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Science10 Oct 2013

Overweight and obese children face high risk of hypertension

High body weight in children and adolescents is strongly associated with the likelihood of hypertension, according to a Kaiser Permanente Southern California study published today in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension. Researchers found that young people who are overweight are twice as likely as their normal-weight peers to have hypertension; moderately obese youths have four times higher risk; and extremely obese children and adolescents are 10 times more likely to have hypertension. The study also found 10 percent of youths who are extremely obese have hypertension ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2013

Nobel Prize winner reports new model for neurotransmitter release

In a Neuron article published online October 10th, recent Nobel Laureate Thomas C. Südhof challenges long-standing ideas on how neurotransmitter gets released at neuronal synapses. On October 7th, Südhof won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, alongside James Rothman and Randy Schekman, for related work on how vesicles—such as those in neurons that contain neurotransmitter—are transported within cells. Neurotransmitter-containing vesicles are found inside neurons very close to the end of the axon. Here, they can quickly fuse with the neuronal membrane surrounding ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2013

Researchers identify liver cancer progenitor cells before tumors become visible

For the first time, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have isolated and characterized the progenitor cells that eventually give rise to malignant hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumors – the most common form of liver cancer. The researchers found ways to identify and isolate the HCC progenitor cells (HcPC) long before actual tumors were apparent. Writing in the October 10, 2013 issue of the journal Cell, principal investigator Michael Karin, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Pathology, and colleagues report that HcPC ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2013

Stomach cells naturally revert to stem cells

New research has shown that the stomach naturally produces more stem cells than previously realized, likely for repair of injuries from infections, digestive fluids and the foods we eat. Stem cells can make multiple kinds of specialized cells, and scientists have been working for years to use that ability to repair injuries throughout the body. But causing specialized adult cells to revert to stem cells and work on repairs has been challenging. Scientists from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Utrecht Medical Center in the Netherlands report ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

Eat more, weigh less: Worm study provides clues to better fat-loss therapies for humans

LA JOLLA, CA—October 10, 2013 —Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered key details of a brain-to-body signaling circuit that enables roundworms to lose weight independently of food intake. The weight-loss circuit is activated by combined signals from the worm versions of the neurotransmitters serotonin and adrenaline, and there are reasons to suspect that it exists in a similar form in humans and other mammals. "Boosting serotonin signaling has been seen as a viable strategy for weight loss in people, but our results hint that boosting serotonin ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2013

Stem cell breakthrough could set up future transplant therapies

A new method for creating stem cells for the human liver and pancreas, which could enable both cell types to be grown in sufficient quantities for clinical use, has been developed by scientists. Using the technique, researchers have for the first time been able to grow a pure, self-renewing population of stem cells specific to the human foregut, the upper section of the human digestive system. These so-called "Foregut stem cells" could then be developed further to produce liver or pancreatic cells. The method significantly improves on existing techniques for cultivating ...

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Space10 Oct 2013

Soft shells and strange star clusters

PGC 6240 is an elliptical galaxy that resembles a pale rose in the sky, with hazy shells of stars encircling a very bright centre. Some of these shells are packed close to the centre of the galaxy, while others are flung further out into space. Several wisps of material have been thrown so far that they appear to be almost detached from the galaxy altogether. Astronomers have studied PGC 6240 in detail due to this structure, and also because of its surrounding globular clusters — dense, tightly packed groups of gravitationally bound stars that orbit galaxies. Over 150 ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2013

Direct 'writing' of artificial cell membranes on graphene

Writing in Nature Communications, researchers at The University of Manchester led by Dr Aravind Vijayaraghavan, and Dr Michael Hirtz at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), have demonstrated that membranes can be directly 'written' on to a graphene surface using a technique known as Lipid Dip-Pen Nanolithography (L-DPN). The human body contains 100 trillion cells, each of which is enveloped in a cell membrane which is essentially a phospholipid bi-layer membrane. These cell membranes have a plethora of proteins, ion channels and other molecules embedded in them, ...

