Spanish researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) have found that during the early stages of mammalian development, embryonic cells embark on a battle for survival. Through this battle, the less active of these cells are eliminated by their stronger sisters. The work is published today in the prestigious journal Nature. This phenomenon, termed cell competition, occurs in a defined time window, between days 3 and 7 of mouse development. During this period all embryonic cells compete with each other, as explained by Dr. Cristina Claveria, ...

Human migrations – from the prehistoric epoch to the present day – have extended cultures across the globe. With these travelers have come unwanted stowaways: mosquito-borne parasites belonging to the Plasmodium species – a group responsible for malaria, worldwide. As part of a team of collaborators from 10 countries, Ananias Escalante, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, has been tracking the tenacious global spread of one of these malarial parasite species: Plasmodium vivax, the most prevalent cause of malaria in many countries outside ...

LOS ANGELES (July 11, 2013) – Deep brain stimulation therapy blocks or modulates electrical signals in the brain to improve symptoms in patients suffering from movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, essential tremor and dystonia, but a new study suggests that several factors may cause electrical current to vary over time. Led by Michele Tagliati, MD, director of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Movement Disorders Program, the study identified variables that affect impedance – resistance in circuits that affect intensity and wavelength of electrical current. Doctors ...

Medical diagnostic and security scanners with higher sensitivity could result from University of Adelaide research into detecting T-rays (terahertz waves). Published in the journal Advanced Optical Materials, the researchers describe a novel structure which traps terahertz waves in tiny (micro-scale) holes to produce much higher contrast imaging than currently possible. Terahertz waves, which are electromagnetic waves with frequencies between those used for mobile phone communications and for optical fibre communications, are used for some airport body scanners and ...

Cancer vaccines prime the immune system to attack cancer cells, decreasing tumor progression. IL-12p70, a molecule produced by certain types of immune cells, has been shown to reduce tumor progression, but delivering it as part of a cancer vaccine has been limited because of its toxicity in high doses. In the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Dr. Beatriz Carreno and colleagues at Washington University report the results of a clinical trial that tested a vaccine to treat newly diagnosed advanced melanoma. A portion of each patient's own immune cells, ...

VIDEO: It might be cold in the Antarctic, but that doesn't mean that life there necessarily moves slowly. A report appearing in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on July 11... Click here for more information. It might be cold in the Antarctic, but that doesn't mean that life there necessarily moves slowly. A report appearing in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on July 11 reveals the discovery of a surprisingly fast-growing community of glass sponges in ...

The breakup and collapse of the Larsen A ice shelf in the western Weddell Sea in 1995 has resulted in fundamental changes to life on the sea bed in less than two decades. As reported by biologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in the cover story of the current issue of the scientific journal Current Biology, Antarctic glass sponges have been the prime beneficiaries of the disappearance of the ice shelf. To the surprise of the scientists, the density of these archaic filter-feeders has increased threefold between 2007 ...

During the Great Recession, high school students became more concerned about others and the environment, psychologists at San Diego State University and University of California, Los Angeles report today. Concern for others declined significantly between the mid-1970s and 2004-2006, then rebounded between that pre-recession period and the Great Recession in 2008-2010. Compared to high school students in the pre-recession years, students who graduated from high school during the recent recession were more concerned for others, more interested in social issues and more ...

CHICAGO, IL – Anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) surgery is a common knee injury procedure, but the overall incidence rate of having to go through it again within 24 months is 6 times greater than someone who has never had an ACL tear, according to researchers presenting their work today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. "In our study, female athletes after ACLR demonstrated more than four times greater rate of injury within 24 months than their healthy counterparts. This data highlights the ...

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have discovered a potential new pathway to treat cancer by asking some odd questions about the size of animals. "Mammals display a huge range in size from the largest blue whale to the tiniest fruit bat," says Colby Zaph, assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Biomedical Research Centre, who co-authored the study published in Developmental Cell. "So why don't we have miniature whales or gigantic bats? It turns out that there are specific pathways that tell cells when to grow and when to stop." One ...

Found in every ocean around the world, killer whales are a force to be reckoned with globally. Their remarkable social bonds and sophisticated hunting techniques make them top predators in their salty domain. For many years, it was assumed that these clever, highly mobile whales bred with each other freely in the seemingly homogeneous ocean. As our understanding of the oceans' complexity has grown, and dedicated researchers have peered ever deeper into the world of killer whales, it has become clear that the truth is far more nuanced. As the agency responsible for conserving ...

Researchers from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), lead by Lluís Espinosa, have identified a new function of the IB protein that is key in the development of squamous-cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer. The study has been published in the prestigious journal Cancer Cell and provides a new tool for the diagnosis of the disease and, in the future, will enable the identification of novel therapeutic targets to treat this type of cancer. "In this study we identified a new function of a protein that directly regulates the activity of the genes involved ...

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have, for the first time, determined the true colour of a planet orbiting another star. If seen up close this planet, known as HD 189733b, would be a deep cobalt blue, reminiscent of Earth's colour as seen from space. But that's where the similarities end. This "deep blue dot" is a huge gas giant orbiting very close to its host star. The planet's atmosphere is scorching with a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and it rains glass, sideways, in howling 7000 kilometre-per-hour winds [1]. At a distance of 63 ...

