Eastern Asia, Western Asia, Japan, Beringia and even Europe have all been suggested origination points for the earliest humans to enter the Americas because of apparent differences in cranial form between today's Native Americans and the earliest known Paleoamerican skeletons. Now an international team of researchers has identified a nearly complete Paleoamerican skeleton with Native American DNA that dates close to the time that people first entered the New World. "Individuals from 9,000 or more years ago have morphological attributes -- physical form and structure -- ...

AUSTIN, Texas — The ancient remains of a teenage girl found in an underwater Mexican cave establish a definitive link between the earliest Americans and modern Native Americans, according to a new study released today in the journal Science. The study was conducted by an international team of researchers from 13 institutions, including Deborah Bolnick, assistant professor of anthropology at The University of Texas at Austin, who analyzed DNA from the remains simultaneously with independent researchers at Washington State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The ...

Scientists have created a 'heavy' mouse, the world's first animal enriched with heavy but non-radioactive isotopes - enabling them to capture in unprecedented detail the molecular structure of natural tissue by reading the magnetism inherent in the isotopes. This data has been used to grow biological tissue in the lab practically identical to native tissue, which can be manipulated and analysed in ways impossible for natural samples. Researchers say the approach has huge potential for scientific and medical breakthroughs: lab-grown tissue could be used to replace heart ...

Cave-diving scientist Patricia A. Beddows of Northwestern University is a member of an international team of researchers and cave divers this week announcing the discovery in an underwater Yucatán Peninsula cave of one of the oldest human skeletons found in North America. Details of "Naia," a teenage girl who went underground to seek water and fell to her death in a large pit named Hoyo Negro ("black hole" in Spanish), will be published May 16 in the journal Science. "The preservation of all the bones in this deep water-filled cave is amazing -- the bones are beautifully ...

Stanford, CA—All living cells are held together by membranes, which provide a barrier to the transport of nutrients. They are also the communication platform connecting the outside world to the cell’s interior control centers. Thousands of proteins reside in these cell membranes and control the flow of select chemicals, which move across the barrier and mediate the flux of nutrients and information. Almost all of these pathways work by protein handshakes--one protein “talking” to another in order to, for example, encourage the import of a needed nutrient, to block a compound ...

Assembling the puzzles of quantum materials is, in some ways, like dipping a wire hanger into a vat of soapy water, says CIFAR (Canadian Institute for Advanced Research) Fellow Joseph Thywissen (University of Toronto). Long before mathematical equations could explain the shapes and angles in the soap foams, mathematicians conjectured that soap films naturally found the geometry that minimized surface area, thus solving the problem of minimal surfaces. They could be created simply by blowing soap bubbles. At the University of Toronto's Ultracold Atoms Lab, Thywissen ...

Her name is Naia, and for thousands and thousands of years, the skeleton of this young woman was buried underwater in an elaborate cave system in the Yucatan Peninsula after she had apparently fallen into what was then a dry deep pit. Now, a team of researchers, including Professor Yemane Asmerom and Research Scientist Victor Polyak at the University of New Mexico's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, have accurately determined the age of the oldest-known, well-preserved human skeleton. Naia was one of the earliest inhabitants of the Americas and has helped resolve ...

When making cellulosic ethanol from plants, one problem is what to do with a woody agricultural waste product called lignin. The old adage in the pulp industry has been that one can make anything from lignin except money. A new review article in the journal Science points the way toward a future where lignin is transformed from a waste product into valuable materials such as low-cost carbon fiber for cars or bio-based plastics. Using lignin in this way would create new markets for the forest products industry and make ethanol-to-fuel conversion more cost-effective. "We've ...

Researchers have found the first definitive evidence of how silicalite-1 (MFI type) zeolites grow, showing that growth is a concerted process involving both the attachment of nanoparticles and the addition of molecules. Both processes appear to happen simultaneously, said Jeffrey Rimer, an engineering professor at the University of Houston and lead author of a paper published Thursday in the journal Science. He said a second component to the research could have even more lasting impact. He and researcher Alexandra I. Lupulescu used a new technique allowing them to view ...

Chronically homeless, alcohol-dependent individuals might benefit from a new intervention that does not require them to stop or even reduce drinking, according to the results of a preliminary study in Seattle. Participants in the 12-week pilot program received monthly injections of an anti-craving medication, extended-release naltrexone. They also met regularly with study physicians to set their own goals for treatment and to learn to be safer in their use of alcohol. "Abstinence-based alcohol treatment has not been effective for or desirable to many homeless people ...

HOUSTON – (May 15, 2014) – Children of fathers who are in technical occupations are more likely to have an autism spectrum disorder, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The findings will be presented Friday at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Atlanta. During participation in the LoneStar LEND program, first author Aisha S. Dickerson, Ph.D., a researcher at UTHealth's Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences, used the United States government's Standard Occupational Classification system. ...

The immune system's B cells protect us from disease by producing antibodies, or "smart bullets," that specifically target invaders such as pathogens and viruses while leaving harmless molecules alone. But how do B cells determine whether a threat is real and whether to start producing these weapons? An international team of life scientists shows in the May 16 issue of the journal Science how and why these cells respond only to true threats. "It is critical for B cells to respond either fully or not at all. Anything in between causes disease," said the study's senior ...

