RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A research team led by a molecular plant pathologist at the University of California, Riverside has discovered the mechanism by which an aggressive fungal pathogen infects almost all fruits and vegetables. The team discovered a novel "virulence mechanism" — the mechanism by which infection takes place — of Botrytis cinerea. This pathogen can infect more than 200 plant species, causing serious gray mold disease on almost all fruits and vegetables that have been around, even at times in the refrigerator, for more than a week. Study results appear ...

Rising ocean surface temperatures caused by climate change could make fish accumulate more mercury, increasing the health risk to people who eat seafood, Dartmouth researchers and their colleagues report in a study in the journal PLOS ONE. Until now, little has been known about how global warming may affect mercury bioaccumulation in marine life, and no previous study has demonstrated the effects using fish in both laboratory and field experiments. Mercury released into the air through industrial pollution can accumulate in streams and oceans and is turned into methylmercury ...

The nearby star system Fomalhaut – of special interest for its unusual exoplanet and dusty debris disk – has been discovered to be not just a double star, as astronomers had thought, but one of the widest triple stars known. In a paper recently accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal and posted today to the preprint server arXiv, researchers show that a previously known smaller star in its vicinity is also part of the Fomalhaut system. Eric Mamajek, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, and his collaborators found ...

PHILADELPHIA — Older cancer survivors living in rural areas were more likely to forgo medical and dental care because of financial concerns compared with older cancer survivors living in urban areas, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Data analysis showed cancer survivors in rural areas who were aged 65 or older were 66 percent more likely to forgo medical care and 54 percent more likely to forgo dental care because of cost, compared with their urban counterparts. "This ...

PHILADELPHIA — Postmenopausal women who were very active or walked for at least seven hours a week had a reduced risk for breast cancer, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Women who engaged in at least an hour of vigorous physical activity every day had a 25 percent lower risk for breast cancer, and those who walked for at least seven hours a week had a 14 percent lower risk for breast cancer, in this study of 73,615 postmenopausal women. "We examined whether recreational ...

ATLANTA -- October 4, 2013 -- A large new American Cancer Society study adds to increasing evidence that physical activity reduces the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Researchers say moderate recreational activity was associated with a 14 percent lower risk and high physical activity with a 25 percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who were active at the lowest level. The study appears early online in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention. A large body of evidence shows that women taking part in regular physical activity have an ...

One of the thinnest membranes ever made is also highly discriminating when it comes to the molecules going through it. Engineers at the University of South Carolina have constructed a graphene oxide membrane less than 2 nanometers thick with high permeation selectivity between hydrogen and carbon dioxide gas molecules. The selectivity is based on molecular size, the team reported in the journal Science. Hydrogen and helium pass relatively easily through the membrane, but carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane permeate much more slowly. "The hydrogen ...

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – A new way to attack flu viruses is taking shape in laboratories at Rutgers University, where scientists have identified chemical agents that block the virus's ability to replicate itself in cell culture. These novel compounds show promise for a new class of antiviral medicines to fight much-feared pandemic influenzas such as the looming "bird flu" threats caused by the H5N1 influenza A virus and the new H7N9 virus responsible for a 2013 outbreak in China. Timely production of a vaccine is difficult when a pandemic flu strikes. A viable alternative ...

HOUSTON, TX—October 2, 2013—Study findings published in the October issue of 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 multi-center, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial evaluated 38 post-menopausal women with tear dysfunction in both eyes. HydroEye® (ScienceBased Health®) was found to improve ocular irritation symptoms, ...

When something we do produces a positive result, we actually perceive it differently than we would if that same action yielded a negative result. In particular, people feel a greater connection between voluntary actions and their outcomes if those outcomes are good than if they are bad. The discovery, reported on October 3 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, yields important insight into notions about personal responsibility. "Our result suggests that people may really experience less responsibility for negative than for positive outcomes," says Patrick Haggard ...

The stresses that come with aging, chemotherapy treatments, and environmental exposures all threaten fertility. But what if there were a way to preserve women's limited egg supply? Researchers reporting on studies conducted in frog and mouse eggs in the Cell Press journal Molecular Cell on October 3rd may have found a way. The findings come at an important time when many women are waiting longer and longer to have children, renewing interest in the development of strategies to preserve oocytes—immature egg cells. "Our work provides insight into how oocyte viability ...

The ability to make induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from mature cells in the body holds great potential for improved drug screening, disease modeling, and medical treatments for numerous conditions. Establishing well-characterized panels of iPSC lines that reflect the diversity of the human population and include samples from patients with a wide range of diseases will be key to tapping into the potential of iPSCs. In the October 3 issue of the Cell Press journal Cell Stem Cell, leading experts in the field publish several opinion pieces on emerging issues related ...

Autophagy, a key cellular auto-cleaning mechanism, mediates the formation of amyloid beta plaques, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. It might be a potential drug target for the treatment of the disease, concludes new research from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan. The study sheds light on the metabolism of amyloid beta, and its role in neurodegeneration and memory loss. In a study published today in the journal Cell Reports, Drs. Per Nilsson, Takaomi Saido and their team show for the first time using transgenic mice that a lack of autophagy in neurons ...

