This press release is available in German. During spatial learning, space is represented in the hippocampus through plastic changes in the connections between neurons. Jozsef Csicsvari and his collaborators investigate spatial learning in rats using the cheeseboard maze apparatus. This apparatus contains many holes, some of which are selected to hide food in order to test spatial memory. During learning trials, animals learn where the rewards are located, and after a period sleep, the researchers test whether the animal can recall these reward locations. In previous ...

Deep subduction of continental crust and rapid exhumation of ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic rocks, and its mechanism have been one of the most important issues of the world's attention in the Dabie orogen. Professor LIU Shaofeng from State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and his co-author set out to tackle this problem. Their study results fully demonstrated that basin sediments recorded Dabie formation process and supplied important trails for Dabie uplifting and exhumation. Their work, entitled "Mesozoic ...

Amid changing weather and water patterns worldwide and forecasts of more severe transformations to come, calls have been growing for the UN Security Council to include water issues on its agenda. And there's rising international support for adopting "universal water security" as one of the Sustainable Development Goals -- a set of mid-term global objectives being formulated to succeed the UN's Millennium Development Goals, agreed by world leaders in 2000 for achievement by 2015. But what does "water security" mean? The absence of a definition undermines progress ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 22, 2013) – Every five years, the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA) gathers top researchers in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to set the research agenda for the next five years. The findings and recommendations of these expert workgroups are presented in a series of detailed "Challenges in IBD Research" reports, now available in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, official journal of the CCFA. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Each workgroup is assigned to specific topic areas ...

Boston, MA – In new research published in the April 4, 2013 issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) demonstrate that some variants in our genes that could put a person at risk for inflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease or rheumatoid arthritis, have been the target of natural selection over the course of human history. The research team, led by Philip De Jager, MD, PhD, BWH Department of Neurology, and Barbara Stranger, PhD, University of Chicago looked at genome-wide association studies ...

Global Aerospace Corporation (GAC) announced today that the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is publishing an article entitled "Removing Orbital Debris With Less Risk" in the March/April edition of the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets (JSR) authored by Kerry Nock and Dr. Kim Aaron, of GAC, and Dr. Darren McKnight, of Integrity Applications Incorporated, Chantilly, VA. This article compares in-orbit debris removal options regarding their potential risk of creating new orbital debris or disabling working satellites during deorbit operation. Space ...

Philadelphia – Research has long shown the negative effects cigarette smoking has on cardiovascular health. But now, a new study from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania corroborates early evidence showing that cigarette smoking leads to longer healing times and an increased rate of post-operative complication and infection for patients sustaining fractures or traumatic injuries to their bone. The full results of the study are being presented this week at the 2013 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons ...

Resilience, safety and security of UK food imports highlighted in new Global Food Security report and public exhibition. Global Food Security report highlights key issues for UK food imports Public exhibition highlights global food security research A new report has highlighted issues surrounding global food systems and the importation of food into the UK. Partners in the Global Food Security (GFS) Research Partnership came together with thought-leaders, scientists and experts in the field to contribute to the report via a Public Policy Seminar on 'Global Food Systems ...

Berlin, March 22, 2013 - At the dawn of third millennium medical researchers still know very little about gender-specific differences in illness, particularly when it comes to disease symptoms, influencing social and psychological factors, and the ramifications of these differences for treatment and prevention. Medical research conducted over the past 40 years has focused almost exclusively on male patients. A new article titled "Gender medicine: a task for the third millennium" presents research on gender-related differences conducted by Giovannella Baggio of Padua ...

More than 200 million years ago, a massive extinction decimated 76 percent of marine and terrestrial species, marking the end of the Triassic period and the onset of the Jurassic. The event cleared the way for dinosaurs to dominate Earth for the next 135 million years, taking over ecological niches formerly occupied by other marine and terrestrial species. It's not clear what caused the end-Triassic extinction, although most scientists agree on a likely scenario. Over a relatively short time period, massive volcanic eruptions from a large region known as the Central ...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued a summary response to the recommendations of an external panel of experts that was charged with advising the agency on how to improve and streamline its logistical capabilities to more efficiently support world-class Antarctic science in coming decades. The NSF document, which was made public on March 21, is the agency's response to the report, More and Better Science in Antarctica Through Increased Logistical Effectiveness, which was released in July of 2012 by the U.S. Antarctic Program Blue Ribbon Panel. NSF and the ...

CHICAGO --- A new gentler chemotherapy drug in the form of nanoparticles has been designed by Northwestern Medicine® scientists to be less toxic to a young woman's fertility but extra tough on cancer. This is the first cancer drug tested while in development for its effect on fertility using a novel in vitro test. The scientists designed a quick new in vitro test that predicts the toxicity of a chemotherapy drug to fertility and can be easily used to test other cancer drugs in development as well as existing ones. Currently the testing of cancer drugs for fertility ...

A team of scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has developed a novel method to accurately predict dengue fever outbreaks several weeks before they occur. The new method, known as PRedicting Infectious Disease Scalable Model (PRISM), extracts relationships between clinical, meteorological, climatic and socio-political data in Peru and in the Philippines. It can be used in any geographical region and extended to other environmentally influenced infections affecting public health and military forces worldwide. PRISM is aimed ...

