WASHINGTON D.C. August 9, 2013 -- For most of us, a modern lifestyle without polymers is unthinkable…if only we knew what they were. The ordinary hardware-store terms we use for them include "plastics, polyethylene, epoxy resins, paints, adhesives, rubber" -- without ever recognizing the physical and chemical structures shared by this highly varied -- and talented -- family of engineering materials. Polymers increasingly form key components of electronic devices, too -- and with its ever-escalating pursuit of high efficiency and low cost, the electronics industry prizes ...

The process cells use to 'swallow' up nutrients, hormones and other signals from their environment – called endocytosis – can play a crucial role in shaping the cells themselves, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have found. The study, published today in Nature Communications, could help explain how the cells on your skin become different from those that line your stomach or intestine. "We're the first to show that endocytosis really drives changes in cell shape by directly remodelling the cell membrane," says Stefano ...

An evolutionary ecologist at the University of Southampton, is using 'grains of sand' to understand more about the process of evolution. Dr Thomas Ezard is using the fossils of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera, often less than a millimetre in size, which can be found in all of the world's oceans. The remains of their shells now resemble grains of sand to the naked eye and date back hundreds of millions of years. A new paper by Dr Ezard, published today (9 August 2013) in the journal Methods in Ecology & Evolution, opens the debate on the best ...

Creating an environment that nurtures the trillions of beneficial microbes in our gut and, at the same time, protects us against invasion by food-borne pathogens is a challenge. A study published on August 8 in PLOS Pathogens reveals the role of a key player in this balancing act. SIGIRR is a protein present at the surface of the cells that line the gut that dampens the innate (non-specific) immune response of these cells to bacteria. The new study, led by Xiaoxia Li (from the Lerner Research Institute in Cleveland, USA) and Bruce Vallance (from BC's Childrens' Hospital ...

Nephrologists whose dialysis patients had the best survival over six years had a significantly lower patient caseload than nephrologists whose patients had the worst survival. For every additional 50 patients cared for by a nephrologist, patients had a 2% higher risk of dying within six years. Worldwide, more than 1.5 million people are treated with hemodialysis. Washington, DC (August 8, 2013) — Dialysis patients receiving treatment from kidney specialists with a higher patient caseload have a greater risk of dying prematurely than those receiving care from specialists ...

Researchers at JILA have for the first time used an atomic clock as a quantum simulator, mimicking the behavior of a different, more complex quantum system.* Atomic clocks now join a growing list of physical systems that can be used for modeling and perhaps eventually explaining the quantum mechanical behavior of exotic materials such as high-temperature superconductors, which conduct electricity without resistance. All but the smallest, most trivial quantum systems are too complicated to simulate on classical computers, hence the interest in quantum simulators. Sharing ...

Telemedicine consultations with pediatric critical-care medicine physicians significantly improve the quality of care for seriously ill and injured children treated in remote rural emergency rooms, where pediatricians and pediatric specialists are scarce, a study by researchers at UC Davis Children's Hospital has found. The study also found that rural emergency room physicians are more likely to adjust their pediatric patients' diagnoses and course of treatment after a live, interactive videoconference with a specialist. Parents' satisfaction and perception of the quality ...

A new study has shone a spotlight on the peacekeeping mechanisms in our intestines. A protein, called SIGIRR, is produced by the cells that line the intestines. It supresses the cells' immune response to bacteria. "We expected that when SIGIRR was removed, our intestines would trigger a stronger immune response to a gut infection, affording us more protection against the infection," says Prof. Bruce Vallance, an associate professor in UBC's Dept. of Pediatrics and a scientist at the Child & Family Research Institute at BC Children's Hospital. "Instead, the stronger ...

Autism affects different parts of the brain in females with autism than males with autism, a new study reveals. The research is published today in the journal Brain as an open-access article. Scientists at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge used magnetic resonance imaging to examine whether autism affects the brain of males and females in a similar or different way. They found that the anatomy of the brain of someone with autism substantially depends on whether an individual is male or female, with brain areas that were atypical in adult females ...

For many inherited diseases, such as cystic fibrosis or Huntington disease, the disease-causing genetic mutation damages or removes a protein that has an essential role in the body. This protein defect is the root cause of the disease symptoms. However, for a group of muscular dystrophies known collectively as congenital muscular dystrophies (CMDs), the sequence of the protein that is central to normal function is typically unaffected. Instead, the defects lie in processing proteins—ones that are responsible for modifying the central protein by adding sugar chains (glycans). ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Are you influenced by the opinions of other people — say, in the comments sections of websites? If your answer is no, here's another question: Are you sure? A new study co-authored by an MIT professor suggests that many people are, in fact, heavily influenced by the positive opinions other people express online — but are much less swayed by negative opinions posted in the same venues. Certain topics, including politics, see much more of this "herding" effect than others. The results, published today in the journal Science, detail a five-month experiment ...

This news release is available in German. If one wants to better understand how plants grow, one must analyse the chemistry of life in its molecular detail. Michael Hothorn from the Friedrich-Miescher-Laboratory of the Max Planck Society in Tübingen and his team are doing just that. Their latest work now reveals that a plant membrane receptor requires a helper protein to sense a growth-promoting steroid hormone and to transduce this signal across the cell membrane. Every cell is surrounded by a greasy cell membrane. Signals from other cells and from the environment ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Scientists are developing a clearer picture of how visual systems develop in mammals. The findings offer important clues to the origin of retinal disorders later in life. In research published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, University at Buffalo scientists and colleagues focused on a particular protein, called a transcription factor, that regulates gene activity necessary for the development of one type of retinal neuron, the horizontal cells. The paper is at http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/32/13053.full. Horizontal cells process ...

