In a new study published today in Cell Reports, scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center demonstrate that mice lacking one copy of a gene called CTCF have abnormal DNA methylation and are markedly predisposed to cancer. CTCF is a very well-studied DNA binding protein that exerts a major influence on the architecture of the human genome, but had not been previously linked to cancer. Over 30 years ago, frequent loss of one copy of chromosome 16 was first reported in breast cancer but the gene or genes responsible remained to be identified. Dr. Gala Filippova, ...

New pharmaceuticals to fight autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, may be identified more effectively by adding genome analysis to standard drug screening, according to a new study by a research team led by UC San Francisco and Harvard researchers, in collaboration with Tempero and GlaxoSmithKlein. In a study reported online April 17, 2014 in the journal Immunity, the scientists combined drug screening with state-of-the-art techniques for analyzing the genome, leading to three small molecules that improved symptoms in a mouse ...

SEATTLE — The United States is among just eight countries in the world to experience an increase in maternal mortality since 2003 – joining Afghanistan and countries in Africa and Central America, according to a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. The study, "Global, regional, and national levels and causes of maternal mortality during 1990-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013," published May 2 in The Lancet, ranked the United States number 60 in the list of 180 countries ...

SEATTLE — Since the start of an international effort to address maternal and child mortality, millions of lives have been saved globally, two new studies by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington show. In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established by the United Nations to drive maternal and child deaths down by 2015. Child and maternal deaths had been falling in most countries since the 1980s, but the pace accelerated after the goals were set. If countries continue on this course, child deaths will fall ...

Sendai, Japan -- Three-dimentional (3D) nanoporous graphene with preserved 2D Dirac electronic characters was successfully synthesized by Dr. Yoshikazu Ito and Prof. Mingwei CHEN at Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR), Tohoku University. The nanoporous graphene is constructed by a single layer graphene sheet that is continuously inter-connected to form a complex 3D network structure. This free-standing nanoporous graphene with an excellent crystallinity possesses high mobility, holding great promise for the applications in electronic devices. The nanoporous ...

The research groups of Janne Ihalainen (University of Jyväskylä) and Sebastian Westenhoff (University of Gothenburg) have clarified how the atom structure of bacterial red light photosensors changes when sensing light. The research reveals structural changes in phytochrome protein when illuminated. "The results are a unique demonstration of proteins' ability to structural changes in different phases of their operation. This helps to understand how the biological photosensors function. The modelling and utilisation of protein for other applications becomes much easier ...

Scientists at USC have definitively demonstrated that large sets of variations in the genetic code that do not individually appear to have much effect can collectively produce significant changes in an organism's physical characteristics. Studying the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, USC's Matthew B. Taylor and Ian M. Ehrenreich found that the effects of these genetic variants can depend on four or more other variants in an individual's genome. Most genetic analyses of heritable physical characteristics, including genome-wide association studies in human populations, ...

Obesity increases the risk of myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that accumulate inside the bones. And with current obesity trends in the United States and especially in South Texas, that's ominous. "I'm predicting an increase in multiple myeloma," said Edward Medina, M.D., Ph.D., "and with the obesity problems we see in the Hispanic population, there could be a serious health disparity on the horizon." Dr. Medina, a hematopathologist and assistant professor in the Department of Pathology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, is looking ...

Chicago, IL (May 2, 2014) — International leaders in the fields of gastroenterology and hepatology will gather together for Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2014, the largest and most prestigious gastroenterology meeting, from May 3 to 6, 2014, at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL. DDW is jointly sponsored by the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT). AGA researchers will present ...

It's not only the biology of lakes that varies with the climate and other environmental factors, it's also their chemistry. More knowledge about this is needed to understand the ecology of lakes and their role in the carbon cycle and the climate. Today an international research group led by Uppsala University is publishing a comprehensive study of the composition of organic compounds in the prestigious journal Nature Communications. - Lake water is like a very thin broth with several thousand ingredients in the recipe, all with different properties. At the same time ...

Twenty years ago, Philip Platzman and Allen Mills, Jr. at Bell Laboratories proposed that a gamma-ray laser could be made from a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of positronium, the simplest atom made of both matter and antimatter (1). That was a year before a BEC of any kind of atom was available in any laboratory. Today, BECs have been made of 13 different elements, four of which are available in laboratories of the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) (2), and JQI theorists have turned their attention to prospects for a positronium gamma-ray laser. In a study published ...

Physicists in the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University have made several important discoveries regarding the basic structure of mesons—subatomic particles long thought to be composed of one quark and one antiquark and bound together by a strong interaction. Recently, Professor Tomasz Skwarnicki and a team of researchers proved the existence of a meson named Z(4430), with two quarks and two antiquarks, using data from the Large Hadron Collidor beauty (LHCb) Collaboration at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. This tetraquark state was first discovered in Japan ...

