Argonne, Ill. - A clearer understanding of the origin recognition complex (ORC) - a protein complex that directs DNA replication - through its crystal structure offers new insight into fundamental mechanisms of DNA replication initiation. This will also provide insight into how ORC may be compromised in a subset of patients with Meier-Gorlin syndrome, a form of dwarfism in humans. ORC is a six-subunit protein complex that directly binds DNA to recruit other protein factors involved in DNA replication. Researchers collected data at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a U.S. ...

NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's GPM satellite provided scientists with a look "under the hood" of Tropical Cyclone Joalane's clouds at the rate in which rain was falling throughout the storm. The Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM core observatory satellite flew over intensifying cyclone Joalane in the South Indian Ocean on April 6, 2015 at 0406 UTC (12:06 a.m. EDT). GPM's Microwave Imager (GMI) found that intense convective thunderstorms within Joalane were dropping rain at a rate of over 63 mm (2.5 inches) per hour. Cyclone Joalane was located ...

Scientists who have spent much of their careers peering out of deep-sea submersibles to learn about deep-sea coral and sponges recently turned their attention to the Web, watching each other share their experiences and expertise through an innovative series of online seminars. The seminars, sponsored by NOAA Fisheries, are now publicly available online. They cover the latest research into the fragile corals and sponges that bring color, habitat, and three-dimensional beauty to the deep ocean floor, far beyond the reach of snorkelers or scuba divers. The web-based seminars ...

In a study that included more than 32,000 cases of melanoma among Medicare patients, approximately 1 in 5 experienced a delay of surgery that was longer than 1.5 months, and about 8 percent of patients waited longer than 3 months for surgery, according to an article published online by JAMA Dermatology. Melanoma is a leading cause of new cancer diagnoses in the United States, accounting for most skin cancer¬related deaths. Surgical excision is the primary therapy for melanoma. Surgical delay may result in the potential for increased illness and death from other malignant ...

African-American women who live in rural areas have lower rates of major depressive disorder (MDD) and mood disorder compared with their urban counterparts, while rural non-Hispanic white women have higher rates for both than their urban counterparts, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry. MDD is a common and debilitating mental illness and the prevalence of depression among both African Americans and rural residents is understudied, according to background in the study. Addie Weaver, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and coauthors ...

A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based screening program for individuals at high risk of pancreatic cancer identified pancreatic lesions in 16 of 40 (40 percent) of patients, of whom 5 five underwent surgery, according to a report published online by JAMA Surgery. Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancer death and can be considered a global lethal disease because incidence and mortality rates are nearly identical. Although treatment has improved, the surgery rate in patients with ductal adenocarcinoma is around 30 percent and the five-year survival rate is less ...

New Haven, Conn. -- One in five Medicare patients with melanoma experience delays in getting surgery, a Yale study found. The research was published April 8 in JAMA Dermatology. Melanoma, a type of skin cancer, is a leading cause of new cancer diagnoses in the United States. A delay between diagnosis and surgery to remove melanomas may cause patients psychological harm and affect health-care quality. Using the national Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Result-Medicare database, the Yale team conducted the first population-based analysis of delay of surgery among Medicare ...

DENVER - The Women's Health Initiative Studies, a large prospective study of lung cancer, found no strong associations between lung cancer risk and a wide range of reproductive history variables and only revealed weak support for a role of hormone use in the incidence of lung cancer. In the United States 40% of the 160,000 deaths from lung cancer are women. In men 90% of lung cancer deaths are associated with tobacco usage; however in women this number is around 75-80%. Female never-smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer than male never-smokers and the histological ...

The discovery of antibiotics produced by soil fungi and bacteria gave the world life-saving medicine. But new antimicrobials from this resource have become scarce as the threat of drug resistance grows. Now, scientists have started mining lakes and rivers for potential pathogen-fighters, and they've found one from Lake Michigan that is effective against drug-resistant tuberculosis. Their report on the new compound appears in the journal ACS Infectious Diseases. Brian T. Murphy and colleagues point out that the emergence of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Companies work fairly hard to place one woman -- but only one -- in a top management position, according to research by Cristian Desz?, an associate professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, and two co-authors. The article found evidence of a "quota" effect: Once a company had appointed one woman to a top-tier job, the chances of a second woman landing an elite position at the same firm drop substantially -- by about 50 percent, in fact. The study's design did not allow a conclusion about whether the quota was the result of conscious discrimination ...

Now that most consumers download and stream their movies and music, more and more CDs and DVDs will end up in landfills or be recycled. But soon these discarded discs could take on a different role: curbing the release of greenhouse gases. In the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, scientists report a way to turn the discs into a material that can capture carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas, and other compounds. Mietek Jaroniec and colleagues from Poland and the U.S. note that manufacturers typically use natural sources, such as coal and wood, to make activated ...

Figuring out why the French have low cardiovascular disease rates despite a diet high in saturated fats has spurred research and many theories to account for this phenomenon known as the "French paradox." Most explanations focus on wine and lifestyle, but a key role could belong to another French staple: cheese. The evidence, say scientists in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, is in cheese metabolism. Hanne Bertram and colleagues note that recent research on some dairy products' positive effects on health has cast doubt on the once-firm rule that saturated ...