An investigational malaria vaccine has been found to be safe, to generate an immune system response, and to offer protection against malaria infection in healthy adults, according to the results of an early-stage clinical trial published Aug. 8 in the journal Science. The vaccine, known as PfSPZ Vaccine, was developed by scientists at Sanaria Inc., of Rockville, Md. The clinical evaluation was conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their collaborators at the Walter Reed ...

Periodic flooding in Texas—one the most flood-prone states in the nation—cannot be firmly linked to climate change due to numerous dams and other manmade structures introduced over the years, according to a University of Iowa study. The researchers also found that tropical cyclones are less responsible for major floods in the region than in the eastern United States. The study, which looked at 70 years of records, appears in the August 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Water Resources Association. Lead author Gabriele Villarini, assistant professor in the ...

LA JOLLA, CA—August 8, 2012—A small group of immune-regulating molecules, when overproduced even moderately, can trigger the blood cancers known as lymphomas, according to a new study led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI). The six "microRNA" molecules were already known to be overproduced in lymphomas and in many other human cancers, but no one had demonstrated that they can be the prime cause of such cancers—until now. The new study also identified the major biological pathways through which these microRNAs ignite and maintain cancerous growth. "We ...

Ten years ago, scientists announced the end of the Human Genome Project, the international attempt to learn which combination of four nucleotides—adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine—is unique to homo sapien DNA. This biological alphabet helped researchers identify the approximately 25,000 genes coded in the human genome, but as time went on, questions arose about how all of these genes are controlled. Now, Harvard Stem Cell Institute Principal Faculty member Alexander Meissner, PhD, reports another milestone, this time contributing to the multilayered NIH-funded human ...

Scientists would like to apply the same principles by which baking soda removes food odors from refrigerators or silica powder keeps moisture away from electronic devices to scrub carbon dioxide from the exhaust gases of fossil fuel power plants. An excellent candidate for this task is the class of materials known as multivariate metal organic frameworks or MTV-MOFs, which were discovered by Omar Yaghi, one of the world's most cited chemists. However, finding and synthesizing the best MTV-MOFs for this task has been a major challenge. That discouraging state-of-affairs ...

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have solved a 40-year mystery on the origin of the Magellanic Stream, a long ribbon of gas stretching nearly halfway around our Milky Way galaxy. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, are at the head of the gaseous stream. Since the stream's discovery by radio telescopes in the early 1970s, astronomers have wondered whether the gas comes from one or both of the satellite galaxies. New Hubble observations reveal most of the gas was stripped from the Small Magellanic Cloud about ...

NOAA scientists report the discovery of the first known colony of table coral off of the south shore of O'ahu in Hawai'i. A report on the discovery was published last month in the Bulletin of Marine Science. Given its common name due to its flat-topped, table-like shape, table coral (Acropora cytherea) is one of the primary reef-building corals throughout most of the tropical Pacific, but it has never been observed in waters off O'ahu - until now, researchers said. The coral, estimated to be 14 years old, was found at a depth of 60 feet during a training dive. "This ...

Generally, FDA-approved clinical trials progress through three phases: the first shows safety, the second starts to explore effects and the third seeks to prove a drug's superiority over existing treatments. But when a drug's benefit is obvious in the first or second phase, is the third, costly phase needed? The question is posed in a recent edition of the journal Nature Reviews: Clinical Oncology by Robert C. Doebele, MD, PhD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and assistant professor of medical oncology at the CU School of Medicine. Doebele points ...

Gemini Observatory's latest instrument, a powerful infrared camera and spectrograph at Gemini South, reveals its potential in a series of striking on-sky commissioning images released today. Gemini Observatory's latest tool for astronomers, a second-generation infrared instrument called FLAMINGOS-2, has "traveled a long road" to begin science observations for the Gemini scientific community. Recent images taken by FLAMINGOS-2 during its last commissioning phase dramatically illustrate that the instrument was worth the wait for astronomers around the world who are anxious ...

A faith-based prisoner re-entry program in Minnesota has saved an estimated $3 million by reducing recidivism, according to a Baylor University study published in the International Journal of Criminology and Sociology. The study is a cost-benefit analysis of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, a program which relies heavily on volunteers and is privately funded, said study co-author Byron Johnson, Ph.D., co-director of Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR). "The InnerChange program is a boon to taxpayers. It doesn't rely on public funding. Yet, at the same ...

Researchers at the Moffitt Cancer Center have identified four inherited genetic variants in non-small cell lung cancer patients that can help predict survival and treatment response. Their findings could help lead to more personalized treatment options and improved outcomes for patients. The researchers analyzed DNA sequence variations in 651 non-small cell lung cancer patients, paying close attention to 53 inflammation-related genes. They found that four of the top 15 variants associated with survival were located on one specific gene (TNFRSF10B). In the study, these ...

Before the digital age, neuroscientists got their information in the library like the rest of us. But the field's explosion has created nearly 2 million papers -- more data than any researcher can read and absorb in a lifetime. That's why a UCLA team has invented research maps. Equipped with an online app, the maps help neuroscientists quickly scan what is already known and plan their next study. The Aug. 8 edition of Neuron describes the findings. "Information overload is the elephant in the room that most neuroscientists pretend to ignore," explained principal ...