VIDEO: In about five billion years time, nearby massive galaxy Andromeda will merge with our own galaxy, the Milky Way, in an act of galactic cannibalism (technically Andromeda will be eating... Click here for more information. Massive galaxies in the Universe have stopped making their own stars and are instead snacking on nearby galaxies, according to research by Australian scientists. Astronomers looked at more than 22,000 galaxies and found that while smaller galaxies ...

Referrals for genetic counselling and testing for breast cancer risk more than doubled across the UK after actress Angelina Jolie announced in May last year that she tested positive for a BRCA1 gene mutation and underwent a double mastectomy. The rise in referrals continued through to October long after the announcement was made. This is according to research published in the journal Breast Cancer Research. New research based on data from 21 centers shows that many more women approached their GPs with concerns. Far from these being women with unfounded concerns, it ...

Breast cancer experts around the world have issued a plea to researchers, academics, drug companies, funders and advocates to carry out high quality research and clinical trials for advanced breast cancer, a disease which is almost always fatal and for which there are many unanswered questions. In the latest international consensus guidelines for the management of advanced breast cancer, published simultaneously in the leading cancer journals The Breast and Annals of Oncology [1] today (Friday), the experts say that further research and clinical trials are "urgently needed" ...

The researchers looked at all recorded gun deaths across the USA between 2000 and 2010, to include murders, suicides, and unintentional shooting, using data from the Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System. Hawaii recorded the lowest rate of gun deaths at 3.02 per 100 000 citizens, while the District of Columbia topped the league table at 21.71 per 100 000. Rates rose in Florida and Massachusetts, largely owing to more gun deaths among people of white and non-Hispanic ethnicities, and an increase in the gun related murder rate. Firearm deaths fell in Arizona, California, ...

Washington, DC (September 18, 2014) — While dialysis can cause blood pressure changes that damage the brain, cooling dialysis fluids can protect against such effects. The findings come from a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The cooling intervention can be delivered without additional cost and is simple to perform. While dialysis is an essential treatment for many patients with kidney disease, it can cause damage to multiple organs, including the brain and heart, due to the sudden removal of bodily fluids. ...

Taking daily supplements of selenium and/or vitamin E appears to have no significant effect on the development of age-related cataracts in men, writes Author William G. Christen, Sc.D., of Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues. Some research, including animal studies, has suggested that dietary nutrients can have an effect on the onset and progression of cataracts. Vitamin E and selenium are of particular interest. The authors report the findings for cataracts from the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) Eye ...

Study after study has proven it true: exercise is good for you. But new research from University of Pennsylvania scientists suggests that exercise may have an added benefit for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Their work, performed in a mouse model of melanoma, found that combining exercise with chemotherapy shrunk tumors more than chemotherapy alone. Joseph Libonati, an associate professor in the School of Nursing and director of the Laboratory of Innovative and Translational Nursing Research, was the senior author on the study, which appears in the American ...

MADISON, Wis. — No matter how many times it's demonstrated, it's still hard to envision bacteria as social, communicating creatures. But by using a signaling system called "quorum sensing," these single-celled organisms radically alter their behavior to suit their population. In short, some bacteria "know" how many of them are present, and act accordingly. Once the population of quorum-sensing bacteria reaches the millions, it may change from innocuous to pathogenic, or from unhelpful to helpful. The quorum-sensing messages are carried in small molecules that the bacteria ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - Washington State University researchers have developed a unique method to use microbes buried in pond sediment to power waste cleanup in rural areas. The first microbe-powered, self-sustaining wastewater treatment system could lead to an inexpensive and quick way to clean up waste from large farming operations and rural sewage treatment plants while reducing pollution. Professor Haluk Beyenal and graduate student Timothy Ewing in the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture discuss the system in the online edition of Journal of Power Sources ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – "Seeking educational curriculum researchers. Humans need not apply." A Washington State University professor has figured out a dramatically easier and more cost-effective way to do research on science curriculum in the classroom – and it could include playing video games. Called "computational modeling," it involves a computer "learning" student behavior and then "thinking" as students would. Rich Lamb, who teaches science education at WSU's College of Education, said the process could revolutionize the way educational research is done. Lamb's research ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – A new GSA Bulletin study uses tree rings to document arroyo evolution along the lower Rio Puerco and Chaco Wash in northern New Mexico, USA. By determining burial dates in tree rings from salt cedar and willow, investigators were able to precisely date arroyo sedimentary beds 30 cm thick or greater. They then combined this data with aerial imagery, LiDAR, longitudinal profiles, and repeat surveys to reconstruct the history of these arroyos. Arroyos are deep, oversized channels that have vertical or steeply cut walls made up of silt, clay, or sand. ...

As people spend more and more time in the workplace, it's natural for co-workers to develop close bonds — what's often referred to as a "workplace spouse" or an "office wife." But when it comes to pay raises, promotions and other measures of career success, it's the husband or wife at home who may be exerting a bigger influence on workplace performance, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis. "Our study shows that it is not only your own personality that influences the experiences that lead to greater occupational success, but that your spouse's ...

