CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Ceramics are not known for their flexibility: they tend to crack under stress. But researchers from MIT and Singapore have just found a way around that problem -- for very tiny objects, at least. The team has developed a way of making minuscule ceramic objects that are not only flexible, but also have a "memory" for shape: When bent and then heated, they return to their original shapes. The surprising discovery is reported this week in the journal Science, in a paper by MIT graduate student Alan Lai, professor Christopher Schuh, and two collaborators ...

How using echocardiography is increasing detection rates of rheumatic heart disease (RHD) many-fold is the subject of one of the papers in the RHD special issue of Global Heart, the journal of the World Heart Federation, and written by Dr Anita Saxena, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India; Dr Liesl Zühlke, University of Cape Town and Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa; and Dr Nigel Wilson, Starship Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand. In 2012, the World Heart Federation introduced new guidelines for diagnosis of RHD using ...

Assessing the risk posed to aquatic organisms by the discharge of certain steroids and pharmaceutical products into waterways is often based on a belief that as the compounds degrade, the ecological risks naturally decline. But there's growing sentiment that once in the environment, some of these bioactive organic compounds may transform in a way that makes their presumed impact less certain. A new study led by the University of Iowa and published online Thursday in the journal Science found this was the case with the anabolic steroid trenbolone acetate and two other ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Sixty years ago scientists could electrically stimulate a region of a mouse's brain causing the mouse to eat, whether hungry or not. Now researchers from UNC School of Medicine have pinpointed the precise cellular connections responsible for triggering that behavior. The finding, published September 27 in the journal Science, lends insight into a cause for obesity and could lead to treatments for anorexia, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder -- the most prevalent eating disorder in the United States. "The study underscores that obesity and ...

Researchers at Institut Hospital del Mar d'Investigacions Mèdiques (IMIM) in Barcelona, in collaboration with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and other U.S. Institutions, have found that intestinal mucus not only acts as a physical barrier against commensal bacteria and dietary antigens, but also prevents the onset of inflammatory reactions against these agents. This fundamental property of mucus was unknown until now and its discovery could potentially improve the life of people suffering from inflammatory bowel disease. Mucus is a colloidal gel ...

Drexel University researchers are continuing to expand the capabilities and functionalities of a family of two-dimensional materials they discovered that are as thin as a single atom, but have the potential to store massive amounts of energy. Their latest achievement has pushed the materials storage capacities to new levels while also allowing for their use in flexible devices. About three years ago, Dr. Michel W. Barsoum and Dr. Yury Gogotsi, professors in Drexel's College of Engineering, discovered atomically thin, two-dimensional materials -similar to graphene- that ...

Scientists routinely seek to reprogram bacteria to produce proteins for drugs, biofuels and more, but they have struggled to get those bugs to follow orders. But a hidden feature of the genetic code, it turns out, could get bugs with the program. The feature controls how much of the desired protein bacteria produce, a team from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University reported in the September 26 online issue of Science. The findings could be a boon for biotechnologists, and they could help synthetic biologists reprogram bacteria ...

Solar storms — powerful eruptions of solar material and magnetic fields into interplanetary space — can cause what is known as "space weather" near Earth, resulting in hazards that range from interference with communications systems and GPS errors to extensive power blackouts and the complete failure of critical satellites. New research published today increases our understanding of Earth's space environment and how space weather develops. Some of the energy emitted by the sun during solar storms is temporarily stored in Earth's stretched and compressed magnetic ...

New NOAA-led research on tagged humpback whales in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary reveals a variety of previously unknown feeding techniques along the seafloor. Rather than a single bottom feeding behavior, the whales show three distinct feeding approaches: simple side-rolls, side-roll inversions, and repetitive scooping. A recently published paper, in the journal Marine Mammal Science, indicates that bottom side-roll techniques are common in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and the Great South Channel study area, a deep-water passage between Nantucket, ...

MADISON – For astrophysicists, the interplay of hydrogen — the most common molecule in the universe — and the vast clouds of dust that fill the voids of interstellar space has been an intractable puzzle of stellar evolution. The dust, astronomers believe, is a key phase in the life cycle of stars, which are formed in dusty nurseries throughout the cosmos. But how the dust interacts with hydrogen and is oriented by the magnetic fields in deep space has proved a six-decade-long theoretical challenge. Now, an international team of astronomers reports key observations that ...

When termites munch on wood, the small bits are delivered to feed a community of unique microbes living in their guts, and in a complex process involving multiple steps, these microbes turn the hard, fibrous material into a nutritious meal for the termite host. One key step uses hydrogen to convert carbon dioxide into organic carbon—a process called acetogenesis—but little is known about which gut bacteria play specific roles in the process. Utilizing a variety of experimental techniques, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have now discovered ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A recent study from Rhode Island Hospital has found that a change in the way police respond to drug-related overdose emergencies could contribute to improved outcomes of the victims and to the communities where overdoses occur. The study found that while law enforcement officers often serve as medical first responders, there is a lack of clarity as to what police can do, or should do, at the scene of an overdose. The study is published online in advance of print in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. The study included interviews to better understand ...

JUPITER, FL, September 26, 2013 – It's difficult and time-consuming to produce accurate computer models of molecules, primarily because traditional modeling methods are limited in their ability to handle alternative molecular shapes and, consequently, are subject to multiple errors. Moreover, the traditional approach uses mathematical formulas or algorithms that are run sequentially, refining the structural details of the model with each separate algorithm—a method that has been revolutionized by personal computing, but still requires labor-intensive human intervention ...

