USC scientists have discovered a population of neurons in the brains of juvenile songbirds that are necessary for allowing the birds to recognize the vocal sounds they are learning to imitate. These neurons encode a memory of learned vocal sounds and form a crucial (and hitherto only theorized) part of the neural system that allows songbirds to hear, imitate, and learn its species' songs – just as human infants acquire speech sounds. This discovery will allow scientists to uncover the exact neural mechanisms that allow songbirds to hear their own self-produced ...

BETHESDA, MD—SEPTEMBER 4, 2013—A matched-peer controlled study of science faculty at minority-serving institutions (MSI) shows that an outside mentoring support program increased the number of peer-reviewed research publications, the number of federal grants, and the variety of professional and curricular activities of those who participated versus academic peers who did not. The study, published today in the journal, CBE-Life Sciences Education, looked at outcomes from the Visiting Professorship (VP) Program, organized by the Minorities Affairs Committee (MAC) of the ...

Yale School of Medicine researchers have discovered a protein that is the missing link in the complicated chain of events that lead to Alzheimer's disease, they report in the Sept. 4 issue of the journal Neuron. Researchers also found that blocking the protein with an existing drug can restore memory in mice with brain damage that mimics the disease. "What is very exciting is that of all the links in this molecular chain, this is the protein that may be most easily targeted by drugs," said Stephen Strittmatter, the Vincent Coates Professor of Neurology and senior author ...

Seattle, Wash. – September 4, 2013 – A study published today in Aging Cell identifies a new tool to accurately analyze extremely rare mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) deletions associated with a range of diseases and disorders as well as aging. This approach, which relies on Droplet Digital PCR (ddPCR™) technology, will help researchers explore mtDNA deletions as potential disease biomarkers. The accumulation of mtDNA mutations is associated with aging, neuromuscular disorders, and cancer. However, methods to probe the underlying mechanisms behind this mutagenesis have been ...

STANFORD, Calif. — A defective trash-disposal system in the brain's resident immune cells may be a major contributor to neurodegenerative disease, a scientific team from the Stanford University School of Medicine has found. Preliminary observations show that this defect appears in the brains of patients who died of Alzheimer's disease, so correcting it may someday prove to be an effective way of preventing or slowing the course of the disease. "We were fortunate in being able to compare microglia — the brain's own immune cells — from five patients who died of Alzheimer's ...

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's New Technology Telescope to explore more than 100 planetary nebulae in the central bulge of our galaxy. They have found that butterfly-shaped members of this cosmic family tend to be mysteriously aligned — a surprising result given their different histories and varied properties. The final stages of life for a star like our Sun result in the star puffing its outer layers out into the surrounding space, forming objects known as planetary nebulae in a wide range of beautiful and striking shapes. One type ...

University of Calgary scientists have overcome an 'Achilles' heel' of quantum-based secure communication systems, using a new approach that works in the real world to safeguard secrets. The team's research – published in the journal Physical Review Letters back-to-back with similar work by a group from Hefei, China – also removes a big obstacle to realizing future applications of quantum communication, including a fully functional quantum network. "I hope that our new quantum key distribution (QKD) system shows to people who take security seriously that QKD has many ...

Throughout Asia, humans and monkeys live side-by side in many urban areas. An international research team from the University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Jahangirnagar University has been examining transmission of a virus from monkeys to humans in Bangladesh, one of the world's most densely populated countries. The scientists have found that some people in these urban areas are concurrently infected with multiple strains of simian foamy virus (SFV), including strains from more than one source (recombinant) that researchers originally detected ...

SAN FRANCISCO – Sept. 4, 2013 – People with cataract-related vision loss who have had cataract surgery to improve their sight are living longer than those with visual impairment who chose not to have the procedure, according to an Australian cohort study published this month in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. After comparing the two groups, the researchers found a 40 percent lower long-term mortality risk in those who had the surgery. The research is drawn from data gathered in the Blue Mountains Eye Study, a population-based cohort ...

Resveratrol, a polyphenolic compound, is synthesized in several plants and possesses beneficial biological effects, which include anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic properties. Resveratrol exhibits neuroprotective effects in models of many diseases, such as cerebral ischemia, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. However, there is a lack of data evaluating the effect of resveratrol in vascular dementia. Dr Boai Zhang and team from the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University found that resveratrol improved learning ...

Expression of soluble CD40L has been shown to increase sig-nificantly in conditions such as stroke, myocardial infarction, unstable angina, high cholesterol, or other cardiovascular events. 95% of the circulating CD40L exists in activated platelets. However, the specific pathway of the transition of CD40L is not elucidated, and whether Golgi apparatus is involved in the expression of platelet CD40L still needs to be proven. Dr. Wei Lu and colleagues from Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, found that platelet Golgi apparatus displayed significant morphological ...

TEMPE. Ariz. -- New types of nanostructures have shown promise for applications in electrochemically powered energy devices and systems, including advanced battery technologies. One process for making these nanostructures is dealloying, in which one or more elemental components of an alloy are selectively leached out of materials. Arizona State University researchers Karl Sieradzki and Qing Chen have been experimenting with dealloying lithium-tin alloys, and seeing the potential for the nanostructures they are producing to spark advances in lithium-ion batteries, as ...

Autografts or allografts are commonly used in the repair of damaged peripheral nerves. However, similar problems have been encountered in allografting or xenografting. Previous studies concerning artificial neural tubes to repair nerve defects mainly focus on peripheral nerve defects less than 30 mm. Dr. Esmaeil Biazar and colleagues from Islamic Azad University, Iran investigate the feasibility of poly(3-hