When a plant dies, its leaves and branches fall to the ground. Decomposition of soil organic matter is then mainly carried out by fungi and bacteria, which convert dead plant materials into carbon dioxide and mineral nutrients. Until now, scientists have thought that high quality organic materials, such as leaves that are rich in soluble sugars, are mainly decomposed by bacteria. Lower quality materials, such as cellulose and lignin that are found in wood, are mainly broken down by fungi. Previous research has also shown that organic material that is broken down by ...

The scientific team of a new biotech company Gero in collaboration with one of the leading academics in the field of aging Prof. Robert J. Shmookler Reis (current world record holder in life extension for model animals - 10 fold for nematodes) has recently brought new insights into biology of aging and age-related diseases, primarily, around the stability and stress resistance of certain gene regulatory networks. The work has just been published as "Stability analysis of a model gene network links aging, stress resistance, and negligible senescence" in Scientific Reports ...

A new method of manufacturing glass could lead to the production of 'designer glasses' with applications in advanced photonics, whilst also facilitating industrial scale carbon capture and storage. An international team of researchers, writing today in the journal Nature Communications, report how they have managed to use a relatively new family of sponge-like porous materials to develop new hybrid glasses. The work revolves around a family of compounds called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which are cage-like structures consisting of metal ions, linked by organic bonds. ...

MANHASSET, NY - Investigators at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have discovered that brain scans can be used to predict patients' response to antipsychotic drug treatment. The findings are published online in the latest issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry. Psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are characterized by delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized thoughts and behavior. They are estimated to occur in up to three percent of the population and are a leading cause for disability worldwide. Psychotic episodes are ...

Young people who identify with the goth subculture might be at increased risk of depression and self-harm, according to new research published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal. The findings show that teenagers who identified very strongly with being a goth at age 15 were three times more likely to be clinically depressed and were five times more likely to self-harm at age 18 than young people who did not identify with the goth subculture. "Our study does not show that being a goth causes depression or self-harm, but rather that some young goths are more vulnerable to ...

Highlights Compared with their sister(s) who had normal blood pressure during pregnancy, women who had hypertension in pregnancy were more likely to develop hypertension later in life. Brothers and sisters of women who had high blood pressure during pregnancy were at increased risk of developing high blood pressure later in life. Brothers, but not sisters, of women who had high blood pressure in pregnancy were also at increased risk of developing heart disease. Hypertension develops in approximately 8% of pregnancies. Washington, DC (August 27, 2015) ...

Licensed tobacco retailers throughout New York City are selling a substantial number of cigarette packs carrying either counterfeit or out-of-state tax stamps, finds an investigation by NYU public health researchers. These illegal cigarette sales are more pervasive in independent stores, as opposed to chain stores, according to the study published in the BMJ journal Tobacco Control. "Our research found that illegal cigarettes are regularly available over the counter in New York City," said study author Diana Silver, associate professor of public health at NYU's Steinhardt ...

EL PASO, Texas - A University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) study on children's health has found that fourth and fifth graders who are exposed to toxic air pollutants at home are more likely to have lower GPAs. UTEP researchers analyzed academic performance and sociodemographic data for 1,895 fourth and fifth grade children living in El Paso, Texas that were attending the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD). They used the Environmental Protection Agency's National Air Toxics Assessment to estimate children's exposure to toxic air pollutants, such as diesel exhaust, ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. --A Florida State University engineering professor has developed a new highly efficient and low cost light emitting diode that could help spur more widespread adoption of the technology. "It can potentially revolutionize lighting technology," said Assistant Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Zhibin Yu. "In general, the cost of LED lighting has been a big concern thus far. Energy savings have not balanced out high costs. This could change that." Yu developed this new LED technology using a combination of organic and inorganic materials. ...

Not just anything is allowed to enter the nucleus, the heart of eukaryotic cells where, among other things, genetic information is stored. A double membrane, called the nuclear envelope, serves as a wall, protecting the contents of the nucleus. Any molecules trying to enter or exit the nucleus must do so via a cellular gatekeeper known as the nuclear pore complex (NPC), or pore, that exists within the envelope. How can the NPC be such an effective gatekeeper--preventing much from entering the nucleus while helping to shuttle certain molecules across the nuclear envelope? ...

The Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM core satellite has provided meteorologists with a look at the towering thunderstorms and heavy rainfall occurring in Tropical Storm Erika as it moves through the Caribbean Sea. On August 27, 2015, there were many warnings and watches in effect as Tropical Storm Erika continued to rain on Leeward Islands. A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for Anguilla, Saba and St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, Montserrat, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, U.S. Virgin Islands, ...

A University of Oklahoma astrophysicist and his Chinese collaborator have found two supermassive black holes in Markarian 231, the nearest quasar to Earth, using observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The discovery of two supermassive black holes--one larger one and a second, smaller one--are evidence of a binary black hole and suggests that supermassive black holes assemble their masses through violent mergers. Xinyu Dai, professor in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, OU College of Arts and Sciences, collaborated on this project ...

