CHESTNUT HILL, MA (April 27, 2015) - Add water to a half-filled cup and the water level rises. This everyday experience reflects a positive material property of the water-cup system. But what if adding more water lowers the water level by deforming the cup? This would mean a negative compressibility. Now, a quantum version of this phenomenon, called negative electronic compressibility (NEC), has been discovered, a team of researchers led by physicists at Boston College reports today in the online edition of the journal Nature Materials. Physicists have long theorized ...

Reluctance to share data about personal energy use is likely to be a major obstacle when implementing 'smart' technologies designed to monitor use and support energy efficient behaviours, according to new research led by academics at The University of Nottingham. The study, published online by the journal Nature Climate Change, found that while more than half of people quizzed would be willing to reduce their personal energy consumption, some were wary about sharing their information with third parties. Increasing energy efficiency and encouraging flexible energy use ...

April 27, 2015 -- A new breast cancer gene has been identified in a study led by Women's College Hospital (WCH) researcher Dr. Mohammad Akbari, who is also an assistant professor with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. The study, which was published online today in Nature Genetics, describes how mutations in a gene called RECQL are strongly linked to the onset of breast cancer in two populations of Polish and French-Canadian women. "Our work is an exciting step in identifying all of the relevant genes that are associated with inherited ...

New York, New York -- A multi-year study led by researchers from the Simons Center for Data Analysis (SCDA) and major universities and medical schools has broken substantial new ground, establishing how genes work together within 144 different human tissues and cell types in carrying out those tissues' functions. The paper, to be published online by Nature Genetics on April 27 (at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.3259), also demonstrates how computer science and statistical methods may combine to aggregate and analyze very large -- and stunningly diverse -- genomic 'big-data' ...

Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have discovered that mitochondria, the major energy source for most cells, also play an important role in stem cell development -- a purpose notably distinct from the tiny organelle's traditional job as the cell's main source of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy needed for routine cell metabolism. Specifically, the NYU Langone team found that blocking the action of the mitochondrial ATP synthase enzyme stalled egg cell development from stem cells in experiments in fruit flies, one of the main organisms used to study cell ...

An international team of scientists has discovered what amounts to a molecular reset button for our internal body clock. Their findings reveal a potential target to treat a range of disorders, from sleep disturbances to other behavioral, cognitive, and metabolic abnormalities, commonly associated with jet lag, shift work and exposure to light at night, as well as with neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression and autism. In a study published online April 27 in Nature Neuroscience, the authors, led by researchers at McGill and Concordia universities in Montreal, report ...

Bethesda, MD (April 27, 2015) -- Patients are always interested in understanding what they should eat and how it will impact their health. Physicians are just as interested in advancing their understanding of the major health effects of foods and food-related diseases. To satisfy this need, the editors of Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association, are pleased to announce the publication of this year's highly anticipated special 13th issue on food, the immune system and the gastrointestinal tract. "This special issue provides ...

DARIEN, IL - A new study of night shift workers suggests that overnight occupational and cognitive impairment is more strongly correlated to insomnia than it is to sleepiness. Results show that night shift workers classified as alert insomniacs had the highest level of impairment in work productivity and cognitive function, which was significantly worse than controls. This occupational impairment was more severe in alert insomniacs than in insomniacs with excessive sleepiness. The study also found that alert insomniacs reported significantly greater fatigue than sleepy ...

New research out of Queen's University shows early benefits from the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in young girls. The HPV vaccine, which protects against four types of HPV shown to cause cervical cancer and anogenital warts, is offered free through school-based programs to young girls across Canada. Despite the fact the vaccine is free, vaccine rates are lower than expected a number of regions, in part because parents perceive their daughter's level of sexual activity as low at young ages. "We observed a large and significant reduction in cervical dysplasia, a precursor ...

The peak time for seeking information on topics related to HIV, such as prevention and testing, is at the beginning of the week, while risky sexual behaviors tend to increase on the weekends, according to a new analysis by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Monday Campaigns. The researchers also found that among people living with HIV, adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) is slightly lower on weekends, and evidence indicates an association between breaks in daily routine and sporadic interruptions to ART adherence. The researchers ...

Scientists from the Gladstone Institutes have discovered a way to prevent the development of multiple sclerosis (MS) in mice. Using a drug that blocks the production of a certain type of immune cell linked to inflammation and autoimmunity, the researchers successfully protected against the onset of MS in an animal model of the disease. The scientists say the next step is to test this strategy using other autoimmune disorders. "We are very excited about these findings," says Eric Verdin, MD, a senior investigator at Gladstone and co-senior author on the study. "In light ...

Stroke is a frequent and dreaded complication of atrial fibrillation. But predicting which of the estimated six million Americans with a-fib are at highest risk has long challenged physicians weighing stroke risk against the serious side effects posed by lifelong therapy with warfarin and other blood thinners. Now researchers from Johns Hopkins performing sophisticated motion studies of heart MRI scans have found that specific altered function in the left atrium -- one of the heart's four chambers -- may signal stroke risk in those with a-fib and, possibly, those without ...

