09 Sept 2013 - Scientists at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), in collaboration with their counterparts from Canada, Hong Kong and US, have discovered a protein mediator SON plays a critical role in the health and proper functioning of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). This finding was reported on 8th September 2013 in the advanced online issue of the prestigious science journal Nature Cell Biology. Correct expression of genes is essential for a cell to stay alive and to perform other cellular and physiological functions. During gene expression, DNA is first ...

The relationship between crop richness and predator-prey interactions as they relate to pest-natural enemy systems is a very important topic in ecology and greatly affects biological control services. Professor GE Feng and his group from State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences set out to tackle this problem. After 4-years of field experiments, they have developed a novel experimental model system using microlandscape to examine resource concentration hypothesis and discovered the ecological ...

This news release is available in German. A major aim of today's neuroscience is to understand how an organism's nervous system processes sensory input and generates behavior. To achieve this goal, scientists must obtain detailed maps of how the nerve cells are wired up in the brain, as well as information on how these networks interact in real time. The organism many neuroscientists turn to in order to study brain function is a tiny, transparent worm found in rotting soil. The simple nematode C. elegans is equipped with just 302 neurons that are connected by ...

An international team of scientists led by the UK's John Innes Centre and including scientists from Australia, Japan, the US and France has perfected a way of watching genes move within a living plant cell. Using this technique scientists watched glowing spots, which marked the position of the genes, huddle together in the cold as the genes were switched "off". "The movement of genes within the nucleus, captured here using live imaging, seems to play a role in switching their activity on and off", said first author Stefanie Rosa from the John Innes Centre. "In our ...

You can't saw without producing sawdust – and that can be expensive if, for example, the "dust" comes from wafer manufacturing in the photovoltaic and semiconductor industries, where relatively high kerf loss has been accepted as an unavoidable, if highly regrettable, fact of life. But now scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg together with colleagues from the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation CSIRO have developed a saw wire that is set to effect dramatic reductions in kerf loss: in place ...

This news release is available in German. How does a classical temperature form in the quantum world? An experiment at the Vienna University of Technology has directly observed the emergence and the spreading of a temperature in a quantum system. Remarkably, the quantum properties are lost, even though the quantum system is completely isolated and not connected to the outside world. The experimental results are being published in this week's issue of "Nature Physics". Quantum and Classical Physics: From the Microscopic to the Macroscopic World The connection between ...

Heidelberg, 9 September 2013 – With only two weeks to go and almost a thousand participants registered, the preparations for The EMBO Meeting 2013 have reached their final stages. This year's conference takes place in Amsterdam from 21-24 September. Kai Simons will deliver the opening keynote lecture and explain how intricate changes in membrane structure can influence how cells work. In further keynote lectures, Hans Clevers will discuss how stem cells are involved in self-renewal and disease and Sir Michael Stratton will talk about how genetic changes contribute to ...

Biologists and physicists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, found out that not all of the Southern Hemisphere humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) migrate towards the equator at the end of the Antarctic summer. Part of the population remains in Antarctic waters throughout the entire winter. The scientists report this in a current issue of scientific journal PLOS ONE. This surprising discovery based on underwater recordings from the Antarctic acoustic observatory PALAOA. PALAOA is located near the research base Neumayer ...

According to a study, young Chinese managers are unsatisfied with the career opportunities in international companies in their home country. "The promotion expectations of highly qualified Chinese employees are restricted by flat hierarchies and poor chances of permanent employment with which Western companies flexibly react to the needs of the globalised market", the sociologist Junchen Yan from Bielefeld explains. He will present the results of the study at the 32nd German Oriental Studies Conference (Deutscher Orientalistentag, DOT) in Münster in September. Owing to ...

An estimated 1.6 million smokers attempted to quit smoking because of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "Tips From Former Smokers" national ad campaign, according to a study released by the CDC. As a result of the 2012 campaign, more than 200,000 Americans had quit smoking immediately following the three-month campaign, of which researchers estimated that more than 100,000 will likely quit smoking permanently. These results exceed the campaign's original goals of 500,000 quit attempts and 50,000 successful quits. The study surveyed thousands of adult smokers ...

New research to be presented at the 18th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS 2013) this week could result in a sea change in how to secure computations. The collaborative work between the University of Bristol and Aarhus University (Denmark) will be presented by Bristol PhD student Peter Scholl from the Department of Computer Science. The paper, entitled 'Practical covertly secure MPC for dishonest majority – or: Breaking the SPDZ limits', builds upon earlier joint work between Bristol and Aarhus and fills in the missing pieces of the jigsaw ...

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have developed a method of sourcing obsidian artefacts that takes only 10 seconds – dozens of times faster than the current methods – with a handheld instrument that can be used at archaeological excavations. Obsidian, naturally occurring volcanic glass, is smooth, hard, and far sharper than a surgical scalpel when fractured, making it a highly desirable raw material for crafting stone tools for almost all of human history. The earliest obsidian tools, found in East Africa, are nearly two million years old, and obsidian scalpels ...

