The best sparkling wines take months to ferment to perfection. In recent years, many winemakers have turned to commercial yeast products to give this process a boost. How they ultimately affect bubbly has been an open question, but now scientists have stepped in to find out. They report their findings in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. When sparkling wine is made, yeast cells burst open in a process called autolysis. This releases a special kind of protein called mannoproteins that, in still wines (the non-bubbly kind), can reduce astringency and bitterness, ...

Researchers from Cardiff University have pioneered a new technique that will enable scientists to precisely pinpoint the areas on an enzyme that help to speed up chemical reactions. By labelling certain segments of an enzyme with heavy isotopes, the researchers have found that 'heavy' and 'light' versions of enzymes have different catalytic properties, allowing them to determine which regions are linked to specific functions. It is hoped this precise pinpointing may shed light on why enzymes are much more efficient at speeding up chemical reactions compared to man-made ...

LOS ANGELES -- In two ancillary studies of two multi-center international clinical trials led by the University of Southern California (USC) Eye Institute, the injectable drug ocriplasmin appears to improve vision among patients suffering from symptomatic vitreomacular adhesion (VMA), a condition related to the aging eye that could cause permanent vision loss if left untreated. 'These are the first large studies that document patient-reported visual improvement after injection of ocriplasmin for symptomatic VMA,' said Rohit Varma, M.D., M.P.H., director of the USC Eye ...

Lisbon, 17 June 2015: An IVF technique which freezes all embryos generated in an initial treatment cycle and transfers them in a later cycle as freeze-thawed embryos does not improve outcome as some studies have suggested. Results of the study, performed at the Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad (IVI) clinic in Valencia, Spain, are presented today at the ESHRE Annual Meeting by Dr Ernesto Bosch, Medical Director of IVI Valencia, Spain. As background to his report, Dr Bosch noted that several studies have found improved outcomes in IVF when all embryos are electively ...

Nyon, Switzerland - June 17, 2015 -- An International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) Working Group on Skeletal Rare Diseases has published a new classification of rare genetic metabolic bone disorders (RGMBDs) according to their metabolic pathogenesis. Skeletal Rare Diseases such as osteogenesis imperfecta, juvenile Paget's disease or osteopetrosis, are only three of the more than 400 developmental abnormalities of the skeletal system that affect patients worldwide. Although rare, these 'orphan' diseases have a very serious, and often devastating, impact on the lives ...

Scientists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum established a mouse model for the human disease SCA6. SCA6 is characterised by movement deficits and caused by similar genetic alterations as Chorea Huntington. The mouse model will be used to investigate the disease mechanisms. Experiments suggest that an impairment of eye blink conditioning could be an early disease symptom. The team from the Department of Zoology and Neurobiology published their data in the Journal of Neuroscience; the work was highlighted by the editor's commentary. Spinocerebellar ataxia 6: structural ...

This news release is available in German. Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) - an otherwise unremarkable plant - produces pollen that can trigger strong allergic reactions such as asthma even in very small quantities. Scientists from Technische Universität München (TUM) and Helmholtz Zentrum München have now published a joint study showing that the substance previously identified as the major allergen only induces such a vigorous allergic response in combination with the adenosine also present in the pollen. Ragweed only started to become widespread ...

A group of researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have managed to print and dry three-dimensional objects made entirely by cellulose for the first time with the help of a 3D-bioprinter. They also added carbon nanotubes to create electrically conductive material. The effect is that cellulose and other raw material based on wood will be able to compete with fossil-based plastics and metals in the on-going additive manufacturing revolution, which started with the introduction of the 3D-printer. 3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing that is predicted to ...

Astronomers have long theorised the existence of a first generation of stars -- known as Population III stars -- that were born out of the primordial material from the Big Bang [1]. All the heavier chemical elements -- such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and iron, which are essential to life -- were forged in the bellies of stars. This meansthat the first stars must have formed out of the only elements to exist prior to stars: hydrogen, helium and trace amounts of lithium. These Population III stars would have been enormous -- several hundred or even a thousand times more ...

Scientists have developed a new tissue 'scaffold' technology that could one day enable the engineering of large organs. Research led by the Universities of Bristol and Liverpool has shown that it is possible to combine cells with a special scaffold to produce living tissue in the laboratory. It is hoped this can then be implanted into patients as a way of replacing diseased parts of the body. Until now, the approach has generally been limited to growing small pieces of tissue, as larger dimensions reduce the oxygen supply to the cells in the centre. A team of ...

HOUSTON, June 18 -- Taking research from the lab to the clinic can be a long and arduous process, but necessary to ensure new therapeutic methods are safe. This typically involves models created in the lab to closely resemble the cellular mechanism of the human body. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine say they have now created a new disease model that more than just resembles the human mechanisms; it acts as a fully functioning human lipid system within a mouse to specifically study hypercholesterolemia, a form of high cholesterol caused by a genetic defect. The ...

About a fifth of all U.S. children live in poverty. These children are more likely to experience learning and cognitive delays. Researchers have tried to determine causes for this disparity, with recent work identifying the hormone cortisol as a possible reason because of its ability to pass the blood-brain barrier. Cortisol is one of the most influential hormones in the human body, often referred to as the stress hormone because it's secreted into the bloodstream at higher levels as part of the body's flight-or-fight response. Now a new study has identified how specific ...

