Futurity.org » University of Toronto

Chip diagnoses infection in minutes, not days

Michael Kennedy-Toronto — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:32:45 +0000

U. TORONTO (CAN) — An electronic chip can analyze blood and other clinical samples for infectious bacteria faster than ever before.

Life-threatening bacterial infections cause tens of thousands of deaths every year in North America. Current methods of culturing bacteria in the lab can take days to report the specific source of the infection, and even longer to pinpoint the right antibiotic.

Are self-fertilizing plants their own worst enemy?

Sean Bettam-Toronto — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:00:42 +0000

U. TORONTO (CAN) — It’s called self-fertilizing or “selfing” and, while it guarantees reproduction, plants that practice it may be contributing to their own demise.

New research shows that self-fertilizing can lead to reduced diversity and the accumulation of harmful mutations across the plant’s genome that can arise more rapidly than previously thought.

Will gift cards bring in more blood donors?

Patrick Ercolano-JHU — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:20:50 +0000

JOHNS HOPKINS (US) / U. TORONTO (CAN) — Gift cards, time off from work, and other economic incentives increase blood donations without risking patient safety, a new study shows.

The findings should prompt the World Health Organization and national blood collection agencies to rethink opposition to incentives for much-needed blood donations, say three economists who conducted the study.

Biology can’t run on genes alone

Pat Bailey-UC Davis — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:57:00 +0000

UC DAVIS (US) — Don’t lose the organism in the excitement over its genes, say biologists, who caution against straying too far from the actual plants, animals, and microorganisms.

The team suggests that decades of focus on genes have led the scientific community away from a balanced exploration of the organisms that those genes define.

Plants do better far away from close relatives

Dominic Ali-Toronto — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:36:35 +0000

U. TORONTO (CAN) — Charles Darwin got it right. Plant species that share environments with those that are distantly related are more productive.

The findings by Marc William Cadotte of the University of Toronto Scarborough confirm a prediction made by Darwin in On the Origin of Species, first published in 1859. Darwin wrote that a plot of land growing distantly related grasses would be more productive than a plot with a single species of grass.

Since then, many experiments have shown that multi-species plots are more productive. Cadotte’s experiment showed for the first time that species with the greatest evolutionary distance from one another have the greatest productivity gains.

Children of addicted parents face depression risk

Dominic Ali-Toronto — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:01:08 +0000

U. TORONTO (CAN) — The children of parents who were addicted to drugs or alcohol are more likely to be depressed as adults than their peers, a new study shows.

Investigators examined the association between parental addictions and adult depression in a representative sample of 6,268 adults, drawn from the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey. Of these respondents, 312 had a major depressive episode within the year preceding the survey and 877 reported that while they were under the age of 18 and still living at home that at least one parent who drank or used drugs “so often that it caused problems for the family.”

Results indicate that individuals whose parents were addicted to drugs or alcohol are more likely to develop depression than their peers. After adjusting for age, sex, and race, parental addictions were associated with more than twice the odds of adult depression, says lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and the Department of Family and Community Medicine.

Why getting scared ‘magnifies’ our eyes

Jessica Lewis-Toronto — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:41:00 +0000

U. TORONTO (CAN) — We go wide-eyed with fear because a larger visual field makes it easier to see threats, and the expression can help others spot the source of danger, say researchers.

“Emotional expressions look the way they do for a reason,” says Daniel Lee, a graduate student in the University of Toronto department of psychology. “They are socially useful for communicating emotional states, but they are also useful as raw physical signals. In the case of widened eyes, they help send a clearer gaze signal that tells observers to ‘look there.’”

Lee, his supervisor Adam Anderson, and Joshua Susskind of University of California, San Diego, first found that participants who made wide-eyed fear expressions could literally see more: they were able to discriminate visual patterns farther out in their peripheral vision than participants who made neutral expressions or expressions of disgust.

Fungus adds to asthma for 5 million worldwide

Dominic Ali-Toronto — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:44:31 +0000

U. TORONTO (CAN) — Antifungal treatment could improve the health of an estimated 4,837,000 people with asthma and allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA), according to new research.

The study also re-estimates the total number of asthmatics worldwide—a staggering 193 million sufferers. Twenty-four million asthma sufferers live in the United States, 20 million each in India and China, and seven million in the United Kingdom.

Clinical studies have shown that oral antifungal drugs significantly improve symptoms and asthma control in asthmatics with ABPA. This is the first time that a global estimate of ABPA numbers has been made.

US birth tied to health risks in Mexican-Americans

Dominic Ali-Toronto — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:14:02 +0000

U. TORONTO (CAN) / UC BERKELEY (US) — Mexican-Americans over 55 who were born in the US are significantly more likely than immigrants from Mexico to report limitations in one or more basic physical activities.

A new study shows they have substantial limitations (30 percent versus 25 percent) in walking, climbing stairs, reaching, lifting, or carrying.

Stressed moms make baby squirrels grow faster

Layne Cameron-Michigan State — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:32:17 +0000

MICHIGAN STATE (US) — When the woods get crowded, pregnant squirrels improve their offspring’s odds of survival by ramping up hormones that help their babies grow.

A study showed for the first time how females use social cues to correctly prepare their offspring for life outside the nest. The results, published in Science, confirm that red squirrel mothers boost stress hormone production during pregnancy, which increases the size and the chances of survival of their pups.

“Natural selection favors faster-growing offspring, and female red squirrels react accordingly to increase their pups’ chances of survival,” says Ben Dantzer, formerly with Michigan State University’s zoology department and now at the University of Cambridge.