Research has uncovered alarming evidence that high Arctic ponds, many which have been permanent bodies of water for thousands of years, are completely drying out during the polar summer. These shallow ponds, which dot the Arctic landscape, are important indicators of environment change and are especially susceptible to the effects of climate change because of their low water volume.

Marianne Douglas, Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science and Director of the Canadian Circumpolar Institute at the University of Alberta, and John Smol, Professor of Biology at Queen’s University, studied these unique Arctic ponds for the past 24 years, collecting detailed data such as water quality and water levels from approximately 40 ponds.

On school days, teen boys who play video games appear to spend less time reading and teen girls who play video games appear to spend less time doing homework than those who do not play video games, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Overall, video game players did not spend less time than non-video game players interacting with parents and friends.

“The rapid growth of video game popularity has generated concern among practitioners, parents, scholars and politicians,” according to background information in the article.

Evidence gathered from time-lapse recordings of the formation of early embryos (blastocysts) in the laboratory has revealed why embryos created via IVF and undergoing extended culture are more likely to develop into twins than those created via natural conception.

The first baby to be created from an egg that had been matured in the laboratory, frozen, thawed and then fertilised, has been born in Canada. Three other women are pregnant by the same process. The research was presented to the 23rd annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

The baby girl was born to one of 20 patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) or with ovaries that had been detected to be polycystic by ultrasound (U/S), who took part in the trial at McGill Reproductive Center, Montreal, Canada. The baby is progressing well.

One of the fundamental traits of a tumor – how it avoids the immune system – might become its greatest vulnerability, according to researchers from the University of Southern California. Their findings, demonstrated in human breast and colorectal cancers, indicate that a technique for determining a tumor’s “immune signature,” could be useful for diagnosing and treating specific cancers.

In the July 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, the researchers describe a means for determining which genes have been altered in a tumor to allow it to evade the body’s natural defenses. In time, the researchers believe such analysis could become a standard practice in cancer diagnosis and treatment.

A team of biomedical engineers at Virginia Tech and the University of California at Berkeley has developed a new minimally invasive method of treating cancer, and they anticipate clinical trials on individuals with prostate cancer will begin soon.

The process, called Irreversible Electroporation (IRE), was invented by two engineers, Rafael V. Davalos, a faculty member of the Virginia Tech–Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Science (SBES), and Boris Rubinsky, a bioengineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Electroporation is a phenomenon known for decades that increases the permeability of a cell from none to a reversible opening to an irreversible opening. With the latter, the cell will die.