Berkeley -- The effort to improve food safety by clearing wild vegetation surrounding crops is not helping, and in some cases may even backfire, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. The findings, to be reported Monday, Aug. 10, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, call into question the effectiveness of removing non-crop vegetation as a way to reduce field contamination of fresh produce by disease-causing pathogens. This practice led to extensive loss of habitat in a region that is globally ...

Human memory is the result of different mental processes, such as learning, remembering and forgetting. However, these distinct processes cannot be observed directly. Researchers at the University of Basel now succeeded at describing them using computational models. The scientists were thus for the first time able to identify gene sets responsible for steering specific memory processes. Their results have been published in the current issue of the journal PNAS. Thanks to our memory we are able to learn foreign languages, solve exams and remember beautiful moments from ...

Scientists have found that a newly identified and highly infectious tadpole disease is found in a diverse range of frog populations across the world. The discovery sheds new light on some of the threats facing fragile frog populations, which are in decline worldwide. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, led by the University of Exeter and the Natural History Museum, describes the molecular methods used to test frog tadpoles for a newly identified infectious agent. Tadpoles from six countries across three continents were ...

A new study led by bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego defines the core set of genes and functions that a bacterial cell needs to sustain life. The research, which answers the fundamental question of what minimum set of functions bacterial cells require to survive, could lead to new cell engineering approaches for E. coli and other microorganisms, the researchers said. The findings are published online in the early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of August 10, 2015. This core set of genes is "the smallest common ...

Astronomers at the 29th International Astronomical Union General Assembly will announce on August 14 the discovery of a new transiting "circumbinary" planet, bringing the number of such known planets into double digits. A circumbinary planet orbits two stars, and like the fictional planet "Tatooine" from Star Wars, this planet has two suns in its sky. The discovery marks an important milestone and comes only four years after the first Kepler circumbinary planet was detected. Once thought to be rare or even impossible, these ten discoveries confirm that such planets are ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Remarriages often combine two families into one stepfamily unit. When that stepfamily unit dissolves after a divorce, little is known about the relationships between former stepparents and stepchildren. Now, researchers in the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences found stepchildren's views of former stepparents depended on emotional reactions to the divorce, patterns of support or resource exchanges, and parental encouragement or discouragement to continue step-relationships. Whether stepchildren maintained relationships with their ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Researchers who have revealed a highly efficient way that bacteria use toxins to interrupt the immune response say that until now, the trickery of these toxins has been underappreciated in science. Bacteria harm the body by releasing toxins - proteins that are exceptionally effective poisons. Always targeting essential molecules, toxins typically go after molecules that are either scarce or whose role is to send important signals. In both cases, only a small number of toxins is required to cause damage. In contrast, some toxins appear to deviate from ...

Alexandria, Va., USA - Today, the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) published two reports including a critical review titled "Diet and Dental Caries - the Pivotal Role of Free Sugars Reemphasized." In this study, authors Aubrey Sheiham, University College London, England; and W. Philip James, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, England, demonstrate the sensitivity of cariogenesis (the development of caries) to even very low sugars intakes. In this critical review, the authors reviewed the literature on the role of sucrose ...

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have identified a molecular partnership in pancreatic cancer cells that might help to explain how the disease spreads -- metastasizes -- in some cases. Their findings reveal urgently needed new targets to treat pancreatic cancer, which strikes nearly 50,000 people in the U.S. each year and has only a 5 percent survival rate five years after diagnosis. One of the molecular partners is annexin A2, a protein that scientists say was already linked to poor survival rates in these cancers. In a report published in the Aug. ...

(Broadcast-quality video and infographics available with this story) ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- With more kids online and using cell phones at increasingly younger ages, two issues have quickly climbed higher on the public's list of major health concerns for children across the U.S: sexting and Internet safety. Compared with 2014, Internet safety rose from the eighth to the fourth biggest problem, ahead of school violence and smoking, in the 2015 annual survey of top children's health concerns conducted by the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 10, 2015 - A microscope being developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory will allow scientists studying biological and synthetic materials to simultaneously observe chemical and physical properties on and beneath the surface. The Hybrid Photonic Mode-Synthesizing Atomic Force Microscope is unique, according to principal investigator Ali Passian of ORNL's Quantum Information System group. As a hybrid, the instrument, described in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, combines the disciplines of nanospectroscopy and ...

In emerging economies, where real estate is expensive and space is limited, there has been a boom in multiplex movie theater construction fueled by the conviction that small screens with many show times will increase ticket sales. But new research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business finds that the strategy doesn't always work. In the paper Quality vs. Variety: Trading Larger Screens for More Shows in the Era of Digital Cinema by Chicago Booth Assistant Professor of Marketing Anita Rao and Stanford University Professor Wesley R. Hartmann, researchers ...

