Move over, graphene. An atomically thin, two-dimensional, ultrasensitive semiconductor material for biosensing developed by researchers at UC Santa Barbara promises to push the boundaries of biosensing technology in many fields, from health care to environmental protection to forensic industries. Based on molybdenum disulfide or molybdenite (MoS2), the biosensor material — used commonly as a dry lubricant — surpasses graphene's already high sensitivity, offers better scalability and lends itself to high-volume manufacturing. Results of the researchers' study have been ...

Endoscopic biopsy of lymph nodes between the two lungs (mediastinum) is a sensitive and accurate technique that can replace mediastinal surgery for staging lung cancer in patients with potentially resectable tumours. Such were the conclusions of a prospective controlled trial conducted under Dr. Moishe Liberman, a researcher at the CHUM Research Centre (CRCHUM) and an Associate Professor at the Université de Montréal. Moreover, the study showed that it is not necessary to perform surgery to confirm negative results obtained through the endoscopic approach during the pre-operative ...

Researchers from the University of Leicester have for the first time provided experimental evidence for a genetic link between two major timing mechanisms, the circadian clock and the seasonal timer. New research from the Tauber laboratory at the University of Leicester, which will be published in the academic journal PLOS Genetics on 4 September, has corroborated previous observations that flies developed under short days become significantly more cold-resistant compared with flies raised in long-days, suggesting that this response can be used to study seasonal photoperiodic ...

PITTSBURGH—Yaoying Ma says that biology, by nature, has a yin and a yang—a push and a pull. Addiction, particularly relapse, she finds, is no exception. Ma is a research associate in the lab of Yan Dong, assistant professor of neuroscience in the University of Pittsburgh's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. She is the lead author of a paper published online today in the journal Neuron that posits that it may be possible to ramp up an intrinsic anti-addiction response as a means to fight cocaine relapse and keep the wolves of relapse at bay. This paper ...

A new concept in metallic alloy design – called "high-entropy alloys" - has yielded a multiple-element material that not only tests out as one of the toughest on record, but, unlike most materials, the toughness as well as the strength and ductility of this alloy actually improves at cryogenic temperatures. This multi-element alloy was synthesized and tested through a collaboration of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley and Oak Ridge National Laboratories (Berkeley Lab and ORNL). "We examined CrMnFeCoNi, a high-entropy alloy that contains ...

Boulder, Colo. — Sept. 4, 2014 — NASA's Alice ultraviolet (UV) spectrograph aboard the European Space Agency's Rosetta comet orbiter has delivered its first scientific discoveries. Rosetta, in orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, is the first spacecraft to study a comet up close. As Alice began mapping the comet's surface last month, it made the first far ultraviolet spectra of a cometary surface. From these data, the Alice team discovered that the comet is unusually dark at ultraviolet wavelengths and that the comet's surface — so far — shows no large water-ice ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – September 4, 2014) A study led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists found the avian influenza A H3N8 virus that killed harbor seals along the New England coast can spread through respiratory droplets and poses a threat to humans. The research appears in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature Communications. The avian H3N8 virus was isolated by scientists investigating the 2011 deaths of more than 160 harbor seals. Researchers discovered the virus had naturally acquired mutations in a key protein that previous laboratory research ...

The increased visual realism of 3-D films is believed to offer viewers a more vivid and lifelike experience—more thrilling and intense than 2-D because it more closely approximates real life. However, psychology researchers at the University of Utah, among those who use film clips routinely in the lab to study patients' emotional conditions, have found that there is no significant difference between the two formats. The results were published recently in PLOS ONE. The study aimed to validate the effectiveness of 3-D film, a newer technology, as compared to 2-D film that ...

JUPITER, FL, September 4, 2014 - In a collaborative study, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology have developed a more effective method to determine how immune cells called T cells differentiate into specialized types of cells that help eradicate infected cells and assist other immune cells during infection. The new approach, published recently by the journal Immunity, could help accelerate laboratory research and the development of potential therapeutics, including vaccines. The ...

AMHERST, Mass. – A collaborative team of scientists including biochemist Peter Chien at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has reconstructed how bacteria tightly control their growth and division, a process known as the cell cycle, by specifically destroying key proteins through regulated protein degradation. Regulated protein degradation uses specific enzymes called energy dependent proteases to selective destroy certain targets. Because regulated protein degradation is critical for bacterial virulence and invasion, understanding how these proteases function should ...

Sometimes when people get upsetting news – such as a failing exam grade or a negative job review – they decide instantly to do better the next time. In other situations that are equally disappointing, the same people may feel inclined to just give up. How can similar setbacks produce such different reactions? It may come down to how much control we feel we have over what happened, according to new research from Rutgers University-Newark. The study, published in the journal Neuron, also finds that when these setbacks occur, the level of control we perceive may even determine ...

While healthy people have proteins in their blood called clotting factors that act quickly to plug wounds, hemophiliacs lack these proteins, making even minor bleeds difficult to stop. The main treatment option for people with severe hemophilia is to receive regular infusions of clotting factor. But 20 to 30 percent of people who get these infusions develop antibodies, called inhibitors, against the clotting factor. Once these inhibitors develop, it can be very difficult to treat or prevent future bleeding episodes. In a new study, researchers from the University of ...

