CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- MIT researchers have developed a lightweight structure whose tiny blocks can be snapped together much like the bricks of a child's construction toy. The new material, the researchers say, could revolutionize the assembly of airplanes, spacecraft, and even larger structures, such as dikes and levees. The new approach to construction is described in a paper appearing this week in the journal Science, co-authored by postdoc Kenneth Cheung and Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. Gershenfeld likens the structure — which is made ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Voyager 1 appears to have at long last left our solar system and entered interstellar space, says a University of Maryland-led team of researchers. Carrying Earthly greetings on a gold plated phonograph record and still-operational scientific instruments – including the Low Energy Charged Particle detector designed, built and overseen, in part, by UMD's Space Physics Group – NASA's Voyager 1 has traveled farther from Earth than any other human-made object. And now, these researchers say, it has begun the first exploration of our galaxy beyond the ...

SAN ANTONIO (Aug. 15, 2013) — Although muscle cells did not reduce in size or number in mice lacking a protective antioxidant protein, they were weaker than normal muscle cells, researchers from the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio found. The scientists, who are faculty in the university's School of Medicine, are studying how oxidative stress in cells impacts sarcopenia — a loss of muscle mass and strength that occurs in all humans as they age. Protein knocked out selectively The antioxidant ...

(Boston) – According to a new study from the Slone Epidemiology Center (SEC) at Boston University, African-American women who reported more frequent experiences of racism had a greater likelihood of adult-onset asthma compared to women who reported less frequent experiences. The study, which currently appears on-line in the journal Chest, was led by Patricia Coogan, DSc, senior epidemiologist at SEC and research professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. This study followed 38,142 African-American women, all of whom are participants in ...

A natural form of sugar could offer a new, noninvasive way to precisely image tumors and potentially see whether cancer medication is effective, by means of a new imaging technology developed at UC San Francisco in collaboration with GE Healthcare. The technology uses a compound called pyruvate, which is created when glucose breaks down in the body and which normally supplies energy to cells. In cancer, however, pyruvate is more frequently converted to a different compound, known as lactate. Previous animal studies showed that scientists could track the levels of pyruvate ...

The human body is a complicated system of blood vessels, nerves, organs, tissue and cells each with a specific job to do. When all are working together, it's a symphony of form and function as each instrument plays its intended roles. Biologist Rejji Kuruvilla and her fellow researchers uncovered what happens when one instrument is not playing its part. Kuruvilla along with graduate students Philip Borden and Jessica Houtz, both from the Biology Department at Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Steven Leach from the McKusick-Nathans ...

(SALT LAKE CITY)—If terrorists targeted the United States with an anthrax attack, health care providers and policy makers would need key information – such as knowing the likelihood of an individual becoming infected, how many cases to expect and in what pattern, and how long to give antibiotics – to protect people from the deadly bacteria. Those questions gained urgency when anthrax-laced letters killed five people and infected 17 others in the wake of the terror attacks of September 2001. Now, using information from prior animal studies and data from a deadly anthrax ...

The ability to control nanoscale imperfections in superconducting wires results in materials with unparalleled and customized performance, according to a new study from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Applications for superconducting wires, which carry electricity without resistance when cooled to a critical temperature, include underground transmission cables, transformers and large-scale motors and generators. But these applications require wires to operate under different temperature and magnetic field regimes. A team led by ORNL's Amit ...

NORTH GRAFTON, Mass. (August 15, 2013) – New research from Tufts University scientists shows that feral cats that undergo a vasectomy or hysterectomy could reduce a feral colony's numbers more effectively than the traditional approach of neutering. This may be because vasectomized cats retain reproductive hormones, in addition to not being able to reproduce, and therefore protect their turf from sexually intact competitors. The findings, derived from a computer-based model and published in the August 15 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, ...

A trio of fires continues to plague Northern California. In this MODIS image from the Terra satellite, all three fires can be detected. The Corral Complex fire was started by lightning on August 10, 2013. It is located in the Trinity Alps Wilderness and is burning within the 1999 Megram Fire area. The fire is now approximately 2,500 acres. Growth potential for this fire is high and the terrain the fire is located in is extreme. The Orleans Complex fire started on July 29th, 2013 and the cause of the fire is still under investigation. The fire was moderated by good ...

MISSOULA – Findings from a large-scale ice drilling study on the Greenland ice sheet by a team of University of Montana and University of Wyoming researchers may revise the models used to predict how ice sheets move. The work was published in Science on Aug. 15 in a paper titled "Basal Drainage System Response to Increasing Surface Melt on the Greenland Ice Sheet." The bed of the Greenland ice sheet, hidden beneath hundreds to thousands of meters of ice, is one of the most isolated locations on earth – making it difficult for scientists to understand just how the second ...

James Bond had his reasons for ordering his martinis "shaken, not stirred." Similarly, drug manufacturers need to make sure the molecules in a new drug are arranged in an exact manner, lest there be dire consequences. Specifically, they need to be wary of enantiomers, mirror-image molecules composed of the same atoms, but arranged differently. "One mirror image could be therapeutic while another could be poisonous," said Dr. Mark R. Biscoe, assistant professor of chemistry at The City College of New York. The classic case is thalidomide, a drug marketed in the 1950s and ...

Infrared data from NASA's Aqua satellite showed strong thunderstorms had developed in the eastern Atlantic low pressure system that grew into Tropical Storm Erin. NASA's TRMM satellite noticed a "hot tower" in the storm's center, and research has shown tropical cyclones that have them will intensify as this storm did. The low pressure area called System 93L in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean consolidated and organized during the overnight hours of Aug. 14 and 15 and became Tropical Depression 5L. During the early morning hours of Aug. 15 the depression strengthened further ...

