CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Conventional wisdom has long held that corals — whose calcium-carbonate skeletons form the foundation of coral reefs — are passive organisms that rely entirely on ocean currents to deliver dissolved substances, such as nutrients and oxygen. But now scientists at MIT and the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) in Israel have found that they are far from passive, engineering their environment to sweep water into turbulent patterns that greatly enhance their ability to exchange nutrients and dissolved gases with their environment. "These microenvironmental ...

WASHINGTON (Sept. 1, 2014) — People with fat around their abdominal area are at greater risk of developing hypertension when compared to those with similar body mass index but fat concentrations elsewhere on the body, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Obesity is a known risk factor for hypertension, or high blood pressure, and it is widely reported that the location of fat on a person's body can lead to increased risk of other health issues like heart disease and cancer. However, the relationship between hypertension ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Cellphone apps that find users car rides in real time are exploding in popularity: The car-service company Uber was recently valued at $18 billion, and even as it faces legal wrangles, a number of companies that provide similar services with licensed taxi cabs have sprung up. What if the taxi-service app on your cellphone had a button on it that let you indicate that you were willing to share a ride with another passenger? How drastically could cab-sharing reduce traffic, fares, and carbon dioxide emissions? Authoritatively answering that question ...

Within minutes after birth, every child in the U.S. undergoes a battery of tests designed to diagnose a host of conditions, including sickle cell disease. Thousands of children born in the developing world, however, aren't so lucky, meaning many suffer and die from the disease each year. A.J. Kumar hopes to put a halt to at least some of those deaths. A Post-Doctoral Fellow in Chemistry and Chemical Biology working in the lab of George Whitesides, the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor, Kumar and colleagues, including other co-authors, have developed ...

BOSTON (September 1, 2014, 10:20 AM EDT) — It may be possible to train the brain to prefer healthy low-calorie foods over unhealthy higher-calorie foods, according to new research by scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University and at Massachusetts General Hospital. Published online today in the journal Nutrition & Diabetes, a brain scan study in adult men and women suggests that it is possible to reverse the addictive power of unhealthy food while also increasing preference for healthy foods. "We don't start ...

Barcelona, Spain – Monday 1 September 2014: Daily fruit consumption cuts the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) by up to 40%, according to research presented at ESC Congress today by Dr Huaidong Du from Oxford, UK. The findings from the seven year follow-up study of nearly 0.5 million people in the China Kadoorie Biobank found that the more fruit people ate, the more their risk of CVD declined. Dr Du said: "CVD, including ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke, is the leading cause of death worldwide. Improving diet and lifestyle is critical for CVD risk reduction ...

Barcelona, Spain – Monday 1 September 2014: Permanent atrial fibrillation (AF) doubles the risk of stroke compared to paroxysmal AF, according to research in more than 6 000 patients presented at ESC Congress today by Dr Thomas Vanassche from Belgium. The findings suggest that a simple clinical assessment of the type of AF can help doctors to better estimate stroke risk. Ischaemic stroke is the second cause of death in the EU, accounting for over a million deaths and many more disabled patients each year. Annual direct health care costs amount to more than €20 billion. ...

Researchers reveal how the alteration of a single nucleotide—the basic building block of DNA—could initiate fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited form of intellectual disability. The study appears in The Journal of Cell Biology. Fragile X syndrome is caused by a defect in a gene on the X chromosome called fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1). Around 1 in 230 women and 1 in 360 men carry a so-called premutation, in which a series of DNA repeats at one end of the FMR1 gene is slightly longer than normal. These repeats are prone to even further expansion when ...

WASHINGTON — About 50 years ago, electron microscopy revealed the presence of tiny blob-like structures that form inside cells, move around and disappear. But scientists still don't know what they do — even though these shifting cloud-like collections of proteins are believed to be crucial to the life of a cell, and therefore could offer a new approach to disease treatment. In the Journal of Cell Biology, two researchers are issuing a call to investigators from various backgrounds, from biophysics to cell biology, to focus their attention on the role of these formations— ...

As nocturnal animals, bats are perfectly adapted to a life without light. They emit echolocation sounds and use the delay between the reflected echoes to measure distance to obstacles or prey. In their brains, they have a spatial map representing different echo delays. A study carried out by researchers at Technische Universität München (TUM) has shown for the first time that this map dynamically adapts to external factors. Closer objects appear larger When a bat flies in too close to an object, the number of activated neurons in its brain increases. As a result, ...

The week-long discussions and decisions of the Nomenclature Section of the XVIII International Botanical Congress took place in Melbourne, Australia in July 2011. This meeting is held every six years and it is where the world's premier experts on the rules for naming algae, fungi and plants get together to debate and update the rule book for naming the organisms they study. This is the primary product of the meeting, the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, which was published in 2012. The other important product is the official report for the ...

Some 40 scientists and technicians from around the world will descend on Jordan in November to take part in a simulated on-site inspection of a suspected nuclear test site on the banks of the Dead Sea. Playing the part of inspectors, the experts will have access to a wide range of sensor technologies to look for signs of whether a nuclear explosion has taken place. At the same time, other role-players representing the state under inspection will try to put them off their scent. The aim of this elaborate exercise, as science writer Edwin Cartlidge explains in this month's ...

New research which finds that invisible blood in urine may be an early warning sign of bladder cancer is likely to shape guidelines for clinicians. Scientists at the University of Exeter Medical School found that one in 60 people over the age of 60 who had invisible blood in their urine (identified by their GP testing their urine) transpired to have bladder cancer. The figure was around half those who had visible blood in their urine – the best known indicator of bladder cancer. However, it was still higher than figures for other potential symptoms of bladder cancer ...

