This news release is available in French. New research presented today by Dr. Jonathan Britt, from McGill University, helps to better understand how reward signals, such as those produced by addictive drugs, travel through the brain and modify brain circuits. Dr. Britt obtained these results using optogenetics, which use light-responsive proteins to study the activation of neural circuits in distinct locations, allowing the researcher to precisely dissect the roles of different neural circuits in the brain. Dr. Britt's studies have helped reveal circuits that are responsible ...

This news release is available in French. Choosing what is best is not always simple. Should one choose a small, certain reward, or take risks and try to get a larger reward? New research by Stan Floresco, from the Brain Research Centre at the University of British Columbia sheds light on the brain circuits that interact to help us decide the best strategy to adopt in changing circumstances. These results were presented at the 8th annual Canadian Neuroscience Meeting, taking place May 25-28 2014 in Montreal, Canada. The studies of Dr. Floresco and his team used ...

Scientists from the University of Southampton, in collaboration with the Universities of Sheffield and Crete, have developed a new hybrid energy transfer system, which mimics the processes responsible for photosynthesis. From photosynthesis to respiration, the processes of light absorption and its transfer into energy represent elementary and essential reactions that occur in any biological living system. This energy transfer is known as Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET), a radiationless transmission of energy that occurs on the nanometer scale from a donor molecule ...

Ordinarily, deaf students are left in the dark when they visit a planetarium. With the lights off, they can't see the ASL interpreter who narrates their tour of outer space. With the lights on, they can't see the constellations of stars projected overhead. That's why a group at Brigham Young University launched the "Signglasses" project. Professor Mike Jones and his students have developed a system to project the sign language narration onto several types of glasses – including Google Glass. The project is personal for Tyler Foulger and a few other student researchers ...

The winds have shifted and the Slide Fire smoke that once hung heavy and gray over Flagstaff is now covering the city of Sedona in Arizona. Over 20,000 acres have burned in the Coconino Forest in Arizona. Inciweb.org reports that during Memorial Day crews completed the final perimeter burnout around the fire. This perimeter created by the fire crews is approximately 40 miles of line to form a containment perimeter around the fire. The fire is considered 35 percent contained at this point. Today (Tuesday May 27) crews will work on holding the containment line along ...

It is currently the dry season in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image on May 24, 2014. MODIS detected hundreds of active fires (location marked in red) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and northeastern Angola, a sign that the agricultural burning season is underway. Agriculture is responsible for more than half of the products produced by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and fire is a central feature in agriculture across most of Africa. Places where ...

Irvine, Calif., May 27, 2014 — A discovery by UC Irvine endocrinologists about the importance of cell surface receptors for estrogen has the potential to change how researchers view the hormone's role in normal organ development and function. To date, scientists in the field focused on receptors in the cell's nucleus as the primary site for estrogen's effect on gene activity and organ development and function. There has been acknowledgement of similar estrogen receptors outside of the nucleus but much debate as to whether they are important. To investigate this, Dr. ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered that some compounds called polyoxoniobates can degrade and decontaminate nerve agents such as the deadly sarin gas, and have other characteristics that may make them ideal for protective suits, masks or other clothing. The use of polyoxoniobates for this purpose had never before been demonstrated, scientists said, and the discovery could have important implications for both military and civilian protection. A United Nations report last year concluded that sarin gas was used in the conflict in Syria. The ...

Economists have long touted the importance of quantifying nature's value — from the natural treatment of pollution by wetlands to the carbon storage capacity of forests — and including it in measures of national wealth. But so far, achieving an actual measurable value for this "natural capital" has remained elusive, says Eli Fenichel, an assistant professor of bioeconomics and ecosystems management at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. In a new paper, Fenichel and co-author Joshua Abbott of Arizona State University report developing an approach to ...

The first tropical cyclone of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season grew into a major hurricane as Hurricane Amanda reached Category 4 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale over the Memorial Day holiday weekend. NASA and NOAA satellites watched as Amanda developed an eye while strengthening. Fortunately, Amanda is far enough away from coastal Mexico that no watches or warnings are in effect today, May 27. On Sunday, May 25, Amanda strengthened into the first Major Hurricane in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Maximum sustained winds were near 155 mph (250 kph). Amanda was centered ...

WASHINGTON, May 27, 2014—The march of modern medicine is often driven by revolutions in medical imaging. When technology advances, doctors are better able to peer deeply into human tissues, and thus able to detect, diagnose and treat human diseases more effectively. Now, researchers have taken an established imaging technology called "optical coherence tomography," or OCT, and integrated it with other instruments to bring about the next revolution in imaging by helping doctors provide safer, less painful and more effective care for women in labor and people with diabetic ...

NASA's Terra satellite passed over the central Alaska and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard captured an image of smoke and hot spots from the Funny River Fire in southern Alaska on May 26 at 21:45 UTC (5:45 p.m. EDT). The heat from the fire appears red in the imagery and the smoke appears light brown. On May 26 at 9:30 a.m. local time, the Alaska Interagency Incident Management Type 2 Team reported on the status of the fire through the multi-agency Incident Information System known as Inciweb. At that time the fire ...

