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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Predicting tornadoes months or even seasons in advance

What if tornado activity could be forecasted months, even seasons in advance? Thanks to a new model developed at the University of Toronto Scarborough, that ability could soon become a reality. "The aim is to predict ahead to the following year or subsequent years about whether we'll get above or below average tornado activity in a given area," says Vincent Cheng, a postdoctoral fellow in UTSC's Ecological Modelling Lab. The model, developed by Cheng, Professor George Arhonditsis and Professor Bill Gough in UTSC's Climate Lab along with colleagues at Environment Canada, ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Ebola virus mutations may help it evade drug treatment

Genetic mutations called "escape variants" in the deadly Ebola virus appear to block the ability of antibody-based treatments to ward off infection, according to a team of U.S. Army scientists and collaborators. Their findings, published online this week in the journal Cell Reports, have implications for the continued development of therapeutics to treat Ebola virus disease, which has claimed the lives of over 11,000 people in West Africa since last year. Ebola virus overruns the immune system, thus overwhelming the host's ability to fight off the infection. One strategy ...

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Space11 Sep 2015

Stellar discovery by Queen's researcher

PhD candidate Matt Shultz has discovered the first massive binary star, epsilon Lupi, in which both stars have magnetic fields. A binary star is a star system consisting of two or more stars, orbiting around their common centre of mass. For the past few years, the BinaMIcS (Binarity and Magnetic Interactions in various classes of Stars) collaboration, formed to study the magnetic properties of close binaries, has been trying to find such an object. They have now discovered one using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. "The origin of magnetism amongst massive stars is ...

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Science11 Sep 2015

UK researchers find 'dormant' parasite cysts are actually quite active

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 8, 2015) -- A new University of Kentucky study in the journal mBio shows that tissue cysts of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, long thought to be dormant, are quite active. Led by Anthony Sinai, professor at the UK College of Medicine, the study has significant implications on the understanding of chronic toxoplasmosis in the brain, a condition suggested to contribute to a range of neurological diseases including schizophrenia in humans, and the modulation of behavior in rodents. Toxoplasmosis can be acquired from the droppings of infected cats ...

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Science11 Sep 2015

Extreme pressure causes osmium to change state of matter

Using metallic osmium (Os) in experimentation, an international group of researchers have demonstrated that ultra-high pressures cause core electrons to interplay, which results in experimentally observed anomalies in the compression behavior of the material. Os is one of Earth's most exceptional elemental materials, possessing the highest known density at ambient pressure, one of the highest cohesive energies and melting temperatures, and an incompressibility that is almost comparable to that of diamond. Researchers believe that the ability to affect core electrons ...

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Science11 Sep 2015

Making a difference with open source science equipment

Open source lab equipment is the focus of a new study, published in Science and Public Policy. Joshua Pearce, an associate professor of materials science and engineering as well as electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Tech, led the research. Pearce proposes that instead of spending millions of dollars every year replacing quickly obsolescent equipment, that money could be redirected to developing open source tools that are "upgradeable and transformable--they will be continuously updated" using digital manufacturing techniques such as 3-D printing. The benefits ...

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Environment11 Sep 2015

Inside climate politics

The politics of climate change are often depicted as a simple battle, between environmentalists and particular industries, over government policy. That's not wrong, but it's only a rough sketch of the matter. Now a paper co-authored by MIT economist Christopher Knittel fills in some important details of the picture, revealing an essential mechanism that underlies the politics of the climate battle. Specifically, as Knittel and his colleagues demonstrate, at least one climate policy enacted by Congress -- on transportation fuels -- contains a crucial asymmetry: It imposes ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Study reveals connection between fitness level, brain activity, and executive function

The aging process is associated with declines in brain function, including memory and how fast our brain processes information, yet previous research has found that higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness in older adults leads to better executive function in the brain, which helps with reasoning and problem solving. Higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels have also been found to increase brain volume in key brain regions. A new study from a team at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois reveals the connection between ...

