Two donuts of seething radiation that surround Earth, called the Van Allen radiation belts, have been found to contain a nearly impenetrable barrier that prevents the fastest, most energetic electrons from reaching Earth. The Van Allen belts are a collection of charged particles, gathered in place by Earth's magnetic field. They can wax and wane in response to incoming energy from the sun, sometimes swelling up enough to expose satellites in low-Earth orbit to damaging radiation. The discovery of the drain that acts as a barrier within the belts was made using NASA's ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A new study led by Brown University reports that older learners retained the mental flexibility needed to learn a visual perception task but were not as good as younger people at filtering out irrelevant information. The findings undermine the conventional wisdom that the brains of older people lack flexibility, or "plasticity," but highlight a different reason why learning may become more difficult as people age: They learn more than they need to. Researchers call this the "plasticity and stability dilemma." The new study suggests ...

VIDEO: When people hear another person talking to them, they respond not only to what is being said -- those consonants and vowels strung together into words and sentences --but also... Click here for more information. When people hear another person talking to them, they respond not only to what is being said--those consonants and vowels strung together into words and sentences--but also to other features of that speech--the emotional tone and the speaker's gender, for instance. ...

Older people can actually take in and learn from visual information more readily than younger people do, according to new evidence reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on November 26. This surprising discovery is explained by an apparent decline with age in the ability to filter out irrelevant information. "It is quite counterintuitive that there is a case in which older individuals learn more than younger individuals," says Takeo Watanabe of Brown University. Older individuals take in more at the same time as the stability of their visual perceptual ...

Enzymes inside cells that normally repair damaged DNA sometimes wreck it instead, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found. The insight could lead to a better understanding of the causes of some types of cancer and neurodegenerative disease. In a paper to be published online Nov. 27 in Molecular Cell, the researchers explain how the recently discovered mechanism of DNA damage occurs when genetic transcripts, composed of RNA, stick to the DNA instead of detaching from it. Certain enzymes, called endonucleases, are attracted to DNA/RNA hybrids ...

Researchers at the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), Kyoto University, show that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be used to correct genetic mutations that cause Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The research, published in Stem Cell Reports, demonstrates how engineered nucleases, such as TALEN and CRISPR, can be used to edit the genome of iPS cells generated from the skin cells of a DMD patient. The cells were then differentiated into skeletal muscles, in which the mutation responsible for DMD had disappeared. DMD is a severe muscular degenerative ...

Mutations in the KRAS gene have long been known to cause cancer, and about one third of solid tumors have KRAS mutations or mutations in the KRAS pathway. KRAS promotes cancer formation not only by driving cell growth and division, but also by turning off protective tumor suppressor genes, which normally limit uncontrolled cell growth and cause damaged cells to self-destruct. A new University of Iowa study provided a deeper understanding of how KRAS turns off tumor suppressor genes and identifies a key enzyme in the process. The findings, published online Nov. 26 in the ...

SALT LAKE CITY--Researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah (U of U) discovered the unusual role of lactate in the metabolism of alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS), a rare, aggressive cancer that primarily affects adolescents and young adults. The study also confirmed that a fusion gene is the cancer-causing agent in this disease. The research results were published online in the journal Cancer Cell Nov. 26, 2014. ASPS tumor cells contain a chromosomal translocation--strands of DNA from two chromosomes trade places. The two strands fuse ...

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (11/26/2014)--During a thunderstorm, we all know that it is common to hear thunder after we see the lightning. That's because sound travels much slower (768 miles per hour) than light (670,000,000 miles per hour). Now, University of Minnesota engineering researchers have developed a chip on which both sound wave and light wave are generated and confined together so that the sound can very efficiently control the light. The novel device platform could improve wireless communications systems using optical fibers and ultimately be used for computation ...

In recent years it has been established that copper plays an essential role in the health of the human brain. Improper copper oxidation has been linked to several neurological disorders including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Menkes' and Wilson's. Copper has also been identified as a critical ingredient in the enzymes that activate the brain's neurotransmitters in response to stimuli. Now a new study by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has shown that proper copper levels are also essential to the health ...

Lincoln, Neb., Nov. 26, 2014 -- By solving a six-dimensional equation that had previously stymied researchers, University of Nebraska-Lincoln physicists have pinpointed the characteristics of a laser pulse that yields electron behavior they can predict and essentially control. It's long been known that laser pulses of sufficient intensity can produce enough energy to eject electrons from their ultrafast orbits around an atom, causing ionization. An international team led by the UNL researchers has demonstrated that the angles at which two electrons launch from a helium ...

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite provided rainfall data as Tropical Depression 21W was making landfall in the southern Philippines on Nov. 26. TRMM revealed areas of heavy rainfall in fragmented bands east of the center of circulation, where rain was falling at more than 1 inch (25 mm) per hour. TRMM rainfall data was overlaid on infrared data from the Japan Meteorological Agency's MTSAT-1 satellite that showed Tropical Depression 21W's (TD21W) clouds extended from western Mindanao, east into the Philippine Sea. On Nov. 26, there were a number ...

