BUFFALO, N.Y. – Located deep in the human gut, the small intestine is not easy to examine. X-rays, MRIs and ultrasound images provide snapshots but each suffers limitations. Help is on the way. University at Buffalo researchers are developing a new imaging technique involving nanoparticles suspended in liquid to form "nanojuice" that patients would drink. Upon reaching the small intestine, doctors would strike the nanoparticles with a harmless laser light, providing an unparalleled, non-invasive, real-time view of the organ. Described July 6 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, ...

Biologists at UC San Diego have solved a long-standing mystery concerning the way plants reduce the numbers of their breathing pores in response to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. In a paper published in this week's early online edition of Nature, they report the discovery of a new genetic pathway in plants, made up of four genes from three different gene families that control the density of breathing pores—or "stomata"—in plant leaves in response to elevated CO2 levels. Their discovery should help biologists better understand how the steadily increasing ...

RENO – A team of scientists led by Michael Sigl and Joe McConnell of Nevada's Desert Research Institute (DRI) has completed the most accurate and precise reconstruction to date of historic volcanic sulfate emissions in the Southern Hemisphere. The new record, described in a manuscript published today in the online edition of Nature Climate Change, is derived from a large number of individual ice cores collected at various locations across Antarctica and is the first annually resolved record extending through the Common Era (the last 2,000 years of human history). "This ...

Created at Monash University, the world's first toolkit is designed for GPs to use with women from the age of 40. Thought to be the first of its kind, researchers say the toolkit has the potential to help manage menopausal conditions for women globally. The Practitioner Toolkit for Managing the Menopause, which includes a diagnostic tool, as well as a compendium of approved hormone therapies, is published today in the journal, Climacteric. Led by Professor Susan Davis, the research team from the School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine, combined existing research ...

Researchers working in Sierra Leone today [Saturday 5 July] suggest priority actions needed to tackle the ongoing Ebola crisis in West Africa. In a letter to The Lancet, the researchers call for improvements in access to diagnostic technologies and health-care resources, as well as improved disease surveillance and health communication. At present, there is little incentive for patients to seek professional diagnosis of suspected Ebola, say the authors, with most people with febrile (fever-causing) illnesses in Sierra Leone treated at home, and the true extent of the ...

A new study published in The Lancet compares outcomes for two drugs used to prevent blood clot formation during emergency heart attack treatment. The study suggests that use of one of the drugs, heparin, could result in improved outcomes (such as a reduced rate of repeat heart attacks), compared to the other drug tested, bivalirudin, which is in widespread use in high-income countries, and is around 400 times more expensive than heparin. The results of the HEAT-PPCI trial suggest that systematic use of heparin rather than bivalirudin after primary percutaneous coronary ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Barcelona, 4 July 2014: An association between high blood cholesterol and breast cancer has been found in a study of more than 1 million patients over a 14 year time period in the UK. The research will be presented today at Frontiers in CardioVascular Biology (FCVB) 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. The meeting is organised by the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Science of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in collaboration with 13 European cardiovascular science societies. http://spo.escardio.org/SessionDetails.aspx?eevtid=65&sessId=13301&subSessId=3494 Dr ...

Barcelona, 4 July 2014: The first evidence for a shockless treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF) will be presented today at Frontiers in CardioVascular Biology (FCVB) 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. The meeting is organised by the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Science of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in collaboration with 13 European cardiovascular science societies. http://spo.escardio.org/SessionDetails.aspx?eevtid=65&sessId=13104 Dr Brian O. Bingen, first author, said: "AF is the most common cardiac arrhythmia. Symptoms range from the feeling of fish flapping ...

Clinicians need to be sensitive and aware of the unique challenges of women's reproductive health needs in times of conflict, suggests a new review published today (4 July) in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG). Approximately 1.5 billion people are currently living in countries affected by conflict, fragility or large-scale violence. Women and children account for approximately 75% of those displaced by conflict and roughly 20% of those displaced are women of reproductive age and one in five will be pregnant. This new review looks at how conflict can negatively ...

A breakthrough discovery into how living cells process and respond to chemical information could help advance the development of treatments for a large number of cancers and other cellular disorders that have been resistant to therapy. An international collaboration of researchers, led by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, have unlocked the secret behind the activation of the Ras family of proteins, one of the most important components of cellular signaling ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 3, 2014) -- Researchers from the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky have been able to confirm anecdotal information on patients with both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and cerebrovascular disease (CVD) using mouse models in two different studies. The findings of these two studies, which were recently published in Acta Neuropathologica and Alzheimer's Research & Therapy, have potentially significant implications for patients with both disorders. Both papers studied CVD in Alzheimer's disease mouse models using different lifestyle ...

VIDEO: Like a line of falling dominos, a cascade of molecular events in the bone marrow produces high levels of inflammation that disrupt normal blood formation and lead to potentially deadly... Click here for more information. INDIANAPOLIS -- Like a line of falling dominos, a cascade of molecular events in the bone marrow produces high levels of inflammation that disrupt normal blood formation and lead to potentially deadly disorders including leukemia, an Indiana University-led ...

Physicists of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Graduate School of Excellence "Materials Science in Mainz" (MAINZ) have been able with the aid of computer simulations to confirm and explain a mechanism by which two knots on a DNA strand can interchange their positions. For this, one of the knots grows in size while the other diffuses along the contour of the former. Since there is only a small free energy barrier to swap, a significant number of crossing events have been observed in molecular dynamics simulations, i.e., there is a high probability of such ...

