Washington, Feb 23 : Spanish researchers have found that defects in skin cell regeneration mechanism may increase the risk of skin cancer.

Telomeres are DNA sequences that cap chromosomes and control the number of times a cell may be copied.

The new study has explained how telomere dysfunction in skin cells can lead to increased skin cancer risk and pigmentation.

London, February 23 : American researchers at the Whitehead Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that they have developed a novel approach to analyse cellular data, and have been gaining new understanding of Parkinson's disease's destructive pathways.

Thus far, the researchers have used the new computational technique to analyse alpha-synuclein, a mysterious protein that is associated with Parkinson''s disease.

London, February 23 : In what may spark a completely new class of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes, University of Oxford researchers have developed a cheap and efficient drug discovery method that can be helpful in identifying a new player in the body''s insulin secretion process.

The researchers say that the new approach may allow small academic labs to search a large database of drugs to find treatments for diabetes and many other diseases.

Washington, Feb 23 : Researchers from University of California, Irvine, have suggested a new approach that may offer a safer and more convenient treatment for patients whose breast cancer spread to their spines.

The team led by orthopaedic researcher Joyce Keyak has found that injecting radioactive bone cement into the vertebral body may help thwart cancer metastases to spine.

"With further development, this technology may yield a clinically feasible procedure that would eliminate the need for 10 radiation therapy sessions, making it more convenient for the patient," said Dr. Keyak.

Washington, Feb 23 : Researchers from Duke University Medical Centre have found certain vital clues to healing arthritis caused by traumatic injury.

They have identified a strain in laboratory mice that has "superhealing" powers, which can help resist inflammation after a knee injury, and avoid developing arthritis at the injury site in the long term.

Washington, Feb 23 : Kids who watch R-rated movies are much more likely to believe it''s easy to get a cigarette than those who don't watch such films, according to a new study.

"We don''t know why this is so. It may have to do with a parenting style that is permissive of activities that are not age-appropriate. Or it may be an outcome of all the smoking scenes in R-rated movies," said lead author of the study Chyke Doubeni, PhD, with the University of Massachusetts Medical School.