Studying lampreys allows biologists to envision the evolutionary past, because they represent an early offshoot of the evolutionary tree, before sharks and fish. Despite their inconspicuous appearance, lampreys have a sophisticated immune system with three types of white blood cell that resemble our B and T cells, researchers have discovered. Scientists at Emory University School of Medicine and the Max Planck Institute of Immunology and Epigenetics in Freiburg have identified a type of white blood cell in lampreys analogous to the "gamma delta T cells" found in mammals, ...

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a unique new twist to the story of graphene, sheets of pure carbon just one atom thick, and in the process appear to have solved a mystery that has held back device development. Electrons can race through graphene at nearly the speed of light – 100 times faster than they move through silicon. In addition to being superthin and superfast when it comes to conducting electrons, graphene is also superstrong and superflexible, making it a potential superstar ...

URBANA, Ill. – A successful program that increased the number of fruits and vegetables eaten and decreased sugar-sweetened beverage consumption by 50 percent among Latino children had two secret weapons, according to a University of Illinois researcher. "First, we got mothers and other relatives involved because family togetherness is a very important value for Latinos. Many programs, delivered at school, target only the child, but we know that kids have very little ability to choose the foods they eat at home—they don't purchase or prepare them," said Angela Wiley, ...

Some adolescents who suffer with symptoms of depression also may be at risk for developing anxiety, according to a new study of children's mental health. The study found that among youth who have symptoms of depression, the risk is most severe for those who have one or more of three risk factors, said psychologist Chrystyna D. Kouros, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, who led the study. Specifically, those who are most vulnerable are those who have a pessimistic outlook toward events and circumstances in their lives; those who have mothers with a history of an ...

Both basic scientists and clinicians have an interest in how the cells of our body move. Cells must be mobile in order for organisms to grow, to heal, to transmit information internally, to mount immune responses and to conduct a host of other activities necessary for survival. But if cell mobility is unregulated, tumors can grow and spread throughout the body. A new multi-disciplinary study by University of Pennsylvania researchers has now illuminated a crucial step in the process of cell movement. The protein they examined, Exo70, induces a reshaping of the cell's plasma ...

Researchers have probed deep into the cell’s genome, beyond the basic genetic code, to begin learning the “grammar” that helps determine whether or not a gene gets switched on to make the protein it encodes. Their discovery -- that the ordering of specific DNA sequences in key regions of the genome affects the activity of genes -- might advance efforts to use gene and cell-based therapies to treat disease, said UCSF molecular biologist Nadav Ahituv, PhD, senior scientist on the study. The findings were published online in the journal Nature Genetics on July 28 ...

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rise and fall each year as plants, through photosynthesis and respiration, take up the gas in spring and summer, and release it in fall and winter. Now the range of that cycle is expanding as more carbon dioxide is emitted from burning fossil fuels and other human activities, according to a study led by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). The findings come from a multi-year airborne survey of atmospheric chemistry called HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations, or HIPPO. Results of the study are reported ...

Climate change is already affecting the spread of infectious diseases--and human health and biodiversity worldwide--according to disease ecologists reporting research results in this week's issue of the journal Science. Modeling disease outcomes from host and parasite responses to climate variables, they say, could help public health officials and environmental managers address the challenges posed by the changing landscape of infectious disease. "Earth's changing climate and the global spread of infectious diseases are threatening human health, agriculture and wildlife," ...

Climate change alters the way in which species interact with one another--a reality that applies not just to today or to the future, but also to the past, according to a paper published by a team of researchers in this week's issue of the journal Science. "We found that, at all time scales, climate change can alter biotic interactions in very complex ways," said paleoecologist Jessica Blois of the University of California, Merced, the paper's lead author. "If we don't incorporate this information when we're anticipating future changes, we're missing a big piece of the ...

Lightning ignited the Gold Pan Complex Fire on July 16, 2013, in the River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho. As of August 9, the fire had burned 17,103 acres of mixed conifer forest. Many of the burned trees may have already been dead as a result of insects. The fire has a high potential for growth. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite acquired this false color image of the fire on August 8, 2013. Newly burned land is dark red. Hot spots glow orange. Paler red areas may be old burn scars or forest infested with insects, such as the ...

One thing that sets humans apart from other animals is our ability to intelligently and rapidly adapt to a wide variety of new challenges — using skills learned in much different contexts to inform and guide the handling of any new task at hand. Now, research from Washington University in St. Louis offers new and compelling evidence that a well-connected core brain network based in the lateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex — parts of the brain most changed evolutionarily since our common ancestor with chimpanzees — contains "flexible hubs" that coordinate ...

MADISON, Wis. — Using human pluripotent stem cells and DNA-cutting protein from meningitis bacteria, researchers from the Morgridge Institute for Research and Northwestern University have created an efficient way to target and repair defective genes. Writing today (Monday, Aug. 12, 2013) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team reports that the novel technique is much simpler than previous methods and establishes the groundwork for major advances in regenerative medicine, drug screening and biomedical research. Zhonggang Hou of the Morgridge ...

