Stinky gases emanating from landfills could transform into clean energy
2014-08-12
SAN FRANCISCO — A new technique that transforms stinky, air-polluting landfill gas could produce the sweet smell of success as it leads to development of a fuel cell generating clean electricity for homes, offices and hospitals, researchers say. The advance would convert methane gas into hydrogen, an efficient, clean form of energy.
The researcher's report is part of the 248th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society.
The meeting, attended by thousands of scientists, features nearly 12,000 reports on new advances ...
Climate change, predators, and the trickle down effects on ecosystems
2014-08-12
Predators play important roles in maintaining diverse and stable ecosystems. Climate change can push species to move in order to stay in their climatic comfort zones, potentially altering where species live and how they interact, which could fundamentally transform current ecosystems.
A symposium focusing on climate's effects on predators—causing cascading effects on whole ecosystems -- will take place on Tuesday, August 12th during the Ecological Society of America's 99th Annual Meeting, held this year in Sacramento, California.
There will be "winners" and "losers" ...
Blacks, women face greater burden from CVD risk factors
2014-08-11
The impact of major cardiovascular risk factors combined is greater in women than men and in blacks than whites. While the gender gap may be narrowing, differences by race may be increasing, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
"We've been targeting traditional risk factors in public health campaigns for many years," said Susan Cheng, M.D., M.P.H., study lead author and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass. "We wanted to take a look at how well we've been doing over time at keeping ...
Bone drugs may not protect osteoporotic women from breast cancer
2014-08-11
Osteoporosis drugs known as bisphosphonates may not protect women from breast cancer as had been thought, according to a new study led by researchers at UC San Francisco (UCSF).
The drugs' protective effect was widely assumed after several observational studies showed that women who took them were less likely to get breast cancer.
But when researchers assessed the effect of two of the most widely used osteoporosis drugs – sold under the brand names, Fosamax and Reclast – in two large randomized clinical trials, neither drug protected women with osteoporosis from getting ...
Novel study maps infant brain growth in first 3 months of life using MRI technology
2014-08-11
A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Hawaii demonstrates a new approach to measuring early brain development of infants, resulting in more accurate whole brain growth charts and providing the first estimates for growth trajectories of subcortical areas during the first three months after birth. Assessing the size, asymmetry and rate of growth of different brain regions could be key in detecting and treating the earliest signs of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism or perinatal ...
Gloves after hand washing associated with fewer infections in preterm babies
2014-08-11
Extremely premature babies in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) had fewer infections when medical staff wore gloves after washing their hands compared with hand washing alone.
The author is David A. Kaufman, M.D., of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, and colleagues.
Late-onset infections (more than 72 hours after birth) and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC, tissue death in the intestines) can cause death and neurodevelopmental impairment in extremely premature babies. Even after hand washing, medical staff can still have microorganisms ...
Normal cognition in patient without apolipoprotein E, risk factor for Alzheimer's
2014-08-11
A 40-year-old California man exhibits normal cognitive function although he has no apolipoprotein E (apoE), which is believed to be important for brain function but a mutation of which is also a known risk factor for Alzheimer disease (AD). Researchers suggest this could mean that therapies to reduce apoE in the central nervous system may one day help treat neurodegenerative disorders such as AD.
The study was authored by Angel C. Y. Mak, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues.
The patient was referred to UCSF with severe high cholesterol ...
Bisphosphonates for osteoporosis not associated with reduced breast cancer risk
2014-08-11
An analysis of data from two randomized clinical trials finds that three to four years of treatment with bisphosphonates to improve bone density is not linked to reduced risk of invasive postmenopausal breast cancer.
The authors are Trisha F. Hue, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues.
Some studies have suggested that bisphosphonates, which are commonly used to treat osteoporosis, may have antitumor and antimetastatic properties. Some observational studies have suggested bisphosphonates may protect women from breast cancer. ...
Medicinal oil reduces debilitating epileptic seizures associated with Glut 1 deficiency
2014-08-11
DALLAS – Aug. 11, 2014 – Two years ago, the parents of Chloe Olivarez watched painfully as their daughter experienced epileptic seizures hundreds of times a day. The seizures, caused by a rare metabolic disease that depleted her brain of needed glucose, left Chloe nearly unresponsive, and slow to develop.
