This news release is available in Japanese. Researchers have discovered that a human antibody specific to dengue virus serotype 2, called 2D22, protects mice from a lethal form of the virus -- and they suggest that the site where 2D22 binds to the virus could represent a potential vaccine target. The mosquito-borne virus, which infects nearly 400 million people around the world each year, has four distinct serotypes, or variations, and there is currently no protective vaccine available. Recent phase 3 clinical trials of a potential vaccine candidate showed poor efficacy, ...

Why is the seahorse's tail square? An international team of researchers has found the answer and it could lead to building better robots and medical devices. In a nutshell, a tail made of square, overlapping segments makes for better armor than a cylindrical tail. It's also better at gripping and grasping. Researchers describe their findings in the July 3 issue of Science. "Almost all animal tails have circular or oval cross-sections--but not the seahorse's. We wondered why," said Michael Porter, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at Clemson University and ...

This news release is available in Japanese. Researchers working with roses have identified an enzyme, known as RhNUDX1, which plays a key role in producing the flowers' sweet fragrances. These ornamental plants, which provide essential oils for perfumes and cosmetics, have been bred mostly for their visual traits, and their once-strong scents have faded over the generations. Restoring their fragrant odors will require a better understanding of the rose scent biosynthesis pathway. Until now, most studies of rose fragrance have focused on a biosynthetic pathway that generates ...

This news release is available in Japanese. The seahorse tail is square because this shape is better at resisting damage and at grasping than a circular tail would be, a new engineering study shows. Insights gleaned from the study could inspire new armor and advances in robotics, the authors say. While most animals with tails, including certain monkeys, lizards and rodents, have soft, cylindrical-shaped appendages, tails of seahorses are organized into square prisms surrounded by bony plates. To better understand why the seahorse tail deviates from the norm, and what ...

Mass killings and school shootings in the U.S. appear to be contagious, according to a team of scientists from Arizona State University and Northeastern Illinois University. Study author Sherry Towers, research professor in the ASU Simon A. Levin Mathematical, Computational and Modeling Sciences Center, explained, "The hallmark of contagion is observing patterns of many events that are bunched in time, rather than occurring randomly in time." Her team examined databases on past high-profile mass killings and school shootings in the U.S. and fit a contagion model to ...

Climate change is forcing fish out of their current habitats and into cooler waters and many more species will soon be affected if climate goals are not met, say scientists. An international team of researchers compared the future of the oceans under two climate change scenarios. In one scenario, we limit atmospheric warming to two degrees by 2100, as outlined by the Copenhagen accord. In the other, we continue with the current approach, which researchers say would cause a five-degree increase in atmospheric temperatures. They say if warming continues unchecked, fish ...

A new study has discovered mysterious behaviour of a material that acts like an insulator in certain measurements, but simultaneously acts like a conductor in others. In an insulator, electrons are largely stuck in one place, while in a conductor, the electrons flow freely. The results, published today (2 July) in the journal Science, challenge current understanding of how materials behave. Conductors, such as metals, conduct electricity, while insulators, such as rubber or glass, prevent or block the flow of electricity. But by tracing the path that electrons follow ...

Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the National University of Singapore have determined the structure of a human monoclonal antibody which, in an animal model, strongly neutralizes a type of the potentially lethal dengue virus. The finding, reported today July 2 in the journal Science, could lead to the first effective therapies and vaccines against dengue, a complex of four distinct but related mosquito-borne viruses that infect about 390 million people a year and which are a leading cause of illness and death in the tropics. "Scientists in the antibody discovery ...

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., - July, 2, 2015 - Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) announced today that scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Crucell Holland B.V, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson (Janssen), and several other collaborators today published results from a preclinical study of an HIV vaccine regimen used in in non-human primates. The study, published in the online edition of Science, suggests that a "heterologous prime-boost" vaccine regimen--which first primes the immune system, then boosts the immune system to increase ...

Doughnuts, electric current and quantum physics - this will sound like a weird list of words to most people, but for Sebastian Huber it is a job description. ETH-professor Huber is a theoretical physicist who, for several years now, has focused his attention on so-called topological insulators, i.e., materials whose ability to conduct electric current originates in their topology. The easiest way to understand what "topological" means in this context is to imagine how a doughnut can be turned into a coffee cup by pulling, stretching and moulding - but without cutting ...

Hamilton, ON (July 2, 2015) - Two new studies led by researchers from the Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute at McMaster University show that transplantation of fecal matter may be a useful tool in the fight against ulcerative colitis (UC). Ulcerative colitis is a chronic, debilitating inflammatory bowel condition characterized by symptoms including bloody stools, diarrhea, abdominal pain, weight loss and malnutrition. It results from the development of abnormal immune responses to the normal bacteria in the digestive tract. It is difficult to treat ...

NEW YORK, NY (July 2, 2015)--Research from Eric Kandel's lab at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) has uncovered further evidence of a system in the brain that persistently maintains memories for long periods of time. And paradoxically, it works in the same way as mechanisms that cause mad cow disease, kuru, and other degenerative brain diseases. In four papers published in Neuron and Cell Reports, Dr. Kandel's laboratory show how prion-like proteins - similar to the prions behind mad cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in humans - are critical ...

