The first analysis of space dust collected by a special collector onboard NASA's Stardust mission and sent back to Earth for study in 2006 suggests the tiny specks, which likely originated from beyond our solar system, are more complex in composition and structure than previously imagined. The analysis, completed at a number of facilities including the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) opens a door to studying the origins of the solar system and possibly the origin of life itself. "Fundamentally, the solar system and everything ...

An international team of sky scholars, including a key researcher from Johns Hopkins, has produced new maps of the material located between the stars in the Milky Way. The results should move astronomers closer to cracking a stardust puzzle that has vexed them for nearly a century. The maps and an accompanying journal article appear in the Aug. 15 issue of the journal Science. The researchers say their work demonstrates a new way of uncovering the location and eventually the composition of the interstellar medium—the material found in the vast expanse between star systems ...

VIDEO: This is a 3-D reconstruction from time-lapse CT-scans of a CF pig lung. Images show the trachea and bronchi. Colored round dots represent positions of particles that were... Click here for more information. Mucus is key to keeping our lungs clean and clear of bacteria, viruses, and other foreign particles that can cause infection and inflammation. When we inhale microbes and dust, they are trapped in the mucus and then swept up and out of the lungs via a process called ...

Anyone who has suffered from kidney stones is keenly aware of the lack of drugs to treat the condition, which often causes excruciating pain. A new mouse study, however, suggests that a class of drugs approved to treat leukemia and epilepsy also may be effective against kidney stones, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report. The drugs are histone deacetylase inhibitors, or HDAC inhibitors for short. The researchers found that two of them — Vorinostat and trichostatin A — lower levels of calcium and magnesium in the urine. Both calcium ...

New research shows that broader sharing of deceased donor livers will not significantly increase cold ischemia time (CIT)—the time the liver is in a cooled state outside the donor suggesting that this is not a barrier to broader sharing of organs. However, findings published in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society, do indicate that broader sharing of organs will significantly increase the percentage of donor organs that are transported by flying rather than driving. ...

AUDIO: These are vocalizations made between adults and hatchlings (individual sounds repeated for the listener's benefit). Click here for more information. Turtles are well known for their longevity and protective shells, but it turns out these reptiles use sound to stick together and care for young, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society and other organizations. Scientists working in the Brazilian Amazon have found that Giant South American river turtles actually ...

RNA origami is a new method for organizing molecules on the nanoscale. Using just a single strand of RNA, many complicated shapes can be fabricated by this technique. Unlike existing methods for folding DNA molecules, RNA origamis are produced by enzymes and they simultaneously fold into pre-designed shapes. These features may allow designer RNA structures to be grown within living cells and used to organize cellular enzymes into biochemical factories. The method, which was developed by researchers from Aarhus University (Denmark) and California Institute of Technology ...

MADISON, Wis. — What limits the height of trees? Is it the fraction of their photosynthetic energy they devote to productive new leaves? Or is it their ability to hoist water hundreds of feet into the air, supplying the green, solar-powered sugar factories in those leaves? Both factors — resource allocation and hydraulic limitation — might play a role, and a scientific debate has arisen as to which factor (or what combination) actually sets maximum tree height, and how their relative importance varies in different parts of the world. In research to be published in ...

DALLAS – August 14, 2014 – UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers successfully used a new gene editing method to correct the mutation that leads to Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in a mouse model of the condition. Researchers used a technique called CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing, which can precisely remove a mutation in DNA, allowing the body's DNA repair mechanisms to replace it with a normal copy of the gene. The benefit of this over other gene therapy techniques is that it can permanently correct the "defect" in a gene rather than just transiently adding ...

Pregnant women living near the World Trade Center during 9/11 experienced higher-than-normal negative birth outcomes, according to a new working paper by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. These mothers were more likely to give birth prematurely and deliver babies with low birth weights. Their babies - especially baby boys - were also more likely to be admitted to neonatal intensive care units after birth. The study, led by the Wilson School's Janet Currie and Hannes Schwandt, was released by the National Bureau of Labor ...

Washington, DC—Men, women and children exposed to high levels of phthalates - endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in plastics and some personal care products – tended to have reduced levels of testosterone in their blood compared to those with lower chemical exposure, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Testosterone is the main sex hormone in men. It contributes to a variety of functions in both sexes, including physical growth and strength, brain function, bone density and cardiovascular ...

Washington, DC—Women with a vitamin D deficiency were nearly half as likely to conceive through in vitro fertilization (IVF) as women who had sufficient levels of the vitamin, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Long known for its role in bone health, vitamin D is a steroid hormone that is emerging as a factor in fertility. Animal studies have shown that the hormone, which is produced in the skin as a result of sun exposure as well as absorbed from some fortified foods, affects fertility ...

LA JOLLA, CA—August 14, 2014—Chemists led by Nobel laureate K. Barry Sharpless at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have used his click chemistry to uncover unprecedented, powerful reactivity for making new drugs, diagnostics, plastics, smart materials and many other products. The new SuFEx—Sulfur Fluoride Exchange—reactions enable chemists to link molecules of their choice together using derivatives of a common commercial chemical considered essentially inert. The Sharpless team made this chemical reliably and predictably reactive. Astonishingly, acid-base constraints ...

