An international team led by The University of Texas at Dallas has discovered that ordinary fishing line and sewing thread can be cheaply converted to powerful artificial muscles. The new muscles can lift a hundred times more weight and generate a hundred times higher mechanical power than the same length and weight of human muscle. Per weight, they can generate 7.1 horsepower per kilogram, about the same mechanical power as a jet engine. In a paper published Feb. 21 in the journal Science, researchers explain that the powerful muscles are produced by twisting and ...

When we are wounded, our bodies naturally begin a process of repair of the damaged tissue. This process is mediated by biological molecules called growth factors, which are proteins that occur naturally in our cells and guide processes ranging from embryonic development to healing. Given their regenerative role in the body, growth factors have been investigated for use in drugs but with limited success. Publishing in Science, an EPFL group has used bioengineering to significantly improve the efficacy of clinical growth factors in the context of soft tissue and bone repair, ...

New research, published this week in Science, suggests that the largest single contributor to global sea level rise, a glacier of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, may continue thinning for decades to come. Geologists from the UK, USA and Germany found that Pine Island Glacier (PIG), which is rapidly accelerating, thinning and retreating, has thinned rapidly before. The team say their findings demonstrate the potential for current ice loss to continue for several decades yet. Their findings reveal that 8000 years ago the glacier thinned as fast as it has in recent decades, ...

Researchers are using fibres from fishing line and sewing thread to create inexpensive artificial muscles that could be used in medical devices, humanoid robots, prosthetic limbs, or woven into fabrics. In a study published today in Science, international researchers, including University of British Columbia Electrical and Computer Engineering professor John Madden and PhD candidate Seyed Mohammad Mirvakili, detail how they created inexpensive artificial muscles that generate far more force and power than human or animal muscles of the same size. "In terms of the strength ...

Today, deep waters formed in the northern North Atlantic fill approximately half of the deep ocean globally. In the process, this impacts on the circum-Atlantic climate, regional sea level, and soak up much of the excess atmospheric carbon dioxide from industrialisation — helping to moderate the effects of global warming. Changes in this circulation mode are considered a potential tipping point in future climate change that could have widespread and long-lasting impacts including on regional sea level, the intensity and pacing of Sahel droughts, and the pattern and rate ...

Advances in DNA sequencing technologies have enormous potential for the plant sciences. With genome-scale data sets obtained from these new technologies, researchers are able to greatly improve our understanding of evolutionary relationships, which are key to applications including plant breeding and physiology. Studies of evolutionary (or phylogenetic) relationships among different plant species have traditionally relied on analyses of a limited number of genes, mostly from the chloroplast genome. Such studies often fail to fully or accurately resolve phylogenetic ...

Research led by a team at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University has been published in the February 10, 2014 online edition of Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The research indicates that premature babies benefit from being exposed to adult talk as early as possible. The research, entitled "Adult Talk in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) with Preterm Infants and Developmental Outcomes," was led by Betty Vohr, MD, director of Women & Infants' Neonatal Follow-Up Program ...

WASHINGTON (Feb. 20, 2014) — After a heart attack, there is often permanent damage to a portion of the heart. This happens, in part, because cardiac muscle cells are terminally differentiated and cannot proliferate after blood flow is blocked off to the heart. This partial healing can be attributed to heart disease being one of the leading causes of death. What if the cells could be stimulated to divide and the heart could be induced to repair itself? This was the question posed by George Washington University (GW) researcher Scott Shapiro, M.D., Ph.D., and his co-authors, ...

Chevy Chase, MD—When older individuals' thyroid glands are more active than average, it may be a risk factor for depression, according to new research accepted for publication in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Beyond its role in regulating the body's metabolism, the thyroid gland also can influence mental health. Past research has found links between an increased risk of depression and both over- and underactive thyroid glands. This study is the first to find an association between depression and thyroid activity variations ...

Chevy Chase, MD—Lower morning and higher evening cortisol levels contribute to frailty in older individuals, according to new research accepted for publication in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Frailty confers a high risk for institutionalization and increased risk of mortality and is characterized by unintentional weight loss, feelings of exhaustion and fatigue, physical inactivity, slow gait speed and low grip strength. Neuroendocrine function, including cortisol secretion, is thought to be involved in the etiology of ...

PHILADELPHIA - Pulling an "all-nighter" before a big test is practically a rite of passage in college. Usually, it's no problem: You stay up all night, take the test, and then crash, rapidly catching up on lost sleep. But as we age, sleep patterns change, and our ability to recoup lost sleep diminishes. Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, have been studying the molecular mechanisms underpinning sleep. Now they report that the pathways of aging and sleep intersect at the circuitry of a cellular stress response pathway, and that ...

This news release is available in French. Chemotherapies are cancer treatments that work by inducing lesions in the DNA of tumour cells in order to inhibit their proliferation. However, the body naturally tries to repair these lesions, and thus reduces the efficacy of chemotherapy. Blocking the mechanisms for DNA repair would help to potentiate chemotherapy by reducing the resistance of cells to treatment. A team of researchers directed by Frédéric Coin, Inserm Research Director at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC) in Strasbourg (a ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Feb. 20, 2014 — Researchers say the discovery of how sodium ions pass through the gill of a zebrafish may be a clue to understanding a key function in the human kidney. The findings from a collaboration between Mayo Clinic and the Tokyo Institute of Technology appear in the online issue of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. The researchers discovered a protein responsible for gas exchanges in the fish gill structure. Specifically they studied and characterized the Na+/H+ (sodium/hydrogen) exchanger ...

