Plastic is well-known for sticking around in the environment for years without breaking down, contributing significantly to litter and landfills. But scientists have now discovered that bacteria from the guts of a worm known to munch on food packaging can degrade polyethylene, the most common plastic. Reported in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, the finding could lead to new ways to help get rid of the otherwise persistent waste, the scientists say. Jun Yang and colleagues point out that the global plastics industry churns out about 140 million tons ...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the few cancers in which a continued increase in incidence has been observed over recent years. Globally, there are approximately 750,000 new cases of liver cancer reported each year. Importantly, population-based studies show that HCC ranks as the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Also, a large proportion of HCC patients display symptoms of intrahepatic metastases or postsurgical recurrence, with a five-year survival rate of around only 30-40%. Among the various pathogenic factors, HBV infection accounts ...

Current asthma treatments can alleviate wheezing, coughing and other symptoms felt by millions of Americans every year, but they don't get to the root cause of the condition. Now, for the first time, scientists are reporting a new approach to defeating asthma by targeting the trigger -- the allergen -- before it can spark an attack. They describe their new compound, which they tested on rats, in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Clive Robinson and colleagues explain that to prevent many health problems, the ideal approach to treatment or prevention involves getting ...

The interdisciplinary field of network science has attracted enormous attention in the past 10 years, although most results have been obtained by analyzing isolated networks. However many real-world networks interact with and depend on other networks. "The properties and dynamics of interdependent and interconnected networks have been studied extensively, and scientists are finding many interesting results and discovering many surprising phenomena," state scientists based in China, the US and Israel who co-authored a new study, "From a single network to a network of ...

Humans have been experimenting with and utilizing glassy materials for more than ten millennia, dating back to about 12000 B.C. Although glassy materials are the oldest known artificial materials, new discoveries and novel applications continue to appear. Yet understanding of glass is far from complete, and the nature of glass constitutes a longstanding puzzle in condensed mater physics. In a new overview titled "The β-Relaxation in Metallic Glasses" and published in the Beijing-based National Science Review, co-authors Hai Bin Yu and and Konrad Samwer, based at ...

In order to observe the impact of climate change on soil microorganisms under as natural conditions as possible, the scientists transferred intact young beech seedlings from a cool, wet, northwest-exposed site of a slope approximately corresponding to present climatic conditions to a warmer site exposed to the southwest. This transfer simulated temperature and precipitation profiles as can be expected from climate change. "We tried to keep initial soil type and nutrient content sin soil as comparable as possible to avoid additional factors influencing our data"," said Prof. ...

With good planning, it is possible to promote the reuse of construction and demolition waste and thereby both conserve the environment and save on material costs. In the future, it will be even more important to assess how buildings can reasonably be repaired or demolished into parts, together with how the remaining service life of the parts can be utilized in new applications. The best method is to implement demolition planning already as a component of construction design. Reuse of construction parts is always worthwhile from the perspective of the environment, and ...

For years, scientists have been pursuing "artificial leaf" technology, a green approach to making hydrogen fuel that copies plants' ability to convert sunlight into a form of energy they can use. Now, one team reports progress toward a stand-alone system that lends itself to large-scale, low-cost production. They describe their nanowire mesh design in the journal ACS Nano. Peidong Yang, Bin Liu and colleagues note that harnessing sunlight to split water and harvest hydrogen is one of the most intriguing ways to achieve clean energy. Automakers have started introducing ...

Their novel findings obtained by measuring "cortical thickness" for the first time in the eating disorder are now published in the renowned journal "Biological Psychiatry". The authors conclude, "The global thinning of cortical gray matter observed in acutely ill adolescent patients can be completely reversed following successful weight rehabilitation therapy". Previous studies of changes in brain structure associated with anorexia nervosa were limited in their ability to clarify important questions regarding the regional specificity and persistence of anomalies following ...

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has pushed the decades-long search for a treatment to a frenetic pace. Somewhere in the virus' deceptively simple structure is a key to taming it. To find that key, scientists are undertaking multiple strategies, some of which are being fast-tracked for human testing, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Senior editors Lisa M. Jarvis and Bethany Halford of C&EN note that the Ebola virus is endowed with a mere seven genes that code for eight proteins. Although ...

New research shows that ocean heat uptake across three oceans is the likely cause of the 'warming hiatus' - the current decade-long slowdown in global surface warming. Using data from a range of state-of-the-art ocean and atmosphere models, the research shows that the increased oceanic heat drawdown in the equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Ocean basins has played a significant role in the hiatus. The new analysis has been published in Geophysical Research Letters by Professor Sybren Drijfhout from the University of Southampton and collaborators from ...

This news release is available in German. The new study establishes that the best combination for incentives and punishment that promotes cooperation are in the form of "First carrot, then stick". The mathematical proof shows how the combined sequential use of reward ("carrot") and punishment ("stick") promotes cooperation in collaborative endeavors, such as protecting social commons and maintaining mutual aid. Rewards and punishments are the most tried and true approaches when trying to promote cooperation in collaborative endeavors. New research, in terms of ...

Analysis of data from the MATROSHKA experiment, the first comprehensive measurements of long-term exposure of astronauts to cosmic radiation, has now been completed. This experiment, carried out on board and outside of the International Space Station, showed that the cosmos may be less hostile to space travellers than expected. Among the many life-threatening hazards to the space traveller, cosmic radiation is a major one, considerably limiting the time astronauts may spend in space without incurring excessive risk to their health from too high a dose of this ionizing ...

