"You are not just a ball of cells," says Clifford Tabin, George Jacob and Jacqueline Hazel Leder Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS). The way cells organize within the human body allows us all to function the way we do, but a couple of Harvard professors are concerned as much with that developmental process as with the end result. Tabin shares a common perspective with L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, ...

LEMONT, Ill. – Scientists broke new ground in the study of deep earthquakes, a poorly understood phenomenon that occurs where the oceanic lithosphere, driven by tectonics, plunges under continental plates – examples are off the coasts of the western United States, Russia and Japan. This research is a large step toward replicating the full power of these earthquakes to learn what sets them off and how they unleash their violence. It was made possible only by the construction of a one-of-a-kind X-ray facility that can replicate high-pressure and high-temperature while allowing ...

Patients suffering from early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease who were diagnosed sooner than usual using a brain imaging test received Alzheimer-specific medications earlier than those who did not have the brain imaging results available to their doctors or themselves. These patients also had significantly better clinical outcomes during the subsequent years they were clinically monitored, UCLA researchers have found for the first time. The Metabolic Cerebral Imaging in Incipient Dementia study is an ongoing national clinical trial sponsored by the Centers for Medicare ...

A team from The University of Texas at Arlington has used mathematical modeling to develop a computer simulation they hope will one day improve the treatment of dangerous reactions to medical implants such as stents, catheters and artificial joints. The work resulted from a National Institutes of Health-funded collaboration by research groups headed by Liping Tang, professor of bioengineering in the UT Arlington College of Engineering, and Jianzhong Su, chairman and professor in the UT Arlington College of Science's mathematics department. Results from their computational ...

Adopting proven sustainable land management practices could raise world crop supplies by an estimated 2.3 billion tonnes, worth $1.4 trillion, experts say in a study being released at a major global desertification conference. Conducted by the international Economics of Land Degradation initiative, the scientific interim report says land's economic value "is chronically undervalued and commonly determined by immediate agricultural or forestry market values." "This focus on short-term gain motivates the highest extraction rates possible from land, leading to unsustainable ...

Hereditary spastic paraplegia development associated with changes in endoplasmic reticulum Hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSP) are a group of hereditary diseases that result in progressive loss of motor function in the lower limbs, and mutations in many different genes have been implicated in disease progression. One common feature of HSP is the progressive degradation of the axons of cortical motor neurons; however, it is not fully understood how mutations in is so many different genes result in axonal degradation. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, ...

Hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSP) are a group of hereditary diseases that result in progressive loss of motor function in the lower limbs, and mutations in many different genes have been implicated in disease progression. One common feature of HSP is the progressive degradation of the axons of cortical motor neurons; however, it is not fully understood how mutations in is so many different genes result in axonal degradation. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Christian Hübner and colleagues at Jena University develop a mouse model of HSP by introducing ...

Distal renal tubular acidosis (dRTA) develops in response to the loss of acid secretion by α-intercalated cells in the kidney. The inability to remove acid from the body results in low blood potassium levels (hypokalemia), dehydration, and excess calcium in the urine (hypercalcemia), which leads to urinary stone formation. Recently, patients with dRTA have been identified with genetic mutations that lead to the inactivation of proton pumps found in β-intercalated cells, which have been thought to be responsible for base-secretion in the kidney. In this issue ...

Common variable immune deficiency (CVID) is a genetic disease associated with enhanced susceptibility to infection, autoimmunity, and decreased antibody production. Mutations in the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily member TACI, are associated with CVID and autoimmunity development. Interestingly, autoimmunity develops in CVID patients with only one mutated copy of TACI, and CVID patients with two mutated TACI alleles do not develop autoimmunity. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Eric Meffre and colleagues at Yale University evaluated B ...

Individuals with a mutation in the gene encoding a zinc transporter, SLC30A8 have an elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Insulin granules that are released from pancreatic β cells contain high levels of zinc; however, it is not clear why individuals with mutations in the SLC30A8 zinc transporter gene are predisposed to type 2 diabetes. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Yoshio Fujitani and colleagues at Juntendo University investigated the role of zinc transport by SLC30A8 in β cells. They found that this zinc transporter is required ...

Moths in northern Finland are less susceptible to rising temperatures than expected, suggesting high latitude moth populations around the world may be partly buffered from the effects of rapid climate warming, according to a new Dartmouth-Finnish study based on the most extensive analyses yet conducted of seasonal patterns in forest animals. The results are important because moths are a key food source for birds, bats and many other predators, and (in their caterpillar stage) are one of the planet's most abundant plant-eating animals and most voracious agricultural pests. ...

Charlottesville, VA (September 24, 2013). Recent scientific findings have raised the fear that young athletes may fare worse after sustaining a sports-related concussion than older athletes. Researchers from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine compared symptoms associated with concussion in middle/high school–age athletes with those in college-age athletes to determine whether age-related differences exist. These researchers found no significant differences between the two age groups in the number or severity of sports-related concussion symptoms or in the amount of ...

