There's an old saying in the biofuels industry: "You can make anything from lignin except money." But now, a new study may pave the way to challenging that adage. The study from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) demonstrates a concept that provides opportunities for the successful conversion of lignin into a variety of renewable fuels, chemicals, and materials for a sustainable energy economy. "Lignin Valorization Through Integrated Biological Funneling and Chemical Catalysis" was recently published in the Proceedings of the National ...

12 of 13 Total Evaluable Patients with Advanced B Cell Malignancies Had Complete Remissions (8 Patients) or Partial Remissions (4 Patients) Resulting in a 92% Objective Response Rate 4 of 7 Evaluable Patients with Chemotherapy-Refractory Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) Achieved Complete Remissions, 3 of Which Are Ongoing and 1 of Which Is Ongoing after 22 Months The Results Have Been Published in the August 25, 2014 Issue of the American Society of Clinical Oncology's (ASCO) Journal of Clinical Oncology The Results Support Kite's Plan to File an Investigational ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Boron deficiency is one of the most widespread causes of reduced crop yield. Missouri and the eastern half of the United States are plagued by boron deficient soil and, often, corn and soybean farmers are required to supplement their soil with boron; however, little is known about the ways in which corn plants utilize the essential nutrient. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that boron plays an integral role in development and reproduction in corn plants. Scientists anticipate that understanding how corn uses the nutrient can help ...

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a crucial link between high levels of insulin and pathways that lead to obesity, a finding that may have important implications when treating diabetes. Researchers with the UT Southwestern's Touchstone Center for Diabetes found that giving mice high levels of insulin, which is typically done to counter the effects of diabetes or insulin resistance in Type 2 diabetes, also fosters processes that lead to obesity. The discovery was made by studying mice engineered to lack receptors for a hormone called glucagon. Glucagon ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have found one of the keys to why certain glioblastomas – the primary form of a deadly brain cancer – are resistant to drug therapy. The answer lies not in the DNA sequence of the tumor, but in its epigenetic signature. These findings have been published online as a priority report in the journal Oncotarget. "There is a growing interest to guide cancer therapy by sequencing the DNA of the cancer cell," said Clark Chen, MD, PhD, vice-chairman of Research and Academic Development, UC San Diego Division ...

The presence of Clostridia, a common class of gut bacteria, protects against food allergies, a new study in mice finds. By inducing immune responses that prevent food allergens from entering the bloodstream, Clostridia minimize allergen exposure and prevent sensitization – a key step in the development of food allergies. The discovery points toward probiotic therapies for this so-far untreatable condition, report scientists from the University of Chicago, Aug 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Although the causes of food allergy – a sometimes deadly ...

Vaccine researchers have developed a strategy aimed at generating broadly cross-reactive antibodies against the influenza virus: embrace the unfamiliar. In recent years, researchers interested in a "universal flu vaccine" identified a region of the viral hemagglutinin protein called the stem or stalk, which doesn't mutate and change as much as other regions and could be the basis for a vaccine that is protective against a variety of flu strains. In an Emory Vaccine Center study, human volunteers immunized against the avian flu virus H5N1 readily developed antibodies ...

The Taung Child, South Africa's premier hominin discovered 90 years ago by Wits University Professor Raymond Dart, never seizes to transform and evolve the search for our collective origins. By subjecting the skull of the first australopith discovered to the latest technologies in the Wits University Microfocus X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) facility, researchers are now casting doubt on theories that Australopithecus africanus shows the same cranial adaptations found in modern human infants and toddlers – in effect disproving current support for the idea that this early ...

EVANSTON, Ill. -- A five-year old's brain is an energy monster. It uses twice as much glucose (the energy that fuels the brain) as that of a full-grown adult, a new study led by Northwestern University anthropologists has found. The study helps to solve the long-standing mystery of why human children grow so slowly compared with our closest animal relatives. It shows that energy funneled to the brain dominates the human body's metabolism early in life and is likely the reason why humans grow at a pace more typical of a reptile than a mammal during childhood. Results ...

Black carbon pollutants from wood smoke are known to trap heat near the earth's surface and warm the climate. A new study led by McGill Professor Jill Baumgartner suggests that black carbon may also increase women's risk of cardiovascular disease. To investigate the effects of black carbon pollutants on the health of women cooking with traditional wood stoves, Baumgartner, a researcher at McGill's Institute for the Health and Social Policy, measured the daily exposure to different types of air pollutants, including black carbon, in 280 women in China's rural Yunnan province. Baumgartner ...

Precise, gentle and efficient cell separation from a device the size of a cell phone may be possible thanks to tilt-angle standing surface acoustic waves, according to a team of engineers. "For biological testing we often need to do cell separation before analysis," said Tony Jun Huang, professor of engineering science and mechanics. "But if the separation process affects the integrity of the cells, damages them in any way, the diagnosis often won't work well." Tilted-angle standing surface acoustic waves can separate cells using very small amounts of energy. Unlike ...

A protein named p66ShcA shows promise as a biomarker to identify breast cancers with poor prognoses, according to research published ahead of print in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology. Cancer is deadly in large part due to its ability to metastasize, to travel from one organ or tissue type to another and malignantly sprout anew. The vast majority of cancer deaths are associated with metastasis. In breast cancer, a process called "epithelial to mesenchymal transition" aids metastasis. Epithelial cells line surfaces which come into contact with the environment, ...