A drug candidate that overstimulates proteins crucial for tumor growth shows promise as a new strategy to treat a wide range of cancers. The demands of rapid cell division put a strain on cancer cells, and the approach works by tipping cell stress over the edge. In the August 10 issue of Cancer Cell, American researchers show that the drug candidate inhibits tumor growth in a mouse model of breast cancer and efficiently kills a broad range of human cancer cells. "No prior drug has been previously developed or proposed that actually stimulates an oncogene to promote therapy," ...

Low-income people who struggle to put food on the table also use the health care system more, which means higher health care costs, according to new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "We know that people who have trouble affording the food they need have poorer health in general as well as more chronic disease," states Dr. Valerie Tarasuk, Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. The term "food insecurity" describes inadequate or insecure access to food because of financial constraints. In Canada in ...

As California wildfires burn tree canopies and the forest floors they support, the plants that are replacing the understory are increasingly those found in more southern areas of the West, according to a study from the University of California, Davis. "The plants we're finding underneath our forests are becoming more like those seen in Mexico and Southern California," said lead author Jens Stevens, a postdoctoral scholar with the UC Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment. "Under climate change, we're seeing species from drier, warmer areas increasingly taking over. ...

BOSTON-The term "transgender" has made its way into mainstream media thanks to Caitlyn Jenner, previously known as Bruce Jenner, who came out as a transgender woman earlier this year. But for many physicians, or physicians-in-training, who do not typically treat transgender patients for issues specific to their gender identity, it's still a mystery. Joshua Safer, MD, FACP, endocrinologist at Boston Medical Center and associate professor of medicine and molecular medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), and his colleague Dylan Thomas, MD, conducted an ...

Taking four pain pills an hour instead of four pills a day Need improved, understandable discharge instructions More than 9 million ambulatory surgeries performed annually on seniors CHICAGO --- Patients 65 and older who have ambulatory surgery are much more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days than younger patients, regardless of their health before surgery, reports a new, large national Northwestern Medicine study. The likely cause, based on previous research, is difficulty understanding medication dosing and discharge instructions, as well ...

Results of a 2013 DREAM Challenge - a crowdsourcing initiative for systems biomedicine - have been published in Nature Biotechnology; Hundreds of scientists from around the world pooled their efforts to test how accurately they could predict the effect of toxic compounds in different individuals, or across a population; Combined results achieved a rough estimate of population effects, and methods emerged that may be able to provide real-world benefit in the hazard assessments of new compounds. 10 August 2015 - An international study published in Nature Biotechnology ...

Widespread drought-sensitive butterfly population extinctions could occur in the UK as early as 2050 according to a new study published today in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change. However, the authors conclude that substantial greenhouse gas emission reductions combined with better management of landscapes, in particular reducing habitat fragmentation, will greatly improve the chances of drought-sensitive butterflies flying until at least 2100. The study was led by Dr Tom Oliver from the UK's Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) in collaboration with colleagues ...

An international research collaboration led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has identified the first gene in which mutations cause the common form of mitral valve prolapse (MVP), a heart valve disorder that affects almost 2.5 percent of the population. In a paper receiving advance online publication in Nature, the research team reports finding mutations in a gene called DCHS1 in affected members of three families in which MVP is inherited. "This work provides insights into the pathways regulating valve growth and development and implicates a previously ...

A new computational method developed by scientists from the University of Chicago improves the detection of genes that are likely to be causal for complex diseases and biological traits. The method, PrediXcan, estimates gene expression levels across the whole genome - a better measure of biological action than single mutations - and integrates it with genome-wide association study (GWAS) data. PrediXcan has the potential to identify gene targets for therapeutic applications faster and with greater accuracy than traditional methods. It is described online in Nature Genetics ...

JAMA Internal Medicine will publish a package of articles, along with an author interview podcast, focused on end-of-life, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. The original investigation, research letter, special communication and commentaries are detailed below. In the first article, Marianne C. Snijdewind, M.A., of the VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, and coauthors1 looked at outcomes of requests for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide received by a clinic founded in 2012 to provide the option of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide for patients ...

For the past decade, cutting-edge health care providers and researchers have increasingly pushed to integrate care for mental health and substance use problems within primary medical care for children and adolescents. Their hope is that children and teens who suffer from mental and behavioral disorders would fare better if their pediatricians or family doctors took an active role in linking them with mental health care, particularly when these doctors team up with mental health clinicians to help meet the needs of their young patients. Now, a team of UCLA researchers ...

In research published in Nature Materials, a team led by scientists from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science in Japan has developed a new hydrogel that works like an artificial muscle--quickly stretching and contracting in response to changing temperature. They have also managed to use the polymer to build an L-shaped object that slowly walks forward as the temperature is repeatedly raised and lowered. Hydrogels are polymers that can maintain large quantities of water within their networks. Because of this, they can swell and shrink in response to changes in ...

(Boston)-- Former National Football League (NFL) players who started playing tackle football before the age of 12 were found to have a higher risk of altered brain development compared to those who started playing at a later age. The study is the first to demonstrate a link between early exposure to repetitive head impacts and later life structural brain changes. Led by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), the study appears online in the Journal of Neurotrauma. The researchers examined 40 former NFL players ...