The relentless flow of a glacier may seem unstoppable, but a team of UK and US researchers have shown that during some calving events - when an iceberg breaks off into the ocean - the glacier moves rapidly backward and downward, causing the characteristic glacial earthquakes which until now have been poorly understood. This new insight into glacier behaviour should enable scientists to measure glacier calving remotely and will improve the reliability of models that predict future sea-level rise in a warming climate. The research is published today in Science Express. ...

Scientists at the University of York and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Australia have made a key genetic discovery in poppies, paving the way for more effective painkillers. The discovery, published in the latest issue of Science, reveals the long sought after gene that is seen as a critical gateway step in the synthesis of the morphinan class of alkaloids, which include the painkiller drugs morphine and codeine. The gene, called STORR, is only found in poppy species that produce morphinans. The STORR gene evolved when two other genes encoding oxidase and reductase enzymes ...

Electrical engineers have broken key barriers that limit the distance information can travel in fiber optic cables and still be accurately deciphered by a receiver. Photonics researchers at the University of California, San Diego have increased the maximum power -- and therefore distance -- at which optical signals can be sent through optical fibers. This advance has the potential to increase the data transmission rates for the fiber optic cables that serve as the backbone of the internet, cable, wireless and landline networks. The research is published in the June 26 issue ...

PITTSBURGH--Scientific controversies, from problems replicating results - such as with the now debunked association between autism and MMR vaccines - to researcher misconduct and sensationalism, have led to speculation of "trouble at the lab," as the Economist put it. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands recently convened top scientists from Carnegie Mellon University, the University of California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology and other leading institutions to examine ways to return to ...

PITTSBURGH, June 18, 2015 - Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have devised a computational model that could enhance understanding, diagnosis and treatment of pressure ulcers related to spinal cord injury. In a report published online in PLOS Computational Biology, the team also described results of virtual clinical trials that showed that for effective treatment of the lesions, anti-inflammatory measures had to be applied well before the earliest clinical signs of ulcer formation. Pressure ulcers affect more than 2.5 million Americans annually ...

Chloroplasts, better known for taking care of photosynthesis in plant cells, play an unexpected role in responding to infections in plants, researchers at UC Davis and the University of Delaware have found. When plant cells are infected with pathogens, networks of tiny tubes called stromules extend from the chloroplasts and make contact with the cell's nucleus, the team discovered. The tubes likely deliver signals from the chloroplast to the nucleus that induce programmed cell death of infected cells and prepare other cells to resist infection. The work is published online ...

Magnolias are prized for their large, colorful, fragrant flowers. Does the attractive, showy tree also harbor a potent cancer fighter? Yes, according to a growing number of studies, including one from VA and the University of Alabama at Birmingham that is now online in the journal Oncotarget. The study focused on squamous cell head and neck cancers, a scourge among those who use tobacco and alcohol. According to the National Cancer Institute, at least 3 in 4 head and neck cancers are caused by the use of tobacco and alcohol. The cancers have only a 50 percent survival ...

Without new conservation efforts, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could lose up to 20 percent of its forests, unleashing a 60 percent increase in carbon emissions, says a new study by researchers at the University of Vermont's Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. Published by PLOS ONE, the study explores Central Africa's tropical forests, which are among the world's largest carbon reserves. While these forests have historically experienced low deforestation rates, pressures to clear land are growing due to development, foreign investment in agriculture, and ...

An international group of academic leaders, journal editors and funding-agency representatives and disciplinary leaders, including Rick Wilson, the Herbert S. Autrey Chair of Political Science and professor of statistics and psychology at Rice University, has announced guidelines to further strengthen transparency and reproducibility practices in science research reporting. The group, the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Committee at the Center for Open Science in Charlottesville, Va., outlined its new guidelines in a story published in this week's edition of ...

Rainwater could save people in India a bucket of money, according to a new study by scientists looking at NASA satellite data. The study, partially funded by NASA's Precipitation Measurement Missions, found that collecting rainwater for vegetable irrigation could reduce water bills, increase caloric intake and even provide a second source of income for people in India. The study, published in the June issue of Urban Water Journal, is based on precipitation data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace ...

The majority of the United States' poor aren't sitting on street corners. They're employed at low-paying jobs, struggling to support themselves and a family. In the past, differing definitions of employment and poverty prevented researchers from agreeing on who and how many constitute the "working poor." But a new study by sociologists at BYU, Cornell and LSU provides a rigorous new estimate. Their work suggests about 10 percent of working households are poor. Additionally, households led by women, minorities or individuals with low education are more likely to be ...

A new study led by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego indicates a steady population trend for blue whales and an upward population trend for fin whales in Southern California. Scripps marine acoustician Ana Širović and her colleagues in the Marine Bioacoustics Lab and Scripps Whale Acoustic Lab intermittently deployed 16 High-frequency Acoustic Recording Packages (HARPs)--devices that sit on the seafloor with a suspended hydrophone (an underwater microphone)--to collect acoustic data on whales off Southern California from 2006-2012. ...

