Chemists in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences have, for the first time, created enzyme-like activity using peptides that are only seven amino acids long. Their breakthrough, which is the subject a recent article in Nature Chemistry magazine (Macmillan Publishers, 2014), may revolutionize the study of modern-day enzymes, whose chains of amino acids usually number in the hundreds, and of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's, which are usually characterized by small clumps of misshaped proteins called amyloids. Their finding also supports the theory ...

Today, experts from the Too Fit to Fracture Initiative presented the results of an international consensus process to establish exercise recommendations for people with osteoporosis, with or without spine fractures. The results were presented at the World Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases in Seville, Spain. Using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) method, the international multidisciplinary panel examined literature on exercise effects on: 1) falls, fractures, BMD, and adverse events for individuals ...

Results of a study presented today at the World Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases, showed that in boys, higher screen time was adversely associated to bone mineral density (BMD) at all sites even when adjusted for specific lifestyle factors. The skeleton grows continually from birth to the end of the teenage years, reaching peak bone mass – maximum strength and size– in early adulthood. Along with nutritional factors, physical activity can also greatly impact on this process. There is consequently growing concern regarding the possible ...

SAN DIEGO — Given omega 6 fatty acid's reputation for promoting cancer — at least in animal studies — researchers are examining the role that antioxidants play in blocking the harmful effects of this culprit, found in many cooking oils. After all, antioxidants are supposed to prevent DNA damage. But employing antioxidants could backfire, say researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. In their study, being reported at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, researchers found that vitamin E actually increased specific damage linked to omega 6 fatty acids. The ...

A new way to artificially control muscles using light, with the potential to restore function to muscles paralysed by conditions such as motor neuron disease and spinal cord injury, has been developed by scientists at UCL and King's College London. The technique involves transplanting specially-designed motor neurons created from stem cells into injured nerve branches. These motor neurons are designed to react to pulses of blue light, allowing scientists to fine-tune muscle control by adjusting the intensity, duration and frequency of the light pulses. In the study, ...

Despite climate change, most polluters still pay little or nothing when they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 'A cost USD 0.15 per kilo CO2 would be enough to solve the whole climate change problem,' says Thomas Sterner, professor of environmental economics at the University of Gothenburg. Sterner is the only Swedish researcher to serve as a coordinating lead author of a new report that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will present next week. The third part of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fifth assessment report, Working Group ...

Scleroderma is a rare and often fatal disease, causing the thickening of tissue, that currently lacks a cure and any effective treatments. A group of researchers, including a Michigan State University professor, is looking to change that. "Our findings provide a new approach to developing better treatment options where few have existed," said Richard Neubig, chairperson of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine. Neubig, along with several of his colleagues from the University of Michigan, have identified the core signaling ...

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over Tropical Depression 05W on April 4 at 07:09 UTC/3:09 a.m. EDT. The VIIRS instrument captured a visible picture of the storm, revealing most of the clouds and thunderstorms were west of the center. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC noted that animated multispectral satellite imagery today, April 3, showed that the low-level circulation center is well-defined and that there is fragmented convective banding of thunderstorms wrapping from the north into the southwest, so most of the strongest convection and thunderstorms ...

As the properties and applications of graphene continue to be explored in laboratories all over the world, a growing number of researchers are looking beyond the one-atom-thick layer of carbon for alternative materials that exhibit similarly captivating properties. One of these materials is molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), which is part of a wider group of materials known as transition metal dichalcogenides, and has been put forward by a group of researchers in the US as a potential building block for the next generation of low-cost electrical devices. Due to its impressive ...

For almost a hundred years ago is known that cancer cells feel a special appetite for a type of sugar called glucose. The tumor uses this molecule is like the gasoline which depends a sports car to burn faster and grows and multiplies rapidly. It is a little cash process from the energy point of view but allows a superaccelerated cancer cell division. It is what is known as the Warburg effect, which was described in 1927. Until now little was known about how healthy cells that have a balanced energy consumption depend on this "fast food" calorie in the tumor cell. Today, ...

Deep brain stimulation has been widely used to treat patients with movement disorders and increasing attention has been paid to its use in the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. However, the influence of subthalamic nucleus or pallidal deep brain stimulation on cerebral vasculature is poorly understood. Even though the metabolic changes caused by deep brain stimulation are being studied using positron emission tomography, the structural changes in cerebral areas like the intracerebral vasculature have not yet been evaluated. Dr. Byeong Sam Choi and colleagues ...

Activated microglia-mediated inflammation promotes neuronal damage under cerebral hypoxic-ischemic conditions, so it is likely that inhibiting hypoxia-induced activation of microglia will alleviate neuronal damage. To test this hypothesis, Dr. Lining Ke and co-workers from Southern Medical University and Fujian Medical University in China co-cultured ginsenoside Rb1, an active component of ginseng, and cortical neurons. Their findings indicate that ginsenoside Rb1 attenuates damage to cerebral cortex neurons by downregulation of nitric oxide, superoxide, and tumor necrosis ...

