Biomedical engineering researchers have developed a new technique that uses adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP), the so-called "energy molecule," to trigger the release of anti-cancer drugs directly into cancer cells. Early laboratory tests show it increases the effectiveness of drugs targeting breast cancer. The technique was developed by researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "This is a proof of concept, but we've demonstrated there is now a new tool for introducing anti-cancer drugs directly into cancer cells ...

VIDEO: First Rowena and then Liza watch videos of familiar chimpanzees yawning. Click here for more information. In their latest study about empathy, Yerkes National Primate Research Center researchers Matthew Campbell, PhD, and Frans de Waal, PhD, have shown chimpanzees exhibit flexibility in their empathy, just as humans do. These findings, which appear in the current issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, may help explain the evolution of how and when humans engage ...

First on top of the world and then in the depths of despair – this is what the extreme mood changes for people with bipolar disorder are like. Under the direction of scientists from Bonn, Mannheim and Basel, an international collaboration of researchers discovered two new gene regions that are connected to the prevalent disease. In addition, they were able to confirm three additional suspect genes. In this unparalleled worldwide study, the scientists are utilizing unprecedented numbers of patients. The results are now being published in the renowned journal "Nature Communications." Throughout ...

SAN FRANCISCO, March 11, 2014 -- In the global aftershock zone that followed the major April 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake, seismologists noticed an unusual pattern – a dynamic "stress shadow," or period of seismic silence when some faults near failure were temporarily rendered incapable of a large rupture. The magnitude (M) 8.6 earthquake, a strike-slip event at intraoceanic tectonic plates, caused global seismic rates of M≥4.5 to spike for several days, even at distances tens of thousands of kilometers from the mainshock site. But beginning two weeks after the ...

A timid jumping spider uses the scent of ants as a secret weapon to save itself from becoming the somewhat soggy prey of the predatory spitting spider. The downside to this plan is that jumping spiders are also a favorite snack of its very own saviors. To overcome this additional hazard, the spider has made yet another plan in the form of an ant-proof nest, writes Ximena Nelson of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and Robert Jackson of the University of Canterbury and the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Kenya, in Springer's journal Behavioral ...

Magnet recognition is considered a leading source for measuring organizational success in nursing. Magnet hospitals show higher job satisfaction and lower odds of patient mortality than non-Magnet hospitals. However, only nine percent of American hospitals are recognized as Magnet. Currently, there is little research into the causes of the differences between Magnet and non-Magnet hospitals, research that could create an infrastructure for positive change in nurse and patient outcomes. Now research from New York University College of Nursing (NYUCN) and the University ...

Pasadena, CA— Some galaxies grew up in a hurry. Most of the galaxies that have been observed from the early days of the universe were young and actively forming stars. Now, an international team of astronomers, including Carnegie's Eric Persson and Andy Monson, have discovered galaxies that were already mature and massive in the early days. Fifteen mature galaxies were found at a record-breaking average distance of 12 billion light years, when the universe was just 1.6 billion years old. Their existence at such an early time raises new questions about what forced them to ...

This news release is available in German. Adolescents with antisocial personality disorder inflict serious physical and psychological harm on both themselves and others. However, little is yet known about the underlying neural processes. Researchers at the University of Leiden and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have pinpointed a possible explanation: Their brain regions responsible for social information processing and impulse control are less developed. The study focused on incarcerated delinquent adolescents from the Netherlands aged between 15 and ...

WASHINGTON D.C., March 11, 2014 -- How exactly does Twitter, with its 241 million users tweeting out 500 million messages daily, shape public opinion? That question was tackled by a group of researchers in China who investigated how opinions evolve on Twitter by gathering about 6 million 140-character-or-less messages that were tweeted out over a six month period in the first half of 2011. They ran these messages through computer algorithms that sorted them by topic ("iPhone 4" or "blackberry," for instance), and they analyzed the underlying sentiments of the authors ...

URBANA, Ill. – Perched high on the bluffs of the big river valleys in the Midwest are some of the last remnants of never-farmed prairie grasslands. These patches, edged by forest, are slowly being taken over by shrubs. A recent University of Illinois study examined the soil microbes on nine patches, also called "balds," that had varying degrees of shrub invasion and found an interesting shift in the composition of the microbial community. "When we looked at the soil samples from a lightly encroached hill prairie remnant, it was very clear that there was a set of fungi ...

Poor food choices, such as overconsumption of carbonated soft drinks, are an important factor driving the global obesity epidemic and have been linked directly to diabetes and heart disease. While public health agencies are working to help people to make healthier choices, monitoring the effectiveness of these efforts has been costly and difficult. But now, using the same digital data employed by marketers to promote food products, McGill University's David Buckeridge has developed a way for health agencies to track Montreal consumers' food choices, neighborhood by neighborhood. ...

VIDEO: The TRMM Satellite's Precipitation Radar data was used to create this 3-D flyby over Tropical Cyclone Gillian on March 10. Some powerful storms within Gillian reached heights above 16 km/~9.9... Click here for more information. NASA's TRMM satellite saw some towering thunderstorms in Tropical Cyclone Gillian before it made landfall over the Western Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia. Gillian has been staying over land since, and is now a remnant low pressure area. ...