MINNEAPOLIS - A new study suggests that errors on memory and thinking tests may signal Alzheimer's up to 18 years before the disease can be diagnosed. The research is published in the June 24, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "The changes in thinking and memory that precede obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's disease begin decades before," said study author Kumar B. Rajan, PhD, with Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "While we cannot currently detect such changes in individuals at risk, we were able to ...

"Hydraulic fracturing" (or fracking) and "environmentally friendly" often do not appear in the same sentence together. But as the United States teeters on the precipice of a shale gas boom, Northwestern University professor Fengqi You is exploring ways to make the controversial activity easier on the environment -- and the wallet. "Shale gas is promising," said You, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. "No matter if you like it or not, it's already out there. The question we want ...

Over 50 leading doctors and academics including Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ, have signed an open letter published in The Guardian today calling on the Wellcome Trust to divest from fossil fuel companies. The letter is part of The Guardian's "Keep it in the Ground" Campaign that is urging the world's two biggest charitable funds -- the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation -- to move their money out of fossil fuels. It reads: "Divestment rests on the premise that it is wrong to profit from an industry whose core business threatens human and planetary health, ...

EDMONTON, Alberta, June 25 -- Working towards the ultimate goal to develop therapeutics to treat diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, and BSE (Mad Cow Disease), University of Alberta scientists Michael Woodside, Hao Yu, and Derek Dee are investigating the physical principles underlying the formation of misfolded protein aggregates. The aggregates of misfolded proteins -- proteins that clump together in the "wrong" structure -- feature prominently in these fatal degenerative diseases. "This is the big mystery we're trying to solve," says Woodside, a professor ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana University cancer researchers found that a particular microRNA may be a potent therapeutic agent against pancreatic cancer. The research was published June 22 in the journal Scientific Reports. Led by Janaiah Kota, Ph.D., assistant professor of medical and molecular genetics at the IU School of Medicine and a researcher at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center, the researchers found that restoring missing microRNA-29 (miR-29) in pancreatic cancer stromal cells reduced the viability and growth of the cancerous cells. A thick ...

A new study published in the Articles in Advance section of Transportation Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), improves how air traffic managers cope with unexpected delays and provides them with more predictable ways to manage arrival traffic at airports with adverse weather. The study, Incorporating Predictability into Cost Optimization for Ground Delay Programs, is by Yi Liu and Mark Hansen of the University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Liu received honorable mention for her research in the 2013 INFORMS ...

Scientists from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics can image the optical properties of individual nanoparticles with a novel microscope. Nanomaterials play an essential role in many areas of daily life. There is thus a large interest to gain detailed knowledge about their optical and electronic properties. Conventional microscopes get beyond their limits when particle size falls to the range of a few 10 nanometers where a single particle provides only a vanishingly small signal. As a consequence, many investigations ...

The American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), in partnership with the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and in collaboration with the International Antiviral Society-USA (IAS-USA), created online Recommendations for Testing, Managing, and Treating Hepatitis C in 2014 to aid practitioners treating patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). Now an update to the Guidance, with a summary of recommendations regarding treatment with direct-acting antiviral drugs, is published in the AASLD journal, Hepatology. HCV is a blood-borne virus ...

(Philadelphia, PA) - In a life-threatening situation, the heart beats faster and harder, invigorated by the fight-or-flight response, which instantaneously prepares a person to react or run. Now, a new study by researchers at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) shows that the uptick in heart muscle contractility that occurs under acute stress is driven by a flood of calcium into mitochondria--the cells' energy-producing powerhouses. Researchers have long known that calcium enters mitochondria in heart muscle cells, but the physiological role of that process was ...

When neurons become active, they call for an extra boost of oxygenated blood -- this change in the presence of blood in different regions of the brain is the basis for functional brain scans. However, what controls this increase or decrease in blood supply has been a long-standing debate. In a paper published on June 25 in Neuron, Yale University scientists present the strongest evidence yet that smooth muscle cells surrounding blood vessels in the brain are the only cells capable of contracting to control blood vessel diameter and thus regulate blood flow. This basic ...

Think the nest of cables under your desk is bad? Try keeping the trillions of connections crisscrossing your brain organized and free of tangles. A new study coauthored by researchers at UC San Francisco and the Freie Universität Berlin reveals this seemingly intractable job may be simpler than it appears. The researchers used high-resolution time-lapse imaging of the developing brains of pupal fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) paired with mathematical simulations to unravel a trick of neural wiring that had stumped neuroscientists for decades. They discovered ...

Adult fruit flies given a cancer drug live 12% longer than average, according to a UCL-led study researching healthy ageing. The drug targets a specific cellular process that occurs in animals, including humans, delaying the onset of age-related deaths by slowing the ageing process. The study published today in Cell and funded by the Max Planck Society and Wellcome Trust shows for the first time that a small molecule drug, which limits the effects of a protein called Ras, can delay the ageing process in animals. The treated fruit flies outlived the control group by staying ...

Boston, MA -- A new study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health finds that a malaria parasite protein called calcineurin is essential for parasite invasion into red blood cells. Human calcineurin is already a proven target for drugs treating other illnesses including adult rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and the new findings suggest that parasite calcineurin should be a focus for the development of new antimalarial drugs. "Our study has great biological and medical significance, particularly in light of the huge disease burden of malaria," said ...