Researchers of the Nanobiology Unit from the UAB Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, led by Antonio Villaverde, managed to create artificial viruses, protein complexes with the ability of self-assembling and forming nanoparticles which are capable of surrounding DNA fragments, penetrating the cells and reaching the nucleus in a very efficient manner, where they then release the therapeutic DNA fragments. The achievement represents an alternative with no biological risk to the use of viruses in gene therapy. Gene therapy, which is the insertion of genes into the ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - When children are unmotivated at school, new research suggests their genes may be part of the equation. A study of more than 13,000 twins from six countries found that 40 to 50 percent of the differences in children's motivation to learn could be explained by their genetic inheritance from their parents. The results surprised study co-author Stephen Petrill, who thought before the study that the twins' shared environment - such as the family and teachers that they had in common - would be a larger factor than genetics. Instead, genetics and nonshared ...

The pseudogap, a state characterized by a partial gap and loss of coherence in the electronic excitations, has been associated with many unusual physical phenomena in a variety of materials ranging from cold atoms to colossal magnetoresistant manganese oxides to high temperature copper oxide superconductors. Its nature, however, remains controversial due to the complexity of these materials and the difficulties in studying them. By combining a variety of different experimental techniques and theory, a group led by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne ...

Philosophers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have put forward a new model that explains how humans recognise the emotions of others. According to their theory, humans are capable of perceiving feelings directly via pattern recognition. They do not have to deduce feelings by interpreting other people's behaviour. That model is described by the philosophers Prof Dr Albert Newen and Dr Anna Welpinghus, together with Prof Dr Georg Juckel from the LWL University Hospital for Psychiatry, in the journal Mind & Language. An emotion is a pattern of typical features A key ...

The results of the first study using a health economics model to project osteoporosis-related fractures and costs for the Chinese population, shows that the country's healthcare system will face a dramatic rise in costs over the next few decades. The study forecasts that the incidence and costs of osteoporotic fractures in China will double by 2035, with costs rising to approximately USD 25.58 billion by 2050. In the study, published in the journal 'Osteoporosis International', investigators from the University of Tasmania, Anhui Medical University and Nanjing Medical ...

The organic chemicals in fracking fluid have been uncovered in two new studies, providing a basis for water contamination testing and future regulation. The research, published in Trends in Environmental Analytical Chemistry and Science of the Total Environment, reveals that fracking fluid contains compounds like biocides, which are potentially harmful if they leak into the groundwater. The authors behind the new study say it's time for the relatively new science to catch up with the extensive public awareness. They say an increasing research focus on contamination from ...

Every third teenager has suffered from one mental disorder and one physical disease. These co-occurrences come in specific associations: More often than average, depression occurs together with diseases of the digestive system, eating disorders with seizures and anxiety disorders together with arthritis, heart disease as well as diseases of the digestives system. These findings were reported by researchers from the University of Basel and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Their results based on data from 6,500 U.S. teenagers have been published in the scientific journal ...

Genetic research helps to explain why tracing the source of an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease that claimed four lives has proven to be more complicated than scientists hoped. A DNA study of bacteria samples taken from patients infected during the 2012 outbreak in Edinburgh shows that it was caused by several subtypes of the bacteria. The unexpected discovery means that tracing the source of this - and any future outbreaks - will be challenging, researchers say. There were 92 confirmed or suspected cases during the outbreak in 2012 in addition to the four deaths. ...

AURORA, Colo. (April 8, 2015) - The U.S. Surgeon General should declare that indoor ultraviolet radiation tanning causes skin cancer, according to an article published today by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Robert P. Dellavalle, MD, PhD, MSPH, associate professor of dermatology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus, is the corresponding author of the article, which says there is enough evidence for the Surgeon General to clearly state that use of indoor tanning beds causes skin cancer. Dellavalle and his co-authors ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Technological advances in recent decades have transformed most aspects of daily life, and technology now plays a major role in business and society. However, little is known about how perceptions of technology might influence decision-making. Now, University of Missouri researchers have shown that people tend to overestimate the likelihood of new technologies' success; this overconfidence can influence important decisions, such as investment choices. "Technology has advanced to the extent that people may not understand how a particular technology works, ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Regardless of their racial, ethnic, educational or socioeconomic background, women seek help for a frustrating -- and ubiquitous -- feature of becoming "a woman of a certain age:" the need be close to the women's room. Those are the findings of a large study by UC Davis of urinary incontinence in menopausal women, based on data from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), a nine- year investigation of diverse menopausal women from six sites across the United States. The study is published online today in Obstetrics and Gynecology. The ...

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2015-- A healthcare, industry-first collaborative blueprint for labor and delivery safety, developed by four leading professional organizations in maternal health, calls for improving communication among clinicians, team leaders, administrators, health care providers, organizations, and patients to ensure fewer risks and better outcomes for mothers and babies. The four collaborating organizations are the American College of Nurse-Midwives; the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal ...

Humans carry an average of one to two mutations per person that can cause severe genetic disorders or prenatal death when two copies of the same mutation are inherited, according to estimates published today in the journal Genetics. The new numbers were made possible by a long-term collaboration between medical researchers and a unique community that has maintained detailed family histories for many generations. "These records offered a fantastic opportunity to estimate disease mutation carrier rates in a new way that disentangles the effects of genetic and socioeconomic ...