Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that practicing even small doses of daily meditation may improve focus and performance.

Meditation, according to Penn neuroscientist Amishi Jha and Michael Baime, director of Penn's Stress Management Program, is an active and effortful process that literally changes the way the brain works. Their study is the first to examine how meditation may modify the three subcomponents of attention, including the ability to prioritize and manage tasks and goals, the ability to voluntarily focus on specific information and the ability to stay alert to the environment.

Topotecan, a cancer inhibitor, interacts with an important protein (TopoIB), causing a (cancer) cell to malfunction. The TopoIB protein is responsible for the removal of loops from DNA, which arise amongst other things during cell division.

The TopoIB protein binds to the DNA molecule, clamps around it and cuts one of the two DNA strands, after which it allows it to unwind and finally joins the broken ends together.

Until now it has been supposed that topotecan only causes the TopoIB protein to reside longer than normal on the DNA molecule, disturbing the cell division and damaging the (cancer) cell. But the researchers at the University of Delft have now discovered that adding topotecan also dramatically impedes the unwinding and that DNA loops accumulate as a result.

Dental enamel is the thin, outer layer of hard tissue that helps maintain the tooth's structure and shape while protecting it from decay.

While eating fruit is important part of a balanced diet, how you eat it may be ruining your teeth, says David Bartlett, BDS, PhD. Frequently consuming foods with a low pH (potential of hydrogen) value, such as fresh fruit, pickles, yogurt, honey, fruit juices and raisins can lead to irreversible dental erosion.

Eventually, because of repeated exposure to acid, the tooth’s enamel will lose its shape and color and as the damage progresses; the underlying dentin, (which is the tissue that makes up the core of each tooth), becomes exposed causing the teeth to look yellow.

New Test Determines if Osteoporosis Treatment Drug May Cause Jawbone to Die.

Breast cancer patients, individuals at risk for osteoporosis, and individuals undergoing certain types of bone cancer therapies often take drugs that contain bisphosphonates. Bisphosphonates may place patients at risk for developing osteonecrosis of the jaws, which is irreversible damage in which the jaw bone rots away.

The future of biolectronics - being able to diagnose diseases, detect poisons and monitor health instantly - may still seem far away, but it may be closer than you think.

Researchers understand what biochemical reactors they need to monitor and they know which microelectronics they would need to use. They have just been unable to combine them because measuring the ions in receptors within cell membranes destroyed the cells being measured.

A team at the Max Planck Institute say they have solved the problem and describe the coupling of a receptor to a silicon chip by means of a cell–transistor interface. True bioelectronics at its most basic level.

Physicians have recognized scoliosis, the abnormal curvature of the spine, since the time of Hippocrates, but its causes have remained a mystery -- until now. For the first time, researchers have discovered a gene that underlies the condition, which affects about 3 percent of all children.

The new finding lays the groundwork for determining how a defect in the gene -- known as CHD7 -- leads to the C- and S-shaped curves that characterize scoliosis.

"Hopefully, we can now begin to understand the steps by which the gene affects spinal development," says Anne Bowcock, Ph.D., professor of genetics, of medicine and of pediatrics at Washington University in St. Louis.