Cold Spring Harbor, NY – How many times have we seen Superman swoop down from the heavens and rescue a would-be victim from a rapidly oncoming train? It's a familiar scenario, played out hundreds of times in the movies. But the dramatic scene is reenacted in real life every time a cell divides. In order for division to occur, our genetic material must be faithfully replicated by a highly complicated machine, whose parts are tiny enough to navigate among the strands of the double helix. The problem is that our DNA is constantly in use, with other molecular machines ...

Available for download today, the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) and Allianza MREDD+ released the first detailed map of aboveground forest carbon stocks of Mexico. This carbon stock inventory is very valuable for Mexico, as one of the first tropical nations to voluntarily pledge to mitigation actions within the context of the United Nation's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) program. The hectare-scale map is the result of a collaboration led by WHRC scientists Josef Kellndorfer and Oliver Cartus with Mexico's National Forestry Commission ...

1. Conventional medical centers may be unable to prevent spread of Ebola A group of infectious disease experts suggests that conventional U.S. medical centers are unprepared and ill equipped to manage Ebola and a national network of specialized containment and treatment facilities may be needed to reduce the virus' spread, according to an article being published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Despite efforts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to prepare hospitals for Ebola, enormous challenges remain. The authors express doubt that conventional ...

A UC Santa Barbara geochemist studying Samoan volcanoes has found evidence of the planet's early formation still trapped inside the Earth. Known as hotspots, volcanic island chains such as Samoa can ancient primordial signatures from the early solar system that have somehow survived billions of years. Matthew Jackson, an associate professor in UCSB's Department of Earth Science, and colleagues utilized high-precision lead and helium isotope measurements to unravel the chemical composition and geometry of the deep mantle plume feeding Samoa's volcanoes. Their findings ...

VIDEO: NOAA's GOES-East satellite captured this image of Hurricane Gonzalo off the U.S. East Coast on Oct. 16 at 13:07 UTC (9:07 a.m. EDT). Click here for more information. NASA and NOAA satellites have been providing continuous coverage of Hurricane Gonzalo as it moves toward Bermuda. NASA's Terra satellite saw thunderstorms wrapped tightly around the center with large bands of thunderstorms wrapping into it. NOAA's GOES-East satellite provided and "eye-opening" view of Gonzalo, ...

Tropical Storm Ana continued on a path to the Hawaiian Islands as NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead and gathered data on the storm. NOAA's GOES-West satellite data was compiled into a movie that showed the intensification and movement of Ana. Watches are now in effect for Hawaii. NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) has issued a Tropical Storm Watch for Hawaii County, Hawaii. A tropical storm watch means that tropical storm conditions are possible within the watch area, in this case within 36 to 48 hours. Life-threatening surf and riptide conditions will ...

An international team of scientists has succeeded in explaining the formation and propagation over astronomical distances of jets of matter emitted by young stars—one of the most fascinating mysteries of modern astronomy. Using a patented experimental device and large-scale numerical simulations, the team obtained data consistent with astrophysical observations. The results of this research—just published in the prestigious journal Science—open up new opportunities for studying the role of magnetic fields in astrophysics and thermonuclear fusion. Bruno ...

Why is the Sun's million-degree corona, or outermost atmosphere, so much hotter than the Sun's surface? This question has baffled astronomers for decades. Today, a team led by Paola Testa of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is presenting new clues to the mystery of coronal heating using observations from the recently launched Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). The team finds that miniature solar flares called "nanoflares" - and the speedy electrons they produce - might partly be the source of that heat, at least in some of the hottest parts ...

Researchers at the University of Connecticut have found a new way to identify protein mutations in cancer cells. The novel method is being used to develop personalized vaccines to treat patients with ovarian cancer. "This has the potential to dramatically change how we treat cancer," says Dr. Pramod Srivastava, director of the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health and one of the principal investigators on the study. "This research will serve as the basis for the first ever genomics-driven personalized medicine clinical trial in immunotherapy ...

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can share resources to cause chronic infections, Vanderbilt University investigators have discovered. Like the individual members of a gang who might be relatively harmless alone, they turn deadly when they get together with their "friends." The findings, reported Oct. 8 in Cell Host & Microbe, shed light on a long-standing question in infectious diseases and may inform new treatment strategies, said Eric Skaar, Ph.D., MPH, Ernest W. Goodpasture Professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. One way that Staphylococcus aureus and other ...

Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have made what may be the most reliable distance measurement yet of an object that existed in the Universe's formative years. The galaxy is one of the faintest, smallest and most distant galaxies ever seen and measuring its distance with this accuracy was possible due only to the incredibly detailed mapping of how giant galaxy clusters warp the space-time around them. Astronomers often use gravitational lensing -- the magnifying power of galaxy clusters -- to find distant galaxies [1]. However, when it comes to the ...

Boulder, Colo., USA - What is the "Sixth Extinction"? How do paleontologists determine North America's future fire threats? What do trilobites look like on the inside? Did the Chicxulub impact trigger an eruption? Here, the Paleontological Society highlights some of the best science and current work in paleontology to be presented at the 126th Annual Meeting of The Geological Society of America on 19-22 October in Vancouver, BC, Canada. SUNDAY, 18 Oct. Geospatial Analysis of Human-Megafaunal Overlap in North America: Lead author Meaghan Emery and colleagues write that ...

