Immune cells perform a previously unsuspected role in the brain that may contribute to obesity, according to a new study by UC San Francisco researchers. When the researchers fed mice a diet high in saturated milk fats, microglia, a type of immune cell, underwent a population explosion in the brain region called the hypothalamus, which is responsible for feeding behavior. The researchers used an experimental drug and, alternatively, a genetic approach to knock out these microglia, and both strategies resulted in a complete loss of microglia-driven inflammation in the ...

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Dec. 12, 2014 -- Using a basic genetic difference between men and women, the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) has uncovered a way to track down the source of a neurological disorder in a young girl. TGen's discovery relies on a simple genetic fact: Men have one X and one Y chromosome, while women have two X chromosomes. This women-only factor was leveraged by TGen investigators to develop a highly accurate method of tracking down a previously unrecognized disorder of the X-chromosome. The study of a pre-teen girl, who went years ...

With the ball at the three-point line near the top of the key, what will Tim Duncan of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs do? Pass to a player posting up? Or does he take a shot? An analysis by Disney Research of player tracking data, however, suggests the highest probability is a pass to guard Tony Parker on his left. It's just one play, by one player, in one sport - and perhaps not that hard for the average courtside observer to anticipate - but with the field of sports becoming more driven by sports analytics, predicting the next thing that a player will do has become a major ...

A new National Science Foundation (NSF) report reveals the number of U.S. citizen doctoral graduates in science, engineering and health fields, who remain in the United States, tracks closely with their intent to stay in the United States at the time of graduation. However, there are noticeable differences for doctoral graduates who were temporary visa holders at the time of graduation. According to the report, 96.4 percent of U.S. citizen doctoral graduates from academic years 2001-09 reported their intent to live in the United States, a measure referred to as the expected ...

December 12, 2014 - All children should undergo vision health screening between age 36 and 72 months--preferably every year--using evidence-based test methods and with effective referral and follow-up, according to recommendations published in the January issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The National Expert Panel to The National Center for Children's Vision Health makes recommendations for vision health screening in ...

MADISON, Wis. - As a fundamental unit of life, the cell is central to all of biology. Better understanding how complex cells evolved and work promises new revelations in areas as diverse as cancer research and developing new crop plants. But deep thinking on how the eukaryotic cell came to be is astonishingly scant. Now, however, a bold new idea of how the eukaryotic cell and, by extension, all complex life came to be is giving scientists an opportunity to re-examine some of biology's key dogma. All complex life -- including plants, animals and fungi -- is made up of ...

The genomes of modern birds tell a story: Today's winged rulers of the skies emerged and evolved after the mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs and almost everything else 66 million years ago. That story is now coming to light, thanks to an international collaboration that has been underway for four years. The first findings of the Avian Phylogenomics Consortium are being reported nearly simultaneously in 23 papers--eight papers in a special issue this week of Science, and 15 more in Genome Biology, GigaScience and other journals. The results are funded in part ...

An ancient meteorite and high-energy X-rays have helped scientists conclude a half century of effort to find, identify and characterize a mineral that makes up 38 percent of the Earth. And in doing so, a team of scientists led by Oliver Tschauner, a mineralogist at the University of Las Vegas, clarified the definition of the Earth's most abundant mineral - a high-density form of magnesium iron silicate, now called Bridgmanite - and defined estimated constraint ranges for its formation. Their research was performed at the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. Department of Energy ...

Chicago, IL, and New Haven, CT, December 12, 2014 - The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research today released the first set of findings from its inaugural environment poll. The poll surveys a nationally representative sample of American adults and provides a portrait of what the public thinks and feels about environmental issues, and what actions they are taking as consumers. Findings from the first report indicate that most Americans say the United States ought to take a leadership role in combating ...

VIDEO: A wide-field movie by GOES-WEST of the North Pacific from Dec. 9-12, 2014 reveals the violent rain storms pouring moisture on the "Pineapple Express " jet stream into California in mid-December.... Click here for more information. The ''Pineapple Express'' happens when warm air and lots of moisture are transported from the Central Pacific, near Hawaii, to the Eastern Pacific Ocean. An animation of satellite imagery from NOAA's GOES-West satellite showed the stream of ...

Tropical Cyclone Bakung is moving in a westerly direction over the open waters of the Southern Indian Ocean and NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of the sea storm. Aqua passed over Bakung on Dec. 12 at 07:35 UTC (2:35 a.m. EST) and the MODIS instrument aboard took a visible image of the storm. The image showed that deeper convection (stronger currents of rising air that form the thunderstorms that make up the tropical cyclone) was occurring around the low-level center of circulation, so the center was not apparent in the MODIS imagery. The bulk of the clouds associated ...

Splashy blue and green hues pop from under the glassy finish of the Tinamou species' (bird relatives of ostriches, rheas and emus) eggs. Pigments covered by a thin, smooth cuticle reveal the mystery behind these curious shells, University of Akron researchers discovered. The finding could lead to the development of glossy new coatings for ceramics and floors, potentially enhancing their aesthetic qualities and durability. After removing the outer layer of the eggshells and examining their chemistry and nanostructure, the researchers discovered the presence of a weak ...

