Northwestern Medicine scientists are continuing to unravel the molecular changes that underlie one of the world's deadliest and most infamous respiratory infections. When the bacterium Yersinia pestis enters the lungs, it causes pneumonic plague, a disease that is 100 percent fatal if untreated. The way in which Y. pestis evades the immune system and kills people in a matter of days has largely confounded scientists, until now. Following a 2007 study demonstrating that the presence of a protein called the plasminogen activator protease (Pla) is required for Y. pestis ...

Changes in the Puerto Rican climate over the past three decades have caused small but significant changes to the coqui frog, the territory's national animal. UCLA biologists have found that not only have male coquis become smaller, but their mating call has also become shorter and higher pitched. Authored by Peter Narins, UCLA distinguished professor of integrative biology and physiology and of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Sebastiaan Meenderink, a UCLA physics researcher, the study examined 170 male coqui frogs (Eleutherodactylus coqui) in 1983 and then 116 ...

RICHLAND, Wash. – Think of the pressure change you feel when an elevator zips you up multiple floors in a tall building. Imagine how you'd feel if that elevator carried you all the way up to the top of Mt. Everest – in the blink of an eye. That's similar to what many fish experience when they travel through the turbulent waters near a dam. For some, the change in pressure is simply too big, too fast, and they die or are seriously injured. In an article in the March issue of the journal Fisheries, ecologists from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National ...

Somewhere in the cosmos an ordinary galaxy spins, seemingly at slumber. Then all of a sudden, WHAM! A flash of light explodes from the galaxy's center. A star orbiting too close to the event horizon of the galaxy's central supermassive black hole is torn apart by the force of gravity, heating up its gas and sending out a beacon to the far reaches of the universe. In a universe with tens of billions of galaxies, how would we see it? What would such a beacon look like? How would we distinguish it from other bright, monumental intergalactic events, like supernovas? "Black ...

Research on children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in South Africa may provide insight on how to identify and help children with emotional behavior issues in other areas of the world, which may have limited access to healthcare and further research that could lead to successful interventions. A report on the global AIDS epidemic published by the United Nations mentions that due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has left 12 million children orphaned in Sub-Saharan African, children are at an increased risk for mental health problems. "There has been a big push to understand what ...

DETROIT – Doctors at Henry Ford Hospital reached a medical milestone April 3, performing the 25th successful transcatheter valve replacement using a novel way to access the heart. Henry Ford is the only hospital in the United States performing the unique procedure called transcaval valve replacement, which accesses the heart by temporarily connecting major blood vessels. Northern Michigan resident Viola Waller, 80, underwent Henry Ford's first transcaval procedure on July 3, 2013 when traditional valve replacement was not medically viable. "Nobody could help me here," ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. –Many families face the decision of whether to get a dog. For families of children with autism, the decision can be even more challenging. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has studied dog ownership decisions in families of children with autism and found, regardless of whether they owned dogs, the parents reported the benefits of dog ownership included companionship, stress relief and opportunities for their children to learn responsibility. "Children with autism spectrum disorders often struggle with interacting with others, which can make it difficult ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – The International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) have published a paper titled "Rare Bone Diseases and Their Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Manifestations." The complete review by researchers Sunday O. Akintoye, Andrea B. Burke, Alison M. Boyce, Michael Collins, Brian L. Foster, Rachel I. Gafni, Janice S. Lee, Mary Scott Ramnitz, Martha J. Somerman and J. Timothy Wright is published in the OnlineFirst portion of the IADR/AADR Journal of Dental Research (JDR). Hereditary diseases affecting the skeleton are heterogeneous ...

MOSS LANDING, CA — Killer sponges sound like creatures from a B-grade horror movie. In fact, they thrive in the lightless depths of the deep sea. Scientists first discovered that some sponges are carnivorous about 20 years ago. Since then only seven carnivorous species have been found in all of the northeastern Pacific. A new paper authored by MBARI marine biologist Lonny Lundsten and two Canadian researchers describes four new species of carnivorous sponges living on the deep seafloor, from the Pacific Northwest to Baja California. A far cry from your basic kitchen sponge, ...

A couple of years ago a University of Washington researcher who studies how children develop social behaviors like kindness and generosity noticed something odd. The 15-month-old infants in her experiments seemed to be playing favorites among the researchers on her team, being more inclined to share toys or play with some researchers than others. "It's not like one experimenter was nicer or friendlier to the babies – we control for factors like that," said Jessica Sommerville, a UW associate professor of psychology. She took a closer look at the data and realized that ...

Tropical Cyclone Ita made landfall in northeastern Queensland, Australia on April 11 as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, moved south and re-emerged in the Coral Sea on April 14 where NASA's TRMM and NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellites captured imagery of the weakened storm. The VIIRS instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible look at Ita's elongating structure on April 14 at 4:12 UTC/12:12. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument collects visible and infrared imagery and global observations of ...

DALLAS – April 14, 2014 – Popular web information on colorectal cancer is too difficult for most lay people to read and doesn't address the appropriate risks to and concerns of patients, a study by UT Southwestern Medical Center gastroenterologists suggests. In a review of a dozen popular websites, most of the online patient education materials for colorectal cancer screening were written beyond the recommended sixth-grade reading level, while content on the sites failed to address key risks, as well as the barriers to and benefits of screening, according to the study's ...

