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Social Science

Light to moderate alcohol leads to good cheer at Danish high-school parties

Contact: Marie Eliasen, M.Sc. mae@niph.dk 45-6550-7777 (Denmark) University of Southern Denmark Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Light to moderate alcohol leads to good cheer at Danish high-school parties Many people, especially young adults, engage in high-risk drinking because of the belief it will lead to positive mood effects such as cheerfulness. A new study of the association between blood alcohol content (BAC) and the subjective effects of alcohol like cheerfulness, focus distraction, and sluggishness among students in a real-life setting ...

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Science

Adolescence: When drinking and genes may collide

Contact: Carmen van der Zwaluw, Ph.D. cvdzwaluw@gmail.com 31-61-4443988 (Netherlands) Radboud University Nijmegen Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Adolescence: When drinking and genes may collide Many negative effects of drinking, such as transitioning into heavy alcohol use, often take place during adolescence and can contribute to long-term negative health outcomes as well as the development of alcohol use disorders. A new study of adolescent drinking and its genetic and environmental influences has found that different trajectories of adolescent ...

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Science

Use of false ID by youth to buy alcohol is a slippery slope toward alcohol use disorders

Contact: Amelia M. Arria, Ph.D. aarria@umd.edu 301-405-9795 University of Maryland School of Public Health Jennifer Read, Ph.D. jpread@buffalo.edu 716-645-0193 State University of New York at Buffalo Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Use of false ID by youth to buy alcohol is a slippery slope toward alcohol use disorders Many underage youth use false identification (ID) to buy alcohol. A new study has found that almost two-thirds of a college student sample used false IDs. False ID use might contribute to the development of alcohol use ...

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Science

To sleep, perchance to clean

In findings that give fresh meaning to the old adage that a good night's sleep clears the mind, a new study shows that a recently discovered system that flushes waste from the brain is primarily active during sleep. This revelation could transform scientists' understanding of the biological purpose of sleep and point to new ways to treat neurological disorders. "This study shows that the brain has different functional states when asleep and when awake," said Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., D.M.Sc., co-director of the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Center for ...

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Science

The sly maneuvers of the fungus fatal to frogs

This news release is available in Spanish. Like subsurface ninjas, the cells of a particular fungus are slipping into the skins of amphibians worldwide, killing them, and now a new study hints at why this particular fungus has been so successful. In 1998, a new species of chytrid fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis was identified. In recent decades, it has contributed to rendering dozens of frog species extinct, researchers think. They know the fungus inserts itself into the skin of frogs, drying out a layer they require to be hydrated, but just how the ...

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Science

Complete skull from early Homo evokes a single, evolving lineage

This news release is available in French and Arabic. What if the earliest members of our Homo genus—those classified as Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus and so forth—actually belonged to the same species and simply looked different from one another? That's precisely the implication of a new report, which describes the analysis of a complete, approximately 1.8-million-year-old skull that was unearthed in Dmanisi, Georgia. Unlike other Homo fossils, this skull, known as Skull 5, combines a small braincase with a long face and large teeth. It was ...

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Medicine

Researchers rewrite an entire genome -- and add a healthy twist

Scientists from Yale and Harvard have recoded the entire genome of an organism and improved a bacterium's ability to resist viruses, a dramatic demonstration of the potential of rewriting an organism's genetic code. "This is the first time the genetic code has been fundamentally changed," said Farren Isaacs, assistant professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale and co-senior author of the research published Oct. 18 in the journal Science. "Creating an organism with a new genetic code has allowed us to expand the scope of biological function in ...

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Science

Vitamin D does not contribute to kidney stones, study asserts

Increased vitamin D levels may prevent a wide range of diseases, according to recent studies. However, some previous studies led to a concern that vitamin D supplementation could increase an individual's risk of developing kidney stones. However, a study of 2,012 participants – published in the American Journal of Public Health –found no statistically relevant association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25 (OH)D) serum level in the range of 20 to 100 ng/mL and the incidence of kidney stones. This study – led by Cedric F. Garland, DrPH, adjunct professor in the Division ...

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Science

Natural selection enables purple loosestrife to invade northern Ontario

TORONTO, ON - University of Toronto research has found that purple loosestrife – an invasive species that competes with native plants for light and nutrients and can degrade habitats for wildlife – has evolved extremely rapidly, flowering about three weeks earlier as it has spread to northern Ontario. This has allowed populations of the species to thrive in the colder climate with a more than 30-fold increase in seed production. "The ability of invasive species to rapidly adapt to local climate has not generally been considered to be an important factor affecting spread," ...

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Environment

Field Museum scientists estimate 16,000 tree species in the Amazon

Researchers, taxonomists, and students from The Field Museum and 88 other institutions around the world have provided new answers to two simple but long-standing questions about Amazonian diversity: How many trees are there in the Amazon, and how many tree species occur there? The study will be published October 17, 2013 in Science. The vast extent and difficult terrain of the Amazon Basin (including parts of Brazil, Peru, Columbia) and the Guiana Shield (Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana), which span an area roughly the size of the 48 contiguous North American states, ...