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Social Science10 Oct 2013

Look out above! Experiment explores innate visual behavior in mice

When you're a tiny mouse in the wild, spotting aerial predators—like hawks and owls—is essential to your survival. But once you see an owl, how is this visual cue processed into a behavior that helps you to avoid an attack? Using an experimental video technique, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have now developed a simple new stimulus with which they can spur the mouse's escape plans. This new stimulus allows the researchers to narrow down cell types in the retina that could aid in the detection of aerial predators. "The mouse has recently ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2013

Super-enhancers seen as 'Rosetta Stone' for dialog between genes and disease

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (October 10, 2013) – Having recently discovered a set of powerful gene regulators that control cell identity in a few mouse and human cell types, Whitehead Institute scientists are now showing that these regulators—which they named "super-enhancers"—act across a vast array of human cell types and are enriched in mutated regions of the genome that are closely associated with a broad spectrum of diseases. The findings, published online today by the journal Cell, suggest that these super-enhancers, first described in Cell several months ago by Whitehead ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

Genes predispose some people to focus on the negative

A new study by a University of British Columbia researcher finds that some people are genetically predisposed to see the world darkly. The study, published in Psychological Science, finds that a previously known gene variant can cause individuals to perceive emotional events—especially negative ones – more vividly than others. "This is the first study to find that this genetic variation can significantly affect how people see and experience the world," says Prof. Rebecca Todd of UBC's Dept. of Psychology. "The findings suggest people experience emotional aspects of ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

Scientists find potential new targets for anti-inflammatory therapies

LA JOLLA, CA -- October 9, 2013 -- A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has identified key signaling proteins in the inflammation process that contribute to the development of inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, sepsis and inflammatory bowel diseases. The finding highlights possible new ways of treating these inflammation disorders, which sicken or kill millions of people around the world each year. "We hope our approach will lead to the development of drugs that augment current anti-inflammatory strategies," said ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

Gene movements observed in vivo

This new method will be a great step forwards to understanding the resulting processes that control gene regulation. These results were published on October 6, 2013 on the website of the review Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. In the cell nucleus, DNA is highly dynamic and changes its spatial configuration, in the same way as during the process of cell division. We already know that the spatial configuration of DNA determines whether the genes are active or inactive, in other words whether they are capable of expression. In this study, the researchers attempted ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

Correcting emotional misunderstandings

When we are sad the world seemingly cries with us. On the contrary, when we are happy everything shines and all around people's faces seem to rejoyce with us. These projection mechanisms of one's emotions onto others are well known to scientists, who believe they are at the core of the ability to interpret and relate to others. In some circumstances, however, this may lead to gross mistakes (called egocentricity bias in the emotional domain EEB), to avoid them cerebral mechanisms are activated about which still little is known. Giorgia Silani, a neuroscientist at SISSA, ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

Weight loss through the use of intestinal barrier sleeves

Bariatric surgeries, such as a gastric bypass, are currently the most effective anti-obesity therapies. They also lead to a reduced insulin resistance. However, the pitfall of these surgical interventions is that they are highly invasive and often permanent procedures. An international team of scientists led by Dr. Kirk Habegger, Metabolic Disease Institute, University of Cincinnati, and Prof. Dr. Matthias Tschöp, Scientific Director of the Helmholtz Diabetes Center (HDC) at the Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU), Partner of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

Malaria, toxoplasmosis: Toward new lines of research?

This work, published on 10th October on the website of Nature Communications, concerns the role of one protein which is common to these parasites. Called AMA1, it has been at the heart of many years' research on upgrading treatments, such as trying out vaccination against malaria. However, the present authors have reservations about the success of therapeutic strategies which rely solely on the blockage of AMA1, by demonstrating that the malaria and toxoplasmosis parasites, without the protein, can develop normally. With 1 million victims every year, malaria is the most ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

I'm ok, you're not ok

This news release is available in German. Egoism and narcissism appear to be on the rise in our society, while empathy is on the decline. And yet, the ability to put ourselves in other people's shoes is extremely important for our coexistence. A research team headed by Tania Singer from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences has discovered that our own feelings can distort our capacity for empathy. This emotionally driven egocentricity is recognised and corrected by the brain. When, however, the right supramarginal gyrus doesn't function properly ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

'Ship in a bottle' detects dangerous vapors

Rice University scientists took a lesson from craftsmen of old to assemble microscopic compounds that warn of the presence of dangerous fumes from solvents. The researchers combined a common mineral, zeolite, with a metallic compound based on rhenium to make an "artificial nose" that can sniff out solvent gases. They found that in the presence of the compound, each gas had a photoluminescent "fingerprint" with a specific intensity, lifetime and color. Rice chemist Angel Martí and his students reported their results this month in the journal Angewandte Chemie. The ...