Philadelphia, PA, March 11, 2014 – The course of Parkinson disease (PD) can vary from gradual deterioration to precipitous decline in motor or cognitive function. Therefore identifying predictors of progression can benefit understanding of PD disease progression and impact management. Data from 304 PD patients followed for up to 8 years indicate that patients with higher cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) alpha-synuclein levels experienced faster cognitive decline in the following months, although no associations were found between alpha-synuclein levels and motor changes. The results ...

PHILADELPHIA — Destruction of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas is at the heart of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. "We are looking for ways to make new beta cells for these patients to one day replace daily insulin injections," says Ben Stanger, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Transplanting islet cells to restore normal blood sugar levels in patients with severe type 1 diabetes is one approach to treating the disease, and using stem cells to create beta cells ...

Children who use their hands to gesture during a math lesson gain a deep understanding of the problems they are taught, according to new research from University of Chicago's Department of Psychology. Previous research has found that gestures can help children learn. This study in particular was designed to answer whether abstract gesture can support generalization beyond a particular problem and whether abstract gesture is a more effective teaching tool than concrete action. "We found that acting gave children a relatively shallow understanding of a novel math concept, ...

European populations are growing older on average, a trend that could pose serious challenges to health care, budgets, and economic growth. As a greater proportion of a country's population grows into old age, average cognition levels and national productivity tend to decline, and the incidence of dementia increases. "Finding ways to improve the cognition of seniors is of central importance to the economic well-being of aging countries," says IIASA researcher Vegard Skirbekk, who worked on the study with researchers Nicole Schneeweis and Rudolf Winter Ebmer at Linz University The ...

Tampa, FL (March 11, 2014) – Lithium, one of the oldest and most widely used drugs to treat neuropsychiatric illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, has a serious drawback – toxicity. In a continued effort to find a safer form of lithium, researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) have discovered that lithium salicylate, an alternative salt form, might be the answer. The researchers found that oral lithium salicylate produced steady lithium levels up to 48 hours in rats without the toxic spike associated with the rapid absorption of current FDA-approved lithium ...

The instant gratification and the pleasure derived from consuming excessive chocolate and deep-fried foods can lead way to a double-edged sword of negative consequences ranging from weight gain to feelings of low self-esteem. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, combating this type of self-destructive behavior may be achieved simply by making a person feel sad. "We found that when people who are sad are exposed to pictures of indulgent food or indulgent words, their sadness highlights the negative consequences of indulging and encourages them ...

Alzheimer's disease is the most widespread degenerative neurological disorder in the world. Over five million Americans live with it, and one in three senior citizens will die with the disease or a similar form of dementia. While memory loss is a common symptom of Alzheimer's, other behavioral manifestations — depression, loss of inhibition, delusions, agitation, anxiety, and aggression — can be even more challenging for victims and their families to live with. Now Prof. Daniel Offen and Dr. Adi Shruster of Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine have discovered ...

From a product's price to its convenience, ease of use, and number of overall features, many factors play into getting the most "bang for your buck." According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, when it comes to weighing tradeoffs, selecting something more expensive based on perceived value might lead to buyer's remorse in the long run. "We propose that when making an immediate decision between complexity and convenience, consumers believe that products with more features and functions represent higher value, even if the complex product might lead to ...

As consumers, we form favorite brands and select services providers from a plethora of choices. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, how powerful we feel in our daily lives may impact our likelihood of switching favorites, trying something new, or both. "Our research examines the impact of a person's perceived sense of power on their likelihood to switch products or brands," write authors Yuwei Jiang, Lingjing Zhan (both Hong Kong Polytechnic University), and Derek D. Rucker (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University). Over six ...

New Rochelle, NY, March 11, 2014—Several young children suffering from a severe degenerative genetic disease received injections of therapeutic genes packaged within a noninfectious viral delivery vector. Safety, tolerability, and efficacy results from this early stage clinical trial are reported in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Human Gene Therapy website. Marc Tardieu, Université Paris-Sud and INSERM, and a team of international researchers administered the adeno-associated viral (AAV) ...

Because of results seen in flat lab dishes, biologists have believed that cancers cells move through the body in a slow, aimless fashion, resembling an intoxicated person who cannot walk three steps in a straight line. This pattern, called a random walk, may hold true for cells traveling across two-dimensional lab containers, but Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that for cells moving through three-dimensional spaces within the body, the "drunken" model doesn't hold true. This finding, reported in the March 4 online Early Edition of Proceedings of the American ...

Tuesday, March 11, 2014 Cleveland: Researchers have found that a patient's age and the type of tissue graft have a direct impact on ACL reconstructive surgery (ACLR) outcomes, according to an exhibit presented March 11 at the 2014 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual meeting in New Orleans. Researchers from Cleveland Clinic and six other member institutions will present findings on surgical reconstruction of anterior cruciate ligaments from the Multicenter Orthopaedics Outcomes Network (MOON), led by Cleveland Clinic's Kurt Spindler, M.D., principal ...

TORONTO, March 11, 2014 – Anesthesiologists using a technique similar to a dental freeze can improve the quality of recovery and decrease recovery time for breast cancer surgery patients, according to a new study. The study, from researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and Women's College Hospital, was published in the March edition of Anesthesiology. It is the world's first randomized control trial for breast cancer surgery that compares the use of ultrasound-guided paravertebral blocks – a local anesthetic freezing that blocks breast nerves – to general anesthetic. The ...