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Medicine

Frog-killing fungus paralyzes amphibian immune response

A fungus that is killing frogs and other amphibians around the world releases a toxic factor that disables the amphibian immune response, Vanderbilt University investigators report Oct. 18 in the journal Science. The findings represent "a step forward in understanding a long-standing puzzle – why the amphibian immune system seems to be so inept at clearing the fungus," said Louise Rollins-Smith, Ph.D., associate professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. Although the identity of the toxic fungal factor (or factors) remains a mystery, its ability to inhibit a ...

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Science

Costly cigarettes and smoke-free homes

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say high-priced cigarettes and smoke-free homes effectively reduce smoking behaviors among low-income individuals – a demographic in which tobacco use has remained comparatively high. Writing in the October 17, 2013 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, principal investigator John P. Pierce, PhD, professor and director of population sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues found that expensive cigarettes – $4.50 or more per pack – were associated with lower consumption ...

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Science

Mysterious ancient human crossed Wallace's Line

Scientists have proposed that the most recently discovered ancient human relatives -- the Denisovans -- somehow managed to cross one of the world's most prominent marine barriers in Indonesia, and later interbred with modern humans moving through the area on the way to Australia and New Guinea. Three years ago the genetic analysis of a little finger bone from Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains in northern Asia led to a complete genome sequence of a new line of the human family tree -- the Denisovans. Since then, genetic evidence pointing to their hybridisation with ...

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Medicine

Scientists discover genetic disease which causes recurrent respiratory infections

Cambridge scientists have discovered a rare genetic disease which predisposes patients to severe respiratory infections and lung damage. Because the scientists also identified how the genetic mutation affects the immune system, they are hopeful that new drugs that are currently undergoing clinical trials to treat leukaemia may also be effective in helping individuals with this debilitating disease. For the study, led by the University of Cambridge in collaboration with the Babraham Institute and the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology, the researchers first examined ...

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Medicine

Bladder bacteria vary in women with common forms of incontinence

MAYWOOD -- Women with common forms of urinary incontinence have various bacteria in their bladder, according to data presented today by researchers from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Researchers also found that some of these bacteria may differ based on their incontinence type. These findings were presented at the 34th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urogynecologic Society in Las Vegas. They stem from Loyola's Urinary Research and Educational Collaboration, an institutional effort to identify and characterize urinary bacteria and how ...

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Environment

Adaptability to local climate helps invasive species thrive

The ability of invasive plants to rapidly adapt to local climates -- and potentially to climate change -- may be a key factor in how quickly they spread. According to new research published in Science by UBC evolutionary ecologist Rob Colautti, it is rapid evolution -- as much as resistance to local pests -- that has helped purple loosestrife to invade, and thrive in, northern Ontario. "The ability of invasive species to rapidly adapt to local climate has not generally been considered to be an important factor affecting spread," says Colautti, an NSERC Banting Postdoctoral ...

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Medicine

Researchers advance toward engineering 'wildly new genome'

In two parallel projects, researchers have created new genomes inside the bacterium E. coli in ways that test the limits of genetic reprogramming and open new possibilities for increasing flexibility, productivity and safety in biotechnology. In one project, researchers created a novel genome—the first-ever entirely genomically recoded organism—by replacing all 321 instances of a specific "genetic three-letter word," called a codon, throughout the organism's entire genome with a word of supposedly identical meaning. The researchers then reintroduced a reprogramed version ...

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Medicine

Death from drugs like oxycodone linked to disadvantaged neighborhoods, fragmented families

Death from analgesic overdose, including the painkillers oxycodone and codeine, is more concentrated in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods with a prevalence of high divorce, single-parent homes than deaths from unintentional causes, according to research conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Yet, compared to heroin overdose deaths, analgesic overdoses were found to occur in higher-income neighborhoods. This study is among the first to provide a framework that helps explain the geographical distribution of analgesic overdose in urban areas. ...

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Technology

FDA must find regulatory balance for probiotics says Univ. of Md. law prof

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should consider the unique features of probiotics — bacteria that help maintain the natural balance of organisms in the intestines — in regulating their use and marketing, says Diane Hoffmann, JD, director of the Law and Health Care Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and lead author of the a newly released Science article, "Probiotics: Finding the Right Regulatory Balance." "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no definition of probiotics and regulates them based on whether they ...

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Science

Gene regulation differences between humans and chimpanzees more complex than thought

Changes in gene regulation have been used to study the evolutionary chasm that exists between humans and chimpanzees despite their largely identical DNA. However, scientists from the University of Chicago have discovered that mRNA expression levels, long considered a barometer for differences in gene regulation, often do not reflect differences in protein expression—and, therefore, biological function—between humans and chimpanzees. The work was published Oct. 17 in Science. "We thought that we knew how to identify patterns of mRNA expression level differences between ...

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Energy

Why lithium-ion-batteries fail

Lithium-ion batteries are in our cellphones, laptops, and digital cameras. Few portable electronic devices exist that do not rely on these energy sources. Currently battery electrodes contain active materials known as intercalation compounds. These materials store charge in their chemical structure without undergoing substantial structural change. That makes these batteries comparatively long-lived and safe. However, intercalation materials have one drawback: their limited energy density, the amount of energy they can store per volume and mass. In the search for higher ...

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