Socially stigmatized groups have poorer health than non-stigmatized groups, but a team of researchers believes that more emphasis on two-way and multidisciplinary interventions will have a greater and more successful impact on relieving many health issues. "We took an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how to reduce health disparities due to the effects of social stigma, including stigmas based on race, sexual orientation and chronic illness," said Jonathan Cook, assistant professor of psychology, Penn State. Stigma results when a negative stereotype becomes ...

VIDEO: This animation of rainfall gathered from Feb. 11-19, 2014, by NASA's TRMM satellite revealed that Tropical Cyclone Guito produced as much as 16.9 inches/430 mm of rainfall in the center... Click here for more information. Tropical Cyclone Guito has been a powerful rainmaker, and fortunately, data from NASA's TRMM satellite shows that the heaviest rainfall has occurred over the open waters of the Mozambique Channel and not over land. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission ...

SEATTLE – Pancreas cancer is notoriously impervious to treatment and resists both chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It has also been thought to provide few targets for immune cells, allowing tumors to grow unchecked. But new research from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center shows that pancreas cancer "veils" itself from the immune system by recruiting specialized immune suppressor cells. The research team also found that removing these cells quickly triggers a spontaneous anti-tumor immune response. The findings, published Feb. 20 in Gut, give hope for future immunotherapy ...

When a fetal heartbeat pattern becomes irregular during labor, many practitioners give oxygen to the mother. But questions remain whether this oxygen supplementation benefits the fetus or may actually be potentially harmful. A clinical opinion written by third year resident Maureen Hamel, MD, along with maternal-fetal medicine specialists Brenna Anderson, MD and Dwight Rouse, MD, of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, has been published in the January 10, 2014 ...

The first study to compare brain function between humans and any nonprimate animal shows that dogs have dedicated voice areas in their brains, just as people do. Dog brains, like those of people, are also sensitive to acoustic cues of emotion, according to a study in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on February 20. The findings suggest that voice areas evolved at least 100 million years ago, the age of the last common ancestor of humans and dogs, the researchers say. It also offers new insight into humans' unique connection with our best friends in the animal kingdom ...

Adult humans continuously produce new neurons in the striatum, a brain region involved in motor control and cognitive functions, and these neurons could play an important role in recovery from stroke and possibly finding new treatments for neurodegenerative disorders, according to a study published by Cell Press February 20th in the journal Cell. To detect the birth of new neurons in the striatum, the authors used a method that measures carbon-14 found in human DNA as a result of above-ground nuclear testing more than half a century ago. The findings reveal a surprise finding ...

One of the major causes of hearing loss in mammals is damage to the sound-sensing hair cells in the inner ear. For years, scientists have thought that these cells are not replaced once they're lost, but new research appearing online February 20 in the journal Stem Cell Reports reveals that supporting cells in the ear can turn into hair cells in newborn mice. If the findings can be applied to older animals, they may lead to ways to help stimulate cell replacement in adults and to the design of new treatment strategies for people suffering from deafness due to hair cell loss. Whereas ...

The widespread loss of forest to sugarcane fields on the island of Mauritius has forced kestrels living there to survive by speeding up their life histories, according to a report published online on February 20 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. By getting an earlier start, the birds are managing to have just as many offspring, even though they die sooner. Those changes to the kestrels' life history are apparently driven entirely by their early life experiences, the researchers say. "This adaptive, plastic response is a testament to how resilient this species ...

A large international study analyzing genes in tens of thousands of individuals has discovered 11 new genetic signals associated with blood pressure levels. Ten of those signals are in or very near genes encoding proteins that appear to be likely targets for drugs already in existence or in development. "The fact that most of these new gene signals are 'druggable' targets offers the possibility of expedited pharmaceutical development of therapeutics for high blood pressure, a serious risk factor for cardiovascular diseases," said geneticist Brendan J. Keating, D. Phil., ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—February 20, 2014—The power of regenerative medicine appears to have turned science fiction into scientific reality—by allowing scientists to transform skin cells into cells that closely resemble beating heart cells. However, the methods required are complex, and the transformation is often incomplete. But now, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have devised a new method that allows for the more efficient—and, importantly, more complete—reprogramming of skin cells into cells that are virtually indistinguishable from heart muscle cells. These findings, ...

JUPITER, FL, February 20, 2014 – The use of antibiotics is often considered among the most important advances in the treatment of human disease. Unfortunately, though, bacteria are finding ways to make a comeback. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than two million people come down with antibiotic-resistant infections annually, and at least 23,000 die because their treatment can't stop the infection. In addition, the pipeline for new antibiotics has grown dangerously thin. Now, a new study by scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research ...

ANN ARBOR—An ancient chemical, present for billions of years, appears to have helped proteins function properly since time immemorial. Proteins are the body's workhorses, and like horses they often work in teams. There exists a modern day team of multiple chaperone proteins that help other proteins fold into the complex 3D shapes they must achieve to function. This is necessary to avert many serious diseases caused when proteins misbehave. But what happened before this team of chaperones was formed? How did the primordial cells that were the ancestors of modern life ...