GALVESTON —Researchers have concluded that providing better access to health care may lead to the overuse of mammograms for women who regularly see a primary care physician and who have a limited life expectancy. The cautionary note from researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston is that screening women in this category could subject them "to greater risks of physical, emotional and economic suffering." Dr. Alai Tan, a senior biostatistician in UTMB's Sealy Center on Aging and lead author of the study, said that "there has been little systematic ...

WASHINGTON D.C., May 27, 2014 -- It took every inch of the Large Hadron Collider's 17-mile length to accelerate particles to energies high enough to discover the Higgs boson. Now, imagine an accelerator that could do the same thing in, say, the length of a football field. Or less. That is the promise of laser-plasma accelerators, which use lasers instead of high-power radio-frequency waves to energize electrons in very short distances. Scientists have grappled with building these devices for two decades, and a new theoretical study predicts that this may be easier than ...

A new treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy with the potential to suppress seizures 'on demand' with a pill, similar to how you might take painkillers when you feel a headache coming on, has been developed by UCL (University College London) researchers funded by the Wellcome Trust. The treatment, described in Nature Communications, combines genetic and chemical approaches to suppress seizures without disrupting normal brain function. The technique was demonstrated in rodents but in future we could see people controlling seizures on-demand with a simple pill. Epilepsy ...

Butterflies and dragonflies with lighter colours are out-competing darker-coloured insects in the face of climate change. In a new study published in Nature Communications, scientists from Imperial College London, Philipps-University Marburg and University of Copenhagen have shown that as the climate warms across Europe, communities of butterflies and dragonflies consist of more lighter coloured species. Darker coloured species are retreating northwards to cooler areas, but lighter coloured species are also moving their geographical range north as Europe gets warmer. For ...

Climate changeButterflies and dragonflies with a lighter shade of colour do better in warmer areas of Europe. This gives them a competitive advantage over the darker insects in the face of climate change. Changes in Europe's insect assemblages due to warming can already be seen for dragonflies, shows a study recently published in Nature Communications. "When studying biodiversity, we lack general rules about why certain species occur where they do. With this research we've been able to show that butterfly and dragonfly species across Europe are distributed according to ...

Sexual inequality between boys and girls starts as early as in the mother's womb – but how and why this occurs could be a key to preventing higher rates of preterm birth, stillbirth and neonatal death among boys. A team from the University of Adelaide's Robinson Research Institute has been studying the underlying genetic and developmental reasons why male babies generally have worse outcomes than females, with significantly increased rates of pregnancy complications and poor health outcomes for males. The results - published today in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction ...

Removing a malignant tumor from the head of the pancreas is a risky and demanding operation. The surgeon must carefully navigate around the stomach, the gallbladder, the bile duct, lymph nodes, and several high-pressure blood vessels. But an inexpensive device designed by Harvard engineering students and a surgeon at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center offers surgeons a confident grip throughout the delicate procedure. The gentle grasper, equipped with rubberized pressure sensors, has three slender fingers that can slip through a very small incision and tease cancerous ...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) receives comprehensive clinical study data from drug manufacturers. These data form the basis for the decision on the approval of new drugs. To make this information available to researchers and decision-makers, EMA issued a draft policy in 2013 for the publication of clinical study data, in which extensive data transparency was planned. Besides other interested parties, the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) was intensely involved in the subsequent consultations. The result of these consultations is ...

AUSTRALIA -- Predicted variations in global climates have fruit producers trying to determine which crops are best suited to weathering future temperature changes. Extreme high-temperature events are expected to become more frequent, and predictive models suggest that the global mean surface air temperature will rise by as much as two degrees by the middle of the 21st century. Higher temperatures could have an impact on the duration of critical "winter chill" periods needed for successful fruit production, potentially altering growing strategies. According to the authors ...

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA – The leaves and petals of roses are valued for their medicinal and aesthetic uses around the world. A new study identified specific phenolic compounds found in the petals of indigenous rose species and compared them with the phenolic profiles of modern rose cultivars to determine differences in the makeup of roses traditionally used for medicinal purposes and those varieties cherished for aesthetic qualities. According to the results, distinct differences exist in the distribution of leaf phenolic compounds, especially between indigenous rose species ...

A study published today in EMBO Molecular Medicine reveals that the loss of function of the gene RARRES3 in breast cancer cells promotes metastasis to the lung. The research, headed by Roger Gomis, ICREA Professor at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), is the result of a collaboration between two IRB labs and Joan Massagué, at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The scientists demonstrate that RARRES3 is suppressed in estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) breast cancer tumours, thus stimulating the later invasion of the cancer cells ...

In terms of ambience, Charlotte Central's cafeteria is -- well, conjure up your own elementary school lunch experience. There's more than one reason to run to recess. But on a recent visit to observe a group of researchers from UVM's Johnson Lab, the lunch ladies were serving up something more likely to be found on a restaurant menu: risotto with mushrooms and peas. It's the result of a host of programs by schools around Vermont to offer more tempting choices -- with locally sourced ingredients when possible, including herbs and vegetables from the playground garden -- ...

Scientists armed with a supercomputer and a vast trove of newly collected data on the body's most potent "tumor suppressor" gene have created the best map yet of how the gene works, an accomplishment that could lead to new techniques for fighting cancers, which are adept at disabling the gene in order to thrive. Scientists from the University of Colorado Cancer Center and the University of Colorado Boulder used a new technology to tease out how the p53 gene—which is responsible for recognizing damaged DNA in cells and then marking them for death—is actually able to suppress ...