New research has helped unpick a long-standing mystery about how dietary fibre supresses appetite. In a study led by Imperial College London and the Medical Research Council (MRC), an international team of researchers identified an anti-appetite molecule called acetate that is naturally released when we digest fibre in the gut. Once released, the acetate is transported to the brain where it produces a signal to tell us to stop eating. The research, published in Nature Communications, confirms the natural benefits of increasing the amount of fibre in our diets to ...

VIDEO: This shows heart tissue grown in a dish from mouse cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs). The CPCs, and the tissue they built, were engineered to produce a red protein. Click here for more information. A type of cell that builds mouse hearts can renew itself, Johns Hopkins researchers report. They say the discovery, which likely applies to such cells in humans as well, may pave the way to using them to repair hearts damaged by disease — or even grow new heart tissue for transplantation. ...

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP passed over Tapah and captured a visible image of the storm that gave a hint of weakening as clouds began to fill its eye. On April 30 at 0900 UTC/5 a.m. EDT, Tropical Storm Tapah continued to weaken as wind shear began to increase and the storm moved toward cooler waters in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over Tropical Storm Tapah on April 30 and the VIIRS instrument aboard captured a visible image of the storm as it weakened from a typhoon to a tropical storm. The imagery showed that Tapah's eye was becoming ...

The University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) and Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) today announced that an investigational vaccine candidate developed by Novavax against the recently emerged Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) blocked infection in laboratory studies. UM SOM and Novavax also reported that a vaccine candidate against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) developed by Novavax on a similar platform also inhibited virus infection. Researchers reported these findings in an article published in the April 13, 2014 issue ...

New evidence shores up findings that whey protein, which is found in milk and cheese, could have health benefits for people who are obese and do not yet have diabetes. The study, which appears in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research, examined how different protein sources affect metabolism. Lars O. Dragsted, Kjeld Hermansen and colleagues point out that obesity continues to be a major public health problem worldwide. In the U.S. alone, about 35 percent of adults and about 17 percent of children are obese, a condition that can lead to a number of health issues, including ...

A team of researchers investigating the genome of a healthy supercentenarian since 2011 has found many somatic mutations – permanent changes in cells other than reproductive ones – that arose during the woman's lifetime. Led by Erik Sistermans and Henne Holstege from the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the team recently published its findings in the journal Genome Research as reported by GenomeWeb. While previous studies have examined mutations that arise in certain disease conditions such as leukemia, Sistermans said that it was not well known how many mutations ...

TORONTO -- A possible therapeutic target for control of blood glucose in the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity has been identified by Dr. Anita Johswich and her colleagues. Their findings were published in Journal of Biological Chemistry, online April 17, 2014. An imbalance in the competing action of insulin and glucagon is widely viewed as a critical factor in onset of type 2 diabetes, a relentlessly increasing health problem. A delicate balance between two hormones controls blood glucose levels day and night. After a meal, blood glucose rises, which stimulates ...

If you pull up a soybean or bean plant and shake off the dirt, you might see odd swellings or bumps, like rheumatic finger joints, on its roots. Inside the cool, soil-covered bumps are bacteria that are making nitrogen with the help of an enzyme, something chemical factories can do only with the help of a catalyst and at high temperature and pressure. The bacteria, typically members of the genus Rhizobia, break the strong triple bond between the nitrogen molecules in the air and repackage the nitrogen atoms in chemical compounds the plant can use. In return, the plant ...

Decades after the genomics revolution, half of known eukaryote lineages still remain unstudied at the genomic level--with the field displaying a research bias against 'less popular', but potentially genetically rich, single-cell organisms. This lack of microbial representation leaves a world of untapped genetic potential undiscovered, according to an exhaustive survey conducted by UBC researchers of on-going genomics projects. The survey results are published in the May issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution. "We're still mostly analyzing the same well-known eukaryotic ...

Kīlauea volcano, on the Big Island of Hawai'i, typically has effusive eruptions, wherein magma flows to create ropy pāhoehoe lava, for example. However, Kīlauea less frequently erupts more violently, showering scoria and blocks over much of the surface of the island. To explain the variability in Kīlauea's eruption styles, a team including Bruce Houghton, the Gordon Macdonald Professor of Volcanology in Geology and Geophysics at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UHM) School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and colleagues from ...

This news release is available in German. HZB-scientist Emad Aziz, who leads the Joint lab between HZB and Freie Universität Berlin, has developed and installed a new tool to investigate ultrafast dynamics in solutions and at interfaces with the use of ultrashort Laser pulses. Liquid phases are a natural environment for many interesting processes in chemistry and biology, and short light pulses allow insights into electronic and structural dynamics of molecules and molecular complexes. In particular, photoelectron spectroscopy with extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation ...

UPTON, NY—Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory are seeking ways to synchronize the magnetic spins in nanoscale devices to build tiny yet more powerful signal-generating or receiving antennas and other electronics. Their latest work, published in Nature Communications, shows that stacked nanoscale magnetic vortices separated by an extremely thin layer of copper can be driven to operate in unison, potentially producing a powerful signal that could be put to work in a new generation of cell phones, computers, and other applications. The ...

