In 2012, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine showed that heart muscle cells made from the skin of people with a cardiac condition called dilated cardiomyopathy beat with less force than those made from the skin of healthy people. These cells also responded less readily to the waves of calcium that control the timing and strength of each contraction. Now, the same research team has teased apart the molecular basis for these differences and identified a drug treatment that at least partially restores function to diseased cells grown in a laboratory ...

Adult neural stem cells, which are commonly thought of as having the ability to develop into many type of brain cells, are in reality pre-programmed before birth to make very specific types of neurons, at least in mice, according to a study led by UC San Francisco researchers. "This work fundamentally changes the way we think about stem cells," said principal investigator Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, UCSF professor of neurological surgery, Heather and Melanie Muss Endowed Chair and a principal investigator in the UCSF Brain Tumor Research Center and the Eli and Edythe Broad ...

We can alter our facial features in ways that make us look more trustworthy, but don't have the same ability to appear more competent, a team of New York University psychology researchers has found. The study, which appears in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a SAGE journal, points to both the limits and potential we have in visually representing ourselves--from dating and career-networking sites to social media posts. "Our findings show that facial cues conveying trustworthiness are malleable while facial cues conveying competence and ability are significantly ...

Want to lose abdominal fat, get smarter and live longer? New research led by USC's Valter Longo shows that periodically adopting a diet that mimics the effects of fasting may yield a wide range of health benefits. In a new study, Longo and his colleagues show that cycles of a four-day low-calorie diet that mimics fasting (FMD) cut visceral belly fat and elevated the number of progenitor and stem cells in several organs of old mice -- including the brain, where it boosted neural regeneration and improved learning and memory. The mouse tests were part of a three-tiered ...

Last June, in the early days of the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa, a team of researchers sequenced the genome of the deadly virus at unprecedented scale and speed. Their findings revealed a number of critical facts as the outbreak was unfolding, including that the virus was being transmitted only by person-to-person contact and that it was picking up new mutations through its many transmissions. While public health officials now believe the worst of the epidemic is behind us, it is not yet over, and questions raised by the previous work still await answers. To ...

PHILADELPHIA - Several well-known neurodegenerative diseases, such as Lou Gehrig's (ALS), Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's disease, all result in part from a defect in autophagy - one way a cell removes and recycles misfolded proteins and pathogens. In a paper published this week in Current Biology, postdoctoral fellow David Kast, PhD, and professor Roberto Dominguez, PhD, and three other colleagues from the Department of Physiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, show for the first time that the formation of ephemeral compartments ...

University of California San Francisco scientists have identified characteristics of a family of daughter cells, called MPPs, which are the first to arise from stem cells within bone marrow that generate the entire blood system. The researchers said the discovery raises the possibility that, by manipulating the fates of MPPs or parent stem cells, medical researchers could one day help overcome imbalances and deficiencies that can arise in the blood system due to aging or in patients with specific types of leukemia. Similar imbalances can render patients vulnerable immediately ...

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Advancing the field of structural biology that underpins how things work in a cell, researchers have identified how proteins change their shape when performing specific functions. The study's fresh insights, published online in the journal Structure, provide a more complete picture of how proteins move, laying a foundation of understanding that will help determine the molecular causes of human disease and the development of more potent drug treatments. Though it has long been recognized that proteins are not static, for more than 30 years, scientists' ...

The secret to preventing HIV infection lies within the human immune system, but the more-than-25-year search has so far failed to yield a vaccine capable of training the body to neutralize the ever-changing virus. New research from The Rockefeller University, and collaborating institutions, suggests no single shot will ever do the trick. Instead, the scientists find, a sequence of immunizations might be the most promising route to an HIV vaccine. Scientists have thought for some time that multiple immunizations, each tailored to specific stages of the immune response, ...

BOSTON, June 18 -- An analysis of five families has revealed a previously unknown genetic immunodeficiency, says an international team led by researchers from Boston Children's Hospital. The condition, linked to mutations in a gene called DOCK2, deactivates many features of the immune system and leaves affected children open to a unique pattern of aggressive, potentially fatal infections early in life. As the researchers -- led by Kerry Dobbs and Luigi Notarangelo, M.D., of Boston Children's Division of Allergy and Immunology -- reported today in the New England Journal ...

Musicians don't just hear in tune, they also see in tune. That is the conclusion of the latest scientific experiment designed to puzzle out how the brain creates an apparently seamless view of the external world based on the information it receives from the eyes. "Our brain is remarkably efficient at putting us in touch with objects and events in our visual environment, indeed so good that the process seems automatic and effortless. In fact, the brain is continually operating like a clever detective, using clues to figure out what in the world we are looking at. And ...

A trio of studies being published today in the journals Science and Cell describes advances toward the development of an HIV vaccine. The three study teams all demonstrated techniques for stimulating animal cells to produce antibodies that either could stop HIV from infecting human cells in the laboratory or had the potential to evolve into such antibodies. Each of the research teams received funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. In one study, published in Science, researchers demonstrate ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC - Before there were cells on Earth, simple, tiny catalysts most likely evolved the ability to speed up and synchronize the chemical reactions necessary for life to rise from the primordial soup. But what those catalysts were, how they appeared at the same time, and how they evolved into the two modern superfamilies of enzymes that translate our genetic code have not been understood. In the Journal of Biological Chemistry, scientists from the UNC School of Medicine provide the first direct experimental evidence for how primordial proteins developed the ...

