A single dose of antidepressant is enough to produce dramatic changes in the functional architecture of the human brain. Brain scans taken of people before and after an acute dose of a commonly prescribed SSRI (serotonin reuptake inhibitor) reveal changes in connectivity within three hours, say researchers who report their observations in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on September 18. "We were not expecting the SSRI to have such a prominent effect on such a short timescale or for the resulting signal to encompass the entire brain," says Julia Sacher of the Max ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – Life is a series of decisions, ranging from the mundane to the monumental. And each decision is a gamble, carrying with it the chance to second-guess. Did I make the right turn at that light? Did I choose the right college? Was this the right job for me? Our desire to persist along a chosen path is almost entirely determined by our confidence in the decision: when you are confident that your choice is correct, you are willing to stick it out for a lot longer. Confidence determines much of our path through life, but what is it? Most people ...

Stem cells hold great promise as a means of repairing cells in conditions such as multiple sclerosis, stroke or injuries of the spinal cord because they have the ability to develop into almost any cell type. Now, new research shows that stem cell therapy can also work through a mechanism other than cell replacement. In a study published today in Molecular Cell, a team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge has shown that stem cells "communicate" with cells by transferring molecules via fluid filled bags called vesicles, helping other cells to modify the damaging ...

NEW YORK, September 18, 2014 – Scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center have found a way to boost dramatically the efficiency of the process for turning adult cells into so-called pluripotent stem cells by combining three well-known compounds, including vitamin C. Using the new technique in mice, the researchers increased the number of stem cells obtained from adult skin cells by more than 20-fold compared with the standard method. They say their technique is efficient and reliable, and thus should generally accelerate research aimed at using stem cells to generate virtually ...

A key step in understanding the nature of the fight for superiority between mutated genes and normal genes could lead to new therapies to combat leukaemia, say researchers from the University of Birmingham and Newcastle University. The study, published in Cell Reports, investigated Acute Myeloid Leukaemia to understand why leukemic cells are not able to develop normally into mature blood cells. Stem cells in the bone marrow generate billions of different blood cells each day. The process resembles a production line with genes acting as regulators to control each step ...

VIDEO: On Sept. 17 at 03:39 UTC, the TRMM satellite saw a newer outer eyewall forming around Edouard's original eyewall creating a double eye-wall structure. Red indicates heavy rainfall.... Click here for more information. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite and Aqua satellite gathered data on Hurricane Edouard's rainfall, clouds and waning power is it continued moving northward in the Atlantic into cooler waters. On Sept. 18, NASA's Global Hawk #872 ...

Our genetic information is stored in DNA, tiny strands of nucleic acid that contain instructions for the functioning of our bodies. To express this genetic data, our DNA is copied into RNA molecules, which then translate the instructions into proteins that perform tasks in our cells. Several years ago, scientists discovered a new type of RNA molecule. Unlike all other known RNAs, this molecule is circular, and was labeled circular RNA. Although circRNA molecules are abundant, little has been known about how they are produced. Moreover, little has been known about the ...

WHITE PLAINS, NY, SEPT. 18, 2014 -- Only about half of all pregnant women in the U.S. get a flu shot each season, leaving thousands of moms-to-be and their babies at increased risk of serious illness. "Getting a flu shot should be a routine part of prenatal care," said Edward McCabe, MD, March of Dimes chief medical officer. "Health care providers should offer their pregnant patients a flu shot each year and if they don't, then women should ask for it." A report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention presented today by the National Foundation for ...

SEPTEMBER 18 —In war-torn Syria, five of six World Heritage sites now "exhibit significant damage" and some structures have been "reduced to rubble," according to new high-resolution satellite image analysis by the nonprofit, nonpartisan American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS analysis, offering the first comprehensive look at the extent of damage to Syria's priceless cultural heritage sites, was completed in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology's Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PennCHC) and ...

Hurricane Polo still appears rounded in imagery from NOAA's GOES-West satellite, but forecasters at the National Hurricane Center expect that to change. NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured data on Hurricane Polo on Sept. 18 at 10:15 a.m. EDT. An image using that data was created by the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The image showed thunderstorms wrapping tightly around the center of the storm while one broken band of thunderstorms extended to the northwest, while the other appeared on the eastern side of the center ...

Dartmouth researchers and their colleagues have built the first smartphone app that automatically reveals students' mental health, academic performance and behavioral trends. In other words, your smartphone knows your state of mind -- even if you don't -- and how that affects you. The StudentLife app, which compares students' happiness, stress, depression and loneliness to their academic performance, also may be used in the general population – for example, to monitor mental health, trigger intervention and improve productivity in workplace employees. "The StudentLife ...

The fall foliage season that prompts millions of Americans to undertake jaunts into the countryside each year could come much later and possibly last a little longer within a century, according to new research. Climate change could postpone fall leaf peeping in some areas of the United States as summer temperatures linger later into the year, Princeton University researchers report in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography. For instance, the paper birch — a popular foliage tree that is the state tree of New Hampshire — could change color one to three weeks later ...

Life is rarely simple. From crop yields to disease risks, the biological characteristics people care most about are usually those considered "complex traits." Just as for height—the textbook example of a complex trait—attributes like risk for a particular human disease are shaped by multiple genetic and environmental influences, making it challenging to find the genes involved. To track down such genes, geneticists typically mate two individuals that differ in key ways—for example, a large mouse and a small mouse—and then study their descendents, looking for genes that ...