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Science11 Sep 2015

Best precision yet for neutrino measurements at Daya Bay

UPTON, NY--In the Daya Bay region of China, about 55 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong, a research project is underway to study ghostlike, elusive particles called neutrinos. Today, the international Daya Bay Collaboration announces new findings on the measurements of neutrinos, paving the way forward for further neutrino research, and confirming that the Daya Bay neutrino experiment continues to be one to watch. The latest findings involve measurements that track the way neutrinos change types or flavors as they move, a characteristic called neutrino oscillation. By ...

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Social Science11 Sep 2015

Scientists learn how to predict plant size

VIB and UGent scientists have developed a new method which allows them to predict the final size of a plant while it is still a seedling. Thanks to this method, which is based on the knowledge that a set of genes is associated with the final size of a leaf, scientists will be able to significantly accelerate plant breeding programs. The VIB/UGent scientists were able to identify this set of genes through advanced and highly detailed analyses. Expression analysis of specific genes will help breeders select the most useful crossing products at a very early stage. Smart ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Down but not out -- inhibited Tyk2 retains anti-cancer activity

Tyrosine kinase 2 (Tyk2) is an enzyme involved in intracellular signalling and has an important role in activating the immune system. But enzymatically active Tyk2 can also promote excessive immune reactions and growth of certain cancer types. Since several years, scientists are developing substances to specifically inhibit the kinase activity of Tyk2 for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and for potential use in cancer therapy. However, complications may occur: Tyk2 crucially contributes to the maturation and activation of natural killer (NK) cells. NK cells form ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Cancer patient receives 3-D printed ribs

After being diagnosed with a chest wall sarcoma, a 54-year-old Spanish man's surgical team made the decision to remove his sternum and a portion of his rib cage and replace it with an implant. The implant was designed and manufactured by medical device company, Anatomics, who utilised the CSIRO's 3D printing facility, Lab 22 in Melbourne, Australia. The surgical team, Dr José Aranda, Dr Marcelo Jimene and Dr Gonzalo Varela from Salamanca University Hospital, knew the surgery would be difficult due to the complicated geometries involved in the chest cavity. The ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Wavelets improve medical imaging

An approach to converting the data from MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines, mammograms and other medical equipment gives doctors a much clearer picture of your insides and a chance to detect disease and other problems earlier, according to research published in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology. The technique known as the wavelet transform was first reported in 1910, but it was during the early 1990s that its applications in medicine and biomedical research first emerged and it is now reaching maturity as a technique to supplement ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Sedentary lifestyle and overweight weaken arterial health already in childhood

Arterial wall stiffness and reduced arterial dilation are the first signs of cardiovascular diseases that can be measured. The Physical Activity and Nutrition in Children Study (PANIC) carried out in the Institute of Biomedicine at the University of Eastern Finland shows that low levels of physical activity, weaker physical fitness and higher body fat content are linked to arterial stiffness already in 6-8 year-old children. The study sample included 160 children, and the findings were published in Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports. Physically active ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Case Western Reserve scientists discover a genetic mechanism for cancer progression

Genetics researchers from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine have identified a novel long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), dubbed DACOR1, that has the potential to stymie the growth of tumor cells in the second-most deadly form of cancer in the U.S. -- colorectal cancer. The researchers found that this lncRNA is present in cells of healthy colons, but becomes suppressed in those carrying the disease. More importantly, this lncRNA interacts with a key enzyme known as DNMT1 that has important functions in all healthy cells of the body. Thus, the authors applied a name to ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

UNC smart cells teach neurons damaged by Parkinson's to heal themselves

As a potential treatment for Parkinson's disease, scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have created smarter immune cells that produce and deliver a healing protein to the brain while also teaching neurons to begin making the protein for themselves. The researchers, led by Elena Batrakova, an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy's Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery, genetically modified white blood cells called macrophages to produce glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor, or GDNF, and deliver it to the brain. Glial ...

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Environment11 Sep 2015

Researchers identify 3 new fossil whale species of New Zealand

University of Otago palaeontology researchers are continuing to rewrite the history of New Zealand's ancient whales by describing two further genera and three species of fossil baleen whales. They have named these newly described filter-feeding baleen whale species Waharoa ruwhenua, Tokarahia kauaeroa and re-identified Tokarahia lophocephalus, a poorly known species discovered in the 1950s. All are eomysticetids--a whale family occupying an important position in the evolutionary tree of cetaceans--and Tokarahia appears to be a transitional fossil between primitive ...

