who are black. While the paper is based on patterns and trends and, as such, doesn't confirm a direct cause, it adds to research suggesting there may be carcinogens lurking in commonly-used beauty products. "The results do not surprise me," Otis W. Brawley, medical oncologist and epidemiologist at the Hopkins-Kimmel Cancer Center, told  Newsweek . "Many of us have worried that the chemicals in especially the permanent hair dyes and hair straighteners have the potential to cause cancer." Taken as a group women who regularly dyed their hair appeared to be increasing their risk of developing breast cancer by 9 pe...

A new VCU study identifies “a distinctly American phenomenon” as mortality among 25 to 64 year-olds increases and U.S. life expectancy continues to fall. Mortality rates among working-age Americans continue to climb, causing a decrease in U.S. life expectancy that is severely impacting certain regions of the United States, according to a  Virginia Commonwealth University  study set to publish Tuesday in JAMA. The report, “ Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017, ” is one of the most comprehensive 50-state analyses of U.S. mortality. Deaths among Americans ages 25 to 64 are increasing, particularly in Rust Belt states and Appalachia. These deaths, which have fueled a decline in U.S. life expectancy since 2014, are linked to several major causes of death. Compared to the 1990s, working-age adults are now more likely to die before age 65 from drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and suicides — sometimes referred to as “deaths of despair”— but also f...

Researchers traced neural connections in a newly discovered brain region of mantis shrimp, gaining new insights into how the fierce predators are able to make sense of a breathtaking amount of visual input. A study involving scientists at the University of Arizona and the University of Queensland provides new insight into how the small brains of mantis shrimp - fierce predators with keen vision that are among the fastest strikers in the animal kingdom - are able to make sense of a breathtaking amount of visual input. The researchers examined the neuronal organization of mantis shrimp, which are among the top predatory animals of coral reefs and other shallow warm water environments. The research team discovered a region of the mantis shrimp brain they called the reniform ("kidney-shaped") body. The discovery sheds new light on how the crustaceans may process and integrate visual information with other sensory input. Mantis shrimp sport the most complex visual syst...

El Ninos have become more intense in the industrial age, which stands to worsen storms, drought, and coral bleaching in El Nino years. A new study has found compelling evidence in the Pacific Ocean that the stronger El Ninos are part of a climate pattern that is new and strange. It is the first known time that enough physical evidence spanning millennia has come together to allow researchers to say definitively that: El Ninos, La Ninas, and the climate phenomenon that drives them have become more extreme in the times of human-induced climate change. "What we're seeing in the last 50 years is outside any natural variability. It leaps off the baseline. Actually, we even see this for the entire period of the industrial age," said Kim Cobb, the study's principal investigator and professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "There were three extremely strong El Nino-La Nina events in the 50-year period, but i...

New research raises hopes of oral vaccine for dogs, the chief source of transmission to humans Researchers have discovered a way to stop rabies from shutting down critical responses in the immune system, a breakthrough that could pave the way for new tools to fight the deadly disease. Rabies kills almost  60,000 people each year , mostly affecting poor and rural communities. It is hoped that the discovery could lead to new and improved vaccines, including oral vaccines for dogs – which are responsible for the vast majority of transmissions to humans. The study,  published in Cell Reports  and carried out by teams at Monash University and the University of Melbourne, provides crucial information about how the rabies virus targets the body. The researchers believe they are the first to observe how a particular protein made by the rabies virus binds to a critical cellular protein known as Stat1, halting key parts of the immune response. The discovery has allowe...