The oligodendrocyte transcription family (Olig family) is widely expressed in the central nervous system of various mammals, and plays a critical role in central nervous system development by controlling differentiation and maturation of oligodendrocytes, motor neurons and astrocytes. Moreover, accumulating evidence demonstrates Olig family participation in many central nervous system diseases. Therefore, based on current literature, Dr. Lehua Yu and co-workers from Second Affliated Hospital, Chongqing Medical University in China examine the role of the Olig family in central ...

Danish newspapers mirror to a high degree the viewpoints of the political elite when Danish military participation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has been on the public agenda during the past 10 years. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have tested the so-called 'elite-driven media' theory on editorial viewpoints on the military engagements and the results may help explain why support for the war efforts have been remarkably consistent in the small and hitherto less belligerent nation. While political discussions concerning the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya ...

Scientists of the German Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), have deciphered a supposed climate paradox from the Miocene era by means of complex model simulations. When the Antarctic ice sheet grew to its present-day size around 14 million years ago, it did not get colder everywhere on the Earth, but there were regions that became warmer. A physical contradiction? No, as AWI experts now found out, the expansion of the ice sheet on the Antarctic continent triggered changes in winds, ocean currents and sea ice in the Southern Ocean ...

This news release is available in German. Scratches in the car finish or cracks in polymer material: Self-healing materials can repair themselves by restoring their initial molecular structure after the damage. Scientists of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Evonik Industries have developed a chemical crosslinking reaction that ensures good short-term healing properties of the material under mild heating. The research results have now been published in the Advanced Materials journal. DOI:10.1002/adma.201306258 The KIT group headed by Christopher Barner-Kowollik ...

10th of April, 2014 (London). A new paper from the Swansea University, College of Engineering team working on the BLOODHOUND SSC (Supersonic car) project has been published on the aerodynamic characteristics of travelling at 1,000mph. Simulations have looked at how the car will cope with the supersonic rolling ground, rotating wheels and resulting shock waves in close proximity to the test surface at the record attempt site in Hakskeen Pan, South Africa. Where, in 2015, it will make high speed test runs of up to 800mph, with the full 1,000mph attempt scheduled for 2016. ...

Schizophrenia is a severe disease for which there is still no effective medical treatment. In an attempt to understand exactly what happens in the brain of a schizophrenic person, researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have analyzed proteins in the brains of rats that have been given hallucinogenic drugs. This may pave the way for new and better medicines. Seven per cent of the adult population suffers from schizophrenia, and although scientists have tried for centuries to understand the disease, they still do not know what causes the disease or which physiological ...

Researchers at the University of Memphis and University of Pennsylvania report the development of robust new liver and fat cell models that report circadian clock function. These models are amenable to high throughput drug screening and could be used to find promising small molecules to resynchronize or help body clocks function normally. The consequences of modern life, eating and staying up later, shift work, cell phone addiction, and travel across time zones, all disturb internal clocks. These clocks are found in the brain where they regulate sleep, and also throughout ...

New research from the University of Southampton has identified a coral-eating flatworm as a potential threat for coral reefs. It is barely possible to see the parasitic worm Amakusaplana acroporae when it sits on its favourite hosts, the staghorn coral Acropora, thanks to its excellent camouflage. However, the researchers found that the small flatworm could cause significant damage to coral reefs. The scientists from the University of Southampton, who are based at the Coral Reef Laboratory in the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, published the results of ...

Fresh insights into the processes that control brain cell production could pave the way for treatments for brain cancer and other brain-related disorders. Scientists have gained new understanding of the role played by a key molecule that controls how and when nerve and brain cells are formed – a process that allows the brain to develop and keeps it healthy. Their findings could help explain what happens when cell production goes out of control, which is a fundamental characteristic of many diseases including cancer. Researchers have focused on a RNA molecule, known ...

Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have shown how nerve cells flexibly adapt to acoustic signals: Depending on the input signal, neurons generate action potentials either near or far away from the cell body. This flexibility improves our ability to localize sound sources. In order to process acoustic information with high temporal fidelity, nerve cells may flexibly adapt their mode of operation according to the situation. At low input frequencies, they generate most outgoing action potentials close to the cell body. Following inhibitory or ...

A decades-long debate over how nitrogen is removed from the ocean may now be settled by new findings from researchers at Princeton University and their collaborators at the University of Washington. The debate centers on how nitrogen — one of the most important food sources for ocean life and a controller of atmospheric carbon dioxide — becomes converted to a form that can exit the ocean and return to the atmosphere where it is reused in the global nitrogen cycle. Researchers have argued over which of two nitrogen-removal mechanisms, denitrification and anammox, is ...

Published in the Journal of Nutrition, researchers undertook a systematic review and analysis of the effect of iron supplementation to the exercise performance of women aged from . Lead researcher, Dr Sant-Rayn Pasricha from the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health found that iron supplementation improved women's exercise performance, in terms of both the highest level they could achieve at 100% exertion (maximal capacity) and their exercise efficiency at a submaximal exertion. Women who were given iron were able to perform a given exercise using a lower ...

Researchers are programming robots to communicate with people using human-like body language and cues, an important step toward bringing robots into homes. Researchers at the University of British Columbia enlisted the help of a human-friendly robot named Charlie to study the simple task of handing an object to a person. Past research has shown that people have difficulty figuring out when to reach out and take an object from a robot because robots fail to provide appropriate nonverbal cues. "We hand things to other people multiple times a day and we do it seamlessly," ...