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Science11 Sep 2015

Fewer women getting minimally invasive hysterectomies since FDA guidelines

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cautioned against using a minimally invasive method to treat fibroid tumors called power morcellation, there was a nearly quarter increase in hospital readmissions and 27 percent increase in major postoperative complications after hysterectomies in Michigan, a new University of Michigan study says. After the first FDA safety communication in April 2014, the percent of women receiving minimally invasive hysterectomies in a large Michigan database also went down by an absolute 1.7 percent decrease. The ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Pressure to be cool and look good is detrimental to many children

The pressure to be cool, look good and own the 'right stuff' is detrimental to many children and teenagers, according to new research by University of Sussex psychologists. The study shows that, while many young people buy into consumer culture believing it will make them feel better about themselves and help them to make friends, often the reverse happens. The result is a negative downward spiral, say the researchers, whereby those with low well-being turn to consumerist values, which impacts further still upon their state of mind. In a UK study of 1,000 children ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Short lunch periods in schools linked with less healthy eating

Boston, MA -- Students with less than 20 minutes to eat school lunches consume significantly less of their entrées, milk, and vegetables than those who aren't as rushed, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study will appear online Friday, September 11, 2015 in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. "Many children, especially those from low-income families, rely on school meals for up to half their daily energy intake so it is essential that we give students a sufficient amount of time to eat their lunches," ...

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Science11 Sep 2015

African dams linked to over 1 million malaria cases annually

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA (11 September 2015)--Over one million people in sub-Saharan Africa will contract malaria this year because they live near a large dam, according to a new study which, for the first time, has correlated the location of large dams with the incidence of malaria and quantified impacts across the region. The study finds that construction of an expected 78 major new dams in sub-Saharan Africa over the next few years will lead to an additional 56,000 malaria cases annually. The research, published in this month's Malaria Journal, has major implications ...

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Social Science11 Sep 2015

Pressure to be available 24/7 on social media causes teen anxiety and depression

The need to be constantly available and respond 24/7 on social media accounts can cause depression, anxiety and reduce sleep quality for teenagers says a study being presented today, Friday 11 September 2015, at a British Psychological Society conference in Manchester. The researchers, Dr Heather Cleland Woods and Holly Scott of the University of Glasgow, provided questionnaires for 467 teenagers regarding their overall and night-time specific social media use. A further set of tests measured sleep quality, self-esteem, anxiety, depression and emotional investment in ...

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Medicine11 Sep 2015

Replicating liver cells for fast drug testing

Scientists have developed a new technique that produces a user friendly, low cost, tissue-engineered pseudo-organ. The chip-based model produces a faithful mimic of the in vivo liver inside a scalable fluid-handling device, demonstrating proof of principle for toxicology tests and opening up potential use in drug testing and personalised medicine. The results are published today, Friday 11th September, in the journal Biofabrication. The work was done by researchers based at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University ...

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Physics11 Sep 2015

Using magnetic permeability to store information

Scientists have made promising steps in developing a new magnetic memory technology, which is far less susceptible to corruption by magnetic fields or thermal exposure than conventional memory. The findings, which report the use of magnetic permeability - how easily a magnetic field will magnetize a material - are published today, Friday 11th September, in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics. These findings open up a new approach to a variety of applications from high-density radiation hard memory suitable for space travel to more secure ID cards. In conventional ...

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Science11 Sep 2015

Eating a lot of fish may help curb depression risk -- at least in Europe

Eating a lot of fish may help curb the risk of depression--at least in Europe--suggests a pooled analysis of the available evidence, published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. The association between a fishy diet and mental health appears to be equally significant among men and women, the first analysis of its kind indicates. Depression affects an estimated 350 million people worldwide, and is projected to become the second leading cause of ill health by 2020. Several previous studies have looked at the possible role of dietary factors in ...

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