Researchers at Oxford University’s Department of Materials have devised a new method of coating materials that are to be implanted into bone, resulting in encouraged bone in-growth and bonding while reducing the possibility of loosening implants.

Bone implants are desirable and/or essential in various medical procedures, and are often metallic and secured by an adhesive. Inert materials such as metals do not bond to the surrounding tissue and adhesives eventually degrade, allowing the implan

If you have had a bad nosebleed recently, think back over the last few days. Have you been taking Viagra? If so, it is worth mentioning it to your doctor, say surgeons writing in the August Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Lucy Hicklin and colleagues at St George’s Hospital in London describe two case histories where very severe nosebleeds followed Viagra-enhanced sexual activity, and suggest possible reasons why the two could be connected.

A six-hour nosebleed

The

Excessive use of ‘reliever’ inhalers for asthma is linked to a significantly increased risk of dying from the disease, finds research in Thorax.

The researchers based their findings on over 96,000 patients diagnosed with asthma whose details had been entered anonymously onto the General Practice Research Database between 1994 and 1998.

They calculated the relative risk of dying from asthma – risk for someone with taking a particular medication, compared with someone not taking that

Scientists from Baylor College of Medicine (Texas, USA) and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK) have deciphered how neurons can synthesize a diverse range of proteins from a relatively limited number of genes – a discovery with important implications for understanding how complex neural circuitry is formed and maintained throughout our lives.

A long-standing question in neurobiology is how each of the tens of thousands of neurons that populate the mammalian brain are instruc

Scientists have identified a key regulatory mechanism in the TGF-ß pathway. This discovery by Dr. Kai Lin and colleagues at UMASS Medical School and the University of Mississippi Medical Center helps further our understanding of how this important signaling pathway functions in a variety of cellular processes, including cancer formation and embryonic development.

The work is published in the August 1 issue of Genes & Development.

The TGF-ß pathway is an intracellular signaling pat

While extreme obesity has been associated with heart failure, until now, data have been limited regarding the influence of overweight and lesser degrees of obesity on the risk of this disease. According to a new study supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), excess body weight is strongly and independently associated with an increased risk of heart failure. This risk, which increases continuously with increasing degrees of body weight, is 34 percent higher for overweight in