CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 26, 2015 - Newly published research from the Forsyth Institute details a discovery explaining why the 100 million Americans estimated to be taking prescription and over-the-counter antacid and heartburn medications may be at an increased risk of bone fractures. The new report from Forsyth, published in the March issue of the prestigious medical research journal PLOS Genetics, explains that stomach acid in the gastrointestinal tract plays an important role in helping the intestines absorb and transfer calcium to the skeletal system. While the ...

Genetic defects affecting tiny channels in human nerve cells lead to several neurological diseases that result from aberrant nerve transmission, such as episodic ataxia, absence epilepsy, and migraines. These disorders have also been associated with neurodegeneration, but it has been less clear why this should be. The transmission of nerve impulses requires the perfect orchestration of a series of complex cellular events in a matter of fractions of a second. The membrane that surrounds a nerve cell is normally electrically polarized, but a nerve impulse triggers a Mexican ...

MADISON, Wis. -- An Ebola whole virus vaccine, constructed using a novel experimental platform, has been shown to effectively protect monkeys exposed to the often fatal virus. The vaccine, described today (March 26, 2015) in the journal Science, was developed by a group led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a University of Wisconsin-Madison expert on avian influenza, Ebola and other viruses of medical importance. It differs from other Ebola vaccines because as an inactivated whole virus vaccine, it primes the host immune system with the full complement of Ebola viral proteins and ...

Orchestrated costume changes make it possible for certain nasty microbes to outsmart the immune system, which would otherwise recognize them by the telltale proteins they wear. By taking the first detailed look at how one such parasite periodically assumes a new protein disguise during a long-term infection, new research at Rockefeller University challenges many assumptions about one of the best-known examples of this strategy, called antigenic variation, in the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness. For research published on March 27 in Science, a team at Rockefeller ...

A new study led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego researchers has revealed that the thickness of Antarctica's floating ice shelves has recently decreased by as much as 18 percent in certain areas over nearly two decades, providing new insights on how the Antarctic ice sheet is responding to climate change. Data from nearly two decades of satellite missions have shown that the ice volume decline is accelerating, according to a study published on March 26, 2015, in the journal Science and supported by NASA. Scripps graduate student Fernando Paolo, Scripps ...

HOUSTON - (March 26, 2015) - Taking out the garbage is a crucial step in housecleaning. Similarly, autophagy is the body's first-line of defense against the buildup up of toxic substances, degrading old organelles and proteins to provide new substrates and building blocks. In this way, autophagy prevents the buildup of "garbage" that can result in destruction of neurons and cause neurologic diseases. A forward genetic screen in Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) identified mutant copies, or alleles, of a gene called cacophony associated with defects in autophagy ...

While most of us recover from influenza after a week, it can be a very severe disease, and even fatal in rare cases, with no reason for physicians to have expected such an outcome. By analysing the genome of a little girl who contracted a severe form of influenza at the age of two and a half years, researchers at the Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases (a joint French-American international laboratory), which brings together researchers from Inserm, Paris Descartes University, and physicians from the Paris public hospitals (AP-HP; Necker Hospital for Sick ...

New research shows bacteria can use tiny magnetic particles to effectively create a 'natural battery.' According to work published in journal Science on 27 March, the bacteria can load electrons onto and discharge electrons from microscopic particles of magnetite. This discovery holds out the potential of using this mechanism to help clean up environmental pollution, and other bioengineering applications. The European Association of Geochemistry is highlighting this work as especially interesting. According to study leader Dr James Byrne (Tübingen): "The geochemistry ...

A study led by Cathy Spatz Widom, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at John Jay College, found that offspring of parents with histories of child abuse and neglect are themselves at risk for childhood neglect and sexual abuse but not physical abuse. Titled "Intergenerational Transmission of Child Abuse and Neglect: Real or Detection Bias?" the study's findings were reported in the March 27 issue of the journal Science. As part of a prospective longitudinal study, Widom followed a large group of children with documented cases of childhood abuse and neglect and a demographically ...

A new study, published today in the journal PloS Neglected Tropical Diseases has given new insights into the spread of rabies in the Middle East, showing that the deadly disease regularly moves between countries in the region. The international team of researchers including scientists from the University of Surrey and the Animal and Plant Health Agency, have mapped the spread of rabies in the region to help inform control methods. Previous studies have demonstrated that rabies, a fatal disease transmitted by the bite or scratch from an infected animal, still kills approximately ...

Dark matter is one of science's great mysteries. It makes up an enormous amount matter in the universe, it is invisible, and it does not correspond to anything in the realm of our experience. Different theories compete for an explanation, but so far none of them has prevailed. In a collaborative study between École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the University of Edinburgh, scientists have studied how dark matter behaves when galaxy clusters collide with each other over billions of years. Published in Science, their findings challenge at least ...

Foraging bats obey their own set of 'traffic rules', chasing, turning and avoiding collisions at high speed, new research from the University of Bristol, UK has found. Dr Marc Holderied of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences studied pairs of Daubenton's bats (Myotis daubentonii) foraging low over water for stranded insects at a site near the village of Barrow Gurney in Somerset, UK. He said: "Collective movements of flocking birds or shoaling fish are amongst the most fascinating natural phenomena, and everyone has experienced the challenges of walking through ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC - A team of researchers has discovered HIV can begin replicating in the brain as early as four months after initial infection. The study followed 72 treatment naïve participants during the first two years of HIV infection. Through analysis of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) and blood samples, 20 percent of subjects showed replication in the central nervous system (CNS) at four months. Additionally, 30 percent of participants showed evidence of a marked CSF inflammatory response in at least one time point and 16 percent of study volunteers showed a marked ...

