Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig's disease, is a fatal disease that causes motor neurons, which are responsible for controlling muscles, to die. A study published by Cell Press on April 18th in Cell Stem Cell has revealed a novel stem-cell-based approach to screen for effective treatments, which are sorely lacking. Applying this method to motor neurons derived from stem cells taken from an ALS mouse model and human patients, the researchers discovered a promising compound that promotes the survival of motor neurons, paving the way for better treatments ...

Researchers have recently discovered that an expansion of DNA in patients with the common neurodegenerative disorder Fragile X-associated Tremor syndrome causes the production of an abnormal protein that is toxic to neurons. The findings, which are reported online April 18 in the Cell Press journal Neuron, suggest an unexpected process by which DNA expansions might lead to neurodegenerative diseases—including Huntington's disease and ALS. This discovery reveals a common feature among these diseases that could be targeted to treat affected individuals. The length of this ...

When faced with impossible circumstances beyond their control, animals, including humans, often hunker down as they develop sleep or eating disorders, ulcers, and other physical manifestations of depression. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 18 show that the same kind of thing happens to flies. The study is a step toward understanding the biological basis for depression and presents a new way for testing antidepressant drugs, the researchers say. The discovery of such symptoms in an insect shows that the roots of depression ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Declining levels of the protein BubR1 occur when both people and animals age, and contribute to cell senescence or deterioration, weight loss, muscle wasting and cataracts. Mayo Clinic researchers have shown that adult progenitor or stem cells -- important for repair and regeneration of skeletal muscle and maintenance of healthy fat tissue -- are subject to cellular senescence, and that clearance of these cells limits age-related deterioration of these tissues. The findings appear today online in the journal Cell Reports. BubR1 is an essential part ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- How well people are protected by the smallpox vaccine depends on more than the quality of the vaccination: individual genes can alter their response, Mayo Clinic research shows. The findings, gathered using sophisticated genomic screening, appear in today's online issue of the journal Genes and Immunity. MULTIMEDIA ALERT: Video of Dr. Poland is available on the Mayo Clinic News Network. "We were looking into the intercellular reactions that occur when vaccinated and unvaccinated persons are exposed to and infected with smallpox virus. We were able ...

Cambridge, MA, April 18, 2013 - Using a new stem-cell based drug screening technology with the potential to reinvent and greatly reduce the cost of the way new pharmaceuticals are developed, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have found a compound more effective in protecting the neurons killed in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – Lou Gehrig's disease – than two drugs that failed in human clinical trials after hundreds of millions of dollars had been invested in them. The new stem cell screening technique developed by Lee Rubin, a member of HSCI's Executive ...

VIDEO: This is the video article, "Anatomical Reconstructions Of The Human Cardiac Venous System Using Contrast-Computed Tomography of Perfusion-fixed Specimens. " Click here for more information. On April 18th JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) will publish a new video article by Dr. Paul A Iaizzo demonstrating the anatomical reconstruction of an active human heart. The research uses contrast-computed tomography (CT) to allow in-depth 3-D computer modeling ...

(Seattle, WA, April 18, 2013) In a manuscript published today in Immunity, scientists at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) and the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research (BIIR) report the results of a comparative study of the molecular immune responses to influenza and pneumococcal vaccines. In addition, cutting-edge web technology was used to improve dissemination of data in order to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery. The article features interactive figures (iFigures!; http://www.interactivefigures.com ) that can be customized and allow ...

National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists studying an emerging coronavirus have found that a combination of two licensed antiviral drugs, ribavirin and interferon-alpha 2b, can stop the virus from replicating in laboratory-grown cells. These results suggest that the drug combination could be used to treat patients infected with the new coronavirus, but more research is needed to confirm this preliminary finding. The study appears in the April 18, 2013, issue of Scientific Reports. The new coronavirus, called nCoV, was first identified in Saudi Arabia in September ...

Researchers have designed a method that can universally test for evolutionary adaption, or positive (Darwinian) selection, in any chosen set of genes, using re-sequencing data such as that generated by the 1000 Genomes Project. The method identifies gene sets that show evidence for positive selection in comparison with matched controls, and thus highlights genes for further functional studies. The method was employed to test whether any of the genes directly regulated by FOXP2 may themselves have undergone positive selection following the known selection at the FOXP2 ...

VIDEO: This video shows a behavioral task in a human mother-infant dyad. Click here for more information. There is a very good reason mothers often carry their crying babies, pacing the floor, to help them calm down. New research published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 18 shows that infants experience an automatic calming reaction upon being carried, whether they are mouse or human babies. The study is the first to show that the infant calming response to ...

PASADENA, Calif., April 18, 2013 — Nearly 30 percent of women failed to pick up their bisphosphonate prescriptions, a medication that is most commonly used to treat osteoporosis and similar bone diseases, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published this week in the journal Osteoporosis International. The failure to pick up these newly prescribed medications, called primary nonadherence, can lead to an increased risk of fractures for these patients. The study examined the electronic health records of 8,454 women, ages 55 years or older, who were Kaiser Permanente ...