During the Great Recession, high school students in the U.S. became more concerned about others and the environment, psychologists at UCLA and San Diego State University report in a new study. The research, published July 11 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, focused on survey data collected on high school seniors during three time periods: the global recession (2008-10), just before the recession (2004-06) and the earliest period for which data were available (1976-78). The study authors found that high school students' concern for others ...

LA JOLLA, CA ----A team of scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has identified why disruption of a vital pathway in cell cycle control leads to the proliferation of cancer cells. Their findings on telomeres, the stretches of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that protect our genetic code and make it possible for cells to divide, suggest a potential target for preventive measures against cancer, aging and other diseases. The findings were published July 11 in Molecular Cell. Telomeres have been compared to the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces because ...

By comparing the human genome to the genomes of 34 other mammals, Australian scientists have described an unexpectedly high proportion of functional elements conserved through evolution. Less than 1.5% of the human genome is devoted to conventional genes, that is, encodes for proteins. The rest has been considered to be largely junk. However, while other studies have shown that around 5-8% of the genome is conserved at the level of DNA sequence, indicating that it is functional, the new study shows that in addition much more, possibly up to 30%, is also conserved at ...

Researchers in the Antibody and Vaccine Group have developed two monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) called anti-4-1BB and anti-CD40 and investigated a third called anti-CTLA-4. Each of these antibodies binds to a different target molecule in the immune system, potentially heightening the body's own immune response to cancer. Published in the July edition of Clinical Cancer Research, the study has shown that the antibodies boost the immune system to fight neuroblastoma -- a form of childhood cancer which grows from undeveloped tissue of the nervous system. They found that ...

UK scientists have found a naturally occurring molecule in the body which may have important consequences for treating osteoarthritis. Researchers from The University of Manchester and the University of Westminster have found that the molecule, known as Urocortin, protects cells in the joints from being destroyed. The discovery could help lead to the development of new medicines to prevent joint degradation -- a condition which affects millions of people in the UK each year. Osteoarthritis, a painful condition associated with a loss of joint mobility particularly in ...

During the hot summer months, there's nothing quite like a nice refreshing and cooling dip in a pool, and it would seem that elephants agree. In fact, in some game parks, elephants will rarely stray far from water, and have even been, albeit controversially, called a water-dependent species. But are they really water dependent and if so what drives this dependence? Is it caused by a necessity to cool down? Robin Dunkin, a researcher from University of California, Santa Cruz, USA explains that although elephants have numerous tricks they use to keep cool, such as using their ...

July 11, 2013, Shenzhen, China - An international consortium, consisting of Autism Speaks, Duke University School of Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children of Toronto, BGI and other institutes, has investigated the genetic variants in 32 families with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The results show that whole genome sequencing and analysis promise great value to identify de novo or rare inherited mutations that give rise to autism in ASD groups. The findings were published online today in American Journal of Human Genetics. Autism is the fastest growing developmental ...

This news release is available in Spanish. This phenomenon, termed cell competition, occurs in a defined time window, between days 3 and 7 of mouse development. During this period all embryonic cells compete with each other, as explained by Dr. Cristina Claveria, first author of the study, and Dr. Miguel Torres, director of this work and Head of the Department of Cardiovascular Development and Repair at CNIC. "Thanks to cell competition the developing organism optimizes itself by selecting the cells theoretically more capable of supporting vital functions throughout ...

This news release is available in German. If the heart following a heart attack is not sufficiently supplied with blood, heart tissue dies. In adult humans, the ability to heal itself is hardly developed. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, together with U.S. colleagues, have now observed in the embryo of the zebrafish that muscle cells migrate from the undamaged atrium into the ventricle and thus significantly contribute to regeneration. This could serve as the basis for novel therapeutic approaches. If clinicians ...

This news release is available in German. Jerusalem is characterized by a continued level of territorial conflict. Rarely does a day go by without media reports of violent clashes between Orthodox Jews, secular Israelis, Palestinians and the Israeli police and security forces. Ethnic, religious and ideological tensions determine the social life of the city, and efforts to find a political solution to the city's future status have thus far failed. Researchers from ETH Zurich, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva and the ...

One might expect that collisions between the remains of monstrous stars, with masses reaching 200-300 times that of our Sun, would be among the most spectacular phenomena in the Universe. Perhaps they are, but we will unfortunately probably never have the chance to find out. Astrophysicists from the Astronomical Observatory of the Faculty of Physics at University of Warsaw have discovered that the first such collisions will not occur until billions of years from now. For a long time, astronomers have believed that the biggest stars in the Universe do not exceed 150 solar ...

There are 170 established HPV types. Cancerous human papillomavirus (HPV) viruses are the main cause of cervical cancer, and are found in close to 100% of cervical tumors. Cervical cancer and genital warts are caused by HPV. However, testing for the virus using standard techniques can sometimes give a negative result -- in these cases, the condylomas are called 'virus-negative' warts. In a new study published in Virology, researchers assessed the DNA found in samples taken from 40 patients with 'virus-negative' genital warts. Through a general DNA sequencing approach, ...