Scientists at the Danish Stem Cell Center, DanStem, at the University of Copenhagen have discovered that they can make embryonic stem cells regress to a stage of development where they are able to make placenta cells as well as the other fetal cells. This significant discovery, published in the journal Cell Reports today, has the potential to shed new light on placenta related disorders that can lead to problematic pregnancies and miscarriages. Embryonic stem cells can make all kinds of adult cells in the human body such as muscle, blood or brain cells. However, these ...

Research from the University of Sheffield has found that the wider range of policy approaches and measures which have been introduced in all EU Member States over the past five years have had a significant impact on preventing businesses and people from engaging in undeclared work. The research, led Professor Colin Williams from the University of Sheffield, found an incremental decline in the size of the undeclared economy from the equivalent of 22.3 percent of GDP in 2003 to 18.4 percent by 2012 - although with big differences between countries, revealing a clear north-south ...

This news release is available in German. Loading a lithium-ion battery produces lithium atoms that are taken up by the graphite layers of the negative electrode. However, the capacity of graphite is limited to one lithium atom per six carbon atoms. Silicon could take up to ten times more lithium. But unfortunately, it strongly expands during this process – which leads to unsolved problems in battery applications. Looking for an alternative to pure silicon, scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen have now synthesized a novel framework structure consisting ...

Every 6.6 years, the comet Giacobini-Zinner circulates through the inner solar system and passes through the perihelion, the closest point to the Sun of its orbit. Then, the comet sublimates the ices and ejects a large number of particles that are distributed in filaments. The oldest of these particles have formed a swarm that the Earth passes trough every year in early October. The result is a Draconid meteor shower –meteors from this comet come from the northern constellation Draco–, which hits the Earth's atmosphere at about 75,000 km/h, a relatively slow speed in comparison ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study by researchers from Brown University finds more evidence that breastfeeding is good for babies' brains. The study made use of specialized, baby-friendly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the brain growth in a sample of children under the age of 4. The research found that by age 2, babies who had been breastfed exclusively for at least three months had enhanced development in key parts of the brain compared to children who were fed formula exclusively or who were fed a combination of formula and breastmilk. The ...

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – Human Argonautes (hAgo), are key proteins involved in a process known as RNA interference. RNAi, as it is often called, is a mechanism that cells use to regulate gene expression. Human Argonaute-2 (hAgo2) is known as "slicer" for its unique ability among the 4 human Argonaute proteins to directly cut messenger RNA -- which carries the information coded in genomic DNA to make a protein -- and thus disable "messages" generated from genes. The atomic resolution structure of hAgo2 solved previously, revealed the active site, a region of the enzyme ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - While aspirin has been shown to be effective in preventing heart attacks in men, it also increases the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding and possibly stroke, even at low doses. As such, national guidelines suggest that aspirin be used for prevention only in men at higher risk for cardiovascular events, so that the benefits of aspirin are greater than its adverse effects. Recent data suggest that aspirin may also be effective for reducing cancer deaths. Would the possible combined health benefits of reducing heart attacks and cancer outweigh the risks ...

LA JOLLA, CA – June 6, 2013 – Humans have been raising cows for their meat, hides and milk for millennia. Now it appears that the cow immune system also has something to offer. A new study led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) focusing on an extraordinary family of cow antibodies points to new ways to make human medicines. "These antibodies' structure and their mechanism for creating diversity haven't been seen before in other animals' antibodies," said Vaughn V. Smider, assistant professor of cell and molecular biology at TSRI and principal investigator ...

Conservatives are more likely than liberals to identify mixed-race individuals as Black, according to a series of new studies by researchers at New York University. Their findings, which appear in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, suggest that there is a link between political ideology and racial categorization. "A person's race is often thought to be clear-cut and fixed," explains Amy Krosch, a doctoral student in New York University's Department of Psychology and the lead author of the paper. "However, our research suggests that the perception of a person ...

CHICAGO --- A phase 1 clinical trial for the first treatment to reset the immune system of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients showed the therapy was safe and dramatically reduced patients' immune systems' reactivity to myelin by 50 to 75 percent, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. In MS, the immune system attacks and destroys myelin, the insulating layer that forms around nerves in the spinal cord, brain and optic nerve. When the insulation is destroyed, electrical signals can't be effectively conducted, resulting in symptoms that range from mild limb numbness ...

Grenoble, 5 June 2013: An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of the world's oldest known fossil primate skeleton representing a previously unknown genus and species named Archicebus achilles. The fossil was unearthed from an ancient lake bed in central China's Hubei Province, near the course of the modern Yangtze River. In addition to being the oldest known example of an early primate skeleton, the new fossil is crucial in elucidating a pivotal event in primate and human evolution—the evolutionary divergence that led to modern monkeys, apes and ...

An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of the world's oldest known fossil primate skeleton, an animal that lived about 55 million years ago and was even smaller than today's smallest primate, the pygmy mouse lemur. The new specimen, named Archicebus achilles, was unearthed from an ancient lake bed in central China's Hubei Province, near the course of the modern Yangtze River. In addition to being the oldest known example of an early primate skeleton, this almost complete new fossil is crucial for illuminating a pivotal event in primate and human ...

