News by Subject Biology

Waterpipe tobacco smoking, otherwise known as 'hookah' or 'shisha,' is becoming increasingly popular worldwide, especially among youth. Traditional hookahs burn charcoal as a heat source, but recently, electrical heating elements (EHEs) have been introduced to the market. Reinforced by product advertising and package labeling, many hookah smokers believe that EHEs are less harmful than charcoal. Now, researchers report in ACS' Chemical Research in Toxicology that although EHEs reduce some toxicants, they increase others.

Researchers in the UK have developed a new method for evaluating plutonium workers' historical internal radiation exposure in a study funded by the National Institute for Health Research. They focused their efforts on workers employed at the start of plutonium operations at the Sellafield (formerly Windscale) nuclear reprocessing facility in the UK.

Research at the Clemson University Center for Human Genetics is revealing new insights into how genes impact drug use and addiction through a novel study of susceptibility to the effects of cocaine and methamphetamine in fruit flies.

Pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) are natural constituents detected all over the world in more than 350 plant species and suspected to occur in more than 6,000. Plants produce them as a defence against predators. Out of more than 660 known PA and similar compounds, the 1,2- unsaturated PA in particular have a health-damaging potential. Consequently, they are undesired in foods and feeds.

Brazilian researchers combined cognitive dysfunction tests with an analysis of drug use patterns to identify patients at high risk of relapse after treatment.

Less chemotherapy is as effective at controlling disease for elderly or frail patients with advanced cancer of the stomach or oesophagus (food pipe), and leads to fewer side effects such as diarrhoea and lethargy. These are the results of a Cancer Research UK funded study, presented prior to the ASCO conference today (Wednesday).