Scientists have known that toxic effects of substances known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), found in both natural and human-made materials, can pass from one generation to the next, but new research shows that females with ancestral exposure to EDC may show especially adverse reactions to stress. According to a new study by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and Washington State University, male and female rats are affected differently by ancestral exposure to a common fungicide, vinclozolin. Female rats whose great grandparents were exposed ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — A family of proteins that promotes virus entry into cells also has the ability to block the release of HIV and other viruses, University of Missouri researchers have found. "This is a surprising finding that provides new insights into our understanding of not only HIV infection, but also that of Ebola and other viruses," said Shan-Lu Liu, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in the MU School of Medicine's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. The study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Liu, the ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Scientists searching for new drugs to fight malaria have identified a number of compounds -- some of which are currently in clinical trials to treat cancer -- that could add to the anti-malarial arsenal. Duke University assistant professor Emily Derbyshire and colleagues identified more than 30 enzyme-blocking molecules, called protein kinase inhibitors, that curb malaria before symptoms start. By focusing on treatments that act early, before a person is infected and feels sick, the researchers hope to give malaria –- especially drug-resistant strains ...

There's a certain type of biomolecule built like a nano-Christmas tree. Called a glycoconjugate, it's many branches are bedecked with sugary ornaments. It's those ornaments that get all the glory. That's because, according to conventional wisdom, the glycoconjugate's lowly "tree" basically holds the sugars in place as they do the important work of reacting with other molecules. Now a chemist at Michigan Technological University has discovered that the tree itself—called the scaffold—is a good deal more than a simple prop. "We had always thought that all the biological ...

Doctors should make a point of offering a flu vaccine to their patients. A simple reminder could considerably reduce the number of racial and ethnic minorities who currently do not vaccinate themselves against this common contagious respiratory illness. This recommendation is based on research led by Jürgen Maurer of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and the RAND Corporation in the US. Their findings¹ are published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer. Up to 50,000 Americans die annually of influenza and related diseases such as ...

CHICAGO --- Mindfulness training for individuals with early-stage dementia and their caregivers together in the same class was beneficial for both groups, easing depression and improving sleep and quality of life, reports new Northwestern Medicine study. "The disease is challenging for the affected person, family members and caregivers," said study lead author Ken Paller, professor of psychology at Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern and a fellow of the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at Northwestern University Feinberg School of ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Cyberattacks loom as an increasingly dire threat to privacy, national security and the global economy, and the best way to blunt their impact may be a public-private partnership between government and business, researchers say. But the time to act is now, rather than in the wake of a crisis, says a University of Illinois expert in law and technology. According to a study by Jay Kesan, the H. Ross and Helen Workman Research Scholar at the College of Law, an information-sharing framework is necessary to combat cybersecurity threats. "Cybersecurity is ...

Most people know children learn many skills simply by watching people around them. Without explicit instructions youngsters know to do things like press a button to operate the television and twist a knob to open a door. Now researchers have taken this further, finding that children as young as age 2 intuitively use mathematical concepts such as probability to help make sense of the world around them. In a study led by researchers at the University of Washington, toddlers could tell the difference between two different ways an experimenter played a game, with one strategy ...

Updates from NWTfire.com report that there are 133 active fires in the North Slave Region of the Northwest Territories. No new fires reported in the past 24 hours. Fire danger is moderate to high. Smoke may be an issue in some communities. The Birch Lake Complex of fires are in an area approximately 80 km south of Behchoko and extending to within 30 km north of Fort Providence. Four crews will be working on hot spots and mopping up at Moraine Point this week. Mop-up continues many areas of complex's fire perimeter. The total fire complex area is estimated at 650,000 ...

A parasitic fungus that reproduces by manipulating the behavior of ants emits a cocktail of behavior-controlling chemicals when encountering the brain of its natural target host, but not when infecting other ant species, a new study shows. The findings, which suggest that the fungus "knows" its preferred host, provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, according to researchers. "Fungi are well known for their ability to secrete chemicals that affect their environment," noted lead author Charissa de Bekker, a Marie Curie Fellow in ...

There's a certain type of biomolecule built like a nano-Christmas tree. Called a glycoconjugate, it's many branches are bedecked with sugary ornaments. It's those ornaments that get all the glory. That's because, according to conventional wisdom, the glycoconjugate's lowly "tree" basically holds the sugars in place as they do the important work of reacting with other molecules. Now a chemist at Michigan Technological University has discovered that the tree itself—called the scaffold—is a good deal more than a simple prop. "We had always thought that all the biological ...

People with cognitive impairment are significantly more likely to have a stroke, with a 39% increased risk, than people with normal cognitive function, according to a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "Given the projected substantial rise in the number of older people around the world, prevalence rates of cognitive impairment and stroke are expected to soar over the next several decades, especially in high-income countries," writes Dr. Bruce Ovbiagele, Chair of the Department of Neurology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, ...

A new study indicates that there is no apparent benefit to arthroscopic knee surgery for age-related tears of the meniscus in comparison with nonsurgical or sham treatments. The study, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal), provides evidence that middle-aged or older patients with mild or no osteoarthritis of the knee may not benefit from the procedure. As people age, the meniscus in the knee thins and becomes less flexible and more susceptible to tearing. When the meniscus tears, it can cause pain and mechanical symptoms. Arthroscopic knee surgery ...