Introducing graphene One of the hottest materials in condensed matter research today is graphene. Graphene had an unlikely start: it began with researchers messing around with pencil marks on paper. Pencil "lead" is actually made of graphite, which is a soft crystal lattice made of nothing but carbon atoms. When pencils deposit that graphite on paper, the lattice is laid down in thin sheets. By pulling that lattice apart into thinner sheets – originally using Scotch tape – researchers discovered that they could make flakes of crystal just one atom thick. The name ...

The reduction of soil carbon stock caused by the conversion of pasture areas into sugarcane plantations – a very common change in Brazil in recent years – may be offset within two or three years of cultivation. The calculation appears in a study conducted by researchers at the Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA) of the University of São Paulo (USP) in collaboration with colleagues from the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (Esalq), also at USP. The study also included researchers from the Federal Institute of Alagoas (IFAL), the Brazilian Bioethanol Science ...

An international team of researchers have been monitoring the "heartbeats" of baby stars to test theories of how the Sun was born 4.5 billion years ago. In a paper published in Science magazine today, the team of 20 scientists describes how data from two space telescopes – the Canadian Space Agency's MOST satellite and the French CoRoT mission – have unveiled the internal structures and ages of young stars before they've even emerged as full-fledged stars. "Think of it as ultrasound of stellar embryos," explains University of British Professor Jaymie Matthews, MOST ...

VIDEO: In a young region like the so-called Christmas Tree Cluster, stars are still in the process of forming. A star is 'born' once it becomes optically visible (bottom right). During... Click here for more information. Determining the age of stars has long been a challenge for astronomers. In experiments published in the journal Science, researchers at KU Leuven's Institute for Astronomy show that 'infant' stars can be distinguished from 'adolescent' stars by measuring the acoustic ...

Edmonton, July 3, 2014 – A research team at the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta have discovered a new way by which metabolism is linked to the regulation of DNA, the basis of our genetic code. The findings may have important implications for the understanding of many common diseases, including cancer. The DNA wraps around specialized proteins called histones in the cell's nucleus. Normally, histones keep the DNA tightly packaged, preventing the expression of genes and the replication of DNA, which are required for cell growth and division. ...

Powerful thunderstorms in some areas of newborn Tropical Depression 08W in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean were dropping heavy rainfall on July 3 as NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed overhead. The eighth depression of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean season formed on July 3 at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT). It was located near 10.0 north latitude and 144.3 east longitude about 240 nautical miles south of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. Tropical Depression 08W or TD08W had maximum sustained winds near 30 knots (34.5 mph/55.5 kph) and it was moving ...

A team of researchers from KU Leuven, in Belgium, has developed an economical, reliable and heavy metal-free chemical reaction that yields fully functional 1,2,3-triazoles. Triazoles are chemical compounds that can be used as building blocks for more complex chemical compounds, including pharmaceutical drugs. Leveraging the compound's surprisingly stable structure, drug developers have successfully used 1,2,3-triazoles as building blocks in various anti-HIV, anti-cancer and anti-bacterial drugs. But efforts to synthesize the compound have been hampered by one serious ...

Tropical Storm Douglas is on a weakening trend, according to the National Hurricane Center, and satellite imagery showed that the storm appeared more elongated on July 3. NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite or GOES-West satellite captured visible data on Douglas just after sunrise on July 3 at 13:15 UTC (9:15 a.m. EDT). The data from GOES-West was made into an image at NASA/NOAA's GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Forecaster Stewart at the National Hurricane Center cited that Douglas' thunderstorm activity had ...

A new study by biologists at San Diego State University and Scripps Institution of Oceanography shows that inhabited coral islands that engage in commercial fishing dramatically alter their nearby reef ecosystems, disturbing the microbes, corals, algae and fish that call the reef home. The study's lead author, Linda Wegley Kelly, is a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of SDSU virologist Forest Rohwer. For the study, she looked at seawater samples collected from the surfaces of reefs surrounding all 11 of the Line Islands, a chain of atolls in the central Pacific Ocean. ...

Before you swat away the next fruit fly, consider instead just how similar its biological complexities are to our own. In a study published in PLOS ONE, researchers led by Deborah Kimbrell, Ph.D., at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and their collaborators, studied how microorganisms may alter fruit flies' immunity in space and in hypergravity, or increased gravity. The article is titled "Toll Mediated Infection Response Is Altered by Gravity and Spaceflight in Drosophila." This study suggests that having normal gravity or hypergravity on the space station ...

(SALT LAKE CITY)—University of Utah researchers have discovered that an enzyme involved in intracellular signaling plays a crucial role in developing metabolic syndrome, a finding that has a U of U spinoff company developing a drug to potentially treat the condition. The researchers, led by Jared Rutter, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry, hope to begin human clinical trials of a drug in the next couple of years. "The approved drug therapies do not treat or prevent this condition in most people," says Rutter, senior author of a study describing the research published ...

MILWAUKEE – Using graphene ribbons of unimaginably small widths – just several atoms across – a group of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) has found a novel way to "tune" the wonder material, causing the extremely efficient conductor of electricity to act as a semiconductor. In principle, their method for producing these narrow ribbons – at a width roughly equal to the diameter of a strand of human DNA – and manipulating the ribbons' electrical conductivity could be used to produce nano-devices. Graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms, ...