An Australian National University (ANU) mathematician has developed a new way to uncover simple patterns that might underlie apparently complex systems, such as clouds, cracks in materials or the movement of the stockmarket. The method, named fractal Fourier analysis, is based on new branch of mathematics called fractal geometry. The method could help scientists better understand the complicated signals that the body gives out, such as nerve impulses or brain waves. "It opens up a whole new way of analysing signals," said Professor Michael Barnsley, who presented ...

INDIANAPOLIS, December 2, 2014 -- Today, Eli Lilly and Company announced results from new analyses of two Phase 3 trials evaluating the relationship between cognitive and functional treatment effects in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease. Based on post-hoc analyses of the Phase 3 trials, the findings suggested that cognitive deficits were more apparent than functional deficits in mild Alzheimer's disease when measured with the Alzheimer's disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive (ADAS-Cog) and the Alzheimer's disease Cooperative Study-Activities of Daily Living (ADCS-ADL) ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, December 2, 2014 - Detection, prevention, and preclinical treatment are three key areas that may make a difference in the battle to reduce the rapid rise of new Alzheimer's disease (AD) cases every year. These three topics are the focus of an important new supplement to the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. Organized by Guest Editor Jack de la Torre, MD, PhD, Professor of Neuropsychology at The University of Texas at Austin, the supplement is a novel guide to how Alzheimer dementia may be approached and managed right now, not years from now. ...

Scientists have released details of a raft of new chemicals with potent anti-malarial properties which could open the way to new drugs to fight the disease. A new paper in PNAS is the third published by the group at the Australian National University (ANU), which has collaborated with groups from around the globe to uncover potential ammunition in the fight against malaria. Over 200 million people contract malaria each year, and the parasite that causes the disease has become resistant to most of the drugs currently available. "The papers show the malaria parasite ...

A glimmer of hope for corals as baby reef builders cope with acidifying oceans While the threat of coral bleaching as a result of climate change poses a serious risk to the future of coral reefs worldwide, new research has found that some baby corals may be able to cope with the negative effects of ocean acidification. Ocean acidification, which is a direct consequence of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, is expected to have a deleterious effect on many marine species over the next century. An international team examining the impact of ocean acidification ...

Coral reefs provide a range of benefits, such as food, opportunities for income and education, but not everyone has the same access to them, according to a new study conducted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University. The researchers examined how people from 28 fishing communities in Madagascar, Kenya, Tanzania and Seychelles benefit from the marine environment. For many years conservation in developing countries has been based on the assumption that improvements in ecosystem conditions, such as increasing coral reef ...

December 3, 2014 -- Individuals conceived in the severe Dutch Famine, also called the Hunger Winter, may have adjusted to this horrendous period of World War II by making adaptations to how active their DNA is. Genes involved in growth and development were differentially regulated, according to researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center, Harvard University, and Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. During the winter of 1944-1945 the Western part of The Netherlands was struck by a severe ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC - UNC School of Medicine researchers have found for the first time a biochemical mechanism that could be a cause of "chemo brain" - the neurological side effects such as memory loss, confusion, difficulty thinking, and trouble concentrating that many cancer patients experience while on chemotherapy to treat tumors in other parts of the body. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows how the common chemotherapy drug topotecan can drastically suppress the expression of Topoisomerase-1, a gene that triggers the ...

Coffee, apple juice, and vitamin C: things that people ingest every day are experimental material for chemist Eva-Maria Felix. The doctoral student in the research group of Professor Wolfgang Ensinger in the Department of Material Analysis is working on making nanotubes of gold. She precipitates the precious metal from an aqueous solution onto a pretreated film with many tiny channels. The metal on the walls of the channels adopts the shape of nanotubes; the film is then dissolved. The technique itself is not new, but Felix has modified it: "The chemicals that are usually ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 3, 2014--A new report from the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Statistical Research Center has found that the number of Hispanic students receiving bachelor's degrees in the physical sciences and engineering has increased over the last decade or so, passing 10,000 degrees per year for the first time in 2012. The overall number of U.S. students receiving degrees in those fields also increased over the same time, but it increased faster among Hispanics. From 2002 to 2012, the number of Hispanics earning bachelor's degrees in the physical sciences ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A team led by Florida State University researchers has identified DNA elements in maize that could affect the expression of hundreds or thousands of genes. "Maybe they are part of the machinery that allows an organism to turn hundreds of genes off or on," said Associate Professor of Biological Science Hank Bass. Bass and Carson Andorf, a doctoral student in computer science at Iowa State University, began this exploration of the maize genome sequence along with colleagues from FSU, Iowa State and the University of Florida. They wanted to know ...

New York, NY, December 2, 2014 - Immediate breast reconstruction following mastectomy is becoming more prevalent. However, in breast cancer patients undergoing simultaneous chemotherapy, thrombotic complications can arise that can delay or significantly modify reconstructive plans. Outcomes of cases illustrating potential complications are published in the current issue of Annals of Medicine and Surgery. Chemotherapy is increasingly used to treat larger operable or advanced breast cancer prior to surgery. Chemotherapy delivered via the placement of a central venous line ...