(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 ...

Female politicians' success can be predicted by their facial features, especially in conservative states where women with more feminine faces tend to do better at the ballot box, a Dartmouth College-led study finds. The results don't mean a supermodel will win the White House, but they do suggest women's electoral success requires a delicate balance between voters' perception of traditional femininity and political competence. The study appears in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. A PDF of the study is available on request. Here is a video animation ...

LA JOLLA, CA—May 15, 2014—Mice crippled by an autoimmune disease similar to multiple sclerosis (MS) regained the ability to walk and run after a team of researchers led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), University of Utah and University of California (UC), Irvine implanted human stem cells into their injured spinal cords. Remarkably, the mice recovered even after their bodies rejected the human stem cells. "When we implanted the human cells into mice that were paralyzed, they got up and started walking a couple of weeks later, and they completely ...

The gene mutations driving cancer have been tracked for the first time in patients back to a distinct set of cells at the root of cancer – cancer stem cells. The international research team, led by scientists at the University of Oxford and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, studied a group of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes – a malignant blood condition which frequently develops into acute myeloid leukaemia. The researchers say their findings, reported in the journal Cancer Cell, offer conclusive evidence for the existence of cancer stem cells. The concept ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (May 15, 2014) – By studying nerve and liver cells grown from patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), Whitehead Institute researchers have identified a potential dual-pronged approach to treating Niemann-Pick type C (NPC) disease, a rare but devastating genetic disorder. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), approximately 1 in 150,000 children born are afflicted with NPC, the most common variant of Niemann-Pick. Children with NPC experience abnormal accumulation of cholesterol in their liver and nerve cells, leading to ...

PHILADELPHIA – Studies of vaccine programs in the developing world have revealed that individuals with chronic infections such as malaria and hepatitis tend to be less likely to develop the fullest possible immunity benefits from vaccines for unrelated illnesses. The underlying mechanisms for that impairment, however, are unclear, and distinguishing these so-called "bystander" effects on priming the immune system to fight future assaults versus development of immunological memory has been challenging. A team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania ...

PHILADELPHIA (May 15, 2014) – Americans are unquestionably more aware of e-cigarettes, those vapor-emitting alternatives to tobacco cigarettes, according to a national survey. Yet, at the same time, the belief that e-cigarettes are safer than traditional smokes may be starting to diminish. A national survey of 3,630 adults found that 77 percent of the respondents have heard of e-cigarettes; that's way up from 16 percent just five years ago. But the perception that e-cigarettes are actually less harmful than tobacco cigarettes among current smokers decreased slightly, ...

A tiny nanoscale syringe is Salmonella's weapon. Using this, the pathogen injects its molecular agents into the host cells and manipulates them to its own advantage. A team of scientists at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel demonstrate in their current publication in Cell Reports that a much investigated protein, which plays a role in Salmonella metabolism, is required to activate these needles and makes the replication and spread of Salmonella throughout the whole body possible. The summer months are the prime time for Salmonella infections. Such an infection ...

MADISON, Wis. – The small but charismatic Hawaiian bobtail squid is known for its predator-fooling light organ. To survive, the nocturnal cephalopod depends on a symbiotic association with a luminescent bacterium that gives it the ability to mimic moonlight on the surface of the ocean and, in the fashion of a Klingon cloaking device, deceive barracuda and other fish that would happily make a meal of the small creature. The relationship between the squid and the bacterium Vibrio fischeri is well chronicled, but writing in the current issue of the journal Proceedings ...

The Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is releasing the results of a new set of focus groups, which find continued low awareness of synthetic biology among the general public. The focus groups also sought opinions on the emerging field of neural engineering. The focus group results support the findings of a quantitative national poll conducted by Hart Research Associates in January 2013, which found just 23 percent of respondents reported they had heard a lot (6 percent) or some (17 percent) about synthetic biology. The ...

The fixed combination of the drugs dapagliflozin and metformin (trade name: Xigduo) has been approved since January 2014 for adults with type 2 diabetes in whom diet and exercise do not provide adequate glycaemic control. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) now examined whether this new drug combination offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy. No such added benefit can be derived from the dossier, however, ...

Depressive symptoms seem to focus mothers' responses on minimizing their own distress, which may come at the expense of focusing on the impact their responses have on their children, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Depressive symptoms are common among mothers, and these symptoms are linked with worse developmental outcomes for children. The new study, which followed 319 mothers and their children over a two-year period, helps to explain why parenting competence seems to deteriorate as parents' ...

PRINCETON, N.J.—Stories about wartime atrocities and torture methods, like waterboarding and beatings, often include justifications – despite whether the rationale is legitimate. Now, a study by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School shows how those justifications actually creep into people's memories of war, excusing the actions of their side. The researchers report in Psychological Science shows how Americans' motivation to remember information that absolves American soldiers of atrocities alters their memories. "People are motivated to remember information ...