WASHINGTON, DC—The quest for evidence of life on Mars could be more difficult than scientists previously thought. A scientific paper published today details the investigation of a chemical in the Martian soil that interferes with the techniques used by the Curiosity rover to test for traces of life. The chemical causes the evidence to burn away during the tests. In search of clues to life's presence on Mars – now or in the past – Curiosity checks Martian soil and rocks for molecules known as organic carbon compounds that are the hallmark of living organisms on Earth. While ...

RENO, Nev. – New regulatory approaches may be needed to assess environmental risks of agricultural growth promoters, and similar human pharmaceuticals, following research that shows a newly found reversion mechanism allows unexpected persistence of the steroidal substances in aquatic environments. Results of the research will be published in an article in the renowned journal Science – the weekly journal of AAAS, the science society – next month and are available immediately online in Science Express. "We investigated trenbolone, an anabolic steroid, and found that ...

A group of researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created the optical equivalent of a tuning fork—a device that can help steady the electrical currents needed to power high-end electronics and stabilize the signals of high-quality lasers. The work marks the first time that such a device has been miniaturized to fit on a chip and may pave the way to improvements in high-speed communications, navigation, and remote sensing. "When you're tuning a piano, a tuning fork gives a standardized pitch, or reference sound frequency; in optical resonators ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Activating a mother's immune system during her pregnancy disrupts the development of neural cells in the brain of her offspring and damages the cells' ability to transmit signals and communicate with one another, researchers with the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience and Department of Neurology have found. They said the finding suggests how maternal viral infection might increase the risk of having a child with autism spectrum disorder or schizophrenia. The research, "MHCI Requires MEF2 Transcription Factors to Negatively Regulate Synapse Density ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2013—Tracking blood flow in the laboratory is an important tool for studying ailments like migraines or strokes and designing new ways to address them. Blood flow is also routinely measured in the clinic, and laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) is one way of measuring these changes; however, this technique requires professional-grade imaging equipment, which limits its use. Now, using $90 worth of off-the-shelf commercial parts including a webcam and a laser pointer, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) have duplicated the ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Sept. 26, 2013 — Within its first three months on Mars, NASA's Curiosity Rover saw a surprising diversity of soils and sediments along a half-kilometer route that tell a complex story about the gradual desiccation of the Red Planet. Perhaps most notable among findings from the ChemCam team is that all of the dust and fine soil contains small amounts of water. "We made this discovery literally with the very first laser shot on the Red Planet," said Roger Wiens, leader of the ChemCam instrument team. "Every single time we shot at dust we saw a significant ...

Female promiscuity—something that occurs in a majority of species, including humans—results in the ejaculates from two or more males overlapping within her reproductive tract. When this happens, sperm compete for fertilization of the female's eggs. In addition, the female has the opportunity to bias fertilization of her eggs in favor of one male's sperm over others. These processes, collectively known as postcopulatory sexual selection, drive a myriad of rapid, coordinated evolutionary changes in ejaculate and female reproductive tract traits. These changes have been ...

SANTA MONICA, CA -- A new urine test for prostate cancer that measures minute fragments of RNA is now commercially available to men nationwide through the University of Michigan MLabs. The new test—Mi-Prostate Score (MiPS)—improves the utility of the PSA blood test, increases physicians' ability to pick out high-risk prostate tumors from low-risk tumors in patients, and may help tens of thousands of men avoid unnecessary biopsies. The MiPS test incorporates blood PSA levels and two molecular RNA markers specific for prostate cancer in one final score that provides men ...

Certain diseases such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy are linked to genetic mutations that damage the important biological process of rearranging gene sequences in pre-messenger RNA, a procedure called RNA splicing. These conditions are difficult to prevent because scientists are still grasping to understand how the splicing process works. Now, researchers from Brandeis University and the University of Massachusetts Medical School have teamed up to unravel a major component in understanding the process of RNA splicing. In a recent paper published in Cell ...

Like the plastic caps at the end of shoelaces, telomeres protect — in their case — the interior-gene containing parts of chromosomes that carry a cell's instructional material. Cancer cells are known to have short telomeres, but just how short they are from cancer cell to cancer cell may be a determining factor in a prostate cancer patient's prognosis, according to a study led by Johns Hopkins scientists. "Doctors are looking for new ways to accurately predict prostate cancer patients' prognoses, because the current methods that use disease stage, Gleason score, and PSA ...

The effects of childhood abuse and lack of parental affection can last a lifetime, taking a toll both emotionally and physically. There are many reports assessing the psychological damage resulting from childhood abuse, and the effects on physical health have also been well documented. For instance, this "toxic" stress has been linked to elevated cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome and other physical conditions posing a significant health risk. The research into the physical effects of abuse, however, has focused on separate, individual systems. A ...

A University of Virginia engineering professor has proposed a novel approach for keeping waste carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Andres Clarens, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at U.Va.'s School of Engineering and Applied Science, and graduate student Zhiyuan Tao have published a paper in which they estimate the amount of carbon dioxide that could be stored in hydraulically fractured shale deposits after the methane gas has been extracted. Their peer-reviewed finding was published in Environmental Science and Technology, a publication ...