Scientists have discovered a layer of liquified molten rock in Earth's mantle that may be responsible for the sliding motions of the planet's massive tectonic plates. The finding may carry far-reaching implications, from understanding basic geologic functions of the planet to new insights into volcanism and earthquakes. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and is reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature by Samer Naif, Kerry Key, and Steven Constable of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), and Rob Evans of the Woods ...

DENVER – Molecular driven therapeutic targets have resulted in a paradigm shift in the treatment of advanced lung adenocarcinoma. However, in early non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), surgical resection remains the treatment of choice with adjuvant chemotherapy. In a recent study published in the April 2013 issue of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's (IASLC) Journal of Thoracic Oncology, researchers identified patterns of mutations in early stage node negative lung adenocarcinoma. They retrospectively reviewed 204 patients with stage IB primary ...

Sunghwan Jung is a fan of the 19th Century born John William Strutt, 3rd, also known as Lord Baron Rayleigh. An English physicist, Rayleigh, along with William Ramsay, discovered the gas argon, an achievement for which he earned the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1904. But it was Rayleigh's lesser-known discovery of a physical phenomenon in 1878 that was more intriguing to Jung. Some 135 years ago, Rayleigh wrote that two fluid jets or drops do not always merge into one body of liquid, a counter-intuitive topic or phenomena in physics that has since been studied in much detail, ...

Atherosclerosis, an inflammatory reaction, is at the root of the most common forms of cardiovascular disease. Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have now identified a microRNA that plays a prominent role in the process, and offers a promising target for new therapies. Atherosclerosis – otherwise known as hardening of the arteries – is a prevalent cause of death in modern societies. The condition arises from the build-up of localized fatty deposits called plaques in the arteries. Macrophages, the phagocytic cells of the immune system, migrate ...

Philadelphia, PA, March 22, 2013 – The prevalence of obesity within the military is currently 13 percent. This rising epidemic, also rampant throughout the general population, could result in military career setbacks, negatively impact operational readiness, and jeopardize Department of Defense operations. To combat the epidemic, a team of researchers chose the military cafeteria as the venue to observe and evaluate eating behavior and the positive impact of modest changes to promote healthy eating and food selection. The results are captured in a new report published by ...

Catching rides on cargo ships and fishing boats, many invasive species are now covering our shorelines and compromising the existence of our native marine life. In a study published in Ecology Letters, Northeastern University Prof. David Kimbro and his team examine what factors allow some invasive species to survive in their new environments and others to fail. WHY SHOULD WE CARE? Once invasive species arrive in their new location, they begin multiplying, and in some cases, overpowering the local marine life. This can have a very strong impact on our ecosystems and ...

Certain Streptococci increase their production of toxic shock syndrome toxin 1, sometimes to potentially dangerous levels, when aerobic bacteria are present in the vagina. But scientists from the University of Western Ontario have discovered certain strains of lactobacillus bacteria are capable of dampening production of that toxin according to research published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. "The risk of potentially fatal toxic shock syndrome appears to be influenced by the types of bacteria present in the vagina," says principal investigator ...

Contact: Coimbra Sirica csirica@burnesscommunications.com 52-155-215-38038 Angélica Zambrano anyelik.zam@gmail.com 571-510-55-53 Burness Communications Study shows resources giveaway in Latin America; Outdated model tramples human rights, environment Researcher points to 'colonial mentality' as governments race to attract investors; Cites destruction of forests, rivers, way of life of rural communities in 4 nations BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA (21 March 2013)—A new study reveals that governments in Latin America have returned to natural resources extraction to fuel ...

PHILADELPHIA (March 22, 2013)— One molecule makes nerve cells grow longer. Another one makes them grow branches. These new experimental manipulations have taken researchers a step closer to understanding how nerve cells are repaired at their farthest reaches after injury. The research was recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience. "If you injure a peripheral nerve, it will spontaneously regenerate, but it goes very slowly. We're trying to speed that up," said Dr. Jeffery Twiss, a professor and head of the biology department at Drexel University in the College of ...

This press release is available in French. Montreal March 22, 2013 – Determining the financial health of a company is no easy task. But new research from Concordia University's John Molson School of Business, recently published in the Journal of Corporate Finance, demonstrates that a company that revises its previous financial statements is more likely to have been poorly governed. "These restatements can result from a number of factors including accounting errors or omissions or fraud," explains the study's co-author, Lawrence Kryzanowski, professor and Ned Goodman ...

Your cells are social butterflies. They constantly interact with their surroundings, taking in cues on when to divide and where to anchor themselves, among other critical tasks. This networking is driven in part by proteins called integrin, which reside in a cell's outer plasma membrane. Their job is to convert mechanical forces from outside the cell into internal chemical signals that tell the cell what to do. That is, when they work properly. When they misfire, integrins can cause diseases such as atherosclerosis and several types of cancer. Despite their importance—good ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- More than 200 million years ago, a massive extinction decimated 76 percent of marine and terrestrial species, marking the end of the Triassic period and the onset of the Jurassic. This devastating event cleared the way for dinosaurs to dominate Earth for the next 135 million years, taking over ecological niches formerly occupied by other marine and terrestrial species. It's not entirely clear what caused the end-Triassic extinction, although most scientists agree on a likely scenario: Over a relatively short period of time, massive volcanic eruptions ...