Researchers have discovered a pivotal new player in early events that commit fat cell precursors to becoming full-blown fat, according to a report in the February issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. Drugs that block some activities of the enzyme, known as xanthine oxidoreductase (XOR), might therefore offer a novel antiobesity therapy designed to fight fat before it even forms, the researchers said.

When cells go about the business of dividing, they can get sidelined. Maybe there aren't enough nutrients. Maybe there aren't the right signals to resume multiplying. Either way, cells go quiet.

Nearly 95 percent of patients admitted to hospital intensive care units are affected by anemia. Consequently, these patients receive a large number of red blood cell (RBC) transfusions in order to restore proper hemoglobin levels. New research shows that alternative treatments may lead to fewer transfusions, conserving critical blood supplies in hospitals. The report is published in Seminars in Dialysis.

Working in the remote forests of Cambodia, conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have just discovered Southeast Asia's only known breeding colony of slender-billed vultures, one of the world's most threatened bird species.

As people age, they may have to exercise even harder to get the benefits afforded to younger folk. That's the suggestion of a report in the February issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press, showing that a signal that gives muscles a kind of metabolic boost in response to exercise is blunted in older animals.

Speed daters who romantically desired most of their potential partners were rejected quickly and overwhelmingly, according to a new Northwestern University study.

Some one hundred years after the first vitamin was named, what is known about them has not translated into beneficial, standardized recommendations for public health, says Irwin Rosenberg, MD, University Professor, and director of the Nutrition and Neurocognition Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University. Based on his presentation at the National Institutes of Health State-of-the- Science Conference "Multivitamin/Mineral Supplements and Chronic Disease Prevention" in 2006, Rosenberg outlines challenges and opportunities to advancing the scientific knowledge of vitamins and minerals in an article published in a January supplement of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

A recent study shows human population size and affluence are the main drivers of human-caused environmental stressors, while urbanization, economic structure and age of population have little effect.

To accurately transport pharmaceutical agents to their specific target organs or cell types, you need a good carrier: nanoscopic capsules with surface elements that can "recognize" the target in question could do the trick.

Video games that contain high levels of action, such as Unreal Tournament, can actually improve your vision.