Stavanger, Norway – 4 April 2014: Moderate to severe depression increases the risk of heart failure by 40%, a study of nearly 63 000 Norwegians has shown. The findings were presented for the first time today at EuroHeartCare 2014. EuroHeartCare is the official annual meeting of the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (CCNAP) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). This year's meeting is organised jointly with the Norwegian Society of Cardiovascular Nurses and is held 4-5 April in Stavanger, Norway. Ms Lise Tuset Gustad, first author of the ...

AMHERST, Mass. – In the largest regional study of its type to date, marine ecologist Michelle Staudinger and colleagues offer better understanding of the feeding ecologies of two very rare sperm whale species in waters off the southeast U.S. coast, adding baseline data they say are important as climate change, fishing and pollution alters the animals' environment and food sources. "Understanding what resources support populations of these incredibly rare animals is important to conservation," Staudinger, adjunct assistant professor in environmental conservation at the ...

Nanostructures half the breadth of a DNA strand could improve the efficiency of light emitting diodes (LEDs), especially in the "green gap," a portion of the spectrum where LED efficiency plunges, simulations at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) have shown. Using NERSC's Cray XC30 supercomputer "Edison," University of Michigan researchers Dylan Bayerl and Emmanouil Kioupakis found that the semiconductor indium nitride (InN), which typically emits infrared light, will emit green light if reduced to 1 nanometer-wide ...

SAN DIEGO, April 4, 2014 – The probability of staying disease-free improves dramatically for ovarian cancer patients who already have been disease-free for a period of time, and time elapsed since remission should be taken into account when making follow-up care decisions, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), a partner with UPMC CancerCenter. The findings will be presented Wednesday at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2014. A patient's prognosis traditionally is determined when ...

The horseshoe worm is a worm-like marine invertebrate inhabiting both hard and soft substrates such as rock, bivalve shells, and sandy bottom. The name "horseshoe" refers to the U-shaped crown of tentacles which is called "lophophore." Horseshoe worms comprise a small phylum Phoronida, which contains only ten species decorating the bottom of the oceans. The new species Phoronis emigi, the eleventh member of the group described in the open access journal ZooKeys, comes after a long 62 year gap of new discoveries in the phylum. It is unique in the number and arrangement ...

SAN DIEGO, April 4, 2014 – An examination of the genetic landscape of head and neck cancers indicates that while metastatic and primary tumor cells share similar mutations, recurrent disease is associated with gene alterations that could be exquisitely sensitive to an existing cancer drug. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and Yale University School of Medicine will share their findings during a mini-symposium Sunday at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2014. About 50 percent of patients diagnosed with head ...

SAN DIEGO, April 4, 2014 – The second-most common type of breast cancer is a very different disease than the most common and appears to be a good candidate for a personalized approach to treatment, according to a multidisciplinary team led by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), a partner with UPMC CancerCenter. Invasive lobular carcinoma, characterized by a unique growth pattern in breast tissue that fails to form a lump, has distinct genetic markers which indicate drug therapies may provide benefits beyond those typically prescribed for ...

SAN DIEGO, April 4, 2014 – Compounds derived from plant-based sources — including garlic, broccoli and medicine plants — confer protective effects against breast cancer, explain researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), partner with the UPMC CancerCenter. In multiple presentations Sunday at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2014, UPCI scientists will update the cancer research community on their National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded findings, including new discoveries about the mechanisms by which the plant-derived ...

SAN DIEGO, April 4, 2014 – Genetic screening of cancer can help doctors customize treatments so that patients with melanoma have the best chance of beating it, according to the results of a clinical trial by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), a partner with UPMC CancerCenter. The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will be presented Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2014. It showed that the cancer immune therapy drug ipilimumab appears most likely to prevent recurrence ...

SAN DIEGO, April 4, 2014 – Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), a partner with UPMC CancerCenter, have found that an agent that inhibits mitochondrial division can overcome tumor cell resistance to a commonly used cancer drug, and that the combination of the two induces rapid and synergistic cell death. Separately, neither had an effect. These findings will be presented Monday at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2014. "In our earlier work, we found that blocking production of a protein called ...

Today we know that women carrying BCRA1 and BCRA2 gene mutations have a 43% to 88% risk of developing from breast cancer before the age of 70. Taking critical decisions such as opting for preventive surgery when the risk bracket is so wide is not easy. Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) researchers are conducting a study that will contribute towards giving every woman far more precise data about her personal risk of suffering from cancer. The paper has been authored by 200 researchers from 55 research groups from around the world and describes two new genes ...

SAN DIEGO, April 4, 2014 – Some women with endometriosis, a chronic inflammatory disease, are predisposed to ovarian cancer, and a genetic screening might someday help reveal which women are most at risk, according to a University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) study, in partnership with Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI). Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2014, UPCI and MWRI researchers will present the preliminary results of the first comprehensive immune gene profile exploring endometriosis and cancer. "A small ...

Does living with grandparents ease or worsen a mothers' baby blues? The answer may depend on the mother's marital status, a new study from Duke University suggests. Married and single mothers suffer higher rates of depression when they live in multi-generational households in their baby's first year of life, the study found. But for moms who live with their romantic partners but aren't married, having one or more grandparents in the house is linked to lower rates of depression. The pattern held true for rich, poor and middle class women. The findings varied by race, ...