Barcelona, Spain: The severity of sleep apnoea can independently predict the aggressiveness of malignant skin melanoma, according to a new study. The research, presented today (9 September 2013) at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Annual Congress, adds new evidence to a number of studies that have found a link between cancer and the sleep disorder. Previous studies have looked at a link between sleep apnoea and both mortality and incidence rates from cancer. Some experimental studies in mice have also shown that reduced oxygen levels in the blood, which is common ...

HEIDELBERG -- A preclinical study led by researchers in the United States has found that a new oral drug shows early promise for the treatment of muscular dystrophy. The results, which are published today in EMBO Molecular Medicine, show that VBP15 decreases inflammation in mice with symptoms similar to those found in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The authors found that the drug protects and strengthens muscle without the harsh side effects linked to current treatments with glucocorticoids such as prednisone. Duchenne muscular dystrophy results in severe ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – A research team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has used a recently developed technology they call TSUNAMI to create the first animal model of the adult-onset version of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a devastating motor-neuron illness. The same team, led by CSHL Professor Adrian R. Krainer, Ph.D., and including scientists from California-based Isis Pharmaceuticals, as well as the University of Southern California and Stony Brook University, succeeded a year ago in using TSUNAMI to make a mouse model of the disease as it is manifest in ...

The water-soluble metabolite profile of human mesenchymal stem cells is known, but the lipid profile remains unclear. Haiyang Dai and colleagues from Shantou University Medical College used methanol-chloroform and perchloric acid to extract lipid-soluble metabolites and water-soluble metabolites, respectively. Furthermore, a dual phase extraction method using methanol-chloroform and water was used to obtain both water and lipid fractions simultaneously. Among the different extraction procedures, perchloric acid was more efficient in extracting water-soluble metabolites ...

Previous studies by Shaohua Gu and team from Shanghai Pudong New Area Zhoupu Hospital showed that rapamycin-induced autophagy decreased the rate of apoptosis, but the rate of apoptosis was increased after the autophagy inhibitor, 3-methyladenine, was used, indicating autophagy may be involved in mediating neuronal death in cerebral ischemia. A recent study reported by Gu et al showed that autophagic and lysosomal activity is increased in ischemic neurons, and the activation of autophagic and lysosomal pathways can provide nutrition and energy for the survival of ischemic ...

Following spinal cord injury, astrocyte proliferation and scar formation are the main factors inhibiting the regeneration and growth of spinal cord axons, leading to motor and sensory function loss below the level of spinal cord injury. Cell transplantation, bioengineering technology, drugs and other methods can reduce voids of injured spinal cord and suppress glial scar formation, but clinical application results show these methods used alone have no obvious effects. Liang Wu and colleagues from Capital Medical University used rat models of T8 spinal cord contusion, which ...

Renewable energy holds the promise of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. But there are times when solar and wind farms generate more electricity than is needed by consumers. Storing that surplus energy in batteries for later use seems like an obvious solution, but a new study from Stanford University suggests that might not always be the case. "We looked at batteries and other promising technologies for storing solar and wind energy on the electrical grid," said Charles Barnhart, the lead author of the study and a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford's Global Climate and ...

09 Sept 2013 - Scientists at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), in collaboration with their counterparts from Canada, Hong Kong and US, have discovered a protein mediator SON plays a critical role in the health and proper functioning of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). This finding was reported on 8th September 2013 in the advanced online issue of the prestigious science journal Nature Cell Biology. Correct expression of genes is essential for a cell to stay alive and to perform other cellular and physiological functions. During gene expression, DNA is first ...

The relationship between crop richness and predator-prey interactions as they relate to pest-natural enemy systems is a very important topic in ecology and greatly affects biological control services. Professor GE Feng and his group from State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences set out to tackle this problem. After 4-years of field experiments, they have developed a novel experimental model system using microlandscape to examine resource concentration hypothesis and discovered the ecological ...

This news release is available in German. A major aim of today's neuroscience is to understand how an organism's nervous system processes sensory input and generates behavior. To achieve this goal, scientists must obtain detailed maps of how the nerve cells are wired up in the brain, as well as information on how these networks interact in real time. The organism many neuroscientists turn to in order to study brain function is a tiny, transparent worm found in rotting soil. The simple nematode C. elegans is equipped with just 302 neurons that are connected by ...

An international team of scientists led by the UK's John Innes Centre and including scientists from Australia, Japan, the US and France has perfected a way of watching genes move within a living plant cell. Using this technique scientists watched glowing spots, which marked the position of the genes, huddle together in the cold as the genes were switched "off". "The movement of genes within the nucleus, captured here using live imaging, seems to play a role in switching their activity on and off", said first author Stefanie Rosa from the John Innes Centre. "In our ...

You can't saw without producing sawdust – and that can be expensive if, for example, the "dust" comes from wafer manufacturing in the photovoltaic and semiconductor industries, where relatively high kerf loss has been accepted as an unavoidable, if highly regrettable, fact of life. But now scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg together with colleagues from the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation CSIRO have developed a saw wire that is set to effect dramatic reductions in kerf loss: in place ...

This news release is available in German. How does a classical temperature form in the quantum world? An experiment at the Vienna University of Technology has directly observed the emergence and the spreading of a temperature in a quantum system. Remarkably, the quantum properties are lost, even though the quantum system is completely isolated and not connected to the outside world. The experimental results are being published in this week's issue of "Nature Physics". Quantum and Classical Physics: From the Microscopic to the Macroscopic World The connection between ...