Alexandria, Va., USA - Today, the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) published a Discovery! article titled "10 Years of a National Oral Health Policy in Brazil: Innovation, Boldness and Numerous Challenges." In it, authors Gilberto Alfredo Pucca, Jr., University of Brasília; and Mariana Gabriel, Maria Ercilia de Araujo and Fernanda Campos Sousa de Almeida, University of São Paulo, discuss Brazil's National Policy of Oral Health, also known as "Smiling Brazil." Brazil is the only country with more than 200 million inhabitants ...

KINGSTON - Queen's University developmental psychology professor Stanka Fitneva has co-authored a study in the journal Science that, for the first time, explores the replicability of psychology research. The Reproducibility Project: Psychology, launched nearly four years ago, is one of the first crowdsourced research studies in the field. The researchers' most important finding was that, regardless of the analytic method or criteria used, fewer than half of their studies produced the same findings as the original study. "This is a unique project in psychology, and ...

Scientists can now watch dynamic biological processes with unprecedented clarity in living cells using new imaging techniques developed by researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus. The new methods dramatically improve on the spatial resolution provided by structured illumination microscopy, one of the best imaging methods for seeing inside living cells. The vibrant videos produced with the new technology show the movement and interactions of proteins as cells remodel their structural supports or reorganize their membranes to take up ...

A study that sought to replicate 100 findings published in three prominent psychology journals has found that, across multiple criteria, independent researchers could replicate less than half of the original findings. In some cases this may call into question the validity of some scientific findings, but it may also point to the difficulty of conducting effective replications and achieving reproducible results. The results of this review study, conducted by more than 270 researchers on five continents, are published in the Aug. 28 issue of the journal Science. Twenty-two ...

This news release is available in Japanese. Following one of the largest-scale scientific reproducibility investigations to date, a group of psychology researchers has reported results from an effort to replicate 100 recently published psychology studies; though they were able to successfully repeat the original experiments in most all cases, they were able to reproduce the original results in less than half, they report. The authors - part of the Reproducibility Project: Psychology, and led by Brian Nosek - emphasize that a failure to reproduce does not necessarily ...

This news release is available in Japanese. Researchers have significantly extended the resolution of live-cell Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM), a type of microscopy that offers many benefits compared to other super resolution techniques. The results are already providing a much more detailed understanding of cell processes and could have important implications for health research. Currently, many other super resolution microscopes come with pitfalls; for example, localization microscopy and stimulated emission depletion microscopy must use high ...

This news release is available in Japanese. In the attempt to choose a mate, it's no surprise that females will select the more "attractive" of two males, but now a new study reveals that female túngara frogs are susceptible to the "decoy" effect, where the introduction of a third, inferior mate results in the female choosing the less attractive of the first two options. The results of this study counter the rational choice models that are currently used in sexual selection theory, suggesting they may prove inadequate to explain decisions in socially ...

HOUSTON - (Aug. 27, 2015) - Rice University scientists have made a living circuit from multiple types of bacteria that prompts the bacteria to cooperate to change protein expression. The subject of a new paper in Science, the project represents the first time the Rice researchers have created a biological equivalent to a computer circuit that involves multiple organisms to influence a population. The researchers' goal is to modify biological systems by controlling how bacteria influence each other. This could lead to bacteria that, for instance, beneficially alter ...

Before Ibuprofen can relieve your headache, it has to dissolve in your bloodstream. The problem is Ibuprofen, in its native form, isn't particularly soluble. Its rigid, crystalline structures -- the molecules are lined up like soldiers at roll call -- make it hard to dissolve in the bloodstream. To overcome this, manufacturers use chemical additives to increase the solubility of Ibuprofen and many other drugs, but those additives also increase cost and complexity. The key to making drugs by themselves more soluble is not to give the molecular soldiers time to fall in ...

As President Obama and high-level representatives of other nations converge in Anchorage, Alaska on August 30-31 for the Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience (GLACIER), hosted by the U.S. Department of State, top U.S. climate scientists urge policymakers to address the critical problem of the thawing permafrost in the Arctic region. Arctic permafrost - ground that has been frozen for many thousands of years - is now thawing because of global climate change, and the results could be disastrous and irreversible. ...

Degenerating neurons in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) measurably responded to an experimental gene therapy in which nerve growth factor (NGF) was injected into their brains, report researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in the current issue of JAMA Neurology. The affected neurons displayed heightened growth, axonal sprouting and activation of functional markers, said lead author Mark H. Tuszynski, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Neurosciences, director of the UC San Diego Translational Neuroscience Institute and a neurologist ...

Collisions with wind turbines kill about 100 golden eagles a year in some locations, but a new study that maps both potential wind-power sites and nesting patterns of the birds reveals sweet spots, where potential for wind power is greatest with a lower threat to nesting eagles. Brad Fedy, a professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, and Jason Tack, a PhD student at Colorado State University, took nesting data from a variety of areas across Wyoming, and created models using a suite of environmental variables and referenced them against areas ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida State University researchers have taken a big step forward in the fight against cancer with a discovery that could open up the door for new research and treatment options. Fanxiu Zhu, the FSU Margaret and Mary Pfeiffer Endowed Professor for Cancer Research, and his team uncovered a viral protein in the cell that inhibits the major DNA sensor and thus the body's response to viral infection, suggesting that this cellular pathway could be manipulated to help a person fight infection, cancer or autoimmune diseases. They named the protein KicGas. "We ...