Philadelphia, PA, May 1, 2014 – Oily fish are currently recommended as part of a heart healthy diet. This guideline is partially based on the landmark 1970s study from Bang and Dyerberg that connected the low incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD) among the Eskimos of Greenland to their diet, rich in whale and seal blubber. Now, researchers have found that Eskimos actually suffered from CAD at the same rate as their Caucasian counterparts, meaning there is insufficient evidence to back Bang and Dyerberg's claims. Their findings are published in the Canadian Journal ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Neuroscientists at Mayo Clinic in Florida have defined a subtype of Alzheimer's disease (AD) that they say is neither well recognized nor treated appropriately. The variant, called hippocampal sparing AD, made up 11 percent of the 1,821 AD-confirmed brains examined by Mayo Clinic researchers — suggesting this subtype is relatively widespread in the general population. The Alzheimer's Association estimates that 5.2 million Americans are living with AD. And with nearly half of hippocampal sparing AD patients being misdiagnosed, this could mean that ...

Balancing protein turnover in the heart Alterations in the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS), which tags proteins for degradation, underlies some cardiomyopathies and age-related cardiac dysfunction. In the heart, the UPS is essential for the precise balance between cardiomyocyte atrophy and hypertrophy. In skeletal muscle, the E3 ubiquitin ligase atrogin-1 promotes atrophy by targeting hypertrophy-associated proteins for degradation; however, a role for atrogin-1 in cardiac proteostasis is not clear. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Marco Sandri, ...

More than a mile beneath the ocean's surface, as dark clouds of mineral-rich water billow from seafloor hot springs called hydrothermal vents, unseen armies of viruses and bacteria wage war. Like pirates boarding a treasure-laden ship, the viruses infect bacterial cells to get the loot: tiny globules of elemental sulfur stored inside the bacterial cells. Instead of absconding with their prize, the viruses force the bacteria to burn their valuable sulfur reserves, then use the unleashed energy to replicate. "Our findings suggest that viruses in the dark oceans indirectly ...

Excessive regulations are consuming scientists' time and wasting taxpayer dollars, says a report released today by the National Science Board (NSB), the policymaking body of the National Science Foundation and advisor to Congress and the President. "Regulation and oversight of research are needed to ensure accountability, transparency and safety," said Arthur Bienenstock, chair of the NSB task force that examined the issue. "But excessive and ineffective requirements take scientists away from the bench unnecessarily and divert taxpayer dollars from research to superfluous ...

New York, NY, May 1, 2014 – We may soon be able to make easy and early diagnoses of prostate cancer by smell. Investigators in Finland have established that a novel noninvasive technique can detect prostate cancer using an electronic nose. In a proof of principle study, the eNose successfully discriminated between prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) by "sniffing" urine headspace (the space directly above the urine sample). Results using the eNose are comparable to testing prostate specific antigen (PSA), reports the Journal of Urology®. Prostate cancer ...

Partners of patients diagnosed with human papilloma virus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) were no more likely to test positive for oral HPV infection than people in the general population, according to a study published in the April 28 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The findings should lessen anxiety that OPC cancer is contagious, at least among long-term partners, and confirms that couples who have been together for several years do not need to change their intimacy or sexual behavior because of the cancer diagnosis. HPV infection is common ...

A study published today in Science by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory may dramatically shift our understanding of the complex dance of microbes and minerals that takes place in aquifers deep underground. This dance affects groundwater quality, the fate of contaminants in the ground and the emerging science of carbon sequestration. Deep underground, microbes don't have much access to oxygen. So they have evolved ways to breathe other elements, including solid minerals like iron and sulfur. The part that interests scientists ...

Increasingly harsh drought conditions in the U.S. Midwest's Corn Belt may take a serious toll on corn and soybean yields over the next half-century, according to research published today in the journal Science. Corn yields could drop by 15 to 30 percent, according to the paper's estimates; soybean yield losses would be less severe. North Carolina State University's Roderick Rejesus, associate professor of agricultural and resource economics and a co-author of the Science paper, says that corn and soybean yields show increasing sensitivity to drought, with yields ...

Tapah was downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical depression and is located 239 nautical miles southeast of Iwo To. Tapah rapidly dissipated due to the effected of strong vertical windshear from the west and a sharp decreased in sea surface temperature. The storm is currently tracking northwest at 10 knots per hour and is expected to recurve to the northeast and accelerate. Maximum wave height is currently 10 feet. The storm will be monitored for signs of regeneration. NASA captured this image of the storm with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ...

Abnormal binocular vision, which involves the way eyes work together as a team, increases dramatically as we age, according to research from the University of Waterloo. The study also found a correlation between this condition, general health and antidepressant use. As many as 27 per cent of adults in their sixties have an actual binocular vision or eye movement disorder. That number rises to 38 per cent for those over age 80. About 20 per cent of the general population suffers from a binocular vision disorder, which affects depth perception and therefore may increase ...

May 1, 2014 [San Diego, CA] – New research exploring the potential effects of Hass avocado consumption on emerging cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors was presented at the American Society for Nutrition Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology 2014 (EB). Li Wang, PhD Candidate, Pennsylvania State University, presented, "Avocado consumption decreases LDL particle number and small, dense LDL cholesterol in overweight and obese subjects," at the Dietary Bioactive Components: Cardiovascular Effects of Dietary Bioactive Components session on Saturday ...

The drive to develop ultrasmall and ultrafast electronic devices using a single atomic layer of semiconductors, such as transition metal dichalcogenides, has received a significant boost. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have recorded the first observations of a strong nonlinear optical resonance along the edges of a single layer of molybdenum disulfide. The existence of these edge states is key to the use of molybdenum disulfide in nanoelectronics, as well as a catalyst for the hydrogen evolution ...