Bochum, 18.3.2013 In the fruit fly Drosophila, the functions of the three enzymes Tan, Ebony and Black are closely intertwined - among other things they are involved in neurotransmitter recycling for the visual process. RUB researchers from the Department of Biochemistry showed for the first time that flies cannot see without this recycling. Their analysis of the enzyme Black also raises new questions as to its function. Anna Ziegler, Florian Brüsselbach and Bernhard Hovemann report in the „Journal of Comparative Neurology", which chose this topic as cover story. Tan, ...

A new online database combining symptoms, family history and genetic sequencing information is speeding the search for diseases caused by a single rogue gene. As described in an article in the May issue of Human Mutation, the database, known as PhenoDB, enables any clinician to document cases of unusual genetic diseases for analysis by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine or the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. If a review committee agrees that the patient may indeed have a previously unknown genetic disease, the patient and some of his or ...

Daejeon, Republic of Korea, March 18, 2013 -- Nonvolatile memory that can store data even when not powered is currently used for portable electronics such as smart phones, tablets, and laptop computers. Flash memory is a dominant technology in this field, but its slow writing and erasing speed has led to extensive research into a next-generation nonvolatile memory called Phase-Change Random Access Memory (PRAM), as PRAM's operating speed is 1,000 times faster than that of flash memory. PRAM uses reversible phase changes between the crystalline (low resistance) and amorphous ...

Milan, 18 March 2013 – Markers such as CA9, CD31, CD34 and VEGFR1/2 in the primary tumours might serve as predictors of a good response to a sunitinib treatment in patients with metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), according to a new study to be presented at the 28th Annual EAU Congress currently on-going in Milan. "The inactivation of the von Hippel-Lindau gene (VHL) is a common event in ccRCC and finally leads to the induction of HIF1α target genes such as CA9 and VEGF," write the authors. "Besides VEGF, the VEGF and PDGF receptors also play an important ...

Drs Lewis and Carré in the University's Department of Mechanical Engineering have been measuring the dynamic friction between the material of the ball and the skin on the fingertips and palm, and the mitts that some players choose to wear under different weather conditions. They're looking to answer one question: what's the best way to ensure that players don't fumble the ball? "Catching and handling a ball with great skill and confidence is practically second nature to players at this level," says Dr Lewis. "But handling errors are still seen in professional rugby games ...

CORAL GABLES, FL (March 18, 2012) -- University of Miami (UM) doctoral student in Environmental Science and Policy, David Shiffman was invited to tweet updates in real-time, at the International Congress of Conservation Biology, New Zealand, 2011. As a result, more than 100,000 twitter users worldwide saw at least one tweet from the conference, and nearly 200 people from more than 40 countries, on six continents shared at least one tweet from the conference -- greatly exceeding the number of conference attendees. "While live-tweeting is not a new phenomenon, ...

Marine biologists have, for the first time, found a whale skeleton on the ocean floor near Antarctica, giving new insights into life in the sea depths. The discovery was made almost a mile below the surface in an undersea crater and includes the find of at least nine new species of deep-sea organisms thriving on the bones. The research, involving the University of Southampton, Natural History Museum, British Antarctic Survey, National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and Oxford University, is published today in Deep-Sea Research II: Topical Studies in Oceanography. "The planet's ...

The scientists looked at glaciers which behave independently from the ice sheet, despite having some physical connection to it, and those which are not connected at all. The discovery, just published in Geophysical Research Letters, is important as it will help scientists improve the predictions of the future contribution of Greenland's ice to sea-level rise. Using lasers which measure the height of the ice from space, and a recently completed inventory of Greenland's glaciers and ice caps, scientists from the European-funded ice2sea programme, were able to determine ...

Washington, D.C.— It has long been believed that male lions are dependent on females when it comes to hunting. But new evidence suggests that male lions are, in fact, very successful hunters in their own right. A new report from a team including Carnegie's Scott Loarie and Greg Asner shows that male lions use dense savanna vegetation for ambush-style hunting in Africa. Their work is published in Animal Behavior. Female lions have long been observed to rely on cooperative strategies to hunt their prey. While some studies demonstrated that male lions are as capable at hunting ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The long-term consequences of pneumonia can be more detrimental to a person's health than having a heart attack, according to joint research from the University of Michigan Health System and University of Washington School of Medicine. Older adults who are hospitalized for pneumonia have a significantly higher risk of new problems that affect their ability to care for themselves, and the effects are comparable to those who survive a heart attack or stroke, according to the new findings in the American Journal of Medicine. "Pneumonia is clearly not ...

VIDEO: This NASA research model, prepared on Mar. 15, 2013, from a space weather model known as ENLIL named after the Sumerian storm god, shows the way the CME was expected... Click here for more information. On March 17, 2013, at 1:28 a.m. EDT, the coronal mass ejection (CME) from March 15 passed by NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) as it approached Earth. Upon interacting with the giant magnetic bubble surrounding Earth, the magnetosphere, the CME caused a kind of ...

New research from an international team of scientists suggests evolution, or basic survival techniques adapted by early humans, influences the decisions gamblers make when placing bets. The findings may help to explain why some treatment options for problem gamblers often don't work, the researchers say. For the study, recently published in Frontiers in Psychology, scientists from McMaster University, the University of Lethbridge and Liverpool John Moores University examined how gamblers made decision after they won or lost. They found that, like our ancestors, ...

