Doughnuts, electric current and quantum physics - this will sound like a weird list of words to most people, but for Sebastian Huber it is a job description. ETH-professor Huber is a theoretical physicist who, for several years now, has focused his attention on so-called topological insulators, i.e., materials whose ability to conduct electric current originates in their topology. The easiest way to understand what "topological" means in this context is to imagine how a doughnut can be turned into a coffee cup by pulling, stretching and moulding - but without cutting ...

Hamilton, ON (July 2, 2015) - Two new studies led by researchers from the Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute at McMaster University show that transplantation of fecal matter may be a useful tool in the fight against ulcerative colitis (UC). Ulcerative colitis is a chronic, debilitating inflammatory bowel condition characterized by symptoms including bloody stools, diarrhea, abdominal pain, weight loss and malnutrition. It results from the development of abnormal immune responses to the normal bacteria in the digestive tract. It is difficult to treat ...

NEW YORK, NY (July 2, 2015)--Research from Eric Kandel's lab at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) has uncovered further evidence of a system in the brain that persistently maintains memories for long periods of time. And paradoxically, it works in the same way as mechanisms that cause mad cow disease, kuru, and other degenerative brain diseases. In four papers published in Neuron and Cell Reports, Dr. Kandel's laboratory show how prion-like proteins - similar to the prions behind mad cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in humans - are critical ...

Think you're a foodie? Adventurous eaters, known as "foodies," are often associated with indulgence and excess. However, a new Cornell Food and Brand Lab study shows just the opposite -adventurous eaters weigh less and may be healthier than their less-adventurous counterparts. The nationwide U.S. survey of 502 women showed that those who had eaten the widest variety of uncommon foods -- including seitan, beef tongue, Kimchi, rabbit, and polenta-- also rated themselves as healthier eaters, more physically active, and more concerned with the healthfulness of their food ...

An infestation of speck-sized Varroa destructor mites can wipe out an entire colony of honey bees in 2-3 years if left untreated. Pesticides help beekeepers rid their hives of these parasitic arthropods, which feed on the blood-like liquid inside of their hosts and lay their eggs on larvae, but mite populations become resistant to the chemicals over time. While exploring plant-based alternatives to control Varroa mites, Chinese bioagricultural and Japanese cell physiological labs saw that certain tick repellents repress mites from finding their honey bee hosts. In a ...

To observe the brain in action, scientists and physicians use imaging techniques, among which functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the best known. These techniques are not based on direct observations of electric impulses from activated neurons, but on one of their consequences. Indeed, this stimulation triggers physiological modifications in the activated cerebral region, changes that become visible by imaging. Until now, it was believed that these differences were only due to modifications of the blood influx towards the cells. By using intrinsic optical signals ...

Healthy people given the serotonin-enhancing antidepressant citalopram were willing to pay almost twice as much to prevent harm to themselves or others than those given placebo drugs in a moral decision-making experiment at UCL. In contrast, the dopamine-boosting Parkinson's drug levodopa made healthy people more selfish, eliminating an altruistic tendency to prefer harming themselves over others. The study was a double-blind randomised controlled trial and the results are published in Current Biology. The research provides insight into the neural basis of clinical disorders ...

BETHESDA, MD - The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) Workgroup on Pediatric Genetic and Genomic Testing has issued a position statement on Points to Consider: Ethical, Legal, and Psychosocial Implications of Genetic Testing in Children and Adolescents. Published today in The American Journal of Human Genetics, the statement aims to guide approaches to genetic testing for children in the research and clinical contexts. It also serves as an update to the Society's 1995 statement of the same title, which was issued jointly with the American College of Medical Genetics. "Twenty ...

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) causes a gradual loss of respiratory capacity and can be lethal within a few years. The cause is unknown, although it can be attributed to a combination of genetics and the environment. A team of researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have now discovered that telomeres, the structures that protect the chromosomes, are at the origin of pulmonary fibrosis. This is the first time that telomere damage has been identified as a cause of the disease. This finding opens up new avenues for the development of therapies ...

A mutation found in most melanomas rewires cancer cells' metabolism, making them dependent on a ketogenesis enzyme, researchers at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have discovered. The finding points to possible strategies for countering resistance to existing drugs that target the B-raf V600E mutation, or potential alternatives to those drugs. It may also explain why the V600E mutation in particular is so common in melanomas. The results are scheduled for publication in Molecular Cell. The growth-promoting V600E mutation in the gene B-raf is present in ...

The first comprehensive analysis of the woolly mammoth genome reveals extensive genetic changes that allowed mammoths to adapt to life in the arctic. Mammoth genes that differed from their counterparts in elephants played roles in skin and hair development, fat metabolism, insulin signaling and numerous other traits. Genes linked to physical traits such as skull shape, small ears and short tails were also identified. As a test of function, a mammoth gene involved in temperature sensation was resurrected in the laboratory and its protein product characterized. The study, ...

MAYWOOD, Ill. - New devices called stent retrievers are enabling physicians to benefit selected patients who suffer strokes caused by blood clots. The devices effectively stop strokes in their tracks. For the first time, new guidelines from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association recommend the treatment for carefully selected patients who are undergoing acute ischemic strokes and who meet certain other conditions. Loyola University Medical Center stroke specialist Jose Biller, MD, is a member of the expert panel that wrote the guidelines, published ...