ST. LOUIS-- In research published in the medical journal Brain, Saint Louis University researcher Daniela Salvemini, Ph.D. and colleagues within SLU, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other academic institutions have discovered a way to block a pain pathway in animal models of chronic neuropathic pain including pain caused by chemotherapeutic agents and bone cancer pain suggesting a promising new approach to pain relief. The scientific efforts led by Salvemini, who is professor of pharmacological and physiological sciences at SLU, demonstrated that turning on ...

Hamilton, ON (Nov. 26, 2014) - McMaster University researchers have found that current evidence does not support the routine use of minimally invasive surgery to remove herniated disc material pressing on the nerve root or spinal cord in the neck or lower back. In comparing it with open surgery, they found that while minimally invasive surgery for cervical or lumbar discectomy may speed up recovery and reduce post-operative pain, it does not improve long-term function or reduce long-term extremity pain. Minimally invasive surgery for discectomy also requires advanced ...

This news release is available in German. The human brain continuously collects information. However, we have only basic knowledge of how new experiences are converted into lasting memories. Now, an international team led by researchers of the University of Magdeburg and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) has successfully determined the location, where memories are generated with a level of precision never achieved before. The team was able to pinpoint this location down to specific circuits of the human brain. To this end the scientists used a ...

The evolution of freshwater shrimps species living in both sides of Central America, isolated by the closure of Isthmus of Panama (3 million years ago) were studied by molecular tools. Despite the small likelihood of species crossing the Isthmus from one side to the other through the channel exist, the genetic isolation of them were maintained over the time and the separation of Pacific and Atlantic sister species still unchanged. Sister species refer to pairs of species that are genetically and morphologically closely related, but reproductively isolated. The collection ...

A new paper, by Dr Stanley Blue, lecturer in Social Sciences at The University of Manchester, claims that there needs to be a shift in public health policy, with less focus on efforts to change individual behaviour and more attention on breaking social habits and practices that are blindly leading us into bad health. Theories of practice and public health: understanding (un)healthy practices is published in the journal, Critical Public Health, and written by Dr Stanley Blue, lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, Prof Elizabeth Shove, of Lancaster University, Prof ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (November 26, 2014)--Removing ovaries at hysterectomy does not increase a woman's risk of pelvic organ prolapse after menopause. In fact, removing ovaries lowers the risk of prolapse. This surprising finding from a Women's Health Initiative study was published online this week in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). Whether to remove ovaries at hysterectomy for reasons other than cancer is a subject of hot debate. Removing them reduces the risk of breast cancer and dramatically reduces the risk of ovarian cancer. On the ...

For several years, it has been known that superfluid helium housed in reservoirs located next to each other acts collectively, even when the channels connecting the reservoirs are too narrow and too long to allow for substantial flow. A new theoretical model reveals that the phenomenon of mysterious communication "at a distance" between fluid reservoirs is much more common than previously thought. Liquids in containers that are at a distance from each other may behave collectively, even if the channels connecting the reservoirs are so narrow and long that they prevent ...

Enzymes are macromolecular biological catalysists that lead most of chemical reactions in living organisms. The main focus of enzymology lies on enzymes themselves, whereas the role of water motions in mediating the biological reaction is often left aside owing to the complex molecular behavior. The groups of Martina Havenith (Cluster of Excellence RESOLV - Ruhr explores Solvation) and Irit Sagi (Weizmann Institue of Science, Israel) revised the classical enzymatic steady state theory by including long-lasting protein-water coupled motions into models of functional catalysis. ...

A study reveals how little we know about the Amazonian diversity. Aiming to resolve a scientific debate about the validity of two species of freshwater shrimp described in the first half of the last century, researchers have found that not only this species is valid, but also discovered the existence of a third unknown species. The researchers concluded that these species evolved about 10 million years ago. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. The great biodiversity in Amazonia is an issue widely studied. However, the real number of species in this ...

This news release is available in Spanish. "Let's suppose that we need a system for monitoring vital signs in a home for the elderly; preferably a wireless system. Using the deployed standard, the sensors that will be communicating via Bluetooth are connected to each other. "The elderly individuals in the home are fitted with these sensors which are used to measure their body temperature, heart rate, etc. and to forward the data to the nursing department," pointed out Josu Etxaniz-Marañón. "Time is a critical factor in a network of this type, and ...

An international team of scientists which includes researchers from the U. of Granada has demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to establish in an objective way the level of fatigue in physicians after long shifts through their eye movement. This research reveals that the speed of saccadic movement (mostly voluntary rapid eye movements which we use to focus our gaze upon an object that attracts our attention) is an excellent index to measure objectively the level of fatigue in the medical profession. In an article published in Annals of Surgery (the most ...

An Andalusian team of researchers led by the University of Granada has demonstrated the efficacy of a new drug against cancerogenic stem cells, which cause the onset and development of cancer, of relapse after chemotherapy and metastasis. This drug, called Bozepinib, has proved to be effective in tests with mice. The results have been published in the prestigious journal Oncotarget. Cancerogenic stem cells appear in small quantities in tumours, and one of their important features is that they contribute to the formation of metastasis in different places within the original ...

For tens of thousands of years, modern humans have used the waterways to spread out across the surface of the planet. Major civilizations developed along massive rivers like the Nile in Egypt and the Yellow River in China, and massive water channels propelled the expansion of economies around the world. But in recent decades, according to a team of scientists at the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in the northwestern Chinese city of Lanzhou, the competition between economic growth and the ecosystem of ...