Drilling in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale region led to a rapid increase in both the number of hotels and hotel industry jobs, but Penn State researchers report that the faltering occupancy rate may signal that there are now too many hotel rooms. "Demand is still high in many of the counties in the Marcellus Shale region, but the occupancy rate is starting to come down," said Daniel Mount, an associate professor in hospitality management. "The case could be made that this is a sign that hotels were overbuilt." Marcellus drilling operations generated approximately $685 ...

Employees working for Fortune 500 companies can expect to pay higher employee contributions for their health insurance, according to a survey of chief human resource officers about the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as PPACA or Obamacare) conducted by the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina this past May/June. Patrick Wright, a professor in strategic human resource management, directs the annual the HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers. The survey is distributed to more than 560 CHROs of Fortune 500 ...

Numerous fires (marked with red dots) are burning in Eastern Europe, likely as a result of regional agricultural practices. The body of water at the lower left of this true-color Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image is the Sea of Azov. The Sea is bordered by Ukraine to the northwest, west and southwest and by Russia to the northeast, east, and southeast. To its left is the Black Sea. The location, widespread nature, and number of fires suggest that these fires were deliberately set to manage land. Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the ...

DETROIT – The effect of guidelines recommending that elderly men should not be routinely screened for prostate cancer "has been minimal at best," according to a new study led by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital. The study, published as a research letter online in JAMA Internal Medicine, focused on the use of PSA – prostate-specific antigen – to test for prostate cancer. "We found that the effect of the guidelines recommending against the routine screening of elderly men in particular has been minimal at best," says Jesse Sammon, D.O., a researcher at Henry Ford's Vattikuti ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Dangerous new pathogens such as the Ebola virus invoke scary scenarios of deadly epidemics, but even ancient scourges such as the bubonic plague are still providing researchers with new insights on how the body responds to infections. In a study published online Sept. 18, 2014, in the journal Immunity, researchers at Duke Medicine and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore detail how the Yersinia pestis bacteria that cause bubonic plague hitchhike on immune cells in the lymph nodes and eventually ride into the lungs and the blood stream, where the infection ...

For years, neuroscientists have been trying to develop tools that would allow them to clearly view the brain's circuitry in action—from the first moment a neuron fires to the resulting behavior in a whole organism. To get this complete picture, neuroscientists are working to develop a range of new tools to study the brain. Researchers at Caltech have developed one such tool that provides a new way of mapping neural networks in a living organism. The work—a collaboration between Viviana Gradinaru (BS '05), assistant professor of biology and biological engineering, and ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A sleep-promoting circuit located deep in the primitive brainstem has revealed how we fall into deep sleep. Discovered by researchers at Harvard School of Medicine and the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, this is only the second "sleep node" identified in the mammalian brain whose activity appears to be both necessary and sufficient to produce deep sleep. Published online in August in Nature Neuroscience, the study demonstrates that fully half of all of the brain's sleep-promoting activity originates from the parafacial ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – Miranda, a small, icy moon of Uranus, is one of the most visually striking and enigmatic bodies in the solar system. Despite its relatively small size, Miranda appears to have experienced an episode of intense resurfacing that resulted in the formation of at least three remarkable and unique surface features -- polygonal-shaped regions called coronae. These coronae are visible in Miranda's southern hemisphere, and each one is at least 200 km across. Arden corona, the largest, has ridges and troughs with up to 2 km of relief. Elsinore corona has ...

SAN ANTONIO, September 18, 2014 – New research into the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV), a tick-borne virus which causes a severe hemorrhagic disease in humans similar to that caused by Ebolavirus, has identified new cellular factors essential for CCHFV infection. This discovery has the potential to lead to novel targets for therapeutic interventions against the pathogen. The research, reported in a paper published today in the journal PLoS Pathogens and conducted by scientists at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute and their colleagues, represents ...

A team of researchers from McGill University and the Quebec government have discovered microplastics (in the form of polyethylene 'microbeads', END ...

Proteins are important building blocks in our cells and each cell contains millions of different protein molecules. They are involved in everything from structural to regulatory aspects in the cell. Proteins are constructed as linear molecules but they only become functional once they are folded into specific three-dimensional structures. Several factors, like mutations, stress and age, can interfere with this folding process and induce protein misfolding. Accumulated misfolded proteins are toxic and to prevent this, cells have developed quality control systems just like ...

(Millbrook, N.Y.) In the U.S., some 300,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme disease annually. Thousands also suffer from babesiosis and anaplasmosis, tick-borne ailments that can occur alone or as co-infections with Lyme disease. According to a new paper published in PLOS ONE, when small, fast-living mammals abound, so too does our risk of getting sick. In eastern and central North America, blacklegged ticks are the primary vectors for Lyme disease, babesiosis, and anaplasmosis. The pathogens that cause these illnesses are widespread in nature; ticks acquire them when ...

A common Asian spice and cancer-hampering molecules show promise in slowing the progression of mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung's lining often linked to asbestos. Scientists from Case Western Reserve University and the Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt, Germany, demonstrate that application of curcumin, a derivative of the spice turmeric, and cancer-inhibiting peptides increase levels of a protein inhibitor known to combat the progression of this cancer. Their findings appeared in the Aug. 14 online edition Clinical Cancer Research; the print version of the article will ...