Whether you're cramming for an exam or just trying to remember where you put your car keys, learning and memory are critical functions that we constantly employ in daily life. It turns out that the structure and function of brain centers responsible for learning and memory in a wide range of invertebrate species may possibly share the same fundamental characteristics, according to a new study published in the journal Current Biology and performed by University of Arizona neuroscientists Nicholas Strausfeld, Regents' Professor in the Department of Neuroscience, part of ...

ST. LOUIS - Saint Louis University research findings published in the December issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy report a family of molecules known as nucleotidyltransferase superfamily (NTS) enzyme inhibitors are promising candidates for new herpes virus treatments. The findings could lead to new treatment options for herpes that patients can use in conjunction with or instead of currently approved anti-viral medications like Acyclovir. Researcher Lynda A. Morrison Ph.D., professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Saint Louis University, likened ...

Why are older people at higher risk for developing cancer? Prevailing opinion holds that, over time, your body's cells accumulate DNA damage and that eventually this damage catches up with the body in a way that causes cancer. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today in the journal Aging shows that this prevailing opinion is incomplete. In addition to DNA damage, cancer depends on the slow degradation of tissue that surrounds cancer cells, something that naturally comes with aging. "It's really all about natural selection and survival of the fittest," ...

Illinois is the most critical hub in the network of U.S. domestic food transfers, according to a new study by Megan Konar, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The study was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Much like the national airport network in which O'Hare International Airport is a major hub, Illinois plays the most central role in distributing food across the U.S. According to the report, the U.S. food network moves more than 400 million tons ...

Doctors and nurses are traditionally thought to be the primary caretakers of patients in a typical hospital setting. But according to a study at the burn center intensive care unit at Loyola University Health System, three physicians, a social worker and a dietitian were documented as the most central communicators of the patient clinical team. David Shoham, PhD, and colleagues were published in the American Burn Association's Journal of Burn Care & Research. Shoham is an associate professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences of Loyola University Chicago Stritch ...

Chicago, December 17, 2014--A poll of the Russian public, conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, was released today. The poll, which includes a nationally representative in-person survey of 2,008 Russian adults taken between November 22 and December 7, 2014, found that President Vladimir Putin is extremely popular. Few say the economy is in good condition and most say that sanctions are hurting the Russian economy. Despite economic woes, most Russians believe their country is headed in the right direction. Most respondents are also optimistic ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 18, 2014 -- Uncork a bottle of champagne, and as the pressure of the liquid is abruptly removed, bubbles immediately form and then rapidly begin the process of "coarsening," in which larger bubbles grow at the expense of smaller ones. This fundamental nonequilibrium phenomenon is known as "Ostwald ripening," and though it is most familiar for its role in bubbly beverages, it is also seen in a wide range of scientific systems including spin systems, foams and metallic alloys. On a much larger scale, Ostwald ripening can be observed in a power-generating ...

Cilia, the cell's tails and antennas, are among the most important biological structures. They line our windpipe and sweep away all the junk we inhale; they help us see, smell and reproduce. When a mutation disrupts the function or structure of cilia, the effects on the human body are devastating and sometimes lethal. The challenge in diagnosing, studying and treating these genetic disorders, called ciliopathies, is the small size of cilia -- about 500-times thinner than a piece of paper. It's been difficult to examine them in molecular detail until now. Professor ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - A new study from University of Missouri and Virginia Tech researchers is challenging accepted ideas about how ancient soft-bodied organisms become part of the fossil record. Findings suggest that bacteria involved in the decay of those organisms play an active role in how fossils are formed--often in a matter of just a few tens to hundreds of years. Understanding the relationship between decay and fossilization will inform future study and help researchers interpret fossils in a new way. "The vast majority of the fossil record is composed of bones and ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 18, 2014--Internet addiction is an impulse-control problem marked by an inability to inhibit Internet use, which can adversely affect a person's life, including their health and interpersonal relationships. The prevalence of Internet addiction varies among regions around the world, as shown by data from more than 89,000 individuals in 31 countries analyzed for a study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, ...

Health care systems and providers are not attuned to older adults' malnutrition risk, and ignoring malnutrition exacts a toll on hospitals, patients, and payers, according to the latest issue of the What's Hot newsletter from The Gerontological Society of America (GSA). Under the title "Aging Policy: Preventing and Treating Malnutrition to Improve Health and Reduce Costs," the new installment points out that aging is a risk factor for malnutrition and highlights opportunities to improve nutrition awareness, interventions, and policy priorities. Support for the publication ...

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the report of the Kepler spacecraft's death was greatly exaggerated. Despite a malfunction that ended its primary mission in May 2013, Kepler is still alive and working. The evidence comes from the discovery of a new super-Earth using data collected during Kepler's "second life." "Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Kepler has been reborn and is continuing to make discoveries. Even better, the planet it found is ripe for follow-up studies," says lead author Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). NASA's ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 18, 2014--Pretreatment of cellulosic biomass using cell wall degrading enzymes is a critical step in the release of sugars needed to produce biofuels and renewable, biobased chemicals and materials. A new study that demonstrates and quantifies the impact of enzymatic hydrolysis and drying on the nanostructure and available reaction volume of pretreated hardwoods and switchgrass is published in Industrial Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Industrial Biotechnology website ...

