Scientists from Queen's University Belfast have been involved in a groundbreaking discovery in the area of experimental physics that has implications for understanding how radiotherapy kills cancer cells, among other things. Dr Jason Greenwood from Queen's Centre for Plasma Physics collaborated with academics from Italy and Spain on the work on electrons, which has been published in the international journal Science. Using some of the shortest laser pulses in the world, the researchers used strobe lighting to track the ultra-fast movement of the electrons within a nanometer-sized ...

A new study led by researchers at King's College London in collaboration with the University of Manchester and the University of Dundee has found a strong link between exposure to peanut protein in household dust during infancy and the development of peanut allergy in children genetically predisposed to a skin barrier defect. Around 2% of school children in the UK and the US are allergic to peanuts. Severe eczema in early infancy has been linked to food allergies, particularly peanut allergy. A major break-through in the understanding of eczema developed with the discovery ...

Fewer cords, smaller antennas and quicker video transmission. This may be the result of a new type of microwave circuit that was designed at Chalmers University of Technology. The research team behind the circuits currently holds an attention-grabbing record. Tomorrow the results will be presented at a conference in San Diego. Every time we watch a film clip on our phone or tablet, an entire chain of advanced technology is involved. In order for the film to start playing in an even sequence when we press the play button, the data must reach us quickly via a long series ...

An experimental drug currently being trialled for influenza and Ebola viruses could have a new target: norovirus, often known as the winter vomiting virus. A team of researchers at the University of Cambridge has shown that the drug, favipiravir, is effective at reducing – and in some cases eliminating – norovirus infection in mice. Norovirus is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in the UK. For most people, infection causes an unpleasant but relatively short-lived case of vomiting and diarrhoea, but chronic infection can cause major health problems for ...

Amsterdam, October 21, 2014 – Flu vaccines are known to have a protective effect against heart disease, reducing the risk of a heart attack. For the first time, this research, published in Vaccine, reveals the molecular mechanism that underpins this phenomenon. The scientists behind the study say it could be harnessed to prevent heart disease directly. Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. People can reduce their risk of heart disease by eating healthily, exercising and stopping smoking. However, to date there is no vaccine against heart disease. Previous ...

Cosmologists have made the most sensitive and precise measurements yet of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The report, published October 20 in the Astrophysical Journal, marks an early success for POLARBEAR, a collaboration of more than 70 scientists using a telescope high in Chile's Atacama desert designed to capture the universe's oldest light. "It's a really important milestone," said Kam Arnold, the corresponding author of the report who has been working on the instrument for a decade. "We're in a new regime of more powerful, precision cosmology." ...

The extinction in the wild of the southern white rhino population could be prevented by letting local communities take responsibility of the animals and giving them permission to harvest horns in a controlled manner through a legal trade. Rhino horn is made of the same material as human hair and fingernails and grows back in 2–3 years. In 2013, more than 1000 rhinos were killed illegally for their horns in South Africa. Rhino horns are being used in Asia for traditional Chinese medicine and personal prestige. Now, a new study based on ecological and socio-economic ...

NASA's newest orbiter at Mars, MAVEN, took precautions to avoid harm from a dust-spewing comet that flew near Mars today and is studying the flyby's effects on the Red Planet's atmosphere. The MAVEN spacecraft -- full name Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution -- reported back to Earth in good health after about three hours of precautions against a possible collision with high-velocity dust particles released by comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring. "We're glad the spacecraft came through, we're excited to complete our observations of how the comet affects Mars, and we're ...

October 20, 2014 – (BRONX, NY) – Rates of depression and anxiety vary widely among different segments of the U.S. Hispanic and Latino population, with the highest prevalence of depressive symptoms in Puerto Ricans, according to a new report from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL). The researchers' findings also suggest that depression and anxiety may be undertreated among Hispanics and Latinos, particularly if they are uninsured. The study was published online in Annals ...

Our species' waking and sleeping cycles – shaped in millions of years of evolution – have been turned upside down within a single century with the advent of electric lighting and airplanes. As a result, millions of people regularly disrupt their biological clocks – for example, shift workers and frequent flyers – and these have been known to be at high risk for such common metabolic diseases as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. A new study published in Cell, led by Weizmann Institute scientists, reveals for the first time that our biological clocks ...

Bethesda, MD (Oct. 21, 2014) — If you are not getting the recommended seven-to-eight hours of sleep each night, you may be at increased risk of developing ulcerative colitis, according to a new study1 in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. "Both short and long durations of sleep have important health implications and are associated with increased overall mortality, cardiovascular disease and cancer," said lead study author Ashwin N. Ananthakrishnan, MD, MPH, Massachusetts ...

A team of UC San Francisco researchers has found that a tiny segment of genetic material known as a microRNA plays a central role in the transition from moderate drinking to binge drinking and other alcohol use disorders. Previous research in the UCSF laboratory of Dorit Ron, PhD, Endowed Chair of Cell Biology of Addiction in Neurology, has demonstrated that the level of a protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, is increased in the brain when alcohol consumed in moderation. In turn, experiments in Ron's lab have shown, BDNF prevents the development ...