Wealth inequality can encourage people to cooperate when they would otherwise have no incentive to do so, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. "In many groups and societies, the temptation to defect is high, which means that cheaters are much better off than cooperators," says IIASA researcher Ulf Dieckmann, who worked on the study along with IIASA researcher Ádám Kun. For example, he says, if a train ticket is very expensive and the probability that cheaters are caught is low, people will be tempted to free-ride without purchasing a ticket. Likewise, ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- A multidisciplinary team led by a geneticist and psychiatrist from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's (CSHL) Stanley Institute for Cognitive Genomics today publish a paper providing a glimpse of both the tremendous power and the current limitations of what is sometimes called "precision medicine." Precision medicine is an approach to diagnosis and treatment that tailors therapeutic care to individuals in a highly specific manner, and which brings to bear powerful new technologies that have not yet made it into the mainstream of clinical medicine, ...

Exposure to common air pollutants found in diesel exhaust pollution can affect the ability of honeybees to recognise floral odours, new University of Southampton research shows. Honeybees use floral odours to help locate, identify and recognise the flowers from which they forage. The Southampton team, led by Dr Tracey Newman and Professor Guy Poppy, found that diesel exhaust fumes change the profile of flora odour. They say that these changes may affect honeybees' foraging efficiency and, ultimately, could affect pollination and thus global food security. Published ...

Boston, MA – For decades, there has been a significant effort led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. Despite this work, new research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) finds only incremental improvement in antibiotic prescribing for adults with acute bronchitis and sore throat. These findings were presented at IDWeek on October 3, 2013 and the sore throat data was published online in JAMA Internal Medicine. "We know that antibiotic prescribing, particularly to patients who are not likely ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (October 3, 2013) – Whitehead Institute researchers have redefined the function of a gene whose mutation causes Rett syndrome, a neurodevelopmental autism spectrum disorder. This new research offers an improved understanding of the defects found in the neurons of Rett syndrome patients and could lead to novel therapies for the disease. "The action of the MECP2 protein is just the opposite of how it was held for the past 15 years," says Whitehead Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch, who is also a professor of biology at MIT. "It was thought that this protein ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A tiny but unexpected change to a segment of RNA in a single-cell organism looks a lot like a mistake, but is instead a change to the genetic information that is essential to the organism's survival. Scientists have discovered this RNA "edit" in Trypanosoma brucei, a parasite that causes sleeping sickness in Africa and Chagas disease in Latin America. Though the organism is a model system for this work, the finding could lead to a new drug target to fight the parasite if higher species don't share this genetic behavior. Some of the organism's genetic ...

NEW YORK (October 3, 2013) -- Using powerful genetic sequencing technology, a team of investigators, led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, scanned the genome of hundreds of individuals, and discovered those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were more likely to have gene deletions than were people without the disorder. That means those individuals -- seven percent of the study group -- had one copy of one or more genes when they should have had two. The scientists further report, in the American Journal of Human Genetics, that ...

Often deadly "triple-negative" breast cancers might be effectively treated in many cases with a drug that targets a previously unknown vulnerability in the tumors, according to a UC San Francisco researcher who described her discovery in a study published online October 3, 2013 in the journal Cancer Cell. UCSF researcher Luika Timmerman, PhD, an investigator in the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, found that many cell lines obtained from triple-negative breast cancer are especially dependent on cystine, one of the 20 amino acids that are the building ...

JUPITER, FL, October 3, 2013 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified a new drug candidate for an inherited form of cancer with no known cure. The new study showed the drug candidate—known as FRAX97—slowed the proliferation and progression of tumor cells in animal models of Neurofibromatosis type 2. This inherited type of cancer, caused by mutations in the anti-tumor gene NF2, leads to tumors of the auditory nerve that connects the inner ear to the brain. The new compound, originally developed to treat neurodegenerative ...

Portland, Ore., USA (October 3, 2013) --- Lactating cats not only increase their total calorie consumption, they also significantly alter the make-up of their diet to meet the demands of feeding a litter, research from the WALTHAM® Centre for Pet Nutrition has shown. The research provides intriguing insights into cats' feeding behaviour and strong evidence that they are able to adapt their macronutrient intake, i.e. their intake of protein, fat and carbohydrate, to meet their physiological requirements. "It's no surprise that, just like humans, cats require more energy ...

A new picture of how the nervous system interacts with the immune system to cause the itch and inflammation associated with eczema, a chronic skin disease, could lead to new therapies for the condition, according to University of California, Berkeley, scientists. Some 10 percent of the population suffers from eczema, or atopic dermatitis, at some point in their lives, but there are no cures or even good treatments for it. Symptoms range from dry, flaky and itchy skin to flaming red rashes, and in severe cases, particularly in children, the disease often progresses to ...

When developing new drugs, monitoring cellular responses to candidate compounds is essential for assessing their efficacy and safety. Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies report a new method to monitor and quantify the activity of gene promoters during the response to a drug, using the advanced gene expression analysis method CAGE followed by single-molecule sequencing. This research paves the way to a more precise analysis of cellular responses to drugs, at the level of individual promoters. The study is published this week in the journal ...