PHILADELPHIA - Type 1 diabetes (T1D) patients who have developed low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) as a complication of insulin treatments over time are able to regain normal internal recognition of the condition after receiving pancreatic islet cell transplantation, according to a new study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, published online in Diabetes. Severe hypoglycemia--a life-threatening complication of insulin treatment for T1D--can occur when the body's defense mechanisms against low blood sugar are broken down ...

Detroit- A Wayne State University interdisciplinary research team in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences has made a surprising discovery: older, more mature motorists -- who typically are better drivers in many circumstances -- are much worse than their younger counterparts when texting while driving. Currently published online and scheduled to be published in print in the January 2015 issue of Accident Analysis and Prevention, the study "The Effects of Texting on Driving Performance in a Driving Simulator: The Influence of Driver Age" explores ...

Many of the worst West Coast winter floods pack a double punch. Heavy rains and melting snow wash down the mountains together to breach riverbanks, wash out roads and flood buildings. These events are unpredictable and difficult to forecast. Yet they will become more common as the planet warms and more winter precipitation falls as rain rather than snow. University of Washington mountain hydrology experts are using the physics behind these events to better predict the risks. "One of the main misconceptions is that either the rain falls and washes the snow away, or that ...

HEIDELBERG, 18 December 2014 - The quality of the colon mucus in mice depends on the composition of gut microbiota, reports a Swedish-Norwegian team of researchers from the University of Gothenburg and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Oslo. The work, published in EMBO reports, suggests that bacteria in the gut affect mucus barrier properties in ways that can have implications for health and disease. "Genetically similar mice with subtle but stable and transmissible intestinal microbiota showed unexpectedly large differences in the inner colon mucus layer. ...

Eating bilberries diminishes the adverse effects of a high-fat diet, according to a recent study at the University of Eastern Finland. For the first time, bilberries were shown to have beneficial effects on both blood pressure and nutrition-derived inflammatory responses. Low-grade inflammation and elevated blood pressure are often associated with obesity-related diseases. The study focused on the health effects of bilberries on mice that were fed high-fat diet for a period of three months. Some of the mice were fed either 5% or 10% of freeze-dried bilberries in the diet. ...

The enzyme telomerase repairs cell damage produced by ageing, and has been used successfully in therapies to lengthen the life of mice. Now it has been observed that it could also be used to cure illnesses related to the ageing process. Researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have for the first time treated myocardial infarction with telomerase by designing a very innovative strategy: a gene therapy that reactivates the telomerase gene only in the heart of adult mice, thus increasing survival rates in those animals by 17 % following a heart attack. Christian ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have found a way of binding peptides to the surface of gallium nitride (GaN) in a way that keeps the peptides stable even when exposed to water and radiation. The discovery moves researchers one step closer to developing a new range of biosensors for use in medical and biological research applications. GaN is a biocompatible material that fluoresces, or lights up, when exposed to radiation. Researchers are interested in taking advantage of this characteristic to make biosensors that can sense specific molecules, or "analytes," ...

This news release is available in German. Physicists are continuously advancing the control they can exert over matter. A German-Spanish team working with researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg has now become the first to image the motion of the two electrons in a helium atom and even to control this electronic partner dance. The scientists are succeeding in this task with the aid of different laser pulses which they timed very accurately with respect to each other. They employed a combination of visible flashes of light and ...

Trophoblasts, cells that form an outer layer around a fertilized egg and develop into the major part of the placenta, have now been shown to respond to inflammatory danger signals, researchers from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) found in a recent study published in Journal of Reproductive Immunology December 2014. The researchers said their findings were an important step in understanding how inflammatory responses in the placenta can contribute to the development of pregnancy disorders such as preeclampsia. The trophoblast inflammatory response ...

This news release is available in German. Puebla del Guzman (Andalusia) / Magdeburg. Being part of the mining area Herrerias in Andalusia, deep waters of Pit Lake Guadiana show extremely high concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2). In the case of a spontaneous ebullition, human beings close-by would be jeopardized. To demonstrate the danger and the possible solution, scientists of the Spanish Institute of Geology and Mining, the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, Bilbao) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) constructed a pilot ...

Chlorine is a common disinfectant that is used to kill bacteria, for example in swimming pools and drinking water supplies. Our immune system also produces chlorine, which causes proteins in bacteria to lose their natural folding. These unfolded proteins then begin to clump and lose their function. RUB researchers headed by Prof Dr Lars Leichert have discovered a protein in the intestinal bacterium E. coli that protects bacteria from chlorine. In the presence of chlorine, it tightly bonds with other proteins, thus preventing them from coagulating. Once the danger has passed, ...

This news release is available in German. A team of scientists headed by Dr. Florian Bassermann at the III. Medizinische Klinik, TUM Klinikum rechts der Isar, has been investigating mantle cell lymphoma, a subgroup of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which, despite new therapies, has poor patient survival rates. "Programmed cell death no longer functions in many lymphoma cells. This causes them to multiply uncontrollably. We urgently need to find out what's going wrong in these cells in order to find new treatment therapies," explains Bassermann. The scientists started analyzing ...