CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - The tyrosine kinase MerTK plays a prominent role in the body's immune response. MerTK signaling helps "calm" the body's first line of immunity, the macrophage, while it performs the routine duties - clearing cells that die and healing damaged tissue. New evidence by a University of North Carolina-led team published online on July 8 by the Journal of Clinical Investigation shows that MerTK macrophage action in the microenvironment that surrounds cancer cells blunts the immune response, allowing the tumor cell to grow and metastasize. The study, led ...

Corals may let certain bacteria get under its skin, according to a new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and soon to be published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The study offers the first direct evidence that Stylophora pistillata, a species of reef-building coral found throughout the Indian and west Pacific Oceans, harbors bacterial denizens deep within its tissues. "We have evidence that other species of coral also host these bacteria, and that they ...

URBANA, Ill. – After a recent University of Illinois study showed that injection of the soy peptide lunasin dramatically reduced colon cancer metastasis in mice, the researchers were eager to see how making lunasin part of the animals' daily diet would affect the spread of the disease. "In this new study, we find that giving lunasin orally at 20 mg/kg of body weight reduced the number of metastatic tumors by 94 percent—we went from 18 tumors to only one. And that was done using lunasin alone; no other type of therapy was used," said Elvira de Mejia, a U of I professor ...

Facing a nationwide shortage of primary care physicians, some states in recent years have eased up on regulations that create barriers for nurse practitioners who want to work as primary care providers. That easing of rules has had the intended effect. According to a new study by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, those states with the fewest restrictions on nurse practitioners' scope of practice had two-and-a-half times more patients receiving primary care from nurse practitioners than did the most restrictive states. "We wanted to look ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Max Scherzer leads Major League Baseball in wins. As a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, he hasn't lost a game this season. His 6-foot, 3-inch frame is a telling example of constructal-law theory, said Duke University engineer Adrian Bejan. The theory predicts that elite pitchers will continue to be taller and thus throw faster and seems also to apply to athletes who compete in golf, hockey and boxing. Studying athletes -- since most sports are meticulous in keeping statistics -- provides an insight into the biological evolution of human design in nature, ...

NEW YORK, July 8, 2013 – Increased concerns about the perceived risk of vaccination, inconvenience, or religious tenets are leading more U.S. parents to opt-out of vaccinating their children. Parents are increasingly able to do so in states that have relatively simple procedures for immunization exemption, report researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center in the July issue of Health Affairs. Some states, fearing a public health crisis, have responded by putting in place more burdensome procedures for parents of school-aged children to opt-out. All this adds up to an ethical ...

Ocean acidification may create an impact similar to extinction on marine ecosystems, according to a study released today by the University of California, Davis. The study, published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that ocean acidification can degrade not only individual species, as past studies have shown, but entire ecosystems. This results in a homogenized marine community, dominated by fewer plants and animals. "The background, low-grade stress caused by ocean acidification can cause a whole shift in the ecosystem ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Orthopedic oncologists and surgical oncologists, who have been trained in the complex procedures required to remove sarcomas located deep in the muscles and other soft tissues of the limbs, conducted only 52 percent of these operations at 85 academic medical centers during a three year period, according to an analysis of national data by UC Davis researchers that is published online today in the Journal of Surgical Oncology. The remaining 48 percent of these sarcoma surgeries were conducted by general surgeons, plastic surgeons and orthopedic surgeons, ...

The third tropical cyclone of the Atlantic Ocean season developed in the Atlantic and not in the Gulf of Mexico as the previous two systems,Tropical Storm Chantal. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Chantal on July 7 at 12:15 p.m. EDT when it was located off the coast of Brazil. The highest and strongest thunderstorms (that cast shadows on the surrounding lower storms) were around the center of circulation. On Monday, July 8, Chantal was nearing land ...

PHILADELPHIA (July 8, 2013)— If all medical errors were counted together as a single cause, they would likely rank as the third leading cause of death in the United States. As health care personnel race to improve the quality of their care to save lives and prevent unneeded harm, a new study indicates there is more they can do to learn about what errors are occurring and why. Researchers from the Drexel University School of Public Health demonstrated a systematic analysis of hospital administrative data for patient safety at a population level, in a recent paper in the ...

When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Soulik in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean, the MODIS and AIRS instruments captured images that showed the storm's eastern quadrant covered the Marianas Islands and that the storm has become more organized in the last day. The MODIS or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a brilliant visible image of Storm Soulik over the Mariana Islands on July 8 at 3:50 UTC (July 7 at 11:50 p.m. EDT). In the image, Soulik's center could be seen near the northern islands, ...

Tropical Storm Erick has been bringing some rain and rough surf along the southwestern coast of Mexico for a couple of days, and on July 7, 2013, NASA's TRMM satellite saw two areas of heavy rain within Erick on opposite ends of the storm. Meanwhile, the rainfall from the remnants of nearby Tropical Depression Dalila had dissipated. When NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite passed over Tropical Storm Erick on Sunday, July 7, it measured rainfall rates as seen from space. TRMM showed that the northeastern quadrant and southwestern quadrants had the ...

