A team led by astronomers at The Australian National University has discovered the oldest known star in the Universe, which formed shortly after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. The discovery has allowed astronomers for the first time to study the chemistry of the first stars, giving scientists a clearer idea of what the Universe was like in its infancy. "This is the first time that we've been able to unambiguously say that we've found the chemical fingerprint of a first star," said lead researcher, Dr Stefan Keller of the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. "This ...

An international team of scientists has produced global maps showing how fast and in which direction local climates have shifted. In research published today in the journal Nature, CSIRO and an international team of scientists revealed global maps showing how fast and in which direction local climates are shifting. This new study points to a simpler way of looking at climatic changes and their likely effects on biodiversity. As climate change unfolds over the next century, plants and animals will need to adapt or shift locations to track their ideal climate. "The ...

Researchers identify unique regulatory T cell population in human skin Regulatory T cells (Tregs) dampen the immune response against self antigens and contribute to the prevention of autoimmunity. A skin-specific population of Tregs (mTreg) has been described in mice that has properties similar to memory T cells. In mice, some mTregs are maintained in the skin for long periods of time and suppress cutaneous autoimmunity. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Michael Rosenblum and colleagues at the University of California San Francisco analyzed the mTreg ...

Lower income countries may soon be facing the same obesity and diabetes epidemics as their higher income counterparts. Ownership of televisions, cars and computers was recently found to be associated with increased rates of obesity and diabetes in lower and middle income countries, according to an international study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "Although we found no trend between household devices ownership and obesity or diabetes in high income countries, there was a stronger relation as the level of country income decreased. This relation ...

In the debate over whether to withdraw life support for patients who have no hope of recovery, the recent judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada on the Hassan Rasouli case in Ontario has broader implications for health care in the country, argue authors in a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in October 2013 that physicians who recommend withdrawing life support over the wishes of substitute decision-makers must apply to Ontario's Consent and Capacity Board, "regardless of whether they feel ongoing treatment falls ...

TORONTO, Feb. 10, 2014—Soccer is the most-popular and fastest-growing sport in the world and, like many contact sports, players are at risk of suffering concussions from collisions on the field. But researchers warned in a paper published today that not enough attention has been given to the unique aspect of soccer – the purposeful use of the head to control the ball – and the long-term consequences of repetitive heading. The literature review by Dr. Tom Schweizer, director of the Neuroscience Research Program of St. Michael's Hospital, was published in the journal ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have glimpsed two proteins working together inside living cells to facilitate communication between the cell's nucleus and its exterior compartment, the cytoplasm. The research provides new clues into how a crucial protein that is found in organisms from yeast to humans does its work. The study, led by Stowers Investigator Sue Jaspersen, Ph.D., focused on a protein called Ndc1, which controls when and where a cell inserts holes into the double-walled membrane that surrounds its nucleus. In yeast, ...

NYU Langone Medical Center researchers have found a biological weakness in the workings of the most commonly mutated gene involved in human cancers, known as mutant K-Ras, which they say can be exploited by drug chemotherapies to thwart tumor growth. Mutant K-Ras has long been suspected of being the driving force behind more than a third of all cancers, including colon, lung, and a majority of pancreatic cancers. Indeed, Ras cancers, which are unusually aggressive, are thought of as "undruggable" because every previous attempt to stall their growth has failed. Reporting ...

African civilians in war-torn countries have experienced the threat of violence or death, and many have witnessed the abuse, torture, rape and even murder of loved ones. Many Congolese living in Ugandan refugee camps are suffering from severe posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). New research shows that Congolese war refugees who learned the Transcendental Meditation® technique showed a significant reduction in posttraumatic stress disorder in just 10 days, according to a study published today in the February 2014 issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress (Volume 27, ...

For the first time, a team of chemists and engineers at Penn State University have placed tiny synthetic motors inside live human cells, propelled them with ultrasonic waves and steered them magnetically. It's not exactly "Fantastic Voyage," but it's close. The nanomotors, which are rocket-shaped metal particles, move around inside the cells, spinning and battering against the cell membrane. "As these nanomotors move around and bump into structures inside the cells, the live cells show internal mechanical responses that no one has seen before," said Tom Mallouk, Evan ...

Austin – February 10, 2014 – With Valentine's Day around the corner, you may be thinking of pairing up two friends for a date. If you follow your instinct to play Cupid, it'll pay off in happiness – not necessarily for the new couple, but definitely for you. According to new research, matchmaking, a time-honored tradition, brings intrinsic happiness to the matchmaker. To maximize the psychological benefits of matchmaking, you should take care to introduce two people who not only seem compatible but who would be unlikely to meet otherwise, researchers say. "At some point, ...

Curtin University researchers have found a way to breed disease-resistant wheat with no downside, potentially bringing multi-million dollar savings to Australia's agricultural industry. According to John Curtin Distinguished Professor Richard Oliver, Director of the Australian Centre for Necrotrophic Fungal Pathogens (ACNFP) at Curtin, farmers can lose more than 0.35 tonnes per hectare in wheat yields to Yellow Spot, even after applying fungicide. For an average-sized farm of 4000 hectares, this could mean an almost $500,000 loss to disease per year – or about $212 ...

Many people suffer from chronic inflammation because their immune systems overreact to 'self' tissue. Sydney scientists believe that a small molecule known as Interleukin 21 is a promising therapeutic target in such cases. Interleukin 21 (IL-21) is one of a group of chemical messengers known as 'cytokines', which affect the behaviour of immune cells. IL-21 is already well known to play an important role in autoimmune diseases such as Sjögren's syndrome and type 1 diabetes. The current study shows how much IL-21 contributes to inflammation. It also shows how important ...

