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Science14 May 2014

Hitting a moving target

LA JOLLA, CA—May 14, 2014—A vaccine or other therapy directed at a single site on a surface protein of HIV could in principle neutralize nearly all strains of the virus—thanks to the diversity of targets the site presents to the human immune system. The finding, from a study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), is likely to influence future designs for HIV vaccines and antibody-based therapies. "We found, for example, that if the virus tries to escape from an antibody directed at that site by eliminating one of its sugars, the antibody often ...

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Science14 May 2014

Deformable mirror corrects errors

This news release is available in German. Lasers are used in manufacturing to cut materials or weld components together. Laser light is focused to a point using various lenses and mirrors; the smaller the focal point and the higher the energy, the more accurately operators can work with the laser. So, turn up the power and off you go, right? It is not that simple because when laser power increases, the mirror heats up accordingly, causing it to deform. A deformed mirror cannot effectively focus the laser; the focal point gets bigger and laser power falls away. Precisely ...

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Science14 May 2014

Victims want to change, not just punish, offenders

Revenge is a dish best served with a side of change. A series of experiments conducted by researchers affiliated with Princeton University has found that punishment is only satisfying to victims if the offenders change their attitude as a result of the punishment. "Revenge is only 'sweet' if the person reacts with a change in attitude, if the person understands that what they did was wrong. It is not the act itself that makes punishment satisfying," said Friederike Funk, a Princeton graduate student in psychology and one of the researchers. The findings offer insights ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

Study shows breastfeeding, birth control may reduce ovarian cancer risk in women with BRCA mutations

PHILADELPHIA — Breastfeeding, tubal ligation – also known as having one's "tubes tied" – and oral contraceptives may lower the risk of ovarian cancer for some women with BRCA gene mutations, according to a comprehensive analysis from a team at the University of Pennsylvania's Basser Research Center for BRCA and the Abramson Cancer Center. The findings, a meta-analysis of 44 existing peer-reviewed studies, are published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The researchers, from Penn's Perelman School of Medicine, found that breastfeeding and tubal ligation ...

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Technology14 May 2014

New insight into thermoelectric materials may boost green technologies

Coral Gables, Fla. (May 15, 2014) — Thermoelectric materials can turn a temperature difference into an electric voltage. Among their uses in a variety of specialized applications: generating power on space probes and cooling seats in fancy cars. University of Miami (UM) physicist Joshua Cohn and his collaborators report new surprising properties of a metal named lithium purple-bronze (LiPB) that may impact the search for materials useful in power generation, refrigeration, or energy detection. The findings are published in the journal Physical Review Letters. "If current ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

SapC-DOPS technology may help with imaging brain tumors, research shows

Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it's not there. Brain tumors are an extremely serious example of this and are not only difficult to treat—both adult and pediatric patients have a five-year survival rate of only 30 percent—but also have even been difficult to image, which could provide important information for deciding next steps in the treatment process. However, Cincinnati Cancer Center and University of Cincinnati Cancer Institute research studies published in an April online issue of the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and a May issue of ...

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Science14 May 2014

How cone snail venom minimizes pain

The venom from marine cone snails, used to immobilize prey, contains numerous peptides called conotoxins, some of which can act as painkillers in mammals. A recent study in The Journal of General Physiology provides new insight into the mechanisms by which one conotoxin, Vc1.1, inhibits pain. The findings help explain the analgesic powers of this naturally occurring toxin and could eventually lead to the development of synthetic forms of Vc1.1 to treat certain types of neuropathic pain in humans. Neuropathic pain, a form of chronic pain that occurs in conjunction with ...

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Science14 May 2014

Scientists test hearing in Bristol Bay beluga whale population

The ocean is an increasingly industrialized space. Shipping, fishing, and recreational vessels, oil and gas exploration and other human activities all increase noise levels in the ocean and make it more difficult for marine mammals to hear and potentially diminish their range of hearing. "Hearing is the main way marine mammals find their way around the ocean," said Aran Mooney, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). It's important to know whether and to what extent human activity is negatively impacting them. But how can we get marine mammals living ...