Teenagers vary substantially in their ability to control impulses and regulate their behavior. Adolescents who have difficulty with impulse control may be more prone to risky sexual behavior, with serious consequences such as sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies. A new study has found that individual differences in working memory can predict both early sexual activity and unprotected sexual involvement during adolescence. Working memory -- the system in the brain that allows individuals to draw on and use information to plan and make decisions -- ...

Migraine researchers and clinicians are growing excited about a new class of drugs called Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) monoclonal antibodies, which are showing promise in treating high-frequency episodic migraine and chronic migraine. "This development is a transformative moment in migraine treatment," said Peter J. Goadsby, MD, PhD, who is chair of the scientific program of the American Headache Society's annual Scientific Meeting. Dr. Goadbsy is Chief of the UCSF Headache Center, and one of the world's leading headache treatment experts and researchers. ...

So perhaps there is some truth in the old legends of the underworld reeking of brimstone (or sulphur, as it is now called)? New research confirms that the Earth's core does in fact contain vast amounts of sulphur, estimated to be up to 8.5 x 1018 tonnes. This is about 10 times the amount of sulphur in the rest of the Earth, based on the most recent estimates (and for comparison, around 10% of the total mass of the Moon). This is the first time that scientists have conclusive geochemical evidence for sulphur in the Earth's core, lending weight to the theory that the Moon ...

During the coming monsoon season, survivors of the recent earthquake that destroyed parts of Nepal face a "very high" risk of a hepatitis E outbreak that could be especially deadly to pregnant women, according to a consensus statement from a group of infectious disease experts from around the world. The document, published in the Lancet June 16 and signed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Alain Labrique and six others, states that the conditions in the April tremor that killed 8,800 people and injured more than 23,000 have left conditions ripe for ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio--Are black holes the ruthless killers we've made them out to be? Samir Mathur says no. According to the professor of physics at The Ohio State University, the recently proposed idea that black holes have "firewalls" that destroy all they touch has a loophole. In a paper posted online to the arXiv preprint server [arXiv:1506.04342], Mathur takes issue with the firewall theory, and proves mathematically that black holes are not necessarily arbiters of doom. In fact, he says the world could be captured by a black hole, and we wouldn't even notice. More ...

An independent panel convened by the National Institutes of Health concluded that ME/CFS is a complex, multifaceted disorder characterized by extreme fatigue and many other symptoms (including impairment of memory or concentration, post-exertional malaise, and pain) which can result in disability and the loss of employment and family support. Furthermore, limited knowledge, insufficient research funding, and a lack of diagnostic tools diminish a clinician's ability to provide optimal care. This leaves patients burdened with the difficult task of finding a health care provider ...

Advances in acoustic and satellite technologies are allowing researchers to track animals large and small across great distances, even in challenging ocean environments, leading to significant new knowledge about the behavior, interactions, movements, and migrations of many species, from tiny fish to sea turtles and whales. These developments in aquatic animal research are detailed in a paper, published June 12 in Science, by members of the International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN), a research and development platform headquartered ...

Alexandria, Va., USA - Today, the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) published a study titled "Spectrum of Dental Phenotypes in Nonsyndromic Orofacial Clefting," which is the largest international cohort to date of children with nonsyndromic clefts, their relatives and controls. This study is published in the OnlineFirst portion of the Journal of Dental Research: the journal for dental, oral and craniofacial research and a companion podcast is also available for download. This paper is an Editor's Choice paper that provides limited 30 ...

Irvine, Calif., June 16, 2015 - Two new studies led by UC Irvine using data from NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites show that civilization is rapidly draining some of its largest groundwater basins, yet there is little to no accurate data about how much water remains in them. The result is that significant segments of Earth's population are consuming groundwater quickly without knowing when it might run out, the researchers conclude. The findings appear today in Water Resources Research. "Available physical and chemical measurements are simply insufficient," ...

In one of the first published studies using data from the Health eHeart Study, UCSF researchers have found that people are divided on the cardiovascular benefits of alcohol consumption. And, those who do perceive alcohol as "heart healthy" drink substantially more than their counterparts. The study is in the Aug. 15 issue of American Journal of Cardiology. "While we often hear about alcohol's effects, this is the first assessment to address how the public might use that information," said senior author Gregory Marcus, MD, MAS, director of clinical research in the UCSF ...

Women under chronic stress have significantly lower levels of klotho, a hormone that regulates aging and enhances cognition, researchers at UC San Francisco have found in a study comparing mothers of children on the autism spectrum to low-stress controls. The researchers found that the women in their study with clinically significant depressive symptoms had even lower levels of klotho in their blood than those who were under stress but not experiencing such symptoms. The study, published Tuesday, June 16, in Translational Psychiatry, is the first to show a relationship ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Patients older than age 45 with thyroid cancer that has spread to neck lymph nodes have long been considered at higher risk of dying, but the same has not been true for younger patients. Now researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute and the Duke Clinical Research Institute have found that younger thyroid cancer patients with lymph node involvement are also at increased risk of dying, contrary to current beliefs and staging prognostic tools that classify young patients as having low-risk disease. The finding, published this week in the Journal of Clinical ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 16, 2015) - A new study co-led by Hsin-Hsiung Tai, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Kentucky, suggests that a key prostaglandin (PG) metabolic enzyme shows promise as a drug target to help tissue regeneration and repair, particularly after bone marrow transplantation and tissue injuries. Published in the June 12 issue of Science, the study looked at the role of 15-PGDH, an enzyme that quickly degrades a bioactive lipid called PGE2, in tissue regeneration in mouse models. Recent studies have shown that PGE2 may have a positive ...