Think you're a foodie? Adventurous eaters, known as "foodies," are often associated with indulgence and excess. However, a new Cornell Food and Brand Lab study shows just the opposite -adventurous eaters weigh less and may be healthier than their less-adventurous counterparts. The nationwide U.S. survey of 502 women showed that those who had eaten the widest variety of uncommon foods -- including seitan, beef tongue, Kimchi, rabbit, and polenta-- also rated themselves as healthier eaters, more physically active, and more concerned with the healthfulness of their food ...

An infestation of speck-sized Varroa destructor mites can wipe out an entire colony of honey bees in 2-3 years if left untreated. Pesticides help beekeepers rid their hives of these parasitic arthropods, which feed on the blood-like liquid inside of their hosts and lay their eggs on larvae, but mite populations become resistant to the chemicals over time. While exploring plant-based alternatives to control Varroa mites, Chinese bioagricultural and Japanese cell physiological labs saw that certain tick repellents repress mites from finding their honey bee hosts. In a ...

To observe the brain in action, scientists and physicians use imaging techniques, among which functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the best known. These techniques are not based on direct observations of electric impulses from activated neurons, but on one of their consequences. Indeed, this stimulation triggers physiological modifications in the activated cerebral region, changes that become visible by imaging. Until now, it was believed that these differences were only due to modifications of the blood influx towards the cells. By using intrinsic optical signals ...

Healthy people given the serotonin-enhancing antidepressant citalopram were willing to pay almost twice as much to prevent harm to themselves or others than those given placebo drugs in a moral decision-making experiment at UCL. In contrast, the dopamine-boosting Parkinson's drug levodopa made healthy people more selfish, eliminating an altruistic tendency to prefer harming themselves over others. The study was a double-blind randomised controlled trial and the results are published in Current Biology. The research provides insight into the neural basis of clinical disorders ...

BETHESDA, MD - The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) Workgroup on Pediatric Genetic and Genomic Testing has issued a position statement on Points to Consider: Ethical, Legal, and Psychosocial Implications of Genetic Testing in Children and Adolescents. Published today in The American Journal of Human Genetics, the statement aims to guide approaches to genetic testing for children in the research and clinical contexts. It also serves as an update to the Society's 1995 statement of the same title, which was issued jointly with the American College of Medical Genetics. "Twenty ...

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) causes a gradual loss of respiratory capacity and can be lethal within a few years. The cause is unknown, although it can be attributed to a combination of genetics and the environment. A team of researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have now discovered that telomeres, the structures that protect the chromosomes, are at the origin of pulmonary fibrosis. This is the first time that telomere damage has been identified as a cause of the disease. This finding opens up new avenues for the development of therapies ...

A mutation found in most melanomas rewires cancer cells' metabolism, making them dependent on a ketogenesis enzyme, researchers at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have discovered. The finding points to possible strategies for countering resistance to existing drugs that target the B-raf V600E mutation, or potential alternatives to those drugs. It may also explain why the V600E mutation in particular is so common in melanomas. The results are scheduled for publication in Molecular Cell. The growth-promoting V600E mutation in the gene B-raf is present in ...

The first comprehensive analysis of the woolly mammoth genome reveals extensive genetic changes that allowed mammoths to adapt to life in the arctic. Mammoth genes that differed from their counterparts in elephants played roles in skin and hair development, fat metabolism, insulin signaling and numerous other traits. Genes linked to physical traits such as skull shape, small ears and short tails were also identified. As a test of function, a mammoth gene involved in temperature sensation was resurrected in the laboratory and its protein product characterized. The study, ...

MAYWOOD, Ill. - New devices called stent retrievers are enabling physicians to benefit selected patients who suffer strokes caused by blood clots. The devices effectively stop strokes in their tracks. For the first time, new guidelines from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association recommend the treatment for carefully selected patients who are undergoing acute ischemic strokes and who meet certain other conditions. Loyola University Medical Center stroke specialist Jose Biller, MD, is a member of the expert panel that wrote the guidelines, published ...

Infrared date from NASA's Aqua satellite spotted the strongest storms within newborn Tropical Depression 10W over the Philippine Sea today, July 2. It is expected to strength to a tropical storm, at which time it will be renamed "Linfa." A tropical cyclone is made up of hundreds of thunderstorms, and the highest storms are the coldest and most powerful. To identify those areas with the strongest storms, infrared data is used because it tells temperature. The higher the cloud top, the stronger the uplift in a storm and the colder the cloud top temperature will be. The ...

By growing two types of stem cells in a "3-D culture" and measuring their ability to produce retinal cells, a team lead by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital researchers has found one cell type to be better at producing retinal cells. The research not only reveals which stem cell type might be better for treating retinal degeneration, but it also demonstrates a standardized method for quantifying the effectiveness of different stem cells for such therapies. The research was led by Michael Dyer, Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology ...

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have a number of exercise options, including a mechanical bicycle bolted to the floor, a weightlifting machine strapped to the wall, and a strap-down treadmill. They spend a significant portion of each day working out to ward off the long-term effects of weightlessness, but many still suffer bone loss, muscle atrophy, and issues with balance and their cardiovascular systems. To counteract such debilitating effects, research groups around the world are investigating artificial gravity -- the notion that astronauts, ...

The latest Supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds was published this week in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, and includes several major updates to the organization of the continent's bird species. More than just a list, the Check-list groups birds into genera, families, and orders based on their evolutionary relationships, and some of the most significant changes in this year's Supplement involve the tanagers, family Thraupidae. "Recent genetic studies have overturned much of what we thought we knew about what constitutes a ...