Olive oil is universally considered a much healthier alternative to meat fat. Plant-derived oils (such as olive oil, canola oil, and vegetable oil) largely consist of unsaturated fatty acids, whereas animal fat is richer in the saturated ones. After a typical meal, carbohydrates are the primary source of energy production by the heart. Under fasting conditions, however, free fatty acids become the major energy producer. Saturated fat in a diet is known to be detrimental to heart health, but its impact on the cardiac muscle has been studied only recently. Interestingly, ...

Researchers from the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (IBB-UAB) and from the University of Warsaw have developed a new computational method called AGGRESCAN3D which will allow studying in 3D the structure of folded globular proteins and substantially improve the prediction of any propensity for forming toxic protein aggregates. With this new algorithm proteins can also be modelled to study the pathogenic effects of the aggregation or redesign them for therapeutic means. Current knowledge of the molecular bases of ...

This news release is available in German. At first glance, there is not the slightest doubt: to us, the universe looks three dimensional. But one of the most fruitful theories of theoretical physics in the last two decades is challenging this assumption. The "holographic principle" asserts that a mathematical description of the universe actually requires one fewer dimension than it seems. What we perceive as three dimensional may just be the image of two dimensional processes on a huge cosmic horizon. Up until now, this principle has only been studied in exotic ...

Hot vents on the seabed could have spontaneously produced the organic molecules necessary for life, according to new research by UCL chemists. The study shows how the surfaces of mineral particles inside hydrothermal vents have similar chemical properties to enzymes, the biological molecules that govern chemical reactions in living organisms. This means that vents are able to create simple carbon-based molecules, such as methanol and formic acid, out of the dissolved CO2 in the water. The discovery, published in the journal Chemical Communications, explains how some of ...

New Haven, Conn. -- Yale researchers successfully corrected the most common mutation in the gene that causes cystic fibrosis, a lethal genetic disorder. The study was published April 27 in Nature Communications. Cystic fibrosis is an inherited, life-threatening disorder that damages the lungs and digestive system. It is most commonly caused by a mutation in the cystic fibrosis gene known as F508del. The disorder has no cure, and treatment typically consists of symptom management. Previous attempts to treat the disease through gene therapy have been unsuccessful. To ...

This news release is available in German. Bumblebees are considered peaceful and industrious creatures, and their commercial value has increased in the wake of the decline of honeybees around the world. The bees are therefore now bred on a large scale and used as pollinators for economically valuable crops. Yet, these cute little, buzzing creatures, of which there are around 250 different species worldwide, is doing poorly in some places. The large shadow cast by the honeybee collapse has distracted from the fact that in recent years in the US as well as in other areas ...

(Boston)--Cardiorespiratory fitness may positively impact the structure of white matter in the brains of older adults. These results suggest that exercise could be prescribed to lessen age-related declines in brain structure. The findings, which appear online in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, are the first to show a relationship between fitness and brain structure in older adults, but not younger adults. The researchers compared younger adults (age 18-31) to older adults (age 55-82). All participants had MRIs taken of their brains and their cardiorespiratory ...

April 25, 2015, Vienna, Austria: Preliminary data from an ongoing study revealed today at The International Liver Congress™ 2015 suggest that a combination of three direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) is well tolerated in patients with severe renal impairment or end-stage renal disease when used either with or without ribavirin. In addition, the combination led to rapid hepatitis C viral load suppression with no virological failures seen in the preliminary data from the ongoing open-label study. In the study, treatment naïve non-cirrhotic adults with chronic ...

SAN DIEGO - Technology can bolster efforts by parents, lawmakers and insurance companies to reduce distracted driving among novice teen drivers, according to a study to be presented Monday, April 27 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of accidental death for teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Studies suggest that the use of voice/text devices while driving is associated with crash risks up to 24 times higher than when cell phones are not used to talk or text ...

SAN DIEGO - Parents-to-be often look forward to prenatal ultrasounds, when they get the first glimpse of their baby and perhaps learn their child's sex. Ultrasound technology also allows for the detection of birth defects and other abnormalities before a baby is born. While prenatal ultrasounds are doing a good job of identifying critical congenital heart disease, those living in poor or rural communities are less likely to find out their baby has heart disease before birth than those in more affluent or urban communities, according to research to be presented Monday, ...

High school students subjected to bullying and other forms of harassment are more likely to report being seriously depressed, consider suicide and carry weapons to school, according to findings from a trio of studies reported at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in San Diego. "Teens can be the victim of face-to-face bullying in school, electronic bullying outside of the classroom and dating violence," said Andrew Adesman, MD, senior investigator of all three studies. "Each of these experiences are associated with a range of serious adverse consequences." All ...

WASHINGTON -- Researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center and American University have shown that, like humans, mustached bats use the left and right sides of their brains to process different aspects of sounds. Aside from humans, no other animal that has been studied, not even monkeys or apes, has proved to use such hemispheric specialization for sound processing -- meaning that the left brain is better at processing fast sounds, and the right processing slow ones. The scientists say their study, published in Frontiers of Neuroscience, opens a pathway to ...

A new smoking-specific survey has been developed that is much better than a currently available general health questionnaire at discriminating between different types of 'otherwise healthy' smokers. This test could be useful in determining the potential health impact of next generation tobacco and nicotine products on smokers who switch. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a measure of the day-to-day functioning and well-being of a person that is used to assess the effect of illness or injury over time. HRQoL measurements are important to public policy, because ...