Researchers at the University of Rochester have measured for the first time light emitted by photoluminescence from a nanodiamond levitating in free space. In a paper published this week in Optics Letters, they describe how they used a laser to trap nanodiamonds in space, and – using another laser – caused the diamonds to emit light at given frequencies. The experiment, led by Nick Vamivakas, an assistant professor of optics, demonstrates that it is possible to levitate diamonds as small as 100 nanometers (approximately one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair) in free ...

ORANGE, Calif. – Chapman University's David Frederick will present new research at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association that examines men's and women's beliefs about who should pay for dates during courtship, and how couples actually go about splitting expenses. The paper, Who Pays for Dates? Following versus Challenging Conventional Gender Norms, contains survey data from more than 17,000 participants; a quarter of whom also provided written commentaries to explain their beliefs and actions regarding paying for dates. "The motivation for ...

NEW YORK CITY — A University of Portland study challenges the popular perception that there is a "new and pervasive hookup culture" among contemporary college students. "Recent research and popular media reports have described intimate relationships among contemporary college students as characterized by a new and pervasive hookup culture in which students regularly have sex with no strings attached," said study co-author Martin Monto, a sociology professor at the University of Portland. "This implies that the college campus has become a more sexualized environment and ...

NEW YORK CITY — A woman's work is never done — or so the saying goes. Though women still do about two thirds of household chores, the division of labor may depend on what her mate does for a living. New research by University of Notre Dame Sociologist Elizabeth Aura McClintock shows that when married or cohabiting men are employed in heavily female occupations — like teaching, childcare work, or nursing — they spend more time doing housework, compared to when they are employed in traditionally male jobs. In addition, their wives or partners spend less time doing housework, ...

NEW YORK CITY — Benjamin Snyder conducted his research in the cab of a truck hauling frozen chicken from Missouri to Virginia. Snyder, a graduate sociology student in the University of Virginia's Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, will present his paper, "The Professionalized Body: Truck Driving in the Age of Flexibilization," at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Snyder explores how truck drivers, as representatives of the American workforce, are reacting to marketplace demands for speed and flexibility. The paper relies on research ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Growing up with siblings may provide some protection against divorce as an adult, a new nationwide study reveals. And the more siblings, the better: Each additional sibling a person has (up to about seven) reduces the likelihood of divorce by 2 percent. The practical difference between having no siblings and having one or two isn't that much in terms of divorce, said Doug Downey, co-author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. "But when you compare children from large families to those with only one child, there is ...

NEW YORK CITY — Growing up with siblings may provide some protection against divorce as an adult, a new nationwide study reveals. And the more siblings, the better: Each additional sibling a person has (up to about seven) reduces the likelihood of divorce by 2 percent. The practical difference between having no siblings and having one or two isn't that much in terms of divorce, said Doug Downey, co-author of the study and a professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. "But when you compare children from large families to those with only one child, there is ...

A new study reports that the incidence of ischemic stroke—the most common type of stroke, caused by a clot in the blood vessels of the brain—among non-Hispanic Whites and Mexican Americans over age 60 has declined over the past decade. Most concerning, however, is that the increased relative burden of stroke comparing Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic Whites has not changed at all in the last decade. Overall, Mexican Americans suffer much more, 34%, from this disease than non-Hispanic Whites. Findings are published in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological ...

A strain of bacteria that causes skin and soft tissue infections in humans originally came from cattle, according to a study to be published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The researchers who conducted the genetic analysis of strains of Staphylococcus aureus known as CC97 say these strains developed resistance to methicillin after they crossed over into humans around forty years ago. Today, methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strain CC97 is an emerging human pathogen in Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Asia. ...

Rare Amur tigers in Russia are succumbing to infection with canine distemper virus (CDV), a pathogen most commonly found in domestic dogs, according to the authors of a study published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. Pressure from poaching, decimation of their prey base, and habitat fragmentation have diminished the population of Amur tigers (also called Siberian tigers) to fewer than 500. In the study, a team of scientists from the US and Russia show that CDV infected and caused fatal neurological disease in members ...

The decline and disappearance of stable, unionized full-time jobs with health insurance and pensions for people who lack a college degree has had profound effects on working-class Americans who now are less likely to get married, stay married and have their children within marriage than those with college degrees, a new University of Virginia and Harvard University study has found. The research, "Intimate Inequalities: Love and Work in a Post-Industrial Landscape," will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York City on Aug. ...

LAWRENCE - University of Kansas scientists have found that infants who were fed formula enriched with long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFA) from birth to 12 months scored significantly better than a control group on several measures of intelligence conducted between the ages of three to six years. Specifically, the children showed accelerated development on detailed tasks involving pattern discrimination, rule-learning and inhibition between the ages of three to five years of age as well as better performance on two widely-used standardized tests of intelligence: ...

People who are feeling embarrassed are more likely to choose items that hide or 'repair' the face, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research indicates that feelings of embarrassment can be alleviated by using so-called 'restorative' products -- effectively helping people to "save face." "Previous research on embarrassment mainly documents that embarrassed individuals are motivated to avoid public exposure," explains Ping Dong, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto and lead ...