A new Lancet series on maternal and childhood nutrition finds that over 3 million children die every year of malnutrition—accounting for nearly half of all child deaths under 5. Along with state-of-the-art global estimates on the long-term burden of malnutrition, the series presents a new framework for prevention and treatment that considers underlying factors, such as food security, social conditions, resources, and governance. Professor Robert Black, Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, led the consortium of experts ...

A team of researchers from Emory, University of Miami and Scripps Research Institute has identified a compound that can reduce PTSD-like symptoms in mice after they are exposed to stress. The discovery could lead to a treatment given to people shortly after a traumatic event, aimed at preventing possible PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The results are scheduled for publication Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The team's research meshes with recent studies – one looking at military personnel injured in Iraq -- hinting that morphine administration ...

DeKalb, Ill. – An international team of paleontologists that includes Northern Illinois University anthropologist Dan Gebo is announcing the discovery of a nearly complete, articulated skeleton of a new tiny, tree-dwelling primate dating back 55 million years. The Eocene Epoch fossil was recovered from Hubei Province in central China. "This is the oldest primate skeleton of this quality and completeness ever discovered and one of the most primitive primate fossils ever documented," Gebo said. "The origin of primates sets the first milestone for all primate lineages, ...

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania…An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of the world's oldest known fossil primate skeleton representing a previously unknown genus and species named Archicebus achilles. The fossil was unearthed from an ancient lake bed in central China's Hubei Province, near the course of the modern Yangtze River. In addition to being the oldest known example of an early primate skeleton, the new fossil is crucial for illuminating a pivotal event in primate and human evolution—the evolutionary divergence between the lineage leading to ...

A clinical study has found that electronic stimulation therapy to reduce obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is safe and effective. The Stimulation Therapy for Apnea Reduction (The STAR Trial) evaluated an implantable electronic stimulation device called Inspire™ Upper Airway Stimulation (UAS) therapy designed to deliver mild stimulation to the main nerve of the tongue (hypoglossal nerve) on each breathing cycle during sleep. The stimulation is intended to restore tone to key airway muscles and prevent airway collapse. Patients control when the Inspire therapy is turned ...

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, the University of Oxford, NIMR Tanzania and Retrogenix LTD, have identified how malaria parasites growing inside red blood cells stick to the sides of blood vessels in severe cases of malaria. The discovery may advance the development of vaccines or drugs to combat severe malaria by stopping the parasites attaching to blood vessels. The results are now published in the scientific journal Nature. Though researchers have known for over a century that red blood cells ...

Survivors of sexual violence have long gone without treatment and suffered debilitating symptoms of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. But a randomized controlled study of 405 rape survivors in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo proves that short-term therapy delivered by para-professionals is effective at reducing mental health symptoms, according to a study released in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, "Controlled Trial of Psychotherapy for Congolese Survivors of Sexual Violence," provided 154 women cognitive processing therapy ...

Tampa, FL (June 5, 2013) -- A combination of nontoxic dietary and hyperbaric oxygen therapies effectively increased survival time in a mouse model of aggressive metastatic cancer, a research team from the Hyperbaric Biomedical Research Laboratory at the University of South Florida has found. The study, "The Ketogenic Diet and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Prolong Survival in Mice with Systemic Metastatic Cancer," was published online today in PLOS ONE. Led by Dominic D'Agostino, PhD, principal investigator in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the ...

Researchers from the UCLA Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology have isolated a new population of primitive, stress-resistant human pluripotent stem cells easily derived from fat tissue that are able to differentiate into virtually every cell type in the human body without genetic modification. The cells, called Multi-lineage Stress-Enduring (Muse-AT) stem cells from fat, or adipose, tissue, were discovered by "scientific accident" when a piece of equipment failed in the lab, killing all the stem cells in the experiment except for the Muse-AT cells. The research team ...

Medieval chronicles have given an international group of researchers a glimpse into the past to assess how historical volcanic eruptions affected the weather in Ireland up to 1500 years ago. By critically assessing over 40,000 written entries in the Irish Annals and comparing them with measurements taken from ice cores, the researchers successfully linked the climatic aftermath of volcanic eruptions to extreme cold weather events in Ireland over a 1200-year period from 431 to 1649. Their study, which has been published today, 6 June, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental ...

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have reported* the first observation of the "spin Hall effect" in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a cloud of ultracold atoms acting as a single quantum object. As one consequence, they made the atoms, which spin like a child's top, skew to one side or the other, by an amount dependent on the spin direction. Besides offering new insight into the quantum mechanical world, they say the phenomenon is a step toward applications in "atomtronics"—the use of ultracold atoms as circuit components. The spin ...

Boston, MA – Reaching puberty at an unusually early age can have adverse effects on social behavior and psychological development, as well as physical effects, including short stature, and lifelong health risks, such as diabetes, breast cancer and heart disease. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), in a multi-institutional collaboration with Boston Children's Hospital, the Broad Institute, and the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, have identified that a genetic mutation leads to a type of premature puberty, known as central precocious puberty. Central precocious ...

When injected into mice immediately following a traumatic event, a new drug prevents the animals from developing memory problems and increased anxiety that are indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists utilized mouse studies to suggest that a receptor called Oprl1 is altered in mice with PTSD-like symptoms. They then worked with a group at the Scripps Research Institute who had previously developed the Oprl1-targeted drug to examine its effects on fear memory modulation. The group has also shown that in humans, ...