A team of researchers at the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has found a way to self-assemble complex structures out of bricks smaller than a grain of salt. The new method could help solve one of the major challenges in tissue engineering: creating injectable components that self-assemble into intricately structured, biocompatible scaffolds at an injury site to help regrow human tissues. The key to self-assembly was developing the world's first programmable glue. The glue is made of DNA, and it directs specific bricks of a water-filled ...

More than 371 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, of whom 90% are affected by lifestyle-related diabetes mellitus type 2 (type 2 diabetes). In new experiments, researchers from the University of Copenhagen working in collaboration with a research group at the University of Cincinnati, USA, have demonstrated that the amino acid arginine improves glucose metabolism significantly in both lean (insulin-sensitive) and obese (insulin-resistant) mice. "In fact, the amino acid is just as effective as several well-established drugs for type 2 diabetics," says postdoc ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 9, 2013–Studies have shown that caffeine users can become dependent on or addicted to caffeine and may have difficulty reducing their consumption, as can occur with other drugs of dependence. A comprehensive review of the current evidence on caffeine dependence is presented in an article in Journal of Caffeine Research, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Caffeine Research website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jcr. Steven Meredith and Roland Griffiths, Johns Hopkins ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan State University research has put the possibility of bomb-detecting lasers at security checkpoints within reach. In the current issue of Applied Physics Letters, Marcos Dantus, MSU chemistry professor and founder of BioPhotonic Solutions, has developed a laser that can detect micro traces of explosive chemicals on clothing and luggage. "Since this method uses a single beam and requires no bulky spectrometers, it is quite practical and could scan many people and their belongings quickly," Dantus said. "Not only does it detect the explosive ...

Scientists at The University of Manchester and medical institutes in Italy have identified a gene variant that predisposes people to a special type of heart attack. Their research, published in the International Journal of Cardiology could lead to the development of new drugs to treat the problem. Dr Paolo Tammaro, who led the team, said: "Heart attacks happen when the blood supply to the heart is reduced by the narrowing or blocking of the coronary artery – the vessel that supplies the heart with oxygen and nutrients. Often this is due to fatty deposits which narrow ...

Monday, September 9, 2013, Cleveland: Most patients who report statin intolerance, including muscle aches and other side effects from the cholesterol-lowering drugs, can actually tolerate drugs from this class on subsequent trials, according to research from Cleveland Clinic recently released online and forthcoming in the September issue of the American Heart Journal. The study is the largest ever to examine the effects of re-challenging statin-intolerant patients. Statins are among the most prescribed drugs in the world and are a first-line, highly effective therapy ...

A wide range of biologically inspired materials may now be possible by combining protein studies, materials science and RNA sequencing, according to an international team of researchers. "Biological methods of synthesizing materials are not new," said Melik C. Demirel, professor of engineering science and mechanics, Penn State. "What is new is the application of these principles to produce unique materials." The researchers looked at proteins because they are the building blocks of biological materials and also often control sequencing, growth and self-assembly. RNA ...

Public announcements in noisy places – such as railway stations, airports, or sports venues – could become quieter and clearer in future, thanks to new research. Scientists have developed software that can alter speech before it is broadcast over speakers, making it more audible amid background noise. In a bid to improve current synthetic voice technology, researchers studied how speech was perceived by listeners. They carried out tests to pinpoint the components of speech that are most easily heard by people in a noisy place. Experts at the University of Edinburgh, ...

PITTSBURGH—A wearable, picture-taking health monitor created by University of Pittsburgh researchers has received a recent facelift. Now, in addition to documenting what a person eats, the eButton prototype can accurately match those images against a geometric-shape library, providing a much easier method for counting calories. Published in Measurement Science and Technology, the Pitt study demonstrates a new computational tool that has been added to the eButton—a device that fastens to the shirt like a pin. Using its newly built comprehensive food-shape library, the ...

A nanoparticle shaped like a spiky ball, with magnetic properties, has been uncovered in a new method of synthesising carbon nanotubes by physicists at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Kent. Carbon nanotubes are hollow, cylindrical molecules that can be manipulated to give them useful properties. The nanoparticles were discovered accidentally on the rough surfaces of a reactor designed to grow carbon nanotubes. Described as sea urchins because of their characteristic spiny appearance, the particles consist of nanotubes filled with iron, with ...

WASHINGTON -- The growing use of social media and other mass collaboration technologies is opening up new opportunities in disaster management efforts, but is also creating new challenges for policymakers looking to incorporate these tools into existing frameworks, according to a new report from the Commons Lab at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Commons Lab, part of the Wilson Center's Science & Technology Innovation Program, hosted a September 2012 workshop bringing together emergency responders, crisis mappers, researchers, and software programmers ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society Science supporting abundant, nourishing food for a growing civilization INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — The diets of people in North America shed almost 1.5 billion pounds of unhealthy saturated and trans fat over the last six years thanks to a new phase in an ongoing agricultural revolution, an expert said here today. In an ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society New weapons on the way to battle wicked weeds INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — A somber picture of the struggle against super-weeds emerged here today as scientists described the relentless spread of herbicide-resistant menaces like pigweed and horseweed that shrug off powerful herbicides and have forced farmers in some areas ...