New Orleans, LA – Research led by scientists in Dr. Song Hong's group at LSU Health New Orleans has identified a novel family of chemical mediators that rescue the reparative functions of macrophages (a main type of mature white blood cells) impaired by diabetes, restoring their ability to resolve inflammation and heal wounds. The research is in-press and is scheduled to be published in the October 23, 2014 issue of Chemistry & Biology, a Cell Press journal. The white blood cells, or leukocytes, of the immune system, help defend the body against infection or foreign ...

(Boston) – Results of a new study conducted in St. Petersburg, Russia, show that decreasing HIV transmission among Russian HIV-infected drinkers will require creative and innovative approaches. While new HIV infections globally have declined, HIV rates remain high in Russia. This is due in large part to injection drug use and spread via heterosexual sex transmission. Alcohol use also has been shown to be related to risky sexual behaviors and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Published online in Addiction, the study showed that a behavioral intervention did not ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In one year, India's ozone pollution damaged millions of tons of the country's major crops, causing losses of more than a billion dollars and destroying enough food to feed tens of millions of people living below the poverty line. These are findings /of a new study that looked at the agricultural effects in 2005 of high concentrations of ground-level ozone, a plant-damaging pollutant formed by emissions from vehicles, cooking stoves and other sources. Able to acquire accurate crop production data for 2005, the study's authors chose it as a year representative ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Mothers who live in neighborhoods with plenty of grass, trees or other green vegetation are more likely to deliver at full term and their babies are born at higher weights, compared to mothers who live in urban areas that aren't as green, a new study shows. The findings held up even when results were adjusted for factors such as neighborhood income, exposure to air pollution, noise, and neighborhood walkability, according to researchers at Oregon State University and the University of British Columbia. "This was a surprise," said Perry Hystad, an environmental ...

Salamanders spend the vast majority of their lives below ground and surface only for short periods of time and usually only on wet nights. When they do emerge, salamanders can be spotted not only on forest floors but also up in trees and on other vegetation, often climbing as high as 8 feet. Given their infrequent appearances aboveground, it has never been clear to biologists why salamanders take time to climb vegetation. Researchers at the University of Missouri recently conducted a study testing a long-standing hypothesis that salamanders might climb vegetation for food. ...

Trust in others and confidence in societal institutions are at their lowest point in over three decades, analyses of national survey data reveal. The findings are forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Compared to Americans in the 1970s-2000s, Americans in the last few years are less likely to say they can trust others, and are less likely to believe that institutions such as government, the press, religious organizations, schools, and large corporations are 'doing a good job,'" explains psychological scientist and ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Accidents as minor as a slip of the knife while chopping onions can turn dangerous for patients with hemophilia, who lack the necessary proteins in their blood to stem the flow from a wound. People with severe hemophilia typically receive regular injections of these proteins, called clotting factors, as a treatment for the disease. But up to 30 percent of people with the most common form, hemophilia A, develop antibodies that attack these lifesaving proteins, making it difficult to prevent or treat excessive bleeding. Now, researchers from University ...

Scientists have discovered and described a new supermassive dinosaur species with the most complete skeleton ever found of its type. At 85 feet long and weighing about 65 tons in life, Dreadnoughtus schrani is the largest land animal for which a body mass can be accurately calculated. Its skeleton is exceptionally complete, with over 70 percent of the bones, excluding the head, represented. Because all previously discovered super-massive dinosaurs are known only from relatively fragmentary remains, Dreadnoughtus offers an unprecedented window into the anatomy and biomechanics ...

Customer experience matters more when the economy is doing well than when it is doing poorly, according to a new study in the Articles in Advance section of Marketing Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). The study, entitled "Assessing the Influence of Economic and Customer Experience Factors on Service Purchase Behaviors" is by V Kumar, the Regents' Professor, Nita Umashankar, an assistant professor, and PhD candidates Hannah Kim and Yashoda Bhagwat, all at Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. ...

The Ebola crisis in west Africa could have been averted if governments and health agencies had acted on the recommendations of a 2011 World Health Organisation (WHO) Commission on global health emergencies, according to a new Comment, published in The Lancet. The Comment, written by Professor Lawrence Gostin, Faculty Director of the O'Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law at Georgetown University, USA, calls for renewed international commitment to a health systems contingency fund to prevent another infectious disease crisis, together with long-term funding ...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Five studies from the 2014 Breast Cancer Symposium were highlighted today in an embargoed presscast for reporters. Presentations focused on new studies exploring preventive mastectomy, compliance with recommended screening mammography, and risk of recurrence after pre-surgery therapy for breast cancer. The Symposium will take place September 4-6, 2014, at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis in San Francisco, CA. Five major studies were highlighted in today's presscast: Angelina Jolie's Story May Have Helped Double BRCA Testing Rates at a Canadian Cancer ...

The way in which some cells alter their behaviour at the onset of osteoarthritis has been identified for the first time by researchers at the University of Liverpool. The study was funded by medical research charity Arthritis Research UK. The trigger for arthritis is still to be fully defined, but it is known that injuries, obesity or old age can all increase the risk for arthritis, and lead to cells in the affected joint altering their behaviour. The research team from the University's Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease has now found that changes in the rate ...

LAWRENCE — Astrophysicists believe that about 80 percent of the substance of our universe is made up of mysterious "dark matter" that can't be perceived by human senses or scientific instruments. "Dark matter has not yet been detected in a lab. We infer about it from astronomical observations," said Mikhail Medvedev, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, who has just published breakthrough research on dark matter that merited the cover of Physical Review Letters, the world's most prestigious journal of physics research. Medvedev proposes a ...