A new low-cost method of in-vitro fertilization developed at the University of Colorado Boulder that performed successfully in recent human clinical trials in Belgium may help thousands of infertile couples in developing countries. The study using the CU-Boulder technology showed that the low-cost of IVF for developing and "resource-poor" countries is feasible and effective, with baby delivery rates roughly the same as those achieved in conventional IVF programs. This proof-of-principle study, say the investigators, suggests that infertility care may now be universally ...

San Diego, CA, July 9, 2013 – Recent breakthroughs in cervical cancer prevention have resulted in new vaccination and cervical cancer screening guidelines. Recommendations do not always translate into practice, however. Less than one third of obstetrician-gynecologists vaccinate their eligible patients against the human papilloma virus (HPV), and only half adhere to cervical cancer prevention guidelines published three years previously, according to a survey published this month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Vaccination against HPV has been recommended ...

Failure to consider public health in the formulation of agricultural policy has compromised the American nutritional environment by promoting the production and consumption of unhealthy foods San Diego, CA, July 9, 2013 – Agricultural subsidies are responsible for making those processed and energy-dense foods that contribute to the American epidemic of obesity the most affordable options for consumers, concludes a new study led by Dr. Mark J. Eisenberg, a cardiologist and epidemiologist at the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. As Congress ...

The H7N9 avian flu strain that emerged in China earlier this year has subsided for now, but it would be a mistake to be reassured by this apparent lull in infections. The virus has several highly unusual traits that paint a disquieting picture of a pathogen that may yet lead to a pandemic, according to lead scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. David Morens, Jeffery Taubenberger, and Anthony Fauci, in a paper published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, describe the history of H7 viruses ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Many brain-training companies tout the scientific backing of their products – the laboratory studies that reveal how their programs improve your brainpower. But according to a new report, most intervention studies like these have a critical flaw: They do not adequately account for the placebo effect. The new analysis appears in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. The results of psychological interventions, like medical ones, must be compared to improvements in a control condition, said University of Illinois psychology professor Daniel ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – U.S. intelligence agents – like the embattled Edward Snowden – are more prone to irrational inconsistencies in decision making when compared to college students and post-college adults. That's according a new Cornell University study to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science. The study found intelligence agents exhibited larger biases on 30 gain-loss framing decisions, and were also more confident in those decisions. Thirty-six agents were recruited for the study from an anonymous federal agency, and were presented with scenarios ...

HUNTSVILLE, TX (7/9/13) -- Texas has the second largest sex offender registry in the country, but relatively few people are accessing it or using it to develop protective actions against future sex crimes, a study by the Crime Victims' Institute at Sam Houston State University found. Texas began its sex offender registry in 1991 to inform citizens about sex offenders living and working in communities throughout the state and to encourage the public to adopt preventive measures against sex crimes. The Texas Department of Public Safety maintains the registry and as of October ...

July 7, Ulsan, S. Korea - Korean Researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) developed a new method to massively synthesize enhanced yet affordable materials for supercapacitors. Supercapacitors have attracted increasing attention due to their long life cycle, highly reversible charge storage process and specific power density along with increased concern over the exhaustion of natural resources. Graphene has been recognized as a promising active material for supercapacitors due to its outstanding electrical conductivity and large surface ...

Increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have helped boost green foliage across the world's arid regions over the past 30 years through a process called CO2 fertilisation, according to CSIRO research. In findings based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), found that this CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa, according to CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue. ...

CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope has detected brief flashes of radio emission from the distant Universe. Their origin is unknown. CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope in eastern Australia has detected mysterious 'flashes' of radio energy from the distant Universe that may open up a whole new area of astrophysics. The surprising finding, made by a team of scientists from ten institutions in Australia, the USA, UK, Germany and Italy, is published in today's issue of the journal Science. "Staggeringly, we estimate there could be one of these flashes going off every ten seconds ...

CINCINNATI -- Scientists have successfully targeted a malfunctioning immune system enzyme to kill diseased cells from patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) -- a blood disorder and precursor to leukemia. Reporting their results July 8 in Cancer Cell, researchers say their successful laboratory tests in human MDS cells and mouse models of MDS provide a molecular target for designing new drugs to battle a syndrome with few effective treatments. "There is an urgent need to develop new targeted therapies that can eliminate MDS-initiating clone cells and provide a ...

Immune cells play a role in early pregnancy Macrophages are white blood cells that help prevent and alert the immune system to the threat of a pathogenic infection. Interestingly, macrophages are present in the uterus and ovaries at the time of conception. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Sarah Robertson and colleagues at the University of Adelaide investigated the role of macrophages in early pregnancy. The team utilized a mouse model in which macrophages could be depleted immediately after embryo implantation. They found that without macrophages, ...

Macrophages are white blood cells that help prevent and alert the immune system to the threat of a pathogenic infection. Interestingly, macrophages are present in the uterus and ovaries at the time of conception. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Sarah Robertson and colleagues at the University of Adelaide investigated the role of macrophages in early pregnancy. The team utilized a mouse model in which macrophages could be depleted immediately after embryo implantation. They found that without macrophages, embryos were unable to implant in the uterus. ...