NASA satellite data revealed that the day after Typhoon Utor made landfall in southern China, its circulation still appeared intact despite weakening over land. Typhoon Utor's eye made landfall around 0730 UTC/3:30 a.m. EDT on Aug. 14. On Aug. 15, Utor was still dropping rain over southern China. NASA's Terra satellite passed over China at 03:25 UTC on Aug. 15 (11:25 p.m. EDT) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument captured a visible image of Utor. The MODIS image showed Utor still had a circulation, despite weakening to a low pressure ...

The DNA in human cells is translated into a multitude of proteins required for a cell to function. When, where and how proteins are expressed is determined by regulatory DNA sequences and a group of proteins, known as transcription factors, that bind to these DNA sequences. Each cell type can be distinguished based on its transcription factors, and a cell can in certain cases be directly converted from one type to another, simply by changing the expression of one or more transcription factors. It is critical that the pattern of transcription factor binding in the genome ...

Hypnotic relaxation therapy improves sexual health in postmenopausal women who have moderate to severe hot flashes, according to Baylor University researchers who presented their findings at the American Psychological Association's recent annual meeting. The study, which examined sexual comfort, sexual satisfaction and sexual pleasure, is a first step toward a safe and effective alternative toward hormone replacement therapy, which carries associated risks of cancer and heart disease, said Gary Elkins, Ph.D., director of Baylor's Mind-Body Medicine Research Laboratory ...

Analysis of an ice core taken by the National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide drilling project reveals that warming in Antarctica began about 22,000 years ago, a few thousand years earlier than suggested by previous records. This timing shows that West Antarctica did not "wait for a cue" from the Northern Hemisphere to start warming, as scientists had previously supposed. For more than a century scientists have known that Earth's ice ages are caused by the wobbling of the planet's orbit, which changes its orientation to the ...

CHICAGO --- If young people are drowning in debt, their blood pressure may be on the rise and their health could suffer. A new Northwestern Medicine® study has found that high financial debt is associated with higher diastolic blood pressure and poorer self-reported general and mental health in young adults. The study, published in the August issue of Social Science and Medicine, offers a glimpse into the impact debt may have on the health of young Americans. "We now live in a debt-fueled economy," said Elizabeth Sweet, lead author of the study. "Since the 1980s ...

WA, Seattle (August 15, 2013) – Primary results from a new clinical trial show that patients with type 1 diabetes treated with the monoclonal antibody teplizumab (MacroGenics, Inc.) exhibit greater preservation of C-peptide, a biomarker of islet cell function, compared to controls. Further analyses identified a discrete subset of the treatment group that demonstrated especially robust responses ("responders"), suggesting that these patients could be identified prior to treatment. The trial, entitled "Autoimmunity-Blocking Antibody for Tolerance in Recently Diagnosed Type ...

URBANA, Ill. – Celery, artichokes, and herbs, especially Mexican oregano, all contain apigenin and luteolin, flavonoids that kill human pancreatic cancer cells in the lab by inhibiting an important enzyme, according to two new University of Illinois studies. "Apigenin alone induced cell death in two aggressive human pancreatic cancer cell lines. But we received the best results when we pre-treated cancer cells with apigenin for 24 hours, then applied the chemotherapeutic drug gemcitabine for 36 hours," said Elvira de Mejia, a U of I professor of food chemistry and food ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis scientists have uncovered a potential drug target for the development of an effective therapy against the debilitating, chronic form of the bacterial disease brucellosis, which primarily afflicts people in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries. Brucellosis, which affects about 500,000 people worldwide each year, typically is caused by ingestion of unsterilized milk or close contact with body secretions from infected animals. Symptoms include intermittent or irregular fever of variable duration, headache, weakness, profuse sweating, ...

Americans buy more soft drinks per capita than people in any other country. These drinks are consumed by individuals of all ages, including very young children. Although soft drink consumption is associated with aggression, depression, and suicidal thoughts in adolescents, the relationship had not been evaluated in younger children. A new study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, University of Vermont, and Harvard School of Public Health in The Journal of Pediatrics finds that aggression, attention problems, and withdrawal behavior are ...

Cincinnati, OH, August 16, 2013 -- Americans buy more soft drinks per capita than people in any other country. These drinks are consumed by individuals of all ages, including very young children. Although soft drink consumption is associated with aggression, depression, and suicidal thoughts in adolescents, the relationship had not been evaluated in younger children. A new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics finds that aggression, attention problems, and withdrawal behavior are all associated with soft drink consumption in young children. Shakira ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Studying the evolution and anatomy of galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers led by doctoral candidate BoMee Lee and her advisor Mauro Giavalisco at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have established that mature-looking galaxies existed much earlier than previously known, when the universe was only about 2.5 billion years old, or 11.5 billion years ago. "Finding them this far back in time is a significant discovery," says lead author Lee. The team used two cameras, Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), and Advanced ...

When astronauts launch into space, a microbial entourage follows. And the sheer number of these followers would give celebrities on Twitter a run for their money. The estimate is that normal, healthy adults have ten times as many microbial cells as human cells within their bodies; countless more populate the environment around us. Although invisible to the naked eye, microorganisms – some friend, some foe – are found practically everywhere. Microorganisms like bacteria often are found attached to surfaces living in communities known as biofilms. Bacteria within biofilms ...