News by Subject Biology

Exposure to fracking chemicals and wastewater promotes fat cell development, or adipogenesis, in laboratory cell models, a Duke-led study finds. Researchers observed increases in the size and number of fat cells after exposing the models to a mixture of 23 common fracking chemicals or to wastewater or surface-water samples containing them, even at diluted concentrations. Adipogenesis occurred through PPARy-dependent and independent mechanisms. More research is needed to assess potential health impacts outside the laboratory.

Past studies have shown that biparental care of offspring can be affected negatively when females and males are exposed to bisphenol A (BPA. In a study published today in the journal PLOS One, researchers at the University of Missouri found that mice pups whose grandparents had been exposed to BPA, had different vocalization patterns. This, in turn, could also affect the amount of parental care they received. Scientists believe results could have important relevance to humans.

More than 500,000 years of life expectancy were lost in Ohio during a seven-year period, according to a study conducted by The Ohio Alliance for Innovation in Population Health (OAIPH) -- a collaborative initiative formed by Ohio University's College of Health Sciences and Professions and the University of Toledo's College of Health and Human Services.

Integrated approaches that avoid the use of animals to assess the toxicity of inhaled materials may include a computational model to screen for chemical reactivity, a human tissue-based assay to predict the absorption of a chemical into the respiratory tract, and other types of advanced systems based on in vitro and in vivo respiratory biology.

In a new study, researchers from Sweden and Britain have investigated how the endocrine-disrupting substance linuron affects reproduction in the West African clawed frog, Xenopus tropicalis. The scientists found that linuron, which is used as a pesticicide, impaired the males' fertility, and that tadpoles developed ovaries instead of testicles to a greater extent, which caused a female-biased sex ratio. The results are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Milk in parts of Ukraine has radioactivity levels up to five times over the country's official safe limit, new research shows.