Using data from a NASA satellite, a team of scientists led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and involving the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered a massive particle accelerator in the heart of one of the harshest regions of near-Earth space, a region of super-energetic, charged particles surrounding the globe known as the Van Allen radiation belts. The new results from NASA's Van Allen Probes mission show the acceleration energy is in the belts themselves. Local bumps of energy kick particles inside the belts to ever-faster speeds, much like ...

In a newly released study, education researchers report that personifying energy allowed students to grapple with difficult ideas about how energy works. Contrasted with more traditional lectures and graphs, this innovative instructional technique may be useful for teaching about other ideas in physical science, which commonly deals with things that change form over time. Energy is a very important concept across many fields of science, and is a key focus of the new national science standards. Energy is also a central player in several global issues, such as climate ...

Pesticides commonly used in California's Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions, have been found in remote frog species miles from farmland. Writing in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, researchers demonstrate the contamination of Pacific Tree Fogs in remote mountain areas, including national parks; supporting past research on the potential transport of pesticides by the elements. California's Central Valley is one of the most intensely farmed regions in North America, producing 8% of U.S agricultural output by value. While the use ...

WASHINGTON — Emergency physicians correctly identified nearly 100 percent of patients with Bell's palsy, the symptoms of which are nearly identical to potentially life-threatening diseases such as stroke and brain tumors. The results of a study of 6 years of California patient records were published online yesterday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Potential Misdiagnoses of Bell's Palsy in the Emergency Department"). "Even lacking established guidelines for diagnosing Bell's palsy, which is the most common cause of paralysis of one side of the face, emergency physicians ...

Adenoviruses commonly infect humans, causing colds, flu-like symptoms and sometimes even death, but now UC San Francisco researchers have discovered that a new species of adenovirus can spread from primate to primate, and potentially from monkey to human. UCSF researchers previously identified a new adenovirus in New World titi monkeys that killed most of the monkeys infected during an outbreak in a closed monkey colony in California in 2009. At the time, a research scientist who worked closely with the monkeys and a family member, both of whom were found to ...

The author of a paper to be presented at the upcoming 2013 International Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting has described behavioral, cognitive, and perceptual attributes of e-mail users who are vulnerable to phishing attacks. Phishing is the use of fraudulent e-mail correspondence to obtain passwords and credit card information, or to send viruses. In "Keeping Up With the Joneses: Assessing Phishing Susceptibility in an E-mail Task," Kyung Wha Hong discovered that people who were overconfident, introverted, or women were less able to accurately distinguish ...

The surface characteristics of nanoscaffolds made by nanotechnology are more similar to the three-dimensional topological structure of the extracellular matrix and the effects on the biological behaviors of cells and tissue repair are more beneficial. Dr. Jihui Zhou and team from the Fifth Hospital Affiliated to Qiqihar Medical University prepared aligned and randomly oriented collagen nanofiber scaffolds using electronic spinning technology. The diameters and appearance of prepared scaffolds reached the standards of tissue-engineered nanometer scaffolds. The nanofiber ...

Synaptic remodeling is one of the most common pathological changes after epileptic seizures. Ectopic synaptic reconstruction in the hippocampus is considered to be closely related with temporal lobe epilepsy. Mossy fiber sprouting may trigger synaptic connections or synaptic remodeling in hippocampal CA3 pyramidal cells, which could lead to the formation of excitatory synaptic circuits, thereby increasing epileptic susceptibility. Exogenous neuropeptide Y has antiepileptic effects; however, the underlying mechanism and optimal administration method for neuropeptide Y are ...

A research team from the School of Basic Medical Sciences, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine reports that Radix Achyranthis Bidentatae can inhibit advanced glycation end product formation, reduce their levels in the frontal cortex, and improve learning and memory capabilities in ovariectomized rats. The Radix Achyranthis Bidentatae inhibitory effect on advanced glycation end product accumulation is associated with an antioxidative effect. These novel findings, published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 8, No. 18, 2013), provide insight into the mechanisms ...

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA – Impressive examples of new non-invasive optical techniques using lasers, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and spectroscopic methods to probe and render images from beneath the surface of the skin are featured in a newly completed special section in the Journal of Biomedical Optics published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. The techniques may be used in a wide variety of medical and cosmetic applications such as treating burns, identifying cancer, or speeding the healing of wounds. "The skin is the biggest organ of ...

The coral-stromatoporoid reef disappearing from the planet earth was one of the most significant and representative phenomena for the Late Devonian F-F transitional mass extinction event. Professor GONG Yiming and his group (Wu Yibu, Feng Qi etc.) from State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology of China University of Geosciences are trying to tackle this problem. After several years of continuous research, they have discovered that blooming and invading of bacteria and algae played an important role for before 370 Ma (Late Devonian F-F transition) coral-stromatoporoid ...

The Kondo effect in 1982 earned the Nobel Prize in Physics to Kenneth Wilson – the American physicist who passed away this year – who had solved numerically such solid-state physics "problem". Now a group of scientists, including some researchers of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste have explored a lesser known variant, predicting theoretically that the phenomenon can be actually observed, and describing its behavior in detail. The Kondo effect, described for the first time in the last century by Japanese physicist Jun Kondo, is observed ...

