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 ...

Researchers at the University of East Anglia have identified a rapid response which could help halt infectious diseases such as bird flu, swine flu and SARS before they take hold. Focusing on the avian flu virus strain H5N1, research published today in the journal PLOS ONE identifies key stages in the poultry trade chain which lead to its transmission to other birds, animals and humans. High risk times for the disease to spread include during transportation, slaughter, preparation and consumption. It is hoped that the findings and recommendations will help stop the ...

Chronic liver disease is a leading cause of death in the United States, in part because it often causes the formation of harmful scar tissue—a process known as fibrosis. A study published by Cell Press August 15 in the journal Immunity reveals the central role the immune molecule interleukin 33 (IL-33) plays in the formation of liver fibrosis. The findings suggest that drugs targeting this molecule could serve as a new treatment strategy to protect against liver fibrosis. "Currently, the therapeutic options for liver fibrosis are limited and not curative," says senior ...

Exposure to low oxygen levels, such as those present at high altitudes, can wreak havoc on the body. Now researchers reporting August 15 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, published by Cell Press, have uncovered genes that play a role in causing this damage, making them attractive targets for treatments against chronic mountain sickness and other conditions that involve oxygen deprivation. There are approximately140 million people living permanently at high altitudes, where oxygen levels are low. Many of them have adapted to their environment, but others have ...

When something gets in the way of our ability to see, we quickly pick up a new way to look, in much the same way that we would learn to ride a bike, according to a new study published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on August 15. Our eyes are constantly on the move, darting this way and that four to five times per second. Now researchers have found that the precise manner of those eye movements can change within a matter of hours. This discovery by researchers from the University of Southern California might suggest a way to help those with macular degeneration ...

VIDEO: Part 1: Swarming by the ancestral (wild type) strain, Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14, shows the typical branching pattern of swarming colonies. Part 2: Swarming by a hyperswarmer mutant, clone #10, shows... Click here for more information. The evolution of hyperswarming, pathogenic bacteria might sound like the plot of a horror film, but such bugs really have repeatedly evolved in a lab, and the good news is that they should be less of a problem to us than their less ...

Ovarian cancer often remains undetected until it is at an advanced stage. Despite positive responses to initial treatment, many patients are at risk of tumor recurrence. A multitude of genetic markers have been implicated in ovarian cancer prognosis. However, the genetic testing required is not practical or affordable in a clinical setting. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Roel Verchaak and colleagues at the MD Anderson Cancer Center identify protein biomarkers that are predictive for time of ovarian cancer recurrence and develop a PRotein-driven ...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by poor airflow due to the breakdown of lung tissue, mucus accumulation and airway dysfunction. Development of COPD is most commonly associated with smoking tobacco, however, it also occurs after acute respiratory infections such as influenza. It is unclear how prior lung disease leads to COPD. In the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Michael Holtzman and colleagues at the Washington University School of Medicine report that expression of an inflammatory molecule, interleukin-33 (IL-33), ...

Biomarkers predict time to ovarian cancer recurrence Ovarian cancer often remains undetected until it is at an advanced stage. Despite positive responses to initial treatment, many patients are at risk of tumor recurrence. A multitude of genetic markers have been implicated in ovarian cancer prognosis. However, the genetic testing required is not practical or affordable in a clinical setting. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Roel Verchaak and colleagues at the MD Anderson Cancer Center identify protein biomarkers that are predictive for time of ...