Scientists at the University of Warwick have discovered that 'good' cholesterol is turned 'bad' by a sugar-derived substance. The substance, methylglyoxal - MG, was found to damage 'good' HDL cholesterol, which removes excess levels of bad cholesterol from the body. Low levels of HDL, High Density Lipoprotein, are closely linked to heart disease, with increased levels of MG being common in the elderly and those with diabetes or kidney problems. Supported by funding from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and published in Nutrition and Diabetes, the researchers ...

A new blood test provides a fast and accurate tool to diagnose tuberculosis in children, a new proof-of-concept study shows. The newly developed test (TAM-TB assay) is the first reliable immunodiagnostic assay to detect active tuberculosis in children. The test features excellent specificity, a similar sensitivity as culture tests in combination with speed of a blood test. The promising findings are a major advance for the diagnosis of tuberculosis in children, particularly in tuberculosis-endemic regions. The study has been published on Sept 1st, 2014 in Lancet Infectious ...

A fast-sensitive "electronic-nose" for sniffing the highly infectious bacteria C. diff, that causes diarrhoea, temperature and stomach cramps, has been developed by a team at the University of Leicester. Using a mass spectrometer, the research team has demonstrated that it is possible to identify the unique 'smell' of C. diff which would lead to rapid diagnosis of the condition. What is more, the Leicester team say it could be possible to identify different strains of the disease simply from their smell – a chemical fingerprint - helping medics to target the particular ...

'Green' offices with plants make staff happier and more productive than 'lean' designs stripped of greenery, new research shows. In the first field study of its kind, published today, researchers found enriching a 'lean' office with plants could increase productivity by 15%. The team examined the impact of 'lean' and 'green' offices on staff's perceptions of air quality, concentration, and workplace satisfaction, and monitored productivity levels over subsequent months in two large commercial offices in the UK and The Netherlands. Lead researcher Marlon Nieuwenhuis, ...

New research launched today, 1st September 2014, has concluded that there are seven key issues that need to be addressed to ensure the future success of doctor revalidation, the most profound revision in medical regulation since the Medical Act of 1858. The research has been funded by the Health Foundation, an independent health care charity, as part of a long-term programme looking at different aspects of revalidation. The work has been carried out by academics at the Collaboration for the Advancement of Medical Education, Research and Assessment (CAMERA) at Plymouth ...

When we learn, we associate a sensory experience either with other stimuli or with a certain type of behaviour. The neurons in the cerebral cortex that transmit the information modify the synaptic connections that they have with the other neurons. According to a generally-accepted model of synaptic plasticity, a neuron that communicates with others of the same kind emits an electrical impulse as well as activating its synapses transiently. This electrical pulse, combined with the signal received from other neurons, acts to stimulate the synapses. How is it that some neurons ...

One of the greatest challenges in modern medicine is developing drugs that are highly effective against a target, but with minimal toxicity and side-effects to the patient. Such properties are directly related to the 3D structure of the drug molecule. Ideally, the drug should have a shape that is perfectly complementary to a disease-causing target, so that it binds it with high specificity. Publishing in Nature Chemistry, EPFL scientists have developed a synthetic amino acid that can impact the 3D structure of bioactive peptides and enhance their potency. Peptides and ...

When they are not busy attacking us, germs go after each other. But when viruses invade bacteria, it doesn't always spell disaster for the infected microbes: Sometimes viruses actually carry helpful genes that a bacterium can harness to, say, expand its diet or better attack its own hosts. Scientists have assumed the bacterial version of an immune system would robotically destroy anything it recognized as invading viral genes. However, new experiments at Rockefeller University have now revealed that one variety of the bacterial immune system known as the CRISPR-Cas system ...

VIDEO: This 11-second movie shows a computational simulation of a collision of two converging streams of interstellar gas, leading to collapse and formation of a star cluster at the center. Face-on... Click here for more information. Stars are made mostly of hydrogen and helium, but they also contain trace amounts of other elements, such as carbon, oxygen, iron, and even more exotic substances. By carefully measuring the wavelengths (colors) of light coming from a star, astronomers ...

VIDEO: This computer simulation shows the collision of two streams of interstellar gas, leading to gravitational collapse of the gas and the formation of a star cluster at the center. The... Click here for more information. The chemical uniformity of stars in the same cluster is the result of turbulent mixing in the clouds of gas where star formation occurs, according to a study by astrophysicists at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Their results, published August 31 in ...

A new study of satellite data from the last 19 years reveals that fresh water from melting glaciers has caused the sea-level around the coast of Antarctica to rise by 2cm more than the global average of 6cm. Researchers at the University of Southampton detected the rapid rise in sea-level by studying satellite scans of a region that spans more than a million square kilometres. The melting of the Antarctic ice sheet and the thinning of floating ice shelves has contributed an excess of around 350 gigatonnes of freshwater to the surrounding ocean. This has led to a reduction ...

A new study, published today in Nature Climate Change, suggests that – if current trends continue – food production alone will reach, if not exceed, the global targets for total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2050. The study's authors say we should all think carefully about the food we choose and its environmental impact. A shift to healthier diets across the world is just one of a number of actions that need to be taken to avoid dangerous climate change and ensure there is enough food for all. As populations rise and global tastes shift towards meat-heavy Western ...