LA JOLLA—Frogs, dogs, whales, snails can all do it, but humans and primates can't. Regrow nerves after an injury, that is—while many animals have this ability, humans don't. But new research from the Salk Institute suggests that a small molecule may be able to convince damaged nerves to grow and effectively rewire circuits. Such a feat could eventually lead to therapies for the thousands of Americans with severe spinal cord injuries and paralysis. "This research implies that we might be able to mimic neuronal repair processes that occur naturally in lower animals, which ...

A year-round preventive drug treatment substantially reduces young children's risk of contracting malaria and poses no serious risk of adverse events, according to a study by researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health. The findings demonstrate that prolonged treatment given from 6 to 24 months of age is safe and effective for young children, according to the study authors. Year-round preventive measures are badly needed in locations like Uganda, where the study took place, and where malaria rates remain high throughout the year. Most previous studies using ...

Spider silk is an impressive material; lightweight and stretchy yet stronger than steel. But the challenge that spiders face to produce this substance is even more formidable. Silk proteins, called spidroins, must convert from a soluble form to solid fibers at ambient temperatures, with water as a solvent, and at high speed. How do spiders achieve this astounding feat? In new research publishing in the open access journal PLOS Biology on August 5, Anna Rising and Jan Johansson show how the silk formation process is regulated. The work was done at the Swedish University ...

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have discovered a new drug compound that may help reverse the cognitive deficits of Alzheimer's disease. Their findings are publishing on August 5 in the open access journal PLOS Biology. The compound, TC-2153, inhibits the negative effects of a protein called STriatal-Enriched tyrosine Phosphatase (STEP), which is key to regulating learning and memory. These cognitive functions are impaired in Alzheimer's. "Decreasing STEP levels reversed the effects of Alzheimer's disease in mice," said lead author Paul Lombroso, M.D., professor ...

Researchers at the University at Buffalo, led by Dr. Mulchand Patel and also at Lawson Health Research Institute and Western Ontario, London, Canada, led by Dr. David Hill, collaboratively evaluated the role of the mitochondrial multienzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase complex in the regulation of pancreatic β-cell development and maturation in the immediate postnatal period in mice. This study, reported in the August 2014 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, demonstrated that the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex is not only required for insulin gene expression and ...

Yale University scientists have chosen the most fleeting of mediums for their groundbreaking work on biomimicry: They've changed the color of butterfly wings. In so doing, they produced the first structural color change in an animal by influencing evolution. The discovery may have implications for physicists and engineers trying to use evolutionary principles in the design of new materials and devices. The research appears this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "What we did was to imagine a new target color for the wings of a butterfly, ...

August 5, 2014 – A major hurdle in gene therapy is the efficient integration of a corrected gene into a patient's genome without mutating off-target sites. In a paper published today in Genome Research, scientists have used CRISPR/Cas genome editing technology to seamlessly and efficiently correct disease-causing mutations in cells from patients with β-thalassemia. β-thalassemia results from inherited DNA mutations in the hemoglobin beta (HBB) gene, resulting in reduced HBB expression in red blood cells and, in the most severe forms, anemia. The only established ...

The Eastern Pacific Ocean has been warm this springtime, and those warmer waters have contributed to the development of storms like Tropical Storm Julio and Hurricane Iselle. "Ocean temperatures in the Eastern Tropical Pacific were heated up because of the strong Kelvin wave activity this spring. Although the initial excitement of an impending El Nino has quieted down, these warmer waters have caused an early and active hurricane season," said Bill Patzert, Climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Kelvin waves" are massive ripples ...

While diabetes rates are on the rise and are having serious effects on millions of people's health, researchers studying grizzly bears have now discovered a natural state of diabetes that serves a real biological purpose and is also reversible. Investigators reporting in the August 5 issue of the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism note that grizzly bears are obese but not diabetic in the fall, become diabetic only weeks later in hibernation, and then somehow become "cured" of diabetes when they wake up in the spring. The research reveals how natural biology, through evolutionary ...

Obstructive sleep apnea, in which people stop breathing for short periods while sleeping, affects about 5% of Canadian adults aged 45 years or older and can negatively affect health. More than 1 in 5 adult Canadians have risk factors for sleep apnea such as being overweight, being male and having diabetes, chronic nasal congestion or other health conditions. Studies have postulated that obstructive sleep apnea may be linked to cancer because of low levels of oxygen in the blood. "There is a need for a sufficiently large cohort study with a long enough follow-up to allow ...

(Boston) -- In some women abnormally high levels of a common and pervasive chemical may lead to adverse effects in their offspring. The study, published recently in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, is the first of its kind to shed light on the possible harmful side effects of perchlorate in mothers and their children. Using data from the Controlled Antenatal Thyroid Study (CATS) cohort, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Cardiff University studied the effect of perchlorate, an environmental contaminant found in many foods ...

To arrange for an interview with a researcher, please contact the Communications staff member identified at the end of each tip. For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to one of our media contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to news@ornl.gov. MATERIALS – Transparent ballistic results … Glass used for military vehicle windshields is being put to the test by an Oak Ridge National Laboratory team evaluating different formulations for mechanical strength, high pressure and shock ...

The AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite provided a look at what's happening under Tropical Depression Genevieve's clouds using infrared light, and it appears that thunderstorms are bubbling up again. A false-colored infrared image created at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California used data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The AIRS data showed powerful thunderstorms re-developed around Genevieve's center on August 5 at 8:35 a.m. EDT. That's an indication that there's some punch left ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 5, 2014 – As thousands of vacationers hit the beach this summer, many of them will expose their unprotected bare limbs to direct UV sunlight, potentially putting them at risk of skin cancer later in life. To fight back, scientists can also turn to light, designing optical devices that may detect cancerous skin lesions early on, leading to better treatment outcomes and ultimately saving lives. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering have now developed a probe that combines into one device three unique ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 5, 2014 – By carefully controlling the position of an atomic-scale diamond defect within a volume smaller than what some viruses would fill, researchers have cleared a path toward better quantum computers and nanoscale sensors. They describe their technique in a paper published in the journal Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing. David Awschalom, a physicist at the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, and his colleagues study a technologically useful diamond defect called a nitrogen vacancy (NV) center. NV ...

Scientists have known for a while that warming global temperatures are causing Arctic lakes to release methane, a potent greenhouse gas that leads to even more warming. In a new study published in the journal Nature, a team of researchers including U of M researcher Jacques Finlay, found that Siberian lakes have actually pulled more greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere than they have released into it since the last Ice Age, causing an overall slight cooling effect. Permafrost, especially that in the Siberian Arctic, contains significant amounts of all organic carbon ...

CLEVELAND – It truly could be mind over matter after all. University Hospitals Case Medical Center's Richard Josephson, MD, recently released trial results in a study published in Psychosomatic Medicine that discusses mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) for hypertension. Nearly 60 million adults in the United States have high blood pressure in the pre-hypertensive range. Current treatment guidelines recommend lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise and overall weight loss. According to the new study, these changes can be dramatically augmented by MBSR as the ...

A special section of the September issue of Forest Ecology and Management, available online now, assesses the interactions among fire, climate change, and forests for five major regions of the United States. The editors of the section—Drs. Chelcy Miniat from the U.S. Forest Service, Monique Rocca from Colorado State University, and Robert Mitchell (now deceased) from the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center—started the project by organizing teams of scientists from the Forest Service and universities to provide scientific input into the third National Climate ...

Infrared satellite imagery from NASA shows bands of powerful thunderstorms around Typhoon Halong's center, southern and eastern quadrants, while the northern quadrant is lacking in them. Typhoon Halong appears somewhat lopsided on satellite imagery because thunderstorm development in the northern side of the storm is being inhibited. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Typhoon Halong on Aug. 4 at 12:47 a.m. EDT, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard provided infrared data on the cloud top temperatures of Typhoon Halong. AIRS data showed powerful ...

CLEMSON, S.C. — New discoveries about how butterflies feed could help engineers develop tiny probes that siphon liquid out of single cells for a wide range of medical tests and treatments, according to Clemson University researchers. The National Science Foundation recently awarded the project $696,514. It was the foundation's third grant to the project, bringing the total since 2009 to more than $3 million. butterflyThe research has brought together Clemson's materials scientists and biologists who have been focusing on the proboscis, the mouthpart that many insects ...

Reston, Va. (August 5, 2014) – A new study diagnosing infection in patients with pancreatic fluid collections may swiftly and accurately rule out active infection in the body. As reported in the August issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, this treatment may assist in bringing nuclear medicine to the forefront of clinical management. Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a sudden inflammation of the pancreas. It can have severe complications and high mortality despite treatment. While mild cases of AP are often successfully treated with conservative measures, such as nil per ...

PASADENA, Calif., August 5, 2014 — The herpes zoster vaccine continues to be effective in protecting older adults against shingles, even after they undergo chemotherapy, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. Researchers examined the electronic health records of more than 21,000 Kaiser Permanente patients in Southern California who were 60 years of age and older and received chemotherapy between January 2007 and December 2012. Researchers found that those patients who were previously vaccinated with zoster ...

August 5, 2014 – Electronic cigarettes (ECIGs) are booming in popularity—but there's still only limited evidence on their potential health risks, or their advertised benefits in helping people to quit smoking, according to a research review in the July/August Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Based on their review, Alison B. Breland, PhD, of Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, and colleagues, write, "[V]ery ...

Bethesda, MD (Aug. 5, 2014) — Of the 143,000 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer annually in the U.S., up to 25 percent have a familial risk of colorectal cancer. A new guideline from the U.S. Multi-Society Task Force on Colorectal Cancer recommends genetic testing of tumors for all newly diagnosed colorectal cancer patients. The task force makes specific surveillance and management recommendations for those affected by a genetic condition called Lynch syndrome, the most common cause of inherited colorectal cancer, accounting for approximately 3 percent, or more than ...

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite known as TRMM flew directly over the eye of powerful Hurricane Iselle and found extremely heavy rainfall rates occurring there. On August 4, 2014 at 1037 UTC (6:37 a.m. EDT) when TRMM passed over the storm, Iselle had winds of about 120 knots (about 138 mph) at that time making it a dangerous category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. Rainfall from TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) instruments was overlaid on an enhanced infrared image from NOAA's GOES-West satellite ...