Extreme climate and weather events such as record high temperatures, intense downpours and severe storm surges are becoming more common in many parts of the world. But because high-quality weather records go back only about 100 years, most scientists have been reluctant to say if global warming affected particular extreme events. On Wednesday, Dec. 17, at the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting in San Francisco, Noah Diffenbaugh, an associate professor of environmental Earth system science at the Stanford School of Earth Sciences, will discuss approaches to this ...

PHILADELPHIA -- Frequent kidney dialysis is essential for the approximately 350,000 end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients in the United States. But it can also cause systemic inflammation, leading to complications such as cardiovascular disease and anemia, and patients who rely on the therapy have a five-year survival rate of only 35 percent. Such inflammation can be triggered when the complement cascade, part of the body's innate immune system, is inadvertently activated by modern polymer-based dialysis blood filters. New work by Penn researchers has found an effective ...

Like a smart sensor that adjusts the lighting in each room and a home's overall temperature, a protein that governs the making of other proteins in the cell also appears capable of controlling fat levels in the body. The finding, which appeared in Cell Reports on Dec. 11, applies to the Maf1 protein in worms. A version of the protein, which exists in humans, also regulates protein production in the cell, raising the possibility that it too may control fat storage. A protein with such a function would offer a new target for pharmaceuticals to regulate fat, said Sean ...

The Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) model consistently and significantly improves quality of care for patients and reduces health care costs, reports a first-of-its-kind, large-scale literature review of the PSH in the United States and abroad. The review, published online this month in Milbank Quarterly, provides further evidence to support the benefits, and encourage the adoption, of the PSH model. "There is a global push for more rigorously coordinated and integrated management of surgical patients to enhance patient satisfaction and improve quality of care and ...

Oil reservoirs are scattered deep inside the Earth like far-flung islands in the ocean, so their inhabitants might be expected to be very different, but a new study led by Dartmouth College and University of Oslo researchers shows these underground microbes are social creatures that have exchanged genes for eons. The study, which was led by researchers at Dartmouth College and the University of Oslo, appears in the ISME Journal. A PDF is available on request. The findings shed new light on the "deep biosphere," or the vast subterranean realm whose single-celled residents ...

BOZEMAN, Mont. - Cathy Cripps doesn't seem to worry about the grizzly bears and black bears that watch her work, but she is concerned about the ghosts and skeletons she encounters. The ghosts are whitebark pine forests that have been devastated by mountain pine beetles and white pine blister rust, said the Montana State University scientist who studies fungi that grow in extreme environments. The skeletons are dead trees that no longer shade snow or produce pine cones. The round purple pine cones hold the seeds that feed bears, red squirrels and Clark's nutcracker birds. ...

Amsterdam, NL, December 12, 2014 - A patient who had suffered a traumatic brain injury unexpectedly recovered full consciousness after the administration of midazolam, a mild depressant drug of the GABA A agonists family. This resulted in the first recorded case of an "awakening" from a minimally-conscious state (MCS) using this therapy. Although similar awakenings have been reported using other drugs, this dramatic result was unanticipated. It is reported in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. Traumatic brain injuries occur at high rates all over the world, estimated ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 11, 2014--In cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI), predicting the likelihood of a cranial lesion and determining the need for head computed tomography (CT) can be aided by measuring markers of bone injury in the blood. The results of a new study comparing the usefulness of two biomarkers released into the blood following a TBI are presented in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Neurotrauma website at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/neu.2013.3245 ...

Training older people in the use of social media improves cognitive capacity, increases a sense of self-competence and could have a beneficial overall impact on mental health and well-being, according to a landmark study carried out in the UK. A two-year project funded by the European Union and led by the University of Exeter in partnership with Somerset Care Ltd and Torbay & Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust gave a group of vulnerable older adults a specially-designed computer, broadband connection and training in how to use them. Those who received training ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass.--Since the first "catalog" of the normal bacterial makeup of the human body was published in 2012, numerous connections between illness and disturbances in the human microbiota have been found. This week, scientists report yet another: Cancerous tumors in the ascending colon (the part nearest to the small intestine) are characterized by biofilms, which are dense clumps of bacterial cells encased in a self-produced matrix. "This is the first time that biofilms have been shown to be associated with colon cancer, to our knowledge," says co-author Jessica ...

PITTSBURGH--An interest in the gender gap between the representations of female candidates in U.S. elections compared to their male counterparts led two University of Pittsburgh professors to take the issue into the laboratory for three years of research. Associate Professors of Political Science Kristin Kanthak and Jonathan Woon have published an article about the first phase of their research findings. "Women Don't Run? Election Aversion and Candidate Entry" was published online Dec. 2 in the American Journal of Political Science. "Past research has shown that women ...

A group of researchers from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Faculty of Fisheries in Turkey discovered a new trout species. The newly described species Salmo kottelati, belongs to the Salmonidae family, which includes salmons, trouts, chars, graylings and freshwater whitefishes. Salmonids include over 200 species, which have a high economic value because of their taste and famed sporting qualities. The genus Salmo is widely distributed in rivers and streams of basins of the Marmara, Black, Aegean and Mediterranean seas. The genus is represented by 12 species in ...

In a contribution to an extraordinary international scientific collaboration the University of Sydney found that genomic 'fossils' of past viral infections are up to thirteen times less common in birds than mammals. "We found that only found only five viral families have left a footprint in the bird genome (genetic material) during evolution. Our study therefore suggests that birds are either less susceptible to viral invasions or purge them more effectively than mammals," said Professor Edward Holmes, from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre, School of ...