Heidelberg, 9 September 2013 – With only two weeks to go and almost a thousand participants registered, the preparations for The EMBO Meeting 2013 have reached their final stages. This year's conference takes place in Amsterdam from 21-24 September. Kai Simons will deliver the opening keynote lecture and explain how intricate changes in membrane structure can influence how cells work. In further keynote lectures, Hans Clevers will discuss how stem cells are involved in self-renewal and disease and Sir Michael Stratton will talk about how genetic changes contribute to ...

Biologists and physicists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, found out that not all of the Southern Hemisphere humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) migrate towards the equator at the end of the Antarctic summer. Part of the population remains in Antarctic waters throughout the entire winter. The scientists report this in a current issue of scientific journal PLOS ONE. This surprising discovery based on underwater recordings from the Antarctic acoustic observatory PALAOA. PALAOA is located near the research base Neumayer ...

According to a study, young Chinese managers are unsatisfied with the career opportunities in international companies in their home country. "The promotion expectations of highly qualified Chinese employees are restricted by flat hierarchies and poor chances of permanent employment with which Western companies flexibly react to the needs of the globalised market", the sociologist Junchen Yan from Bielefeld explains. He will present the results of the study at the 32nd German Oriental Studies Conference (Deutscher Orientalistentag, DOT) in Münster in September. Owing to ...

An estimated 1.6 million smokers attempted to quit smoking because of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "Tips From Former Smokers" national ad campaign, according to a study released by the CDC. As a result of the 2012 campaign, more than 200,000 Americans had quit smoking immediately following the three-month campaign, of which researchers estimated that more than 100,000 will likely quit smoking permanently. These results exceed the campaign's original goals of 500,000 quit attempts and 50,000 successful quits. The study surveyed thousands of adult smokers ...

New research to be presented at the 18th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS 2013) this week could result in a sea change in how to secure computations. The collaborative work between the University of Bristol and Aarhus University (Denmark) will be presented by Bristol PhD student Peter Scholl from the Department of Computer Science. The paper, entitled 'Practical covertly secure MPC for dishonest majority – or: Breaking the SPDZ limits', builds upon earlier joint work between Bristol and Aarhus and fills in the missing pieces of the jigsaw ...

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have developed a method of sourcing obsidian artefacts that takes only 10 seconds – dozens of times faster than the current methods – with a handheld instrument that can be used at archaeological excavations. Obsidian, naturally occurring volcanic glass, is smooth, hard, and far sharper than a surgical scalpel when fractured, making it a highly desirable raw material for crafting stone tools for almost all of human history. The earliest obsidian tools, found in East Africa, are nearly two million years old, and obsidian scalpels ...

A team of researchers at the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has found a way to self-assemble complex structures out of bricks smaller than a grain of salt. The new method could help solve one of the major challenges in tissue engineering: creating injectable components that self-assemble into intricately structured, biocompatible scaffolds at an injury site to help regrow human tissues. The key to self-assembly was developing the world's first programmable glue. The glue is made of DNA, and it directs specific bricks of a water-filled ...

More than 371 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, of whom 90% are affected by lifestyle-related diabetes mellitus type 2 (type 2 diabetes). In new experiments, researchers from the University of Copenhagen working in collaboration with a research group at the University of Cincinnati, USA, have demonstrated that the amino acid arginine improves glucose metabolism significantly in both lean (insulin-sensitive) and obese (insulin-resistant) mice. "In fact, the amino acid is just as effective as several well-established drugs for type 2 diabetics," says postdoc ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 9, 2013–Studies have shown that caffeine users can become dependent on or addicted to caffeine and may have difficulty reducing their consumption, as can occur with other drugs of dependence. A comprehensive review of the current evidence on caffeine dependence is presented in an article in Journal of Caffeine Research, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Caffeine Research website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jcr. Steven Meredith and Roland Griffiths, Johns Hopkins ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan State University research has put the possibility of bomb-detecting lasers at security checkpoints within reach. In the current issue of Applied Physics Letters, Marcos Dantus, MSU chemistry professor and founder of BioPhotonic Solutions, has developed a laser that can detect micro traces of explosive chemicals on clothing and luggage. "Since this method uses a single beam and requires no bulky spectrometers, it is quite practical and could scan many people and their belongings quickly," Dantus said. "Not only does it detect the explosive ...

Scientists at The University of Manchester and medical institutes in Italy have identified a gene variant that predisposes people to a special type of heart attack. Their research, published in the International Journal of Cardiology could lead to the development of new drugs to treat the problem. Dr Paolo Tammaro, who led the team, said: "Heart attacks happen when the blood supply to the heart is reduced by the narrowing or blocking of the coronary artery – the vessel that supplies the heart with oxygen and nutrients. Often this is due to fatty deposits which narrow ...

Monday, September 9, 2013, Cleveland: Most patients who report statin intolerance, including muscle aches and other side effects from the cholesterol-lowering drugs, can actually tolerate drugs from this class on subsequent trials, according to research from Cleveland Clinic recently released online and forthcoming in the September issue of the American Heart Journal. The study is the largest ever to examine the effects of re-challenging statin-intolerant patients. Statins are among the most prescribed drugs in the world and are a first-line, highly effective therapy ...