Infrared date from NASA's Aqua satellite spotted the strongest storms within newborn Tropical Depression 10W over the Philippine Sea today, July 2. It is expected to strength to a tropical storm, at which time it will be renamed "Linfa." A tropical cyclone is made up of hundreds of thunderstorms, and the highest storms are the coldest and most powerful. To identify those areas with the strongest storms, infrared data is used because it tells temperature. The higher the cloud top, the stronger the uplift in a storm and the colder the cloud top temperature will be. The ...

By growing two types of stem cells in a "3-D culture" and measuring their ability to produce retinal cells, a team lead by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital researchers has found one cell type to be better at producing retinal cells. The research not only reveals which stem cell type might be better for treating retinal degeneration, but it also demonstrates a standardized method for quantifying the effectiveness of different stem cells for such therapies. The research was led by Michael Dyer, Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology ...

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have a number of exercise options, including a mechanical bicycle bolted to the floor, a weightlifting machine strapped to the wall, and a strap-down treadmill. They spend a significant portion of each day working out to ward off the long-term effects of weightlessness, but many still suffer bone loss, muscle atrophy, and issues with balance and their cardiovascular systems. To counteract such debilitating effects, research groups around the world are investigating artificial gravity -- the notion that astronauts, ...

The latest Supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds was published this week in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, and includes several major updates to the organization of the continent's bird species. More than just a list, the Check-list groups birds into genera, families, and orders based on their evolutionary relationships, and some of the most significant changes in this year's Supplement involve the tanagers, family Thraupidae. "Recent genetic studies have overturned much of what we thought we knew about what constitutes a ...

July 2, 2015 - While heart disease is the number one cause of death in both sexes, it poses special considerations in women--with risks often beginning in childhood and changing at different stages of life. Insights on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in women and girls throughout the life span are shared in a special symposium feature in the June issue of The American Journal of Medical Sciences (AJMS). The official journal of the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation (SSCI), AJMS is published by Wolters Kluwer. Two symposium papers seek to increase understanding ...

ATLANTA - July 2, 2015-Cancer survivors who smoke report fewer negative opinions about smoking, have more barriers to quitting, and are around other smokers more often than survivors who had quit before or after their diagnosis, according to a new study appearing in Psycho-Oncology. The authors say these factors point to potential targets to help cancer survivors quit. Quitting smoking is important for cancer prognosis, but some cancer survivors continue to smoke. Although initial quit rates are high among those diagnosed with cancers strongly linked with smoking (e.g., ...

A group of scientists led by Dr Kara Hoover of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and including Professor Matthew Cobb of The University of Manchester, has studied how our sense of smell has evolved, and has even reconstructed how a long-extinct human relative would have been able to smell. The sense of smell plays a decisive role in human societies, as it is linked to our taste for food, as well as our identification of pleasant and unpleasant substances. We have about 4 million smell cells in our noses, divided into about 400 different types. There is tremendous ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Engineers at Oregon State University have invented a way to fabricate silver, a highly conductive metal, for printed electronics that are produced at room temperature. There may be broad applications in microelectronics, sensors, energy devices, low emissivity coatings and even transparent displays. A patent has been applied for on the technology, which is now available for further commercial development. The findings were reported in Journal of Materials Chemistry C. Silver has long been considered for the advantages it offers in electronic devices. ...

Research conducted in Okinawa, Japan, by graduate student Yu Miyazaki and associate professor James Davis Reimer from the University of the Ryukyus has found a very unusual new species of octocoral from a shallow coral reef in Okinawa, Japan. The new species can be considered a "living fossil", and is related in many ways to the unusual blue coral. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Unlike scleractinians, most octocorals lack a hard skeleton, and therefore many have the common name "soft coral". One exception is the endangered genus Heliopora, ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - For years, news organizations that post content on the Internet have allowed readers to leave comments about stories. Often, these readers' comments become a forum for political debates and other communication that the news organizations do not consider important to their journalistic practices. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri School of Journalism have found that editors and owners of news organizations may want to pay more attention to what their readers are saying about their news stories in order to better serve their consumers. Timothy ...

CLEMSON, S.C. -- Poor sleep habits can have a negative effect on self-control, which presents risks to individuals' personal and professional lives, according to Clemson University researchers. In a study titled "Interactions between Sleep Habits and Self-Control," Clemson psychologists concluded a sleep-deprived individual is at increased risk for succumbing to impulsive desires, inattentiveness and questionable decision-making. "Self-control is part of daily decision-making. When presented with conflicting desires and opportunities, self-control allows one to maintain ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Everyone knows that exercise generally helps the cardiovascular system, but much remains unknown about how the benefits arise, and what to expect in different people who exercise to improve their health. To gain a more precise understanding of how exercise improves health and whom it helps most, researchers analyzed the results of 160 randomized clinical trials with nearly 7,500 participants. The review appears open access in the Journal of the American Heart Association. "Our meta-analysis is one of the first studies to systematically ...

Study found 35% fewer bird species in agricultural habitats Researchers say farmland is a poor substitute for natural areas but simple improvements could make a difference to biodiversity conservation Research led by the University of Exeter has found a substantial reduction in bird species living in cultivated mango orchards compared to natural habitats in Southern Africa. The results, which are published today in the journal Landscape Ecology, highlight the value of assessing habitats prior to land use change to predict the impact of agriculture on biodiversity. The ...