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Earth Science10 Oct 2013

3D model reveals new information about iconic volcano

The volcano on the Scottish peninsula Ardnamurchan is a popular place for the study of rocks and structures in the core of a volcano. Geology students read about it in text books and geologists have been certain that the Ardnamurchan volcano have three successive magma chambers. However, an international group of researchers, lead from Uppsala University, Sweden, has now showed that the volcano only has one single magma chamber. The new study is published in Scientific Reports, the new open access journal of the Nature Publishing Group. The 58 million year old Ardnamurchan ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

Several top websites use device fingerprinting to secretly track users

A new study by KU Leuven-iMinds researchers has uncovered that 145 of the Internet's 10,000 top websites track users without their knowledge or consent. The websites use hidden scripts to extract a device fingerprint from users' browsers. Device fingerprinting circumvents legal restrictions imposed on the use of cookies and ignores the Do Not Track HTTP header. The findings suggest that secret tracking is more widespread than previously thought. Device fingerprinting, also known as browser fingerprinting, is the practice of collecting properties of PCs, smartphones and ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

After almost a century, a question answered; genes protect themselves against being silenced

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have settled a century-old debate over whether occurrence of DNA methylation acts to silence gene expression, or if genes are turned off by other means before they are methylated. As explicated today in the journal Nature, methylation in fact enforces gene silencing, and it is levels of a newly identified form of RNA produced by individual genes that determines whether they are turned off by the addition of a methyl (CH3) group by the enzyme DNA methylase 1 (DNMT1). The study, led by HSCI Principal Faculty member Daniel ...

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Science10 Oct 2013

'Stadium waves' could explain lull in global warming

One of the most controversial issues emerging from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) is the failure of global climate models to predict a hiatus in warming of global surface temperatures since 1998. Several ideas have been put forward to explain this hiatus, including what the IPCC refers to as 'unpredictable climate variability' that is associated with large-scale circulation regimes in the atmosphere and ocean. The most familiar of these regimes is El Niño/La Niña, which are parts of an oscillation in the ocean-atmosphere ...

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Medicine10 Oct 2013

New hepatitis C drug shows potential in phase 2 trials

Bethesda, MD -- The addition of danoprevir to the current treatment regimen for patients with hepatitis C leads to high rates of remission, according to a new article in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. The current standard of care for hepatitis C patients includes a combination of peginterferon and ribavirin. "Despite recent advances, the current hepatitis C treatment regimen is burdensome on the patient and prone to adverse events," said Patrick Marcellin, lead study author from the Service d'Hépatologie and Inserm ...

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Energy10 Oct 2013

Increased risk of depression linked to mountaintop coal mining

New Rochelle, NY, October 10, 2013—People who live among the destructive environmental effects of mountaintop coal mining face an increased risk of major depression. The results of a study conducted in the coal mining regions of Central Appalachia that explored the relationship between psychological health and environmental degradation are published in Ecopsychology, a peer-reviewed, online journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Ecopsychology website. Michael Hendryx (current affiliation Indian University, Bloomington) and ...

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Environment10 Oct 2013

Massive spruce beetle outbreak in Colorado tied to drought, according to new CU study

A new University of Colorado Boulder study indicates drought high in the northern Colorado mountains is the primary trigger of a massive spruce beetle outbreak that is tied to long-term changes in sea-surface temperatures from the Northern Atlantic Ocean, a trend that is expected to continue for decades. The new study is important because it shows that drought is a better predictor of spruce beetle outbreaks in northern Colorado than temperature alone, said lead study author Sarah Hart, a CU-Boulder doctoral student in geography. Drought conditions appear to decrease ...

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