Researchers in Manchester have found a link between several lifestyle factors and pre-existing conditions, including smoking cigarettes and diabetes, and an increased risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic disease which affects around 0.8% of the population; and its causes are of great interest to the medical world. Research led by Professor Ian Bruce, NIHR Senior Investigator and Professor of Rheumatology at The University of Manchester and consultant at Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, looked into ...

Electrically charged lunar dust near shadowed craters can get lofted above the surface and jump over the shadowed region, bouncing back and forth between sunlit areas on opposite sides, according to new calculations by NASA scientists. The research is being led by Michael Collier at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., as part of the Dynamic Response of the Environment At the Moon (DREAM) team in partnership with the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI), managed at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "The motion of an individual dust particle ...

Ancient rises in sea levels and global warming are partially attributable to cyclical activity below the earth's surface, researchers from New York University and Ottawa's Carleton University have concluded in an analysis of geological studies. However, the article's authors, NYU's Michael Rampino and Carleton University's Andreas Prokoph, note that changes spurred by the earth's interior are gradual, taking place in periods ranging from 60 million to 140 million years—far less rapidly than those brought on by human activity. Their analysis appears in Eos, a newspaper ...

This press release is available in German. Highly developed antennae containing different types of olfactory receptors allow insects to use minute amounts of odors for orientation towards resources like food, oviposition sites or mates. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have now used mutant flies and for the first time provided experimental proof that the extremely sensitive olfactory system of fruit flies − they are able to detect a few thousand odor molecules per milliliter of air, whereas humans need hundreds of millions ...

Researchers Robert Hoare (Landcare Research, New Zealand) and Erik van Nieukerken (Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Netherlands) have named new moths after the Minotaur of Greek mythology and the legendary Italian philanderer Giacomo Casanova in a study of the evolution of southern pigmy moths. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. The tiny moths, with wingspans of 3 to 8 millimetres, belong to a very old group (the family Nepticulidae), which dates back more than 110 million years to the time of the dinosaurs. Australian pigmy moths are particularly ...

In a small, preliminary study of regular migraine sufferers, scientists have found that measuring a fat-derived protein called adiponectin (ADP) before and after migraine treatment can accurately reveal which headache victims felt pain relief. A report on the study of people experiencing two to 12 migraine headaches per month, led by researchers at Johns Hopkins, is published in the March issue of the journal Headache. "This study takes the first steps in identifying a potential biomarker for migraine that predicts treatment response and, we hope, can one day be used ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 18, 2013) – Abuse of the anesthesia drug propofol is a "rapidly progressive form of substance dependence" that is being more commonly seen among health care professionals, reports a study in the April Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "Propofol addiction is a virulent and debilitating form of substance dependence" with a "rapid downhill course," write Drs Paul Earley and Torin Finver of ...

It is increasingly recognized that protected areas alone are not sufficient for successful biodiversity conservation, and that management of production areas (e.g. forestry and agricultural land) plays a crucial role in that respect. Retention forestry and agroforestry are two land management systems aiming to reconcile the production of human goods with biodiversity conservation. The retention forestry model is, as the name suggests, based on retaining some of the local forest structures when harvesting trees in an attempt to preserve local biodiversity. Agroforestry ...

New Rochelle, NY, March 18, 2013—The more than 100 million Americans living with chronic pain and daily suffering often have limited outlets to talk about their conditions with others who can understand and offer comfort. Online chatrooms may provide a beneficial forum where chronic pain sufferers can openly and safely communicate, as discussed in an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free online on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website. ...

This press release is available in Spanish. The pale cyst nematode, Globodera pallida, is one bad roundworm. Unchecked, the pest burrows into potato roots to feed, obstructing nutrients and causing stunted growth, wilted leaves and other symptoms that can eventually kill the plant. Severe infestations can cause tuber yield losses of up to 80 percent. Now, however, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and cooperating scientists are evaluating new ways to control G. pallida using naturally occurring chemicals called egg-hatching factors. According to lead scientist ...

A newly published article "Revision of the Afrotropical Mayrellinae (Cynipoidea, Liopteridae), with the first record of Paramblynotus from Madagascar" by Dr. Simon van Noort, from Natural History Department, Iziko South African Museum, and Dr. Matthew L. Buffington from the Systematic Entomology Lab, USDA offers the description of 9 remarkable new species of wasps. Mayrellinids are extremely rare wasps, which are under-represented in museum collections. Most species are known from single specimens. The study was published in the open access Journal of Hymenoptera Research. The ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Pediatricians regularly dispense advice to parents of young children during well-child visits, but a new University of Michigan poll shows that many aren't following doctors' orders. Only one-third of parents (31 percent) said they follow advice from their child's health care provider all of the time, according to the most recent University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Thirteen percent said they follow the provider's advice only occasionally. Parents from lower-income households ( END ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (March 18, 2013) -- University of Oregon chemists have synthesized organic molecular structures that move both positive and negative electrical charges -- a highly desired but often difficult combination to achieve in current efforts to create highly flexible electronic devices and other new-age technologies. The research utilized a family of readily available and inexpensive hydrocarbons known as indenofluorenes to build molecular scaffolding for integrative circuitry. An indenofluorene-derivative framework, said co-author Michael M. Haley, head of the ...