Within hours, treatment with an edible oil dramatically reduced the number of seizures for then-4-year-old Chloe, one of 14 participants in a small UT Southwestern Medical Center clinical trial.
"Immediately we noticed fewer seizures. From the Chloe we knew two years ...
An easier way to manipulate malaria genes
2014-08-11
Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria, has proven notoriously resistant to scientists' efforts to study its genetics. It can take up to a year to determine the function of a single gene, which has slowed efforts to develop new, more targeted drugs and vaccines.
MIT biological engineers have now demonstrated that a new genome-editing technique, called CRISPR, can disrupt a single parasite gene with a success rate of up to 100 percent — in a matter of weeks. This approach could enable much more rapid gene analysis and boost drug-development efforts, says ...
Kessler Foundation scientists link environment & inclusion in adults with disabilities
2014-08-11
West Orange, NJ. August 11, 2014. Kessler Foundation researchers have identified an association between the built environment and disability-related outcomes for adults with physical impairments. The article, Disability and the built environment: an investigation of community and neighborhood land uses and participation for physically impaired adults, was published in the July issue of Annals of Epidemiology (doi: 10.1016/j.annepidem.2014.05.003). The authors are Amanda Botticello, PhD, MPH, and Nicole Cobbold, BS, of Kessler Foundation, and Tanya Rohrbach, MS, of Raritan ...
A global temperature conundrum: Cooling or warming climate?
2014-08-11
MADISON, Wis. — When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently requested a figure for its annual report, to show global temperature trends over the last 10,000 years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Zhengyu Liu knew that was going to be a problem.
"We have been building models and there are now robust contradictions," says Liu, a professor in the UW-Madison Center for Climatic Research. "Data from observation says global cooling. The physical model says it has to be warming."
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today, ...
Follow the radio waves to exomoons, UT Arlington physicists say
2014-08-11
Scientists hunting for life beyond Earth have discovered more than 1,800 planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets, in recent years, but so far, no one has been able to confirm an exomoon. Now, physicists from The University of Texas at Arlington believe following a trail of radio wave emissions may lead them to that discovery.
Their recent findings, published in the Aug. 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, describe radio wave emissions that result from the interaction between Jupiter's magnetic field and its moon Io. They suggest using detailed calculations about ...
Digoxin tied to increased risk of death in patients with atrial fibrillation
2014-08-11
In An Account of the Foxglove and Some of its Medical Uses, published in 1785, Sir William Withering cautioned readers that extracts from the plant foxglove, also called digitalis, was not a perfect drug. "Time will fix the real value upon this discovery," he wrote.
Now, more than 200 years later, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have validated Withering's warning with the discovery that patients with atrial fibrillation — a rapid and irregular heart rhythm — who are treated with the digitalis-derivative digoxin are more likely to die than similar ...
Bioengineers make functional 3-D brain-like tissue model
2014-08-11
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (August 11, 2014) --The human brain remains one of the least understood organs in the human body, because of its complexity and the difficulty of studying its physiology in the living body. Tufts University researchers today announced development of the first reported complex three-dimensional model made of brain-like cortical tissue that exhibits biochemical and electrophysiological responses and can function in the laboratory for months. The engineered tissue model offers new options for studying brain function, disease and trauma, and treatment. ...
Trapped atmospheric waves triggered more weather extremes
2014-08-11
It has been linked to a recently discovered mechanism: the trapping of giant waves in the atmosphere. A new data analysis now shows that such wave-trapping events are indeed on the rise.
"The large number of recent high-impact extreme weather events has struck and puzzled us," says Dim Coumou, lead author of the study conducted by a team of scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). "Of course we are warming our atmosphere by emitting CO2 from fossil fuels, but the increase in devastating heat waves in regions like Europe or the US seems ...
Preemies' gut bacteria may depend more on gestational age than environment
2014-08-11
Scientists believe babies are born with digestive systems containing few or no bacteria. Their guts then quickly become colonized by microbes — good and bad — as they nurse or take bottles, receive medication and even as they are passed from one adoring relative to another.