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Environment14 May 2014

Snubbing lion hunters could preserve the endangered animals

For hundreds of years young men from some ethnic groups in Tanzania, called "lion dancers" because they elaborately acted out their lion killing for spectators, were richly rewarded for killing lions that preyed on livestock and people. Now when a lion dancer shows up he might be called a rude name rather than receive a reward, according to a new UC Davis study. Some villagers are snubbing the lion killers, calling them "fakers" and contemplating punishing them and those who continue to reward them, said Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, anthropology professor at UC Davis. ...

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Engineering14 May 2014

Deconstructing goal-oriented movement

Our human brains are filled with maps: visual maps of our external environments, and motor maps that define how we interact physically within those environments. Somehow these separate points of reference need to correspond with — and to — one another in order for us to act, whether it's grasping a coffee cup or hitting a tennis ball. How that happens is the focus of a new study by scientists at UC Santa Barbara. The researchers used neuroimaging to decode how the brain transforms sensory input into action. Their findings are reported in the Journal of Neuroscience. ...

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Physics14 May 2014

Virtual pet leads to increase physical activity for kids, UGA research says

Athens, Ga. – Placing children into a mixed reality—part virtual environment and part real world—has great potential for increasing their physical activity and decreasing their risk of obesity, according to University of Georgia researchers. Sixty-one Georgia 4-H'ers, 9-12 years old, participated in a study designed to increase awareness and reduce childhood obesity. Participants set goals for the amount of physical activity they wanted to complete throughout the day over a course of three days. An activity monitor was worn to track their activity. Children were split ...

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Science14 May 2014

Study shows tropical cyclone intensity shifting poleward

MADISON, Wis. — The latitude at which tropical cyclones reach their greatest intensity is gradually shifting from the tropics toward the poles at rates of about 33 to 39 miles per decade, according to a study published today (May 14, 2014) in the journal Nature. The new study was led by Jim Kossin, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center scientist stationed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies. The research documents a poleward migration of storm intensity in ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

NIH takes action on sex/gender in cell and animal studies

What: NIH leadership is available to answer questions from reporters about new policies that will be published online Wednesday in Nature to ensure that sex is treated as a fundamental variable in the preclinical biomedical research that it funds. Article: NIH takes action on sex/gender in cell and animal studies. Nature. Clayton, J.A. & Collins, F.S.. Published online May 14, 2014. Spokesperson: Janine Austin Clayton, M.D., NIH Associate Director for Research on Women's Health, Director for the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health INFORMATION: Contact: To ...

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Science14 May 2014

Study: Dangerous storms peaking further north, south than in past

Powerful, destructive tropical cyclones are now reaching their peak intensity farther from the equator and closer to the poles, according to a new study co-authored by an MIT scientist. The results of the study, published today in the journal Nature, show that over the last 30 years, tropical cyclones — also known as hurricanes or typhoons — are moving poleward at a rate of about 33 miles per decade in the Northern Hemisphere and 38 miles per decade in the Southern Hemisphere. "The absolute value of the latitudes at which these storms reach their maximum intensity seems ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

Possible new plan of attack for opening and closing the blood-brain barrier

Like a bouncer at an exclusive nightclub, the blood-brain barrier allows only select molecules to pass from the bloodstream into the fluid that bathes the brain. Vital nutrients get in; toxins and pathogens are blocked. The barrier also ensures that waste products are filtered out of the brain and whisked away. The blood-brain barrier helps maintain the delicate environment that allows the human brain to thrive. There's just one problem: The barrier is so discerning, it won't let medicines pass through. Researchers haven't been able to coax it to open up because they ...

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Science14 May 2014

Tropical cyclone 'maximum intensity' is shifting toward poles

Over the past 30 years, the location where tropical cyclones reach maximum intensity has been shifting toward the poles in both the northern and southern hemispheres at a rate of about 35 miles, or one-half a degree of latitude, per decade according to a new study, The Poleward Migration of the Location of Tropical Cyclone Maximum Intensity, published tomorrow in Nature. As tropical cyclones move into higher latitudes, some regions closer to the equator may experience reduced risk, while coastal populations and infrastructure poleward of the tropics may experience increased ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

Researchers discover how DHA omega-3 fatty acid reaches the brain

It is widely believed that DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) is good for your brain, but how it is absorbed by the brain has been unknown. That is - until now. Researchers from Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore (Duke-NUS) have conducted a new study identifying that the transporter protein Mfsd2a carries DHA to the brain. Their findings have widespread implications for how DHA functions in human nutrition. People know that DHA is an essential dietary nutrient that they can get from seafood and marine oils. Baby formula companies are especially attuned to the benefits ...

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Earth Science14 May 2014

California mountains rise as groundwater depleted in state's Central Valley

Winter rains and summer groundwater pumping in California's Central Valley make the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges sink and rise by a few millimeters each year, creating stress on the state's earthquake faults that could increase the risk of a quake. Gradual depletion of the Central Valley aquifer because of groundwater pumping also raises these mountain ranges by a similar amount each year – about the thickness of a dime – with a cumulative rise over the past 150 years of up to 15 centimeters (6 inches), according to calculations by a team of geophysicists. While the ...

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Energy14 May 2014

CEBAF beam goes over the hump: Highest-energy beam ever delivered at Jefferson Lab

The Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has achieved the final two accelerator commissioning milestones needed for approval to start experimental operations following its first major upgrade. In the early hours of May 7, the machine delivered its highest-energy beams ever, 10.5 billion electron-volts (10.5 GeV) through the entire accelerator and up to the start of the beamline for its newest experimental complex, Hall D. Then, in the last minutes of the day on May 7, the ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

Who should be saved? Study gets diverse MD community views on healthcare disaster planning

BALTIMORE—In the event of a flu pandemic, who should have priority access to life-saving ventilators, and who should make that determination? Few disaster preparedness plans have taken community values regarding allocation into account, but a new study is aiming to change that through public engagement with Maryland residents. "In the event of a healthcare crisis, understanding the community perspective and having citizen buy-in will be critical to avoid compounding the initial disaster with further social upheaval," says principal investigator Elizabeth L. Daugherty ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

Strongly interacting electrons in wacky oxide synchronize to work like the brain

Current computing is based on binary logic -- zeroes and ones -- also called Boolean computing, but a new type of computing architecture stores information in the frequencies and phases of periodic signals and could work more like the human brain using a fraction of the energy necessary for today's computers, according to a team of engineers. Vanadium dioxide is called a "wacky oxide" because it transitions from a conducting metal to an insulating semiconductor and vice versa with the addition of a small amount of heat or electrical current. A device created by electrical ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

Research shows hope for normal heart function in children with fatal heart disease

DETROIT, Mich., - After two decades of arduous research, a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded investigator at the Children's Hospital of Michigan (CHM) at the Detroit Medical Center (DMC) and the Wayne State University School of Medicine has published a new study showing that many children with an often fatal type of heart disease can recover "normal size and function" of damaged sections of their hearts. The finding by Children's Hospital of Michigan's Pediatrician-in-Chief and Wayne State University Chair of Pediatrics Steven E. Lipshultz, M.D., F.A.A.P., F.A.H.A., ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

Study finds free fitness center-based exercise referral program not well utilized

Eliminating financial barriers to a fitness center as well as providing physician support, a pleasant environment and trained fitness staff did not result in widespread membership activation or consistent attendance among low income, multi-ethnic women with chronic disease risk factors or diagnoses according to a new study from Boston University School of Medicine. The findings, published in Journal of Community Health, is believed to be the first study of its kind to examine patient characteristics associated with utilization of community health center- based exercise ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

Study finds outcome data in clinical trials reported inadequately, inconsistently

Philadelphia, May 14, 2014 – There is increasing public pressure to report the results of all clinical trials to eliminate publication bias and improve public access. However, investigators using the World Health Organization's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) to build a database of clinical trials involving chronic pain have encountered several challenges. They describe the perils and pitfalls of using the ICTRP and propose alternative strategies to improve clinical trials reporting. This important and insightful study is published in the August ...

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Medicine14 May 2014

Enzyme helps stem cells improve recovery from limb injuries

AUGUSTA, Ga. – While it seems like restoring blood flow to an injured leg would be a good thing, it can actually cause additional damage that hinders recovery, researchers say. Ischemia reperfusion injury affects nearly two million Americans annually with a wide variety of scenarios that temporarily impede blood flow – from traumatic limb injuries, to heart attacks, to donor organs, said Dr. Babak Baban, immunologist at the Medical College of Georgia and College of Dental Medicine at Georgia Regents University. Restoring blood flow actually heightens inflammation ...

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