WORCESTER, MA – It only takes one time. That's the message of a new study by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School on binge drinking. Their research found that a single episode of binge drinking can have significant negative health effects resulting in bacteria leaking from the gut, leading to increased levels of toxins in the blood. Published online in PLOS ONE, the study showed that these bacterial toxins, called endotoxins, caused the body to produce immune cells involved in fever, inflammation, and tissue destruction. "We found that a single ...

Ann Arbor, MI, May 15, 2014 – E-cigarettes are gaining mainstream attention as a competitor to traditional cigarettes. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign wanted to examine changes in e-cigarette awareness, how harmful people believe them to be, and if those attitudes have any connection to smoking cessation attempts. They found that while awareness of e-cigarettes has increased significantly, smokers are less inclined to consider them safer than cigarettes. Also, investigators discovered that awareness did ...

A team of Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers have proposed that an "on and off" epigenetic switch could be a common mechanism behind the development of different types of cancer. Epigenetics is the phenomena whereby genetically identical cells express their genes differently, resulting in different physical traits. Researchers from the Boston University Cancer Center recently published two articles about this in Anticancer Research and Epigenomics. The current paradigm states that cancer develops from environmental and genetic changes to cancer ...

New Rochelle, NY, May 15, 2014—Type 2 diabetes greatly increases a person's risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD). A new study showing that cardiovascular risk factors such as elevated blood pressure and cholesterol levels differ significantly between men and women is published in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics (DTT), a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the DTT website at http://www.liebertpub.com/dtt. Joni Strom Williams, MD, MPH and coauthors from Medical University of South Carolina and Ralph ...

VIDEO: A new study uses carbon isotope dating to determine the first precise age for this bed, and ties the western coast of Africa to 30 million years of global geologic... Click here for more information. Paleontologists at Southern Methodist University have measured the carbon isotopes in marine fossils to precisely date for the first time 30 million years of sediments along Africa's South Atlantic shoreline. The researchers matched the pattern of ratios of carbon-13 and ...

Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot — a swirling storm feature larger than Earth — is shrinking. This downsizing, which is changing the shape of the spot from an oval into a circle, has been known about since the 1930s, but now these striking new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images capture the spot at a smaller size than ever before. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a churning anticyclonic [1]. It shows up in images of the giant planet as a conspicuous deep red eye embedded in swirling layers of pale yellow, orange and white. Winds inside this Jovian storm rage at immense ...

NANOGENERATORS are innovative self-powered energy harvesters that convert kinetic energy created from vibrational and mechanical sources into electrical power, removing the need of external circuits or batteries for electronic devices. This innovation is vital in realizing sustainable energy generation in isolated, inaccessible, or indoor environments and even in the human body. Nanogenerators, a flexible and lightweight energy harvester on a plastic substrate, can scavenge energy from the extremely tiny movements of natural resources and human body such as wind, water ...

Beverly, MA, May 15, 2014 – Less aggressive anticoagulation therapy, combined with low-dose aspirin, can be used safely in conjunction with a newer generation mechanical heart valve. These findings from the first phase of a randomized clinical trial are published in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, an official publication of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Patients under 65 years of age requiring heart valve replacement have had to choose between a mechanical valve that may last a lifetime but requires aggressive anti-clotting treatment ...

Heavy social drinkers who report greater stimulation and reward from alcohol are more likely to develop alcohol use disorder over time, report researchers from the University of Chicago, May 15 in the journal Biological Psychiatry. The findings run counter to existing hypotheses that innate tolerance to alcohol drives alcoholism. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, a team led by Andrea King, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Chicago, analyzed the subjective response of 104 young adult heavy social drinkers to alcohol ...

A biologist and a psychologist at the University of York have joined forces with a drug discovery group at Lundbeck in Denmark to develop a potential route to new therapies for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease (PD). Dr Chris Elliott, of the Department of Biology, and Dr Alex Wade, of the Department of Psychology, have devised a technique that could both provide an early warning of the disease and result in therapies to mitigate its symptoms. In research reported in Human Molecular Genetics, they created a more sensitive test which detected neurological changes before ...

WASHINGTON - Trusting a stranger may have more to do with feeling morally obligated to show respect for someone else's character than actually believing the person is trustworthy, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. "Trust is crucial not just for established relationships, it's also especially vital between strangers within social groups who have no responsibility toward each other outside of a single, transitory interaction. eBay or farmers' markets couldn't exist without trust among strangers," said lead author David Dunning, ...

Exploding supernovae are a phenomenon that is still not fully understood. The trouble is that the state of nuclear matter in stars cannot be reproduced on Earth. In a recent paper published in EPJ E, Yves Pomeau from the University of Arizona, USA, and his French colleagues from the CNRS provide a new model of supernovae represented as dynamical systems subject to a loss of stability, just before they explode. Because similar stability losses also occur in dynamical systems in nature, this model could be used to predict natural catastrophes before they happen. Previous ...