Problems related to urination, including incontinence and having to get up to urinate at night-time, have become more acceptable topics of discussion over recent years. New treatment options have also led doctors to address these symptoms more actively. Despite this, no study has effectively compared the bother of each of these bladder symptoms for men and women of all ages. The FINNO Study is an ongoing questionnaire survey conducted right across Finland. A random sample of 6,000 adults identified from the Finnish Population Register, were contacted with a questionnaire ...

10 February 2014, Singapore: New trial results1 have shown that the world's first Double Intravenous Vasopressor Automated (DIVA) System affords superior control of maternal blood pressure in women undergoing caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia, when compared with manually-administered medication to manage reduced blood pressure (vasopressor). Developed by doctors at KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH), the novel DIVA System detects and responds rapidly to low blood pressure and/or slow heart rate in real time by auto-administering a precise amount of the ...

BOSTON (Feb. 10, 2014)—Reinforcing the need to look beyond genomic alterations to understand the complexity of cancer, researchers from Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center report that a normal enzyme called SYK pairs with FLT3, the most commonly mutated enzyme found in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), to promote progression of the disease. This molecular partnership also promotes AML cells' resistance to treatment with FLT3-blocking drugs, potentially explaining the relatively poor showing of FLT3 inhibitors in multiple clinical studies. In ...

Micro-machining could be used to create almost flat, Fresnel lenses, that boost the electrical efficiency of solar panels, according to researchers in China. Fresnel lenses were invented by French engineer and scientist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, in the early nineteenth century, they are essential two-dimensional equivalents of conventional optical lens, but they have ridges in concentric rings that focus the light to a point behind the lens without the three-dimensional bulk of a conventional lens. Image quality is reduced when using a Fresnel lens to focus because the concentric ...

Pancreatic stellate cells, which normally aid tissue repair, unwittingly help pancreatic cancer grow and spread in a method of 'cell hijack' only seen before in brain and breast cancer, according to new research from Queen Mary University of London. The research, published in the latest issue of EMBO Molecular Medicine and carried out by Queen Mary's Barts Cancer Institute, also revealed the process can be blocked, thereby preventing the growth and spread of the tumour. The study, funded by the UK charity Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund, set out to investigate the messaging ...

An EORTC analysis appearing in Annals of Oncology confirmed the importance of known prognostic factors such as performance status and tumor grading for having a long-term outcome in patients treated with pazopanib for metastatic soft tissue sarcoma. Additionally, hemoglobin at baseline was found to be a new prognostic factor. Soft tissue sarcomas are a heterogeneous and relatively rare tumor with an estimated incidence of four per 100,000 people per year in Europe. The prognosis for patients with this disease is favorable if they are diagnosed at an early stage and if ...

Scientists have solved a major problem with the current standard model of cosmology identified by combining results from the Planck spacecraft and measurements of gravitational lensing in order to deduce the mass of ghostly sub-atomic particles called neutrinos. The team, from the universities of Manchester and Nottingham, used observations of the Big Bang and the curvature of space-time to accurately measure the mass of these elementary particles for the first time. The recent Planck spacecraft observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) – the fading glow ...

Aggression-causing genes appeared early in animal evolution and have maintained their roles for millions of years and across many species, even though animal aggression today varies widely from territorial fighting to setting up social hierarchies, according to researchers from Iowa State University, Penn State and Grand Valley State University. If these "mean genes" keep their roles in different animals and in different contexts, then perhaps model organisms -- such as bees and mice -- can provide insights into the biological basis of aggression in all animals, including ...

A new survey conducted by the University of Copenhagen and the World Health Organization (WHO) is highlighting the role of schools in work to promote health and prevent disease. "Children in Scandinavia generally have healthy teeth and gums, largely on account of dental care in schools for all children, the arrival of fluoride toothpaste on the market, a healthy lifestyle and high living standards. But the situation in the poorest countries of the world is very different to that in Scandinavia. However, it is positive to note that the WHO's Health Promoting Schools Initiative ...

When the threatened European eels cross the Atlantic Ocean to get to the Sargasso Sea to spawn, they swim in deep water. But this does not protect them from predators, researchers from the University of Southern Denmark report: Even in deep water the eels are hunted and eaten. The European eel is in decline, and all over the world biologists are struggling to map its mysterious life cycle in order to bring its numbers back up. One of the great puzzles is why and how the eel each year travels thousands of kilometers to get to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. A European monitoring ...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2014 — Love has inspired timeless songs and sonnets — not to mention a few less-than-timeless romantic comedies. Now the chemistry of love is the subject of the latest episode of the American Chemical Society's Reactions YouTube series (formerly Bytesize Science). Just in time for Valentine's Day, the video is available at http://youtu.be/bp7Ydv5wAPk. The video explains how feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine and oxytocin fuel lifelong pair bonds in prairie voles, which — along with humans — are the mammalian kingdom's leading monogamists. "If ...

This news release is available in German. When averaging is good and when it's not Usually averaging is a good thing that can make life a lot easier. For example, when you eat out with a group of friends and it comes to paying. If everyone had a meal and a drink and you split the bill total by the number of people, everyone will pay pretty close to what they would have paid for their individual meal and drink. However, if some people had a starter, a steak for main, a dessert and champagne while you had spaghetti and a soft drink, you will feel pretty much ripped ...