MANHATTAN, KAN. — When you sit down to watch a new flick, whether you enjoy the movie may depend on the person sitting next to you, according to research from a Kansas State University professor. It’s especially true if you are awkwardly watching a…
MANHATTAN, KAN. — When engineers restore rivers, one Kansas State University professor hopes they’ll keep a smaller engineer in mind: the North American beaver.
Beavers are often called ecosystem engineers because they can radically alter stream …
MANHATTAN, KAN. — Two Kansas State University researchers focusing on rice genetics are providing a better understanding of how pathogens take over a plant’s nutrients.
Their research provides insight into ways of reducing crop losses or developi…
MANHATTAN, KS — For years, gardeners have claimed that putting Bounce® fabric softener sheets in their pockets is an effective way to repel pests like mosquitoes and gnats. Any Internet search will uncover countless articles about the bug-repelli…
MANHATTAN, KAN. — People who believe that fate and chance control their lives are more likely to be superstitious — but when faced with death they are likely to abandon superstition altogether, according to a recent Kansas State University undergr…
Researchers at Kansas State University have successfully transplanted cells from one species to another without triggering an immune system rejection response or requiring drugs to suppress the immune system. This hopeful news for transplant medicine is reported in the online edition of the journal Experimental Neurology, published by Elsevier. Researchers transplanted umbilical cord matrix stem cells from a pig into the brain of a live rat, and for reasons they as yet do not understood, the recipient’s immune system did not detect nor reject the foreign cells, which survived for more than six weeks. No drugs were used to suppress the immune response.
In the last few months, severe acute respiratory syndrome has infected thousands in Asia, traveled to various parts of the world and gained international attention. In April 2003, the disease was conclusively identified as a type of coronavirus unlike any other known human or animal virus in the Coronavirus family.
Sanjay Kapil, a Kansas State University associate professor of diagnostic medicine pathobiology, says human interference with domestic and wild animals could be a factor in the development of the disease.
Samples of the pathogens identified in severe acute respiratory syndrome look similar to coronaviruses found in animals. Because the sequences found in human samples are unique, the virus must have changed substantially when it transferred from animals to humans, Kapil said.
College students frequently have more complex problems today than they did over a decade ago, including both the typical or expected college student problems — difficulties in relationships and developmental issues — as well as the more severe problems, such as depression, sexual assault and thoughts of suicide. That is the finding of a study involving 13,257 students seeking help at a large Midwestern university counseling center over a 13-year period. Some of these increases were dramatic. The number of students seen each year with depression doubled, while the number of suicidal students tripled and the number of students seen after a sexual assault quadrupled.
The cushioning material or matrix within the umbilical cord known as Wharton’s jelly is a rich and readily available source of primitive stem cells, according to findings by a research team at Kansas State University. Animal and human umbilical cord matrix cells exhibit the tell-tale characteristics of all stem cells, the capacity to self-renew and to differentiate into multiple cell types. The cells — called cord matrix stem cells to distinguish them from cord blood cells — can be obtained in a non-invasive manner from an abundant source of tissue that is typically discarded.