MANHATTAN, KANSAS — Kansas State University diagnosticians are helping the cattle industry save millions of dollars each year by developing earlier and accurate detection of E. coli. Lance Noll, master's student in veterinary biomedical science, Greensburg; T.G. Nagaraja, university distinguished professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology; and Jianfa Bai, assistant professor in the Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, are leading a project to improve techniques for detecting pathogenic Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7. A U.S. Department of Agriculture ...

It's broadly assumed that cells degrade and recycle their own old or damaged organelles, but researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Kennedy Krieger Institute have discovered that some neurons transfer unwanted mitochondria – the tiny power plants inside cells – to supporting glial cells called astrocytes for disposal. The findings, published in the June 17 online Early Edition of PNAS, suggest some basic biology may need revising, but they also have potential implications for improving ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – A Canadian team lead by Stephen Grasby reports the discovery of the highest latitude perennial spring known in the world. This high-volume spring demonstrates that deep groundwater circulation through the cryosphere occurs, and can form gullies in a region of extreme low temperatures and with morphology remarkably similar to those on Mars. The 2009 discovery raises many new questions because it remains uncertain how such a high-volume spring can originate in a polar desert environment. Grasby and colleagues encountered the northernmost perennial ...

A study by University of Iowa researchers confirms that pathological gambling runs in families and shows that first-degree relatives of pathological gamblers are eight times more likely to develop this problem in their lifetime than relatives of people without pathological gambling. "Our work clearly shows that pathological gambling runs in families at a rate higher than for many other behavioral and psychiatric disorders," says Donald W. Black, MD, professor of psychiatry in the UI Carver College of Medicine. "I think clinicians and health care providers should be alerted ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Giving low doses of a particular targeted agent with a cancer-killing virus might improve the effectiveness of the virus as a treatment for cancer, according to a study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James). Viruses that are designed to kill cancer cells – oncolytic viruses – have shown promise in clinical trials for the treatment of brain cancer and other solid tumors. This cell and animal study suggests that combining low ...

Confirming what neurocomputational theorists have long suspected, researchers at the Dignity Health Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. and University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that the human brain locks down episodic memories in the hippocampus, committing each recollection to a distinct, distributed fraction of individual cells. The findings, published in the June 16 Early Edition of PNAS, further illuminate the neural basis of human memory and may, ultimately, shed light on new treatments for diseases and conditions that adversely ...

Boston (June 16, 2014) – Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is characterized by choroidal neovascularization (CNV), or blood vessel growth, is the primary cause of blindness in elderly individuals of industrialized countries. The prevalence of the disease is projected to increase 50% by the year 2020. There is an urgent need for new pharmacological interventions for the treatment and prevention of AMD. Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School and other institutions have demonstrated for the first time ...

Irvine, Calif. — For caterpillars, having a well-rounded diet can be fraught with peril. UC Irvine and Wesleyan University biologists have learned that caterpillars that feed on one or two plant species are better able to hide from predatory birds than caterpillars that consume a wide variety of plants. This is probably because the color patterns and hiding behaviors of the caterpillar "specialists" have evolved to allow them to blend into the background flora more effectively than caterpillars that eat many different plant species. Moving among these diverse plant ...

A powerful new model to detect life on planets outside of our solar system, more accurately than ever before, has been developed by UCL (University College London) researchers. The new model focuses on methane, the simplest organic molecule, widely acknowledged to be a sign of potential life. Researchers from UCL and the University of New South Wales have developed a new spectrum for 'hot' methane which can be used to detect the molecule at temperatures above that of Earth, up to 1,500K/1220°C – something which was not possible before. To find out what remote planets ...

Proving that less really is more, five specific tests or procedures commonly performed in anesthesiology that may not be necessary and, in some cases should be avoided, will be published online June 16 in JAMA Internal Medicine. The "Top-five" list was created by the American Society of Anesthesiologists® (ASA®) for inclusion in the ABIM Foundation's Choosing Wisely® campaign. "The Top-five list of activities to question in anesthesiology was developed in an effort to reduce unnecessary, costly procedures and improve patient care," said Onyi Onuoha, M.D., M.P.H., lead ...

Investors and gamblers take note: your betting decisions and strategy are determined, in part, by your genes. University of California, Berkeley, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) researchers have shown that betting decisions in a simple competitive game are influenced by the specific variants of dopamine-regulating genes in a person's brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter – a chemical released by brain cells to signal other brain cells – that is a key part of the brain's reward and pleasure-seeking system. Dopamine deficiency leads to Parkinson's ...

Berkeley — What do you get when you mix theorists in computer science with evolutionary biologists? You get an algorithm to explain sex. It turns out that 155 years after Charles Darwin first published "On the Origin of Species," vexing questions remain about key aspects of evolution, such as how sexual recombination and natural selection produced the teeming diversity of life that exists today. The answer could lie in the game that genes play during sexual recombination, and computer theorists at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified an algorithm ...