A NOAA-led research team has found the first evidence that acidity of continental shelf waters off the West Coast is dissolving the shells of tiny free-swimming marine snails, called pteropods, which provide food for pink salmon, mackerel and herring, according to a new paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Researchers estimate that the percentage of pteropods in this region with dissolving shells due to ocean acidification has doubled in the nearshore habitat since the pre-industrial era and is on track to triple by 2050 when coastal waters become 70 ...

Climate change is set to affect the quality of the wines of the Tempranillo grape variety, according to the conclusions of a piece of research conducted by the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development Neiker-Tecnalia, in collaboration with the University of Navarre and the Aula Dei (EEAD) Experimental Station of the National Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). Scientists from these bodies have studied the behaviour of the vines in conditions of climate change; in other words, higher temperature, increased presence of CO2 and greater environmental aridity. ...

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy can quantitatively analyze in vivo abnormalities of biochemical metabolism within brain tissue in a noninvasive and non-radioactive manner. Compared with 3.0T magnetic resonance spectroscopy, high-field magnetic resonance spectroscopy (≥ 7.0T) exhibits high spatial resolution and density resolution, microscopic imaging of the living body, and obtains both high scanning resolution and result precision within a shorter scan time, thus providing a higher value in clinical diagnosis. In a recent study reported in the Neural Regeneration ...

Molluscs are invertebrates that make up one of the most numerous groups in the animal kingdom. They are everywhere, from great heights of over 3,000m above sea level to ocean profundities of over 5,000m deep, in polar and tropical waters and they tend to be common elements on coastlines around the world. Within this animal group are found the nudibranchs, characterized among other things, for not having shells and being brightly coloured. This colouring alerts their predators to their toxicity. Within this group, in turn, we can find the Aeolidiidae family. This family ...

Philadelphia, PA, April 30, 2014 – Some have characterized dopamine as the elixir of pleasure because so many rewarding stimuli – food, drugs, sex, exercise – trigger its release in the brain. However, more than a decade of research indicates that when drug use becomes compulsive, the related dopamine release becomes deficient in the striatum, a brain region that is involved in reward and behavioral control. New research now published in Biological Psychiatry from the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam suggests that dopamine release is increased in obsessive-compulsive ...

Asking NHS staff about what affects whether they would recommend their organisation for family and friends is an important source of intelligence for improving quality and safety of care, says a new study. This finding by researchers in the Universities of Leicester, Aberdeen, and Bristol has been published in a paper, 'The friends and family test: a qualitative study of concerns that influence the willingness of English National Health Service staff to recommend their organisation', in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Since 2009, the annual Staff Survey ...

Toronto, ON, Canada, April 30, 2014 – A new study presenting data from 17 cardiac surgical centers in Virginia, representing 100 surgeons and 99% of cardiac operations performed in the state, demonstrates that, even today, significant variations – among surgeons and hospitals - still exist in the performance of mitral valve repair vs replacement for moderate to severe mitral regurgitation. Significant associations were observed between the propensity for MV repair and both institutional and surgeon annual volume, although increasing surgeon volume appears to be the much ...

Toronto, ON, Canada, April 30, 2014 – A new technique that brings CT imaging into the operating room will allow surgeons to precisely demarcate and remove small sub-centimeter lung nodules, leaving as much healthy tissue as possible, according to Raphael Bueno, MD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. His team is presenting the results of this late-breaking research at the 94th AATS Annual Meeting in Toronto, ON, Canada on April 30, 2014. Lung cancer remains the deadliest cancer and a recent study, the National Lung Cancer Screening Trial, indicated that screening ...

UNSW Australia chemists have invented a new type of tiny lab-on-a-chip device that could have a diverse range of applications, including to detect toxic gases, fabricate integrated circuits and screen biological molecules. The novel technique developed by the UNSW team involves printing a pattern of miniscule droplets of a special solvent onto a gold-coated or glass surface. "We use a class of 'green' solvents called ionic liquids, which are salts that are liquid at room temperature. They are non-volatile, so this overcomes one of the main problems in making useful miniaturised ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – A new study has found that children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have disrupted connections between different areas of the brain that are evident on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rfMRI). The results of this research are published online in the journal Radiology. The findings point to the potential of rfMRI to help provide objectively accurate, early diagnosis of a disorder that affects approximately 5 percent of children and adolescents worldwide. ADHD is a disorder characterized by age-inappropriate ...

How do you get a preschooler to help with chores and other household tasks? A new study suggests that adults' word choice can make a big difference. The study, by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, the University of Washington, and Stanford University, appears in the journal Child Development. The researchers carried out two experiments with about one hundred and fifty 3- to 6-year-olds from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds who came from middle- to upper-middle-class homes. In both experiments, an adult experimenter began by talking to ...

Working memory—the ability to hold information in your mind, think about it, and use it to guide behavior—develops through childhood and adolescence, and is key for successful performance at school and work. Previous research with young children has documented socioeconomic disparities in performance on tasks of working memory. Now a new longitudinal study has found that differences in working memory that exist at age 10 persist through the end of adolescence. The study also found that parents' education—one common measure of socioeconomic status—is related to children's ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The oldest sections of transform faults, such as the North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) and the San Andreas Fault, produce the largest earthquakes, putting important limits on the potential seismic hazard for less mature parts of fault zones, according to a new study to be presented today at the Seismological Society of America (SSA) 2014 Annual Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. The finding suggests that maximum earthquake magnitude scales with the maturity of the fault. Identifying the likely maximum magnitude for the NAFZ is critical for seismic hazard ...