Organisms ranging from bacteria to humans have circadian clocks to help them synchronize their biological activities to the time of day. A study published by Cell Press October 16th in Cell now reveals that gut microbes in mice and humans have circadian rhythms that are controlled by the biological clock of the host in which they reside. Disruption of the circadian clock in the host alters the rhythms and composition of the microbial community, leading to obesity and metabolic problems. "These findings provide an explanation for a long-standing and mysterious observation, ...

Supplementing the diet with omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids has beneficial effects on heart health by lowering "bad" LDL cholesterol and raising "good" HDL cholesterol, but the underlying mechanisms involved are poorly understood. Now research based on the genetic information from over 100,000 individuals of European ancestry has uncovered a gene that affects blood cholesterol levels through the generation of a compound from omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, called lipoxins. The study, publishing online October 16 in the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism, also provides ...

Researchers have found that male and female brains respond in remarkably different ways to high-fat meals. Those differences in the brain lead to greater inflammation and increased health risks in males that indulge on fatty foods in comparison to females, a new study in mice shows. The findings reported in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports on October 16th may help to explain observed differences in obesity outcomes between women and men – premenopausal women carrying extra weight fare better than men do – and suggest that dietary advice should be made more ...

Two closely related viruses that have been introduced to northern Spain in recent years have already led to the collapse of three different species of amphibian—the common midwife toad, the common toad, and the alpine newt—in the protected area of Picos de Europa (literally "Peaks of Europe") National Park. In all, six amphibian species have suffered from severe disease and mass mortality as a result of the outbreak, and researchers who report their findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 16 say that the viruses appear to be on the move. ...

Scientists tracing the real-time impact of viruses in the wild have found that entire amphibian communities are being killed off by closely related viruses introduced to mountainous areas of northern Spain. Researchers from UCL, Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) in the UK, and the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC) in Madrid, Spain found the viruses are causing severe disease and mass deaths in many amphibian species sampled, including frogs and salamanders. The common midwife toad, common toad and alpine newt ...

A newly discovered population of immune cells in tumors is associated with less severe cancer outcomes in humans, and may have therapeutic potential, according to a new UC San Francisco study of 3,600 human tumors of 12 types, as well as mouse experiments. The research is published online October 16, 2014 in the journal Cancer Cell. Molecules associated with these cells, newly identified by the UCSF researchers, could be the focus of new immunotherapies that are more precisely targeted than current immunotherapies now in clinical trials, said Matthew Krummel, PhD, professor ...

Choosing between two good things can be tough. When animals must decide between feeding and mating, it can get even trickier. In a discovery that might ring true even for some humans, researchers have shown that male brains – at least in nematodes – will suppress the ability to locate food in order to instead focus on finding a mate. The results, which appear today in the journal Current Biology, may point to how subtle changes in the brain's circuitry dictate differences in behavior between males and females. "While we know that human behavior is influenced ...

Stanford, CA—When it comes to cellular architecture, function follows form. Plant cells contain a dynamic cytoskeleton which is responsible for directing cell growth, development, movement, and division. So over time, changes in the cytoskeleton form the shape and behavior of cells and, ultimately, the structure and function of the organism as a whole. New work led by Carnegie's David Ehrhardt hones in on how one particular organizational protein influences cytoskeletal and cellular structure in plants, findings that may also have implications for cytoskeletal ...

KANSAS CITY, MO — Scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have made a surprising finding about the aggregates of misfolded cellular proteins that have been linked to aging-related disorders such as Parkinson's disease. The researchers report their results in the October 16, 2014 online issue of the journal Cell. Using 3-D time-lapse movies to track the fate of misfolded proteins in yeast cells, the researchers determined that about 90 percent of aggregates form on the surface of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a location of protein synthesis in ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Across the animal kingdom, it's not uncommon for pregnancy to change an expectant mom's behavior. Even female flies have their own rudimentary way of "nesting," which appears to be brought on by the stretch of their egg-filled abdomens rather than the act of mating, according to a Duke study published online October 16 in Cell Reports. After mating, the female fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster dramatically shifts priorities as she prepares to lay eggs. "For example, the virgin flies are interested in sex. Once they're mated, it's very striking -- they ...

SOLOMONS, MD (October 16, 2014)--Offshore wind power is a valuable source of renewable energy that can help reduce carbon emissions. Technological advances are allowing higher capacity turbines to be installed in deeper water, but there is still much unknown about the effects on the environment. In a recent paper, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science researcher Helen Bailey and colleagues review the potential impacts of offshore wind developments on marine species and make recommendations for future monitoring and assessment as interest in offshore wind ...

(SALT LAKE CITY)—University of Utah scientists have identified two microRNA molecules that control chronic inflammation, a discovery that one day may help researchers prevent certain fatal or debilitating conditions before they start. "We're living at a time where the aging population is growing," said Ryan O'Connell, D.Phil., assistant professor of pathology, whose lab made the discovery. "The question is: how can we predict and prevent the onset of disorders that emerge upon growing older?" The research will be published this Thursday in Immunity, a top immunology ...

LA JOLLA, CA—October 16, 2014—Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified the long-sought activating molecules for a rare but crucial subset of immune system cells that help rally other white blood cells to fight infection. In the process, the team also uncovered a previously unsuspected link between the mammalian immune system and the communication systems of simpler organisms such as bacteria. The findings, published online ahead of print on October 16 by the journal Immunity, could lead to novel therapeutic approaches for diseases ...