When does aging really begin? Two Northwestern University scientists now have a molecular clue. In a study of the transparent roundworm C. elegans, they found that adult cells abruptly begin their downhill slide when an animal reaches reproductive maturity. A genetic switch starts the aging process by turning off cell stress responses that protect the cell by keeping important proteins folded and functional. The switch is thrown by germline stem cells in early adulthood, after the animal starts to reproduce, ensuring its line will live on. While the studies were conducted ...

Highly-social zebra finches learn foraging skills from their parents. However, new research has found that when juvenile finches are exposed to elevated stress hormones just after hatching, they will later switch strategies and learn only from unrelated adult birds - ignoring their parents' way of doing things and instead gaining foraging skills from the wider network of other adult finches. Researchers say that spikes in stress during early development may act as a cue that their parents are doing something wrong, triggering the young birds to switch their social learning ...

If you find yourself downing that extra piece of chocolate fudge cake even though you're not hungry, it might be the absence of a hormone in your brain that's causing you to overeat purely for pleasure. In a new Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School study published in Cell Reports, researchers found that when the hormone glucagon like peptide-1 (GLP-1) was reduced in the central nervous system of laboratory mice, they overate and consumed more high fat food. "The mice in which the GLP-1 deficiency was induced ate beyond the need for calories and showed an increase ...

A new study by researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine reveals a protein's critical - and previously unknown -- role in the development and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a fast-growing and extremely difficult-to-treat blood cancer. The finding offers a novel target for better treating AML, and possibly other cancers, by cutting off the ability of tumors to access nearby cellular players that feed its growth. The study was published July 23 in Cell Stem Cell. "The work really focuses on trying to understand the dependence ...

Alexandria, VA - EARTH Magazine takes you to Le Mans, France, to cover how the World Endurance Competition (WEC) race series is transforming automotive efficiency in both high-performance racing and the commercial automotive industries. EARTH's latest feature explores the science behind efficiency upgrades used by three major racing competitors: Porsche, Audi and Toyota. Using physics and cutting-edge materials results in a "fascinating case study of how unbridled competition can produce unique, innovative and extraordinary solutions to engineering barriers once thought ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC (July 23, 2015) - For years, a crisis has been brewing in molecular biology. The problem is that antibodies--research tools used to identify key proteins at work in a cell--aren't always what they seem. Unreliable antibodies have led to numerous instances of false findings, failed experiments, and wasted money and samples. Enter the Histone Antibody Specificity Database, a newly launched online portal that lets scientists find the right antibodies for their research with a much higher degree of confidence than ever before. Rather than relying on the claims ...

It's well known that being socially connected promotes a person's overall and psychological health. A new study from the University of Rochester now shows that the quantity of social interactions a person has at 20--and the quality of social relationships that person has at age 30--can benefit her well-being later in life. People with poor social connections have been shown to be at an increased risk for early mortality. "In fact," said lead author Cheryl Carmichael, who conducted the research as a PhD candidate in psychology at the University of Rochester, "having ...

Astronomers using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have discovered jets of material ejected by still-forming young brown dwarfs. The discovery is the first direct evidence that brown dwarfs, intermediate in mass between stars and planets, are produced by a scaled-down version of the same process that produces stars. The astronomers studied a sample of still-forming brown dwarfs in a star-forming region some 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus, and found that four of them have the type of jets emitted by more-massive stars during their formation. ...

Chemotherapy for patients with end-stage cancer was associated with worse quality of life near death for patients with a good ability to still perform many life functions, according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology. Physicians have voiced concerns about the benefits of chemotherapy for patients with cancer who are nearing death. An American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) expert panel has called chemotherapy use among patients for whom there was no evidence of clinical value the most widespread, wasteful and unnecessary practice in oncology. Holly ...

PHILADELPHIA - Physicians in training are twice as likely to order a costly brand-name statin (used to lower blood cholesterol levels) when supervised by senior physicians who prefer those medications in their own practice, according to a new study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. These findings document a link between low-value prescribing and graduate medical training, which physicians undergo after completing medical school but before they can practice ...

If oxygen was a driver of the early evolution of animals, only a slight bump in oxygen levels facilitated it, according to a multi-institutional research team that includes a Virginia Tech geoscientist. The discovery, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, calls into question the long held theory that a dramatic change in oxygen levels might have been responsible for the appearance of complicated life forms like whales, sharks, and squids evolving from less complicated life forms, such as microorganisms, algae, and sponges. The researchers discovered oxygen levels ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- In their bid to find the best combination of therapies to treat anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC), researchers on Mayo Clinic's Florida campus demonstrated that all histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are not created equal. In testing multiple HDAC inhibitors in combination with the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel, known to give some benefit for this aggressive cancer, they found that class II HDAC inhibitors signal through a newly discovered pathway to promote synergy with chemotherapy treatment. They say their study, published online today in Endocrine ...

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2015 -- Have you ever wished you could hide under an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter or conceal your car with a Klingon cloaking device like in Star Trek? In a special Thursday bonus episode of Reactions, we celebrate the International Year of Light by exploring the science behind light, sight and invisibility. Though we can't make ourselves invisible yet, some promising research may light the way - or rather, bend the light away. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/sN70Bgm_PAQ. This episode of Reactions was produced in collaboration with the ...