(Vienna, October 21, 2014) Patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) may at last be able to hope for a brighter future as innovative new treatments emerge and researchers clarify the role of current therapies. Dr Alexander C. Ford from the Leeds Gastroenterology Institute in Leeds, UK, tells journalists attending the 22nd United European Gastroenterology Week (UEG Week 2014) in Vienna, Austria, that significant progress was being made in drug development for IBS, thanks to the intense research efforts of scientists around the world. "Researchers have dedicated many years ...

A new study shows that survival and neurological outcomes for patients in cardiac arrest can be improved by adding extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) when performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The study abstract was released today in an online supplement of the journal CHEST and will be presented at CHEST 2014, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Austin, Texas held October 25-30. Despite advances in medical care, less than 20% of people who experience a cardiac arrest make a full recovery. An alternate approach to traditional ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Scientists think of CD8 T cells as long-lived cells that become tuned to fight just one pathogen, but a new study finds that once CD8 T cells fight one pathogen, they also join the body's "innate" immune system, ready to answer the calls of the cytokine signals that are set off by a wide variety of infections. Think of CD8 T cells as soldiers who are drafted and trained for a specific mission, but who stay in service, fighting a variety of enemies throughout a long career. CD8 T cells therefore have more utility than researchers ...

Eliminating subsidies that help low- and moderate-income people purchase coverage through government-run health insurance marketplaces would sharply boost costs for consumers and cause more than 11 million Americans to lose their health insurance, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Modeling the likely effects of ending subsidies offered to individuals under the federal Affordable Care Act, researchers found that such a move would increase premium costs in the individual marketplaces by as much as 43 percent and cause enrollment to drop by 68 percent. "If subsidies ...

Two Michigan high school students, sisters Ilina and Medha Krishen, have developed screening tools using electronic stethoscopes to detect lung and heart disease. The sisters will present their findings at CHEST 2014 in Austin, Texas next week. Ilina Krishen became aware of the dangers of smoking and chemical air pollution when she saw the effects of lung disease on family members. Curious to find a way to detect early lung damage in people exposed to noxious air pollutants, Ilina, a high school senior at Port Huron Northern High School in Michigan, developed a screening ...

Adults typically believe that life gets better — today is better than yesterday was and tomorrow will be even better than today. A new study shows that even depressed individuals believe in a brighter future, but this optimistic belief may not lead to better outcomes. The findings are published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research shows that middle-aged adults who had a history of depression tended to evaluate their past and current lives in more negative terms than did adults without depression, ...

TORONTO, Oct. 21, 2014--Controlling the Ebola virus outbreak at the source in West Africa is the most effective way to decrease international risk of transmission, according to a research paper published today in The Lancet. If the epidemic persists and grows, it's likely there will be more cases of the deadly virus exported to other countries, including Canada, via air travel, said Dr. Kamran Khan, a physician and researcher at St. Michael's Hospital. Dr. Khan, who examines global airline travel patterns to predict the spread of diseases, said that every month, three ...

VIDEO: In this video, a Salk researcher explains how cancer evolves to become drug resistant. Click here for more information. LA JOLLA—Like a colony of bacteria or species of animals, cancer cells within a tumor must evolve to survive. A dose of chemotherapy may kill hundreds of thousands of cancer cells, for example, but a single cell with a unique mutation can survive and quickly generate a new batch of drug-resistant cells, making cancer hard to combat. Now, scientists ...

PENSACOLA, Fla. – Ospreys do not carry significant amounts of human pharmaceutical chemicals, despite widespread occurrence of these chemicals in water, a recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Baylor University study finds. These research findings, published by Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management is the first published study that examines the bioaccumulation of pharmaceuticals in the water-fish-osprey food web. Pharmaceuticals have been finding their way into the environment, primarily through wastewater, urban runoff and even biosolids applied ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — After following breast cancer patients for an average of eight-plus years, researchers say that adding trastuzumab (Herceptin) to chemotherapy significantly improved the overall and disease-free survival of women with early stage HER2-positive breast cancer. They found that the use of trastuzumab produced a 37 percent improvement in survival and a 40 percent reduction in risk of cancer occurrence, compared to patients treated with chemotherapy alone. These findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, demonstrate how important ...

A new study, which may have implications for approaches to education, finds that brain mechanisms engaged when people allow their minds to rest and reflect on things they've learned before may boost later learning. Scientists have already established that resting the mind, as in daydreaming, helps strengthen memories of events and retention of information. In a new twist, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have shown that the right kind of mental rest, which strengthens and consolidates memories from recent learning tasks, helps boost future learning. The ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Scientists have restored the hearing of mice partly deafened by noise, using advanced tools to boost the production of a key protein in their ears. By demonstrating the importance of the protein, called NT3, in maintaining communication between the ears and brain, these new findings pave the way for research in humans that could improve treatment of hearing loss caused by noise exposure and normal aging. In a new paper in the online journal eLife, the team from the University of Michigan Medical School's Kresge Hearing Research Institute and ...

PHILADELPHIA – Blue light can both set the mood and set in motion important biological responses. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine and School of Arts and Sciences have teased apart the separate biological responses of the human eye to blue light, revealing an unexpected contest for control. Their work addresses the properties of melanopsin, a light-sensitive protein in the eye that establishes the rhythm of our day-night cycle and the familiar constriction of the pupil to bright light. They measured the pupil response to stimulation ...