Older adults with anemia are twice as likely to have a significant decline in physical performance that could threaten their independence, report researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in the current issue of the American Journal of Medicine.

“Our results suggest that anemia is an independent risk factor for physical decline, which puts older adults at higher risk for nursing home admission, disability and death,” said Brenda Penninx, Ph.D., associate professor

In an article appearing in a special issue of the Journal of Neuro-oncology, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute describe a complex cell-level process that allows malignant brain tumors to protect themselves by damaging the thymus, rapidly degrading the immune system. In a second article, Institute scientists identify a molecular mechanism that causes cell death of cancer-fighting lymphocytes as they infiltrate a brain tumor.

“We are

Astronomers using ESA’s X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, have discovered a pair of X-ray tails, stretching 3 million million kilometres across the sky. They emanate from the mysterious neutron star known as Geminga. The discovery gives astronomers new insight into the extraordinary conditions around the neutron star.

A neutron star measures only 20-30 kilometres across and is the dense remnant of an exploded star. Geminga is one of the closest to Earth, at a distance of about 500 light-years.

Professor Lance Lanyon, Principal of The Royal Veterinary College, Karla Lee, Helen Jessop, Rosemary Suswillo, Gul Zaman from the Department of Basic Sciences at The Royal Veterinary College have shown in their research that the Estrogen Receptor has a fundamental role in bone cells by adjusting the bone architecture to match the loads individuals place on them. Their paper is published in the latest edition of Nature.

The strain imposed by mechanical loading on bone tissue normally stimulat

The scientist from the Institute of Plants and Animals Ecology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Ural Branch), has made a description of the giant dear remains, found in the Ural, and has determined their age. Giant deer Megaloceros giganteus originated as a species in the preglacial epoch, lived through the glaciation period and died out about 8-9 thousand years ago after the climate had become warmer. The remains will help to investigate how the giant dear lived and why this species disappeared. The r

For decades, scientists have hunted for signals that guide nerve cells’ tentacle-like axons, hoping to understand how these cell tips reach out to distant targets. It’s knowledge that might one day help researchers learn how to rebuild nerves lost to spinal cord injuries or diseases like Huntington’s.

Now, a Johns Hopkins team studying a family of proteins best known for repelling axons and inhibiting their growth reports finding one member that unexpectedly promotes axon growth ins