PITTSBURGH—Clouds play a critical role in Earth's climate. Clouds also are the largest source of uncertainty in present climate models, according to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Much of the uncertainty surrounding clouds' effect on climate stems from the complexity of cloud formation. New research from scientists at the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) experiment at CERN, including Carnegie Mellon University's Neil Donahue, sheds light on new-particle formation — the very first step of cloud formation and a critical component ...

The newly updated, online, interactive state data tool allows policymakers, educators and other users to discern trends in education, science and research in each of the 50 states. This free resource supplements the state data in the 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators report, the premier source of information and analysis of the nation's position in science and engineering education and research. The biennial report is published by the National Science Board, the policy making body of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The tool features 59 state indicators of ...

CLEVELAND -- At the 2014 American Association of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting, neurosurgical researchers from University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center presented results from a small study looking at deep brain electrode implantation as a possible alternative to the traditional WADA test used prior to epilepsy surgery. The WADA test is considered the gold standard for identifying the side of the brain for speech dominance. In the WADA test, doctors put one half of a patient's brain to sleep for a few minutes using medication and then have the patient read ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The quality of early child care and education programs is influenced both by funding and by the characteristics of the communities in which the programs operate, new research from Oregon State University shows. The findings indicate that law- and policy-makers may need to consider the demographics of communities when making funding decisions about early childhood programs, said Bridget Hatfield, an assistant professor in OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences. That's especially important now because many states, including Oregon, are adopting ...

The single fire that ignited and split into nine separate fires still blazes in Southern California today. Firefighters are hoping for a break today (Thursday, May 15, 2014) but it doesn't look like luck may be on their side. Conditions continue to be bone dry with unseasonal heat (98-106 degrees) and the Santa Ana winds are kicking up and allowing these fires to easy jump fire lines. This particular fire started on Wednesday as a single fire and within a day is now nine separate fires which have burned close to 10,000 acres. These fires are threatening more than just ...

Using one of the world's largest telescopes, a Lawrence Livermore team and international collaborators have tracked the orbit of a planet at least four times the size of Jupiter. The scientists were able to identify the orbit of the exoplanet, Beta Pictoris b, which sits 63 light years from our solar system, by using the Gemini Planet Imager's (GPI) next-generation, high-contrast adaptive optics (AO) system. This approach is sometimes referred to as extreme AO. The Gemini Planet Imager snapped an amazingly clear and bright image of the gas giant Beta Pictoris b after ...

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have mapped the structural details of how p53 attaches to its regulatory protein, called BCL-xL, in the cell. The protein p53 is a key activator of the cell's protective machinery against genetic damage, such as the mutations that drive cancer cells' explosive growth. The detailed understanding of how these two molecular puzzle pieces fit together will help scientists design drugs that release p53 in cancer cells, triggering their suicide, called apoptosis. The findings appear in the current online journal Nature Structural ...

A new collection of articles appearing in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences examine how the basic biology of aging drives chronic disease. Together, they highlight the value of the emerging field of geroscience, which uses an integrated approach to the study of diseases and disability associated with growing older. Geroscience seeks to bridge the divide between studies of aging and studies of chronic disease, with the hope of understanding their complex relationship and pointing the way to novel interventions for disease, ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu) — Using a material found in Silly Putty and surgical tubing, a group of researchers at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering have developed a new way to make lithium-ion batteries that will last three times longer between charges compared to the current industry standard. The team created silicon dioxide (SiO2) nanotube anodes for lithium-ion batteries and found they had over three times as much energy storage capacity as the carbon-based anodes currently being used. This has significant implications ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is an effective treatment for easily accessible tumors such as oral and skin cancer. But the procedure, which uses lasers to activate special drugs called photosensitizing agents, isn't adept at fighting cancer deep inside the body. Thankfully, that's changing due to new technology that could bring PDT into areas of the body which were previously inaccessible. Described May 11 in the journal Nature Photonics, the approach involves using near-infrared beams of light that, upon penetrating deep into the body, are converted into ...

VIDEO: An octopus is treating its own freshly amputated arm in a strange and exploratory manner that is not commonly seen with respect to food items. Note the 'startle' response of... Click here for more information. An octopus's arms are covered in hundreds of suckers that will stick to just about anything, with one important exception. Those suckers generally won't grab onto the octopus itself; otherwise, the impressively flexible animals would quickly find themselves all tangled ...

Researchers have shown for the first time in an animal that is more closely related to humans that it is possible to make new bone from stem-cell-like induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) made from an individual animal's own skin cells. The study in monkeys reported in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports on May 15th also shows that there is some risk that those iPSCs could seed tumors, but that unfortunate outcome appears to be less likely than studies in immune-compromised mice would suggest. "We have been able to design an animal model for testing of pluripotent ...

(SALT LAKE CITY) - Mice severely disabled by a condition similar to multiple sclerosis (MS) were able to walk less than two weeks following treatment with human neural stem cells. The finding, which uncovers potential new avenues for treating MS, will be published online on May 15, 2014, in the journal Stem Cell Reports. In striking contrast to active, healthy mice, those with an MS-like condition must be fed by hand because they cannot stand long enough to eat and drink on their own. When scientists transplanted human neural stem cells into the MS mice, they expected ...