The fact that the neutron is slightly more massive than the proton is the reason why atomic nuclei have exactly those properties that make our world and ultimately our existence possible. Eighty years after the discovery of the neutron, a team of physicists from France, Germany, and Hungary headed by Zoltán Fodor, a researcher from Wuppertal, has finally calculated the tiny neutron-proton mass difference. The findings, which have been published in the current edition of Science, are considered a milestone by many physicists and confirm the theory of the strong interaction. ...

Astronomers using observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have studied how dark matter in clusters of galaxies behaves when the clusters collide. The results, published in the journal Science on 27 March 2015, show that dark matter interacts with itself even less than previously thought, and narrows down the options for what this mysterious substance might be. Dark matter is a giant question mark looming over our knowledge of the Universe. There is more dark matter in the Universe than visible matter, but it is extremely ...

Say you're out shopping for basic household goods -- perhaps orange juice and soup. Or light bulbs. Or diapers for your young child. How do you choose the products you buy? Is it a complicated decision, or a simple one? It could be complex: Factors like price, quality, and brand loyalty may run through your mind. Indeed, some scholars have developed complicated models of consumer decision-making, in which people accumulate substantial product knowledge, then weigh that knowledge against the opportunity to explore less-known products. But in a new paper, MIT researchers ...

(WASHINGTON - March, 26, 2015) - A committee of lymphoma experts today unveiled a strategic roadmap identifying key priority areas in both infrastructure and research that will be critical for advancing treatments for people with lymphoma. The report is meant to inform future research directions as well as funding decisions by strategic partners that could include government agencies and the private sector. The strategic recommendations were developed after a review of the state of the science in lymphoma conducted at a special ASH Meeting on Lymphoma Biology held in August ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- It may sound like the makings of a joke, but answering the question of how chickens crossed the sea may soon provide more than just a punch line. Michigan State University researcher Eben Gering has collaborated with a team in a study of the mysterious ancestry of the feral chicken population that has overrun the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. Their results, published in the current issue of Molecular Ecology, may aid efforts to curtail the damage of invasive species in the future, and help improve the biosecurity of domestic chicken breeds. Domesticated ...

Washington, DC (March 26, 2015)--As the world looks to American innovation to fight Ebola, malaria, tuberculosis, and a host of other health threats, a new report released today on Capitol Hill warns budget battles in Washington are eroding preparedness at home and abroad at a time when scientific advances are poised to deliver new lifesaving drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics. "Since 2009, we've seen declining, or at best stagnating, support for global health research and development, with politics trumping prudent investments that could protect the US and the world from ...

The expansion of no-take marine reserves (NTMRs) within Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park more than a decade ago is working to protect fish just as experts had hoped it would, say researchers who have been monitoring the reef via underwater surveys. The findings, reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on March 26, come as encouraging news for Australia's largest reef and for other, similar projects around the world. While the park reserves could not protect the reef directly from extensive physical damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Hamish in 2009, ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Using high-performance computing and genetic engineering to boost the photosynthetic efficiency of plants offers the best hope of increasing crop yields enough to feed a planet expected to have 9.5 billion people on it by 2050, researchers report in the journal Cell. There has never been a better time to try this, said University of Illinois plant biology professor Stephen P. Long, who wrote the report with colleagues from Illinois and the CAS-MPG Partner Institute of Computational Biology in Shanghai. "We now know every step in the processes that ...

Scientists have revealed a brand new function for one of the first cancer genes ever discovered - the retinoblastoma gene - in a finding that could open up exciting new approaches to treatment. The retinoblastoma gene is so called because mutations to it cause a rare children's eye cancer of the same name, and is known to play a central role in stopping healthy cells from dividing uncontrollably. Now the new study - jointly led by scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and UCL (University College London) - has found that the gene also has another important ...

How you feel pain is affected by where sources of pain are in relation to each other, and so crossing your fingers can change what you feel on a single finger, finds new UCL research. The research, published in Current Biology, used a variation on an established pain experiment, known as the "thermal grill illusion". In the thermal grill illusion, a pattern of warm-cold-warm temperatures applied to the index, middle and ring finger respectively causes a paradoxical, sometimes painful, sensation of burning heat on the middle finger - even though this finger is actually ...

Sand, rocks, grains, salt or sugar are what physicists call granular media. A better understanding of granular media is important - particularly when mixed with water and air, as it forms the foundations of houses and off-shore windmills. Until recently, there was no single theory that could account for granular media's flows at different speeds. Now, a new theory dubbed GSH, which stands for granular solid hydrodynamics, is supplementing previous models of granular material that work only for narrow speed ranges. And Yimin Jiang from Central South University, Changsha, ...

CHICAGO (March 26, 2015): A new study of women with early-stage breast cancer finds that surgeons no longer universally remove most of the lymph nodes in the underarm area when a biopsy of the nearby lymph nodes shows cancer--a major change in breast cancer management. The study, which evaluated data from 2.7 million U.S. breast cancer patients, is published as an "article in press" on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website in advance of print publication later this year. Until now, it was unclear to what extent surgeons were following the recommendations ...