However, in infants born prematurely, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that the population of bacteria in babies' gastrointestinal tracts may depend more on their biological makeup and gestational age at birth than on environmental factors. The scientists ...
Bioengineers create functional 3-D brain-like tissue
2014-08-11
Bioengineers have created three-dimensional brain-like tissue that functions like and has structural features similar to tissue in the rat brain and that can be kept alive in the lab for more than two months.
As a first demonstration of its potential, researchers used the brain-like tissue to study chemical and electrical changes that occur immediately following traumatic brain injury and, in a separate experiment, changes that occur in response to a drug. The tissue could provide a superior model for studying normal brain function as well as injury and disease, and ...
Scientists demonstrate long-sought drug candidate can halt tumor growth
2014-08-11
LA JOLLA, CA – August 11, 2014 – It's a trick any cat burglar knows: to open a locked door, slide a credit card past the latch.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) tried a similar strategy when they attempted to disrupt the function of MYC, a cancer regulator thought to be "undruggable." The researchers found that a credit card-like molecule they developed somehow moves in and disrupts the critical interactions between MYC and its binding partner.
The research, published the week of August 11 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ...
Elusive viral 'machine' architecture finally rendered
2014-08-11
VIDEO:
The new rendering of the protein-DNA complex, or machine, that the Lambda virus uses to insert its DNA into that of its E. coli host.
Click here for more information.
For half a century biologists have studied the way that the lambda virus parks DNA in the chromosome of a host E. coli bacterium and later extracts it as a model reaction of genetic recombination. But for all that time, they could never produce an overall depiction of the protein-DNA machines that carry out ...
Native bacteria block Wolbachia from being passed to mosquito progeny
2014-08-11
Native bacteria living inside mosquitoes prevent the insects from passing Wolbachia bacteria -- which can make the mosquitoes resistant to the malaria parasite -- to their offspring, according to a team of researchers.
The team found that Asaia, a type of bacteria that occurs naturally in Anopheles mosquitoes, blocks invasion of Wolbachia into the mosquitoes' germlines -- the cells that are passed on through successive generations of an organism -- thus stopping the insects from transmitting Wolbachia to their offspring.
"Wolbachia infects up to 70 percent of all known ...
Novel drug action against solid tumors explained
2014-08-11
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Researchers at UC Davis, City of Hope, Taipai Medical University and National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan have discovered how a drug that deprives the cells of a key amino acid specifically kills cancer cells.
Their paper, published today in Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences, is the culmination of nearly a decade of research into the role of arginine – and its deprivation – in the generation of excessive autophagy, a process in which the cell dies by eating itself.
Study co-author Hsing-Jien Kung, a renowned cancer biologist and ...
Reconstructions show how some of the earliest animals lived -- and died
2014-08-11
VIDEO:
This is an animation of the growth and development of the extinct rangeomorph species Beothukis mistakenis, which lived during the Ediacaran Period from approximately 575 to 555 million years ago....
Click here for more information.
A bizarre group of uniquely shaped organisms known as rangeomorphs may have been some of the earliest animals to appear on Earth, uniquely suited to ocean conditions 575 million years ago. A new model devised by researchers at the University ...
A vaccine alternative protects mice against malaria
2014-08-11
A study led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers found that injecting a vaccine-like compound into mice was effective in protecting them from malaria. The findings suggest a potential new path toward the elusive goal of malaria immunization.
Mice, injected with a virus genetically altered to help the rodents create an antibody designed to fight the malaria parasite, produced high levels of the anti-malaria antibody. The approach, known as Vector immunoprophylaxis, or VIP, has shown promise in HIV studies but has never been tested with malaria, ...
Search for biomarkers aimed at improving treatment of painful bladder condition
2014-08-11
Winston-Salem, N.C. – August 11, 2014 – Taking advantage of technology that can analyze tissue samples and measure the activity of thousands of genes at once, scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center are on a mission to better understand and treat interstitial cystitis (IC), a painful and difficult-to-diagnose bladder condition.
"We are looking for molecular biomarkers for IC, which basically means we are comparing bladder biopsy tissue from patients with suspected interstitial cystitis to patients without the disease. The goal is to identify factors that will ...
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