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Sept. 18, 2014—Many Americans across racial and ethnic groups describe losing eyesight as potentially having the greatest impact on their day-to-day life, more so than other conditions including: loss of limb, memory, hearing and speech (57% of African-Americans, 49% of non-Hispanic whites, 43% of Asians and 38% of Hispanics). When asked which disease or ailment is the worst that could happen to them, blindness ranked first among African-Americans followed by AIDS/HIV. Hispanics and Asians ranked cancer first and blindness second, while Alzheimer's disease ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Individuals living in disadvantaged neighborhoods have worse musculoskeletal pain outcomes over time after stressful events such as motor vehicle collision than individuals from higher socioeconomic status neighborhoods, even after accounting for individual characteristics such as age, sex, income, education, and employment status. These were the findings of a multi-site research study led by Samuel McLean, MD, MPH, associate professor of anesthesiology and emergency medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. The results of the ...

According to a simulation of the impact of climate change on agricultural production over the course of the 21st century, carried out by researchers led by Professor Wolfram Mauser at LMU's Department of Geography, some two-thirds of all land potentially suitable for agricultural use is already under cultivation. The study indicates that climate change will expand the supply of cropland in the high latitudes of the Northern hemisphere (Canada, Russia, China) over the next 100 years. However, in the absence of adaptation measures such as increased irrigation, the simulation ...

This news release is available in German. In ecology, disease tolerance is defined as a host strategy not to fight a pathogen tooth and nail, but rather tolerate it to live (and survive) better in the long term. One key feature of tolerance is that the disease only progresses very slowly – if at all – even if the host carries a high pathogen load. Roland Regoes, a senior scientist at ETH Zurich's Institute of Theoretical Biology, has now transferred this approach to HIV. He set about investigating whether there are infected people who are more tolerant of the HI virus ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 18, 2014–An Emergency Room Decision-Support (ERDS) program can significantly reduce ER visits and hospital admissions among older adults on Medicare. This could have important economic implications, helping to reduce the nearly 33% of avoidable ER visits that contribute to about $18 billion in unnecessary healthcare costs each year. Details of a successful ERDS program that had a positive return on investment are published in an article in Population Health Management, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article ...

The ability to acquire and creatively manipulate spoken language is unique to humans. "The genetic changes that occurred over the past 6 million years of human evolution to make this possible are largely unknown, but Foxp2 is the best candidate gene we now have," says Wolfgang Enard, Professor of Anthropology and Human Biology at LMU. In his efforts to understand the molecular biological basis of language Enard has now taken an important step forward. The results of his latest study, undertaken in collaboration with scientists at several universities, including the Massachusetts ...

This eruption occurred just before the 1815 Tambora volcanic eruption which is famous for its impact on climate worldwide, with 1816 given memorable names such as 'Eighteen-Hundred-and-Froze-to-Death', the 'Year of the Beggar' and the 'Year Without a Summer' because of unseasonal frosts, crop failure and famine across Europe and North America. The extraordinary conditions are considered to have inspired literary works such as Byron's 'Darkness' and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. However, the global deterioration of the 1810s into the coldest decade in the last 500 years ...

Anyone who has seen the movies of Neil Armstrong's first bounding steps on the moon couldn't fail to be intrigued by his unusual walking style. But, contrary to popular belief, the astronaut's peculiar walk was not the result of low gravity. Wyle Science, Engineering and Technology scientist John De Witt explains that the early space suits were not designed for walking, so the astronauts adapted their movements to the restrictions of the suit. Michael Gernhardt, the head of NASA's Extravehicular Activity Physiology, Systems and Performance Project, wants to learn more about ...

A wild berry native to North America may strengthen the effectiveness of a chemotherapy drug commonly used to treat pancreatic cancer, reveals research published online in the Journal of Clinical Pathology. The study by researchers at King's College Hospital and the University of Southampton suggests that adding nutraceuticals to chemotherapy cycles may improve the effectiveness of conventional drugs, particularly in hard to treat cancers, such as pancreatic cancer. The team tested the effectiveness of extract of chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) in killing off cancer ...

New evidence will be presented at the first Global Violence Reduction Conference in Cambridge this week which shows that homicide rates have been declining since the mid-1990s in many parts of the world - in some cases dramatically. Nations as diverse as Estonia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Poland, and Russia have seen average recorded homicide rates drop by 40% or more in the course of just 15 years. Out of 88 countries where trend data could be found, 67 showed a decline and only 20 showed an increase between 1995 and 2010, a new analysis of data from the United Nations ...

Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET-CT) is more accurate than conventional CT scanning in measuring response to treatment and predicting survival in patients with follicular lymphoma, and should be used routinely in clinical practice, according to new research published in The Lancet Haematology. "Our findings have important implications for patients with follicular lymphoma, a common and usually slow-growing lymphoma. Compared to conventional CT scanning, PET-CT is more accurate in mapping-out the lymphoma, and better identifies the majority of patients ...

The magnificent plumage of the peacock may not be quite the sacrifice to love that it appears to be, University of Leeds researchers have discovered. Dr Graham Askew, from the University's School of Biomedical Sciences, filmed five Indian peacocks taking off using two high-speed video cameras to try to work out what price male birds pay for carrying the spectacular iridescent feathers they use in displays to attract females. "These feathers weigh about 300g and can exceed 1.5m, so it's expected that the male birds would be making a significant sacrifice in their flight ...