PITTSBURGH—Many double-stranded DNA viruses infect cells by ejecting their genetic information into a host cell. But how does the usually rigid DNA packaged inside a virus' shell flow from the virus to the cell? In two separate studies, Carnegie Mellon University biophysicist Alex Evilevitch has shown that in viruses that infect both bacteria and humans, a phase transition at the temperature of infection allows the DNA to change from a rigid crystalline structure into a fluid-like structure that facilitates infection. The findings, published in Nature Chemical Biology ...

Medical imaging is at the forefront of diagnostics today, with imaging techniques like MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), CT (computerized tomography), scanning, and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) increasing steeply over the last two decades. However, persisting problems of image resolution and quality still limit these techniques because of the nature of living tissue. A solution is hyperpolarization, which involves injecting the patient with substances that can increase imaging quality by following the distribution and fate of specific molecules in the body but that ...

New York, NY—September 29, 2014—When one sends an email from Boston to Beijing, it travels through submarine optical cables that someone had to install at some point. The positioning of these cables can generate intriguing coiling patterns that can also cause problems if, for instance, they are tangled or kinked. The deployment of a rodlike structure onto a moving substrate is commonly found in a variety of engineering applications, from the fabrication of nanotube serpentines to the laying of submarine cables and pipelines, and engineers for years have been interested ...

PRINCETON, N.J.–While it is largely understood that birth rates plummet when unemployment rates soar, the long-term effects have never been clear. Now, new research from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs shows that recessions result in lower birth rates both in the short and long run. The researchers find that women in their early 20s during the Great Recession are likely to have fewer children in both the short and long term. This result is driven largely by an increase in the number of women who will remain childless ...

LA JOLLA, CA—September 29, 2014—Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered that a gene mutation linked to hereditary spastic paraplegia, a disabling neurological disorder, interferes with the normal breakdown of triglyceride fat molecules in the brain. The TSRI researchers found large droplets of triglycerides within the neurons of mice modeling the disease. The findings, reported this week online ahead of print by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, point the way to potential therapies and showcase an investigative strategy ...

Tumours are mosaics of cells that are morphologically and molecularly very different. In this cellular heterogeneity, it is calculated that only 1-2% of the tumour mass is made up of cancer stem cells, which over the past years have been suggested to be responsible for the origin of cancer and for the resistance to conventional chemical therapies. This small percentage of cancer stem cells in a solid tumour makes it difficult to isolate and analyse them, as well as to study the origin of drug resistance. Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) ...

An expedition from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Carnegie Institute of Science has measured a roughly 40% reduction in the rate of calcium carbonate deposited in Australia's Great Barrier Reef in the last 35 years — a scenario that could damage the reef framework and endanger the entire coral ecosystem. Coral reefs are the most ecologically diverse and productive ecosystem in the ocean, with rich and diverse communities of fish, corals and mollusks making them a major attraction for marine and underwater tourism. Producing almost 50% of the net annual calcium ...

LAWRENCE — Unexpected results from an ongoing experiment in the lab of Kristi Neufeld, co-leader of the Cancer Biology Program at the University of Kansas Cancer Center, led to a potentially important discovery that could have an effect on how cancer researchers test anti-cancer therapies in mice as well as possibly prevent colon cancer in people. Neufeld, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, studies the adenomatous polyposis coli protein, which protects against colon cancer. Many of her experiments involve testing mice with APC mutations, which ...

The idea of mapping the brain is not new. Researchers have known for years that the key to treating, curing, and even preventing brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury, is to understand how the brain records, processes, stores, and retrieves information. New Tel Aviv University research published in PLOS Computational Biology makes a major contribution to efforts to navigate the brain. The study, by Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob and Dr. Paolo Bonifazi of TAU's School of Physics and Astronomy and Sagol School of Neuroscience, and Prof. ...

The atmospheric conditions associated with the unprecedented drought in California are very likely linked to human-caused climate change, researchers report. Climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh of Stanford University and colleagues used a novel combination of computer simulations and statistical techniques to show that a persistent region of high atmospheric pressure over the Pacific Ocean--one that diverted storms away from California--was much more likely to form in the presence of modern greenhouse gas concentrations. The result, published today in the Bulletin of ...

PHILADELPHIA – In the second of two papers outlining new gene-therapy approaches to treat a rare disease called MPS I, researchers from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania examined systemic delivery of a vector to replace the enzyme IDUA, which is deficient in patients with this disorder. The second paper, which is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, describes how an injection of a vector expressing the IDUA enzyme to the liver can prevent most of the systemic manifestations of the disease, including ...

A new study led by a Boston University School of Public Health researcher has found that states with higher estimated rates of gun ownership experience a higher incidence of non-stranger firearms homicides – disputing the claim that gun ownership deters violent crime, its authors say. The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found no significant relationship between levels of gun ownership and rates of stranger-on-stranger homicide. But it did find that higher levels of gun ownership were associated with increases in non-stranger homicide rates, ...

LOS ANGELES – (Sept. 29, 2014) –MPS IIIB is a devastating and currently untreatable disease that causes progressive damage to the brain, leading to profound intellectual disability, dementia and death -- often before reaching adulthood. Officially known as mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIB or Sanfilippo Syndrome type B, the disease causes the accumulation of waste products in the cells, leading to progressive damage to the brain. Patients with MPS IIIB lack a vital enzyme that is needed to break down long chains of sugars, known as mucopolysaccharides, leading these to ...