Cuckoo finches that lay more than one egg in their victims' nests have a better chance of bamboozling host parents into fostering their parasitic young, a study has found. Dr Martin Stevens from the University of Exeter and Dr Claire Spottiswoode from the University of Cambridge, with Dr Jolyon Troscianko at the University of Exeter, demonstrated that when African cuckoo finch females lay more than one egg in the same nest of their African tawny-flanked prinia hosts, the foster parents find it harder to tell their own eggs from the imposter's. The host is therefore ...

This news release is available in German. Jülich, 24 September 2013 – Magnetic molecules are regarded as promising functional units for the future of information processing. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Jülich and Aachen were the first to produce particularly robust magnetic molecules that enable a direct electrical readout of magnetic information. This was made possible by selecting the rare earth metal neodymium as the central building block of the molecule. The team's research findings were published online today in the renowned journal Nature ...

Atlanta, September 24, 2013—Early-stage breast cancer patients who receive external beam therapy (XRT) are not at higher risk for serious long-term side effects in the chest area, including increase in deaths from cardiac disease and secondary malignancies, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting. The study utilized patient information from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. It evaluated women identified as having primary Stage T1aN0 breast ...

A drug that appears to target specific intestinal bacteria in the guts of mice may create a chain reaction that could eventually lead to new treatments for obesity and diabetes in humans, according to a team of researchers. Mice fed a high-fat diet and provided tempol, an anti-oxidant drug that may help protect people from the effects of radiation, were significantly less obese than those that did not receive the drug, according to Andrew Patterson, assistant professor of molecular toxicology, Penn State, who worked with Frank J. Gonzalez, laboratory metabolism chief, ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Sulfasalazine, a drug commonly prescribed to reduce diarrhea in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, does not reduce diarrhea in patients receiving radiation therapy for cancers in the pelvic area a Mayo Clinic-led study has found. The study also found that the medication may be associated with a higher risk of diarrhea than a placebo when used during radiation therapy to the pelvis. The results were presented today at the American Society of Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting in Atlanta. "Patients receiving radiation therapy ...

WASHINGTON D.C. Sept. 24, 2013 -- The dream of igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth, is getting closer to becoming reality, according the authors of a new review article in the journal Physics of Plasmas. Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) engaged in a collaborative project led by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report that while there is at least one significant obstacle to overcome before achieving the highly stable, precisely directed ...

September 24, 2013 - A survey conducted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows that a majority of those underage students in Ontario, Canada who smoke or drink are getting cigarettes and alcohol from a friend or family member. Among students in Grades 7-12 who smoked cigarettes, 58 per cent say they received their last cigarette from a friend or family member, while 19 per cent report getting them from a corner store, grocery store, gas station, or bar. Twenty-six per cent of males surveyed said they were more likely to obtain cigarettes from sources ...

LOS ANGELES (Sept. 24, 2013) – A new study of patients who died of sudden cardiac arrest, a usually fatal condition that causes the heart to stop beating, shows the majority who qualified to receive potentially lifesaving treatment did not receive it. Researchers led by Sumeet Chugh, MD, associate director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, examined medical records of 2,093 patients who died of sudden cardiac arrest and found that only 488 patients, or about 20 percent, were medically evaluated to see if they met the criteria to receive an implantable cardiac defibrillator, ...

Young adults in Greece suffer more from stress and mental health problems and are less optimistic about the future than Swedes of the same age. The grave financial problems in Greece have brought on a social crisis that has probably affected people's health, according to a study from Linköping University. In the study, recently published in the scientific journal PLOS One, groups of students at Athens University and Linköping University replied to questions about their health and perceived stress. The results show that in every respect, the Greek students reported poorer ...

The medical treatment of horses requires not only specialized knowledge but also specialized equipment. Horses' lungs are large and when they breathe horses take in a correspondingly large volume of air. It is not easy to supply this in an emergency. Suitable respirators are available in hospitals but are not always there when they are needed, for example in the barn, in the pasture, in the woods, during transport or at other places where emergencies can and do occur. A bellows to inflate lungs Yves Moens is Head of the Vetmeduni's Clinical Unit of Anaesthesiology ...

It was previously thought that the two test methods signalled the same type of asthma. But a new study, led by researchers at Uppsala University, Sweden, shows that the methods actually signal two different inflammatory processes. With the tests used in combination, the chances are probably greater for the patient to receive just the right treatment. The study is being published in the October issue of Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Measurement of the concentration of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) is today a routine clinical method for determining the degree ...

The radar on NASA and JAXA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite saw Typhoon Usagi maintaining some of its inner-core structure an hour before landfall on Sept. 22, 2013. The data was used to create an image that showed the 3-D regions of heavy precipitation hiding under the circular cloud cover near Usagi's center of rotation. While the light precipitation regions had lost the appearance of organization, the heavy precipitation regions showed what appeared to be a ~50 km/31.0 mile-radius eye wall, with multiple rain bands further away from the center. ...

New research could improve the welfare standards of millions of fish used by scientists around the world. The study, published in PLOS ONE, is one of the first to formally assess the welfare implications of anaesthetics on fish. Researchers use fish to study the developmental origins of health and disease. The work, carried out in collaboration between the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences and AstraZeneca Brixham Environmental Laboratory, investigated whether scientists are using the right anaesthetics and if current best practice for fish could ...