A UNSW Australia-led team of researchers has discovered how algae that survive in very low levels of light are able to switch on and off a weird quantum phenomenon that occurs during photosynthesis. The function in the algae of this quantum effect, known as coherence, remains a mystery, but it is thought it could help them harvest energy from the sun much more efficiently. Working out its role in a living organism could lead to technological advances, such as better organic solar cells and quantum-based electronic devices. The research is published in the journal Proceedings ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers used quantum theory – usually invoked to describe the actions of subatomic particles – to identify an unexpected and strange pattern in how people respond to survey questions. By conventional standards, the results are surprising: The scientists found the exact same pattern in 70 nationally representative surveys from Gallup and the Pew Research center taken from 2001 to 2011, as well as in two laboratory experiments. Most of the national surveys included more than 1,000 respondents in the United States. "Human behavior is very sensitive ...

Treating influenza relies on drugs such as Amantadine that are becoming less and less effective due to viral evolution. But University of Chicago scientists have published computational results that may give drug designers the insight they need to develop the next generation of effective influenza treatment. "It's very hard to design a drug if you don't understand how the disease functions," said Gregory Voth, the Haig P. Papazian Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry. Voth and three co-authors offer new insights into the disease's functioning in the Proceedings ...

MADISON, Wis. — By swapping replacement parts into the backbone of a synthetic hormone, UW–Madison graduate student Ross Cheloha and his mentor, Sam Gellman, along with collaborators at Harvard Medical School, have built a version of a parathyroid hormone that resists degradation in laboratory mice. As a result, the altered hormone can stay around longer — and at much higher concentration, says Gellman, professor of chemistry at the UW. Hormones are signaling molecules that are distributed throughout the body, usually in the blood. Hormones elicit responses from only ...

ATLANTA—There is no correlation between the consumption of a cow's milk-based formula or hydrolyzed protein formula and the development of diabetes-associated autoantibodies in children younger than seven, according to a worldwide research study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The Trial to Reduce Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus in the Genetically at Risk (TRIGR) study, which examines possible reduction in autoantibodies associated with type 1 diabetes, tracked children genetically predisposed to type 1 diabetes for seven years. It ...

ANN ARBOR—When it comes to controlling hay fever-triggering ragweed plants on Detroit vacant lots, occasional mowing is worse than no mowing at all, and promoting reforestation might be the best solution. Those are the findings of a new University of Michigan study that surveyed vacant lots in several Detroit neighborhoods for ragweed, counting the number of ragweed plants and estimating how often each lot was mowed. The researchers found that ragweed was significantly more likely to be present in vacant lots mowed once a year or once every two years—a common practice ...

When it comes to managing boundaries between work responsibilities and home life, technology is our "frenemy." Technology, specifically mobile technology, can be alternately used to maintain, erase or manage home and work boundaries along a spectrum. That's according to ongoing research by the University of Cincinnati to be presented June 17 at the Work and Family Researchers Network Conference in New York City by Stacie Furst-Holloway, UC associate professor of psychology. Co-authors with Furst-Holloway on the research are Elaine Hollensbee, associate professor of ...

KNOXVILLE—Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are a step closer to creating a prophylactic drug that would neutralize the deadly effects of the chemical weapons used in Syria and elsewhere. Jeremy Smith, UT-ORNL Governor's Chair and an expert in computational biology, is part of the team that is trying to engineer enzymes—called bioscavengers—so they work more efficiently against chemical weapons. The work is a joint effort between scientists at UT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a French national laboratory in Grenoble. Their study was published ...

A new study out of the University of Connecticut demonstrates for the first time how some plants travel not just across the backyard, but as far as from Northern to Southern hemispheres on the wings of migratory birds. The findings, published in the online journal PeerJ, offer critical insight into the ecology and evolution of plants that are represented across both continents of the Americas. The study found 23 regenerative plant diaspores – plant seeds or spores – trapped in the feathers of migratory birds leaving the Arctic harbor for South America. Although wind ...

At a time when obesity, type 2 diabetes, and their complications are a veritable epidemic worldwide, researchers at the University of Montreal and CHUM Research Centre (CRCHUM) recently demonstrated the potential of retinoic acid (RA), a derivative of Vitamin A, in treating obesity and type 2 diabetes and preventing their cardiovascular complications. The findings were presented June 6, 2014 at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Nutrition Society in Saint John's, Newfoundland. "In obese and insulin resistant mice, retinoic acid reduces the risk of cardiac apoptosis, ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Nanopores may one day lead a revolution in DNA sequencing. By sliding DNA molecules one at a time through tiny holes in a thin membrane, it may be possible to decode long stretches of DNA at lightning speeds. Scientists, however, haven't quite figured out the physics of how polymer strands like DNA interact with nanopores. Now, with the help of a particular type of virus, researchers from Brown University have shed new light on this nanoscale physics. "What got us interested in this was that everybody in the field studied DNA and ...

The results from the initial clinical studies involving the microwave helmet Strokefinder confirm the usefulness of microwaves for rapid and accurate diagnosis of stroke patients. This is shown in a scientific article being published on June 16. Strokefinder enables earlier diagnosis than current methods, which improves the possibility to counteract brain damage. In the article, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sahlgrenska Academy and Sahlgrenska University Hospital present results from the initial patient studies completed last year. The study included ...

A London School of Economics researcher examining the public and private dangers of drugs argues against demonizing e-cigarettes in a presentation being given at a conference of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). He also calls on public officials to recognize that alcohol causes greater harm than other recreational drugs and more public attention should be paid to controlling its harmful effects. Lawrence D. Phillips, an emeritus professor at the London School of Economics, will present his research group's findings about the relative ...