Research has shown that drinking caffeinated beverages and listening to music are two popular fatigue-fighting measures that drivers take, but very few studies have tested the usefulness of those measures. New research to be presented at the HFES 2014 Annual Meeting in Chicago evaluates which method, if either, can successfully combat driver fatigue. In their paper titled "Comparison of Caffeine and Music as Fatigue Countermeasures in Simulated Driving Tasks," human factors/ergonomics researchers ShiXu Liu, Shengji Yao, and Allan Spence designed a simulated driving study ...

URBANA, Ill. – University of Illinois scientists have found compounds that boost liver detoxification enzymes nearly fivefold, and they've found them in a pretty unlikely place—the crushed seeds left after oil extraction from an oilseed crop used in jet fuel. "The bioactive compounds in Camelina sativa seed, also known as Gold of Pleasure, are a mixture of phytochemicals that work together synergistically far better than they do alone. The seed meal is a promising nutritional supplement because its bioactive ingredients increase the liver's ability to clear foreign chemicals ...

In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, researchers at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry have explained how the function of a key protein in the heart changes in heart failure. Heart disease is the number-one killer in the developed world. The end stage of heart disease is heart failure, in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to satisfy the body's needs. Patients become progressively short of breath as the condition worsens, and they also begin to accumulate fluid in the legs and lungs, making it ...

You've probably seen advertising campaigns in which banks describe how much their customer relationships matter to them. While such messaging might have been cooked up at an ad agency, it turns out there is some truth underlying these slogans. As a newly published study co-authored by an MIT professor shows, strong working relationships between bankers and clients reduce the likelihood of loan delinquencies and defaults, at least in the context of an emerging economy. Using propriety data from a large bank in Chile, the study finds that when loan officers go on leave, ...

The atmospheric conditions associated with the unprecedented drought currently afflicting California are "very likely" linked to human-caused climate change, Stanford scientists say. In a new study, a team led by Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh used a novel combination of computer simulations and statistical techniques to show that a persistent region of high atmospheric pressure hovering over the Pacific Ocean that diverted storms away from California was much more likely to form in the presence of modern greenhouse gas concentrations. The research, published ...

Cardiac surgery patients may be at risk because of the decision by Health Canada and the European Medicines Agency to reintroduce the use of aprotinin after its withdrawal from the worldwide market in 2007, assert the authors of a previous major trial that found a substantially increased risk of death associated with the drug. In an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal), the authors refute three major criticisms of the trial made by the regulatory bodies. Aprotinin, used to control bleeding in cardiac surgery, was withdrawn worldwide in 2007 after the ...

Elite sporting stars can assess and reduce their risk of a hamstring injury thanks to a breakthrough made by QUT researchers. The discovery could be worth a fortune to football codes, with hamstring strain injuries accounting for most non-contact injuries in Australian rules football, football and rugby union, as well as track events like sprinting. Using an innovative field device, a research team led by Dr Anthony Shield, from QUT's School - Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, and former QUT PhD student, Dr David Opar, now at the Australian Catholic University, measured ...

Among patients with acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery, infusion with the antihypertensive agent fenoldopam, compared with placebo, did not reduce the need for renal replacement therapy (dialysis) or risk of death at 30 days, but was associated with an increased rate of abnormally low blood pressure, according to a study published in JAMA. The study is being posted early online to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine annual congress. More than 1 million patients undergo cardiac surgery every year in the United States ...

Australia's hottest year on record in 2013 along with the accompanying droughts, heat waves and record-breaking seasons of that year was virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused global warming. New research from ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) researchers and colleagues, over five different Australian papers in a special edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), has highlighted the powerful influence of global warming on Australia's climate. "We often talk about the fingerprint of human-caused ...

DARIEN, IL – Public health and safety are threatened by the increasing prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea, which now afflicts at least 25 million adults in the U.S., according to the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project. Several new studies highlight the destructive nature of obstructive sleep apnea, a chronic disease that increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, stroke and depression. "Obstructive sleep apnea is destroying the health of millions of Americans, and the problem has only gotten worse over the last two decades," said ...

A world-first study in today's New England Journal of Medicine heralds the efficacy of a targeted combination drug therapy after reporting major declines in the risk of disease progression and death in people with metastatic melanoma. The multi-centre, double-blind, randomised, phase 3 trial compared oral dabrafenib (150 mg twice daily) and oral trametinib (2 mg once daily) combination therapy with oral dabrafenib (150 mg twice daily) and placebo. All trial patients had inoperable stage 3C or 4 metastatic melanoma that had a BRAF gene mutation V600E or V600K. Among ...

The literature describes Listeria as ubiquitous bacteria with widespread occurrence. Yet they only become a problem for humans and animals when they contaminate food processing facilities, multiply, and enter the food chain in high concentrations. An infection with Listeria monocytogenes can even be fatal for humans or animals with weakened immune systems. Listeria in soil or water are not dangerous "Listeria in soil or water represent a relatively low risk to humans," explains study director Beatrix Stessl. "The concentrations are too low. The aim of our study was ...