Many people complain about poor sleep around the full moon, and now a report appearing in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on July 25 offers some of the first convincing scientific evidence to suggest that this really is true. The findings add to evidence that humans—despite the comforts of our civilized world—still respond to the geophysical rhythms of the moon, driven by a circalunar clock. "The lunar cycle seems to influence human sleep, even when one does not 'see' the moon and is not aware of the actual moon phase," says Christian Cajochen of the Psychiatric ...

The immunosuppressive drug rapamycin has been shown to increase longevity in mice even when treatment begins at an advanced age. It is unclear if the extension of life also correlates with prolonged health and vigor. In the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Dan Ehninger and colleagues at the German Center for Neurodegenrative Diseases evaluated age-associated characteristics in mice treated with rapamycin. They found that rapamycin improved memory and spatial learning, reduced thyroid follicle size, and reduced body fat in older mice. However, many ...

An underlying cause of hearing loss is the death of sensory hair cells in the inner ear, which can be damaged in response to a variety of factors including the use of aminoglycoside antibiotics. Previous research has shown that sensory hair cell death in response to antibiotic treatment can be prevented by triggering the expression of HSP70, a member of the heat shock family of proteins that are induced by cellular stress. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Lisa Cunningham and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health investigate the mechanism ...

A lifespan-extending drug has limited effects on aging The immunosuppressive drug rapamycin has been shown to increase longevity in mice even when treatment begins at an advanced age. It is unclear if the extension of life also correlates with prolonged health and vigor. In the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Dan Ehninger and colleagues at the German Center for Neurodegenrative Diseases evaluated age-associated characteristics in mice treated with rapamycin. They found that rapamycin improved memory and spatial learning, reduced thyroid follicle ...

Epilepsy is characterized by recurrent seizures that present in many different ways. In some cases epileptic patients exhibit a progressive increase in both frequency and severity of seizures. Epigenetic changes such as DNA methylation have recently been implied as an underlying cause of several neurologic disorders, including epilepsy. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Detlev Boison and colleagues at Legacy Research show an increase of DNA methylation in the hippocampi of epileptic animals. They found that increased methyation corresponded with ...

Researchers have found in mice that supporting cells in the inner ear, once thought to serve only a structural role, can actively help repair damaged sensory hair cells, the functional cells that turn vibrations into the electrical signals that the brain recognizes as sound. The study in the July 25, 2013 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation reveals the rescuing act that supporting cells and a chemical they produce called heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) appear to play in protecting damaged hair cells from death. Finding a way to jumpstart this process ...

Contact: Terry Collins tc@tca.tc 416-538-8712 United Nations University Managing waters shared across national boundaries: Treasury of papers helps capture 20 years of lessons Sharing Nile's vital flow through 11 nations, water in Arab region, spread of 'world's worst weed,' changes in Atlantic fisheries, among topics in special collection of articles capturing decades of lessons in trans-boundary water management The science-based management and governance of shared transboundary water systems is the focus of a wide-ranging collection of articles now published ...

Researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered how plants set the angles of their branches. While the other principle features governing the architecture of plants such as the control of the number of branches and positioning around the main shoot are now well understood, scientists have long puzzled over how plants set and maintain the angle of their lateral branches relative to gravity. The mechanism is fundamental to understanding the shape of the plants around us: explaining how, for instance, a young Lombardy poplar sends its branches up close to the vertical ...

Many people complain about poor sleep around full moon. Scientists at the University of Basel in Switzerland now report evidence that lunar cycles and human sleep behavior are in fact connected. The results have been published in the journal «Current Biology». The research group around Prof. Christian Cajochen of the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel analyzed the sleep of over 30 volunteers in two age groups in the lab. While they were sleeping, the scientists monitored their brain patterns, eye movements and measured their hormone secretions. The findings ...

Silk has walked straight off the runway and into the lab. According to a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, silk implants placed in the brain of laboratory animals and designed to release a specific chemical, adenosine, may help stop the progression of epilepsy. The research was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), which are part of the National Institutes of Health. The epilepsies are a group of neurological disorders associated ...

VIDEO: This video demonstrates novel techniques of RNA interference (RNAi) which downregulate two genes simultaneously in honey bees using double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) injections. It also presents a protocol of proboscis extension... Click here for more information. On July 25th JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments will publish a new technique that will help scientists better understand the genes that govern food-related behavior in honey bees. The impact of this study ...

VIDEO: Here is a video of mitochondrial power plants (red) passing by synaptic boutons (green) as they move through a nerve cell axon. The Sheng lab showed that their movement helps... Click here for more information. Brain cells talk to each other in a variety of tones. Sometimes they speak loudly but other times struggle to be heard. For many years scientists have asked why and how brain cells change tones so frequently. Today National Institutes of Health researchers ...

HOUSTON, TX.—July 25, 2013—Study* findings published online, ahead of print, in Cornea show that daily dietary supplementation with a unique combination of omega fatty acids (GLA, EPA and DHA) for six months is effective in improving ocular irritation symptoms and halting the progression of inflammation that characterizes moderate to severe dry eye. The multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial conducted at Baylor College of Medicine and Virginia Eye Consultants evaluated 38 post-menopausal women with tear dysfunction in both eyes. Participants ...