The rise and fall of acid rain is a global experiment whose results are preserved in the geologic record. By analyzing samples from the Greenland ice sheet, University of Washington atmospheric scientists found clear evidence of the U.S. Clean Air Act. They also discovered a link between air acidity and how nitrogen is preserved in layers of snow, according to a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Forty-five years ago, acid rain was killing fish and dissolving stone monuments on the East Coast. Air pollution rose beginning ...

In a feat that may provide a promising array of applications, from energy efficiency to telecommunications to enhanced imaging, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have created a compound semiconductor of nearly perfect quality with embedded nanostructures containing ordered lines of atoms that can manipulate light energy in the mid-infrared range. More efficient solar cells, less risky and higher resolution biological imaging, and the ability to transmit massive amounts of data at higher speeds are only a few applications that this unique semiconductor will be able to support. "This ...

The Borna disease – named after the German city of Borna, which saw a cluster of cases over 100 years ago – mainly affects horses and sheep, and in rare cases cattle and rabbits too. A single case of an infected dog has been reported. Affected horses seclude themselves from the herd and suffer from depression and general disorientation. Ultimately, this incurable infection is fatal. Borna virus detected in bicoloured shrews Researchers have long been in the dark concerning the transmission mechanism of the Borna virus. The bicoloured shrew was one suspect, but definitive ...

Candidates for a Nobel prize often have to wait more than 20 years to receive this highest of scientific accolades. According to a Correspondence by Santo Fortunato of Aalto University in Finland and colleagues, such nail-biting delays are becoming the norm — to the point that aspiring laureates may themselves have expired by the time the medal is due to be presented. Before 1940, Nobel prizes were awarded more than 20 years after the original discovery for only about 11%, 15% and 24% of physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine prizes, respectively. But by 1985, ...

Its head and pronotum are usually rusty red, and its abdomen blue or shiny green: the bombardier beetle is approximately one centimetre long and common to Central Europe. At first glance, it appears harmless, but it possesses what is surely the most aggressive chemical defence system in nature. When threatened, the bombardier beetle releases a caustic spray, accompanied by a popping sound. This spray can kill ants or scare off frogs. The beetle produces the explosive agent itself when needed. Two separately stored chemicals are mixed in a reaction chamber in the beetle's ...

A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Center for Cancer Systems Biology (CCSB) at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has uncovered a new aspect of autism, revealing that proteins involved in autism interact with many more partners than previously known. These interactions had not been detected earlier because they involve alternatively spliced forms of autism genes found in the brain. In their study, published in the April 11, 2014 online issue of Nature Communications, the scientists isolated hundreds of new variants ...

MAYWOOD, Il. (April 11, 2014) – A Loyola University Medical Center study is reporting for the first time a link between overuse injury rates in young athletes and their socioeconomic status. The rate of serious overuse injuries in athletes who come from families that can afford private insurance is 68 percent higher than the rate in lower-income athletes who are on public insurance (Medicaid), the study found. The study also found that privately insured young athletes are twice as likely as publicly insured athletes to be highly specialized in one sport. Loyola researchers ...

South Carolina House passes amendment to Emma's Law Article provided by Blake Law Firm, PA Visit us at http://www.blakelawfirm.com Like many states, drunk driving is a serious problem in South Carolina. As a result, the legislature has enacted strict penalties for offenders. However, those penalties are about to get much more strict, according to the most recent news from the South Carolina Legislature. Recently, the South Carolina House voted 112-0 to pass an amendment to Emma's Law. This law is not yet final and must pass the Senate and be signed by the Governor. Emma's ...

New York courts throw out five DWI cases for illegal checkpoint Article provided by Greenspan & Greenspan Visit us at http://www.greenspans-law.com Several drivers pulled over and subsequently arrested for driving while intoxicated on a service road connecting the Long Island Express to the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, New York, have recently had their cases thrown out. The officers, who arrested hundreds of suspected drunk drivers on the service road in 2011, conducted what they termed "step out" surveillance, meaning they stood on the side of the service ...

When an employer's motives are wrong and right Article provided by David Yeremian & Associates, Inc. Visit us at http://www.yeremianwagelaw.com/ California law prohibits an employer from taking an adverse action against an employee "because of" any of several factors, including race, religion, age, sex, disability or medical condition. Someone who believes that he or she faced such employment discrimination may sue an employer and seek various remedies. One issue that may arise in such cases is a so-called "mixed-motive" actions by the employer. This means ...

Harm to woman's child was "past persecution" in removal case Article provided by Fish Law Group LLC Visit us at http://www.fishlawgroup.com When a non-citizen, or "alien" makes a claim for withholding of removalfrom the United States, the alien must prove that his or her life or freedom would be threatened in their home county because of their membership in a particular social group, nationality, political opinion, race or religion. This burden of proof can be met by showing that the alien experienced past persecution in their home country on account of one of the ...

Social Security disability benefits for anxiety and panic attacks Article provided by Disability Benefits Law Center, P.C. Visit us at http://www.disability-benefits-law-center.com/ Anxiety disorder Most persons are familiar with the fact that one can receive Social Security disability benefits if they can prove an inability to work in "substantially gainful employment." Being "disabled" usually provokes images of physical impairments, such as back injuries or heart conditions, but the fact is that one can also be disabled because of a mental condition, such as ...