Parkinson disease (PD) appeared associated with 16 types of cancer in a study in Taiwan, an effort to explain the association in an East Asian population because most prior research has been conducted in Western populations, according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology. During the past 50 years, more than 25 epidemiological studies have been conducted on the association between PD and cancer, and most of those studies showed that individuals with PD had a decreased risk of cancer compared to those without PD. However, most of those studies were done in Western ...

A survey carried out earlier this year has found the first evidence of the 'superbug' bacteria Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in sausages and minced pork obtained from supermarkets in the UK. However, researchers stress that this does not pose a significant immediate risk to the public. In February, a team of researchers funded primarily by the Medical Research Council (MRC) bought and analysed a total of 103 (52 pork and 51 chicken) pre-packaged fresh meat products, labelled as being of UK farm origin, from supermarkets in five different locations ...

PITTSBURGH, June 17 -- Regardless of chronological age, people who live in neighborhoods with high crime, noise and vandalism are biologically more than a decade older than those who do not, according to a study led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh. The findings were published online today in PLOS One. Strong research evidence supports that living in disadvantaged neighborhoods has an unfavorable impact on mental and physical health, explained lead author Mijung Park, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., assistant professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. ...

High in the sky where the cirrus ice crystal clouds form, jet contrails draw their crisscross patterns. Now researchers have found that these elevated ice cloud trails can influence temperatures on the ground and affect local climate, according to a team of Penn State geographers. "Research done regarding September 2001, during the three days following 9-11 when no commercial jets were in the sky, suggested that contrails had an effect," said Andrew M. Carleton, professor of geography. "But that was only three days. We needed to look longer, while jets were in the air, ...

Scientists at UCL have observed how a widespread polar wind is driving gas from the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. The team analysed data gathered over seven years by the international Cassini probe, and found that the interactions between Titan's atmosphere, and the solar magnetic field and radiation, create a wind of hydrocarbons and nitriles being blown away from its polar regions into space. This is very similar to the wind observed coming from the Earth's polar regions. Titan is a remarkable object in the Solar System. Like Earth and Venus, and unlike any other ...

(WASHINGTON, June 18, 2015) - New research published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), concludes that a blood clot in an abdominal vein may be an indicator of undiagnosed cancer. The study also suggests that these clots predict poorer survival in patients with liver and pancreatic cancer. Compared to the general population, individuals who develop blood clots in their legs (deep-vein thrombosis, or DVT) or lungs (pulmonary embolism, or PE) are two to four times more likely to be diagnosed with cancer within the next year. ...

Global warming leads to the ice sheets on land melting and flowing into the sea, which consequently rises. New calculations by researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute show that the sea level in Northern Europe may rise more than previously thought. There is a significant risk that the seas around Scandinavia, England, the Netherlands and northern Germany will rise by up to about 1½ meters in this century. The results are published in a special issue of the scientific journal Climate Research. Sea level rise is a significant threat to the world's coastal areas, ...

Astronomers making a detailed, multi-telescope study of a nearby galaxy have discovered a magnetic field coiled around the galaxy's main spiral arm. The discovery, they said, helps explain how galactic spiral arms are formed. The same study also shows how gas can be funneled inward toward the galaxy's center, which possibly hosts a black hole. 'This study helps resolve some major questions about how galaxies form and evolve,' said Rainer Beck, of the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), in Bonn, Germany. The scientists studied a galaxy called IC 342, some ...

Patients seeking certainty in genetic tests often receive a perplexing result. Many learn they carry a 'variant of unknown significance' of a disease-linked gene. Such variants might -- or equally might not -- increase disease risk. A study published in the June issue of the journal Genetics characterized nearly 2000 variants of the breast cancer-associated gene BRCA1, demonstrating the potential of a new approach for sorting out which variants are harmful and which are harmless. Because genetic tests increasingly use more comprehensive multi-gene and whole-genome sequencing ...

ALLENDALE, Mich. -- A Grand Valley State University biology professor and her team of scientists have determined new information about an endangered species in the U.S., which could impact its protection under the Endangered Species Act. The study, "Two Tickets to Paradise: Multiple Dispersal Events in the Founding of Hoary Bat Populations in Hawai'i," was recently published in PLOS ONE at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127912. The study, led by Amy Russell, associate professor of biology at Grand Valley, reveals that the Hawaiian ...

(Philadelphia, PA) - A little more than a decade ago, researchers discovered that all cells secrete tiny communications modules jammed with an entire work crew of messages for other cells. Today, a team of researchers, led by stem cell researcher Raj Kishore, PhD, Director of the Stem Cell Therapy Program at the Center for Translational Medicine at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM), is harnessing the communications vesicles excreted by stem cells and using them to induce the damaged heart to repair itself. Their research is the June 19 cover story in the leading ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- An international team of scientists has found some of the best evidence yet that Venus, Earth's nearest neighbor, is volcanically active. In combing through data from the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission, the scientists found transient spikes in temperature at several spots on the planet's surface. The hotspots, which were found to flash and fade over the course of just a few days, appear to be generated by active flows of lava on the surface. "We were able to show strong evidence that Venus is volcanically, and thus ...