Adults with autism are at a higher risk of sexual victimization than adults without, due to lack of sex education, but with improved interventions that focus on sexual knowledge and skill building, the risk could be reduced, according to a recent study by York University researchers. "Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) gain more of their sexual knowledge from external sources such as the internet and the television whereas social sources would include parents, teachers and peers," says Professor Jonathan Weiss in the Faculty of Health and the CIHR Chair in Autism ...

Hydraulic fracturing is emerging as one of the primary methods of drilling for natural gas, yet is equally controversial in its potential to induce harm to humans and the environment. The uncertainties of the health risks associated with horizontal drilling using fluid pressure to break down shale formations for natural gas extraction has pushed countries worldwide to proactively regulate the use of this technology, such as a temporary ban in Germany in 2012 and a ban in France in 2011. Where such decisions are hedged on a variety of metrics ranging from social resistance ...

That mountain lions have managed to survive at all in the Santa Monica Mountains of California—in the vicinity of the megacity of Los Angeles—is a testament to the resilience of wildlife, but researchers studying these large carnivorous cats now show in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on August 14 that the lions are also completely isolated, cut off from other populations by the freeway. According to the researchers' analyses, only one young mountain lion successfully dispersed into the Santa Monica Mountains in a decade. Due to their almost complete isolation, ...

By targeting RNA molecules that tangle and clump in the nervous systems of patients with the most common genetic form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), researchers have shown they can effectively limit those damaging elements in cells taken from patients. The results reported in the Cell Press journal Neuron on August 14th show that RNA is a viable drug target for the two overlapping and incurable neurodegenerative diseases. The abnormal proteins derived from that aberrant RNA might also serve as biomarkers ...

Certain microbes found in the gut may protect against obesity and diabetes. A study published by Cell Press August 14th in the journal Cell reveals that these microbes shape their hosts' metabolism very early in life and that disrupting them with short-term exposure to antibiotics during infancy can cause metabolic changes that appear to increase the risk of obesity in adulthood. These findings in mice are helping researchers identify which gut bacteria are crucial to metabolic health. Such information could be used to help restore levels of those helpful microbes after ...

Despite tremendous progress in combatting HIV-1 infection with antiretroviral therapy, there is still no cure for the disease because these drugs do not kill a hidden reservoir of infected cells in the body. A study published by Cell Press August 14th in the journal Cell reveals a multipronged strategy for eradicating this latent reservoir and preventing HIV-1 from rebounding after treatment is stopped in mice. The findings suggest that a "shock-and-kill" approach involving the activation of dormant viruses with drugs called inducers, combined with virus-fighting antibodies, ...

VIDEO: Martin Blaser, M.D., and Laura Cox, Ph.D., discuss their work on early antibiotic exposure in mice. Click here for more information. NEW YORK, August 14, 2014 — A new study published today in Cell suggests that antibiotic exposure during a critical window of early development disrupts the bacterial landscape of the gut, home to trillions of diverse microbes, and permanently reprograms the body's metabolism, setting up a predisposition to obesity. Moreover, the study shows ...

HOUSTON – (August 14, 2014) -- Researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine have developed a new computational method to study the function of disease-causing genes, starting with an important new discovery about a gene associated with malaria – one of the biggest global health burdens. The work published today in the current issue of the journal Cell includes collaborators comprised of computational and evolutionary biologists and leading malaria experts from Baylor, Columbia University Medical Center, Princeton University, Pennsylvania State University and the National ...

VIDEO: Michael Halassa, M.D., Ph.D. discusses his work with the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) and it's importance in identifying new targets for treating various psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, autism and post-traumatic... Click here for more information. New York City, August 14, 2014 - Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere, using a mouse model, have recorded the activity of individual nerve cells in a small part of the brain that works as a "switchboard," ...

LA JOLLA—When faced with pathogens, the immune system summons a swarm of cells made up of soldiers and peacekeepers. The peacekeeping cells tell the soldier cells to halt fighting when invaders are cleared. Without this cease-fire signal, the soldiers, known as killer T cells, continue their frenzied attack and turn on the body, causing inflammation and autoimmune disorders such as allergies, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have discovered a key control mechanism on the peacekeeping cells that ...

JUPITER, FL, August 14, 2014 – An international team led by scientists from the Florida campuses of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the Mayo Clinic have for the first time successfully designed a therapeutic strategy targeting a specific genetic mutation that causes a common form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, as well a type of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The scientists developed small-molecule drug candidates and showed they interfere with the synthesis of an abnormal protein that plays a key role in causing ...

VIDEO: Scientists studied how just a few nerve cell in the mouse brain may control the switch between internal thoughts and external distractions. Using optogenetics, a technique that uses light-sensitive molecules... Click here for more information. Ever wonder why it's hard to focus after a bad night's sleep? Using mice and flashes of light, scientists show that just a few nerve cells in the brain may control the switch between internal thoughts and external distractions. The ...