A small, bird-like North American dinosaur incubated its eggs in a similar way to brooding birds – bolstering the evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs, researchers at the University of Calgary and Montana State University study have found. Among the many mysteries paleontologists have tried to uncover is how dinosaurs hatched their young. Was it in eggs completely buried in nest materials, like crocodiles? Or was it in eggs in open or non-covered nests, like brooding birds? Using egg clutches found in Alberta and Montana, researchers Darla Zelenitsky at the ...

A new study of Antarctic clams reveals that age matters when it comes to adapting to the effects of climate change. The research provides new insight and understanding of the likely impact of predicted environmental change on future ocean biodiversity. Reporting this week in the journal Global Change Biology scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and from Germany's University of Kiel and the Alfred Wegener Institute reveal that when it comes to environmental change the reaction of Antarctic clams (laternula elliptica) – a long-lived and abundant species that ...

VIDEO: Children love fatty and sugary foods. Or do they? New research contradicts the idea that all children under the age of ten have the same taste in food and highlights... Click here for more information. Children love fatty and sugary foods. Or do they? New research contradicts the idea that all children under the age of ten have the same taste in food and highlights the importance of the country of residence, culture and age in these preferences. SINC Until now the scientific ...

In this prospective study, led by Dr Richard Moreau, INSERM Research Director (Mixed Research Unit 773 "Centre de Recherche biomédicale Bichat-Beaujon"; INSERM/Université Paris Diderot) who is also a practitioner attached to the Hepatology Department of the Beaujon Hospital (AP-HP), researchers studied a cohort of 1343 patients from 12 European countries. The results, published in the learned journal Gastroenterology, describe, for the first time, the specific profile of sufferers from this syndrome that is associated with cirrhosis. This also makes it possible to more ...

The European Commission needs to make some key innovations in its science funding programme if Europe is to enjoy the full benefits of the €70 billion to be spent on science research as part of the Horizon 2020 programme kicking off in 2014, according to an academic paper published by SAGE in the Journal of Health Services Research & Policy today. The Commission has already taken important steps to reduce administration costs and stimulate the participation of small business in research, but there are still significant gaps, say the authors of Europe's 'Horizon 2020' ...

Keeping up with current scientific literature is a daunting task, considering that hundreds to thousands of papers are published each day. Now researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a computer program to help them evaluate and rank scientific articles in their field. The researchers use a text-mining algorithm to prioritize research papers to read and include in their Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD), a public database that manually curates and codes data from the scientific literature describing how environmental chemicals interact with ...

Research led by a scientist at the University of York has thrown new light on the way breakdowns in the DNA copying process inside cells can contribute to cancer and other diseases. Peter McGlynn, an Anniversary Professor in the University's Department of Biology, led a team of researchers who have discovered that the protein machines that copy DNA in a model organism pause frequently during this copying process, creating the potential for dangerous mutations to develop. The research, which is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), ...

Ultrafast high-resolution imaging in real time could be a reality with a new research discovery led by the University of Melbourne. In work published in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Melbourne and the ARC Centre for Excellence in Coherent Xray Science have demonstrated that ultra short durations of electron bunches generated from laser-cooled atoms can be both very cold and ultra-fast. Lead researcher Associate Professor Robert Scholten said the surprising finding was an important step towards making ultrafast high-resolution electron imaging ...

Cambridge, MA, April 18, 2013 - It is rare that an unpublished piece of research or theory remains significant after half a century. It is also a wonderful example of the boundless curiosity of the late Francis Crick. A previously unpublished work by Francis Crick and Jeffries Wyman from 1965 is now available, together with Jean-Pierre Changeux's recollections on the origins of the theory of Allostery and several important texts by various authors on the subject. These are part of a special issue of the Journal of Molecular Biology (JMB) published at the occasion of a Pasteur/EMBO ...

TORONTO, April 18, 2013—Dietary supplements accounted for more than half the Class 1 drugs recalled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2004-12, meaning they contained substances that could cause serious health problems or even death, a new study from St. Michael's Hospital has found. The majority of those recalled supplements were bodybuilding, weight loss or sexual enhancement products that contain unapproved medicinal ingredients, including steroids, said the study's lead author, Dr. Ziv Harel. Almost one-quarter of the substances are manufactured outside ...

A new species of leaf miner from the important family Gracillariidae has been recently discovered in the depths of the Brazilian jungle and described in the open access journal Zookeys. The Gracillariidae family is an ancient one with fossils dating back its origins to around 97 million years. Among the leaf miners of this family there are some species with significance as economic factors as well as agricultural pests. The new species, Spinivalva gaucha, is associated with representatives of the Passiflora plant genus among which is the economically important and favorite ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A bizarre twist on the usual way proteins are made may explain mysterious symptoms in the grandparents of some children with mental disabilities. The discovery, made by a team of scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School, may lead to better treatments for older adults with a recently discovered genetic condition. The condition, called Fragile X-associated Tremor Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS), causes shakiness and balance problems and is often misdiagnosed as Parkinson's disease. The grandchildren of people with the disease have a separate ...

PITTSBURGH—A silly telephone game that became a viral phenomenon in Pakistan has demonstrated some serious potential for teaching poorly educated people about automated voice services and provided a new tool for them to learn about jobs, say researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Pakistan's Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). The game, called Polly, is simplicity itself: a caller records a message and Polly adds funny sound effects, such as changing a male's voice to a female voice (or vice versa), or making the caller sound like a drunk chipmunk. ...