HANOVER, N.H. - Potentially destructive high-energy electrons streak into Earth's atmosphere from space, not as Shakespeare's "gentle rain from heaven," but at velocities approaching the speed of light. This particle onslaught can lead to ozone depletion and damage to the orbital satellites that provide us with the navigation, communication, weather, and military-recognizance information upon which we have become increasingly dependent. These satellites fly through the Van Allen radiation belts -- giant concentric layers of charged particles held in place by the Earth's ...

A new guideline for the nutrition of management gastrointestinal symptoms in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) provides a framework for clinicians to navigate frequently seen issues such as food selectivity, alternative diets and nutritional deficits. The expert panel was convened at Marcus Autism Center, an affiliate of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and the resulting guideline was published online by the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (JAND). "Children with autism are at increased risk for feeding and gastrointestinal (GI) concerns compared ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Brown University computer scientists have developed a new interactive tool to help researchers and clinicians explore the genetic underpinnings of cancer. The tool -- dubbed MAGI, for Mutation Annotation and Genome Interpretation -- is an open-source web application that enables users to search, visualize, and annotate large public cancer genetics datasets, including data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. "The main motivation for MAGI has been to reduce the computational burden required for researchers or doctors to ...

How much does diet affect the cancer patient? Do "antioxidants" really play an important role in health - or are they causing more cancers than they cure? And what exactly is the relationship between obesity and cancer? The latest Special Issue in ecancermedicalscience collects four original articles from experts in cancer and metabolism, addressing the hottest areas of research in this rapidly developing field. "In our clinical practice, cancer patients often ask 'Doctor, is there something specific I should eat or avoid eating?'" says Guest Editor of this Special ...

The brain's effect on other parts of the body has been well established. Now, a group that includes two University of Florida Health researchers has found that it's a two-way street: Body fat can send a signal that affects the way the brain deals with stress and metabolism. While the exact nature of those signals remains a mystery, researchers say simply knowing such a pathway exists and learning more about it could help break a vicious cycle: Stress causes a desire to eat more, which can lead to obesity. And too much extra fat can impair the body's ability to send a ...

Many of the same genes may affect GCSE results across a broad range of subjects according to a new study from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London. The research, published today in Scientific Reports, also suggests that educational achievement at GCSE is highly heritable, with over half of the difference between results potentially due to inherited differences in DNA. Previous studies have shown that academic achievement in the core subjects of English, mathematics and science at GCSE may be influenced by the same genetic traits. ...

Philadelphia, PA, July 23, 2015 - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) can have devastating consequences. Both are associated with high rates of disability and suicide, and although they are separate conditions, they commonly co-occur. For example, a soldier who has developed PTSD as a result of a traumatic experience may have also sustained a brain injury during that experience. Significant research has been conducted to understand the brain mechanisms underlying PTSD and TBI, but there has still been a lack of knowledge regarding exactly ...

New research by health scientists at the University of York has revealed that a greater proportion of men than women suffer from cannabis psychosis. There has been much research exploring the nature of the relationship between cannabis -- the most widely used illicit drug in the United Kingdom -- and psychosis, however the role of gender in relation to cannabis psychosis is less well explored and understood. A new study by researchers in the Department of Health Sciences at York used large datasets over a period of 11 years to investigate the differences in men and ...

A new drug that blocks cancer's escape route from chemotherapy could be used to treat deadly lung and pancreatic cancers, new research reports. Scientists have shown in human cancer cells and in mice that the drug - discovered at The Institute of Cancer Research, London - boosts the effectiveness of conventional chemotherapy. The drug, known as CCT245737, is scheduled to begin first-in-human clinical trials in patients with lung and pancreatic cancers - two cancers with low survival rates that continue to resist currently available treatments. The new study is published ...

A team of researchers from the University of Leicester and France's G2ELab-CNRS in Grenoble have for the first time observed the growth of free nanoparticles in helium gas in a process similar to the decaffeination of coffee, providing new insights into the structure of nanoparticles. Nanoparticles have a very large surface area compared with their volume and are often able to react very quickly. This makes them useful as catalysts in chemical reactions and they are often used in sports equipment, clothing and sunscreens. In a paper published by the Journal of Physical ...

Contact between children and fathers following parental separation facilitates the continued abuse of women and children, according to new research focusing on the experiences of families with a prior history of domestic abuse conducted by social work experts at Trinity College Dublin. The research, which explored the experiences of post-separation fathering in families with prior history of domestic abuse perpetrated by the father against the mother, involved the completion of survey questionnaires 219 mothers regarding their 449 children as well as face-to-face interviews ...

TAMPA, Fla. - Recent advances in the understanding of cancer have led to more personalized therapies, such as drugs that target particular proteins and tests that analyze gene expression patterns in tumors to predict a patient's response to therapy. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have contributed to these advances by developing the first test that analyzes the sensitivity of tumors to radiation therapy. They discovered that colon cancer metastases have varying sensitivity to radiation therapy based on their anatomic location. Researchers from Moffitt previously developed ...