Late on April 1, the crown jewel of the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility ("Jefferson Lab") sparkled its way into a new era. Following an upgrade of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, the CEBAF accelerator delivered the highest-energy electron beams it has ever produced into a target in an experimental hall, recording the first data of the 12 GeV era. The machine sent electrons around the racetrack three times (known as "3-pass" beam), resulting in 6.11 GeV electrons at 2 nanoAmps average current for more than an hour. "This ...

Tropical Depression Peipah has been very stubborn and has moved over the southern and central Philippines bringing clouds, showers and gusty winds. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured an image that showed Peipah's clouds covering the Visayas and Mindanao regions of the country. The VIIRS instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible look at the remnant clouds associated with former Tropical Depression Peipah on April 14 at 4:24 UTC/12:24 a.m. EDT. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument collects visible and infrared ...

Stroke patients managed by a pharmacist had a 12.5% improvement in blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad" cholesterol levels compared with a control group, according to a clinical trial published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Patients who have a stroke or "mini stroke" (transient ischemic attack) are at high risk of adverse cardiovascular events. Management of high blood pressure and cholesterol after a stroke is important because it can substantially reduce the risk of a negative event; however, many patients receive suboptimal care. ...

Scientists found that the molecule, called microRNA 135b, is a vital 'worker' employed by several important cancer genes to drive the growth of bowel cancers. Drugs targeted at the microRNA could knock out the effects of multiple cancer-causing mutations at once, while tests for it could identify patients with the most aggressive disease, the researchers believe. The research was carried out by an international team including scientists based at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, the University of Glasgow and Ohio State University in the US. Scientists tested ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study identifies a molecule that is a probable driving force in colorectal cancer and suggests that the molecule could be an important target for colorectal cancer treatment and a valuable biomarker of tumor progression. The study of microRNA-135b (miR-135b) in two animal models and human tumors was published in the journal Cancer Cell and was led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) and at the University of Glasgow in ...

Washington, D.C., April 14, 2014—Dietary supplement use by U.S. adults is more prevalent than indicated by published data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), according to a new article in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American College of Nutrition (JACN). The review article is based on five consecutive years of online market research studies, conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN). According to Annette Dickinson, Ph.D., corresponding author and a consultant for CRN, "This new review adds to ...

CHICAGO --- Depression can hit young fathers hard -- with symptoms increasing dramatically during some of the most important years of their children's lives, a new Northwestern Medicine® study has found. Depressive symptoms increased on average by 68 percent over the first five years of fatherhood for these young men, who were around 25 years old when they became fathers and whom lived in the same home as their children. The results of the study were published April 14 in the journal Pediatrics. This study is the first to identify when young fathers are at increased ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. –A class of drugs widely used to treat osteoporosis appears to impede a cell's ability to repair a protective outer membrane that helps determine what enters and exits, researchers report. The inability to quickly repair a membrane is lethal to a cell and may help explain the rare and serious side effect of jawbone destruction that can occur following dental work in patients taking these drugs, said Caroline Lewis, a sophomore at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University. "The bottom line is it inhibits cell membrane repair in two distinct ...

Scientists have unearthed still more evidence that antibiotics can contribute to obesity. Research published ahead of print in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy suggests that patients on long-term antibiotic treatment gained weight and had significant changes in their gut microbiota. The study, led by Didier Raoult, of Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France, followed 48 patients who were being treated long-term with doxycycline and hydroxychloroquine for Q fever, and 34 control subjects. Nearly one quarter of the treated patients gained anywhere ...

A house window that doubles as a solar panel could be on the horizon, thanks to recent quantum-dot work by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers in collaboration with scientists from University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB), Italy. Their project demonstrates that superior light-emitting properties of quantum dots can be applied in solar energy by helping more efficiently harvest sunlight. "The key accomplishment is the demonstration of large-area luminescent solar concentrators that use a new generation of specially engineered quantum dots," said lead researcher Victor ...

In a UT Dallas study involving serious youth offenders, the answer to one open-ended question predicted the teenagers' offending patterns for the next seven years: "How long do you think you'll live?" According to the study, having little hope for the future encourages offending over time. Author Dr. Alex Piquero said the study found those who don't view a very long life ahead of them offend at very high rates and commit more serious offenses, while those who believe they're going to die much later in life offend much less. "In a lot of distressed communities and for ...

WASHINGTON D.C., April 14, 2014 -- By depositing an array of tiny, metallic, U-shaped structures onto a dielectric material, a team of researchers in China has created a new artificial surface that can bend and focus electromagnetic waves the same way an antenna does. This breakthrough, which the team is calling the first broadband transformation optics metasurface lens, may lead to the creation of new types of antennas that are flat, ultra low-profile or conformal to the shape of curved surfaces. The new lens, described in AIP Publishing's journal Applied Physics Letters, ...

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2014 — It seems there are new caffeine-infused products hitting the shelves every day. From energy drinks to gum and even jerky, our love affair with that little molecule shows no signs of slowing. In the American Chemical Society's (ACS') latest Reactions video, we look at the science behind the world's most popular drug, including why it keeps you awake and how much caffeine is too much. The video is available at http://youtu.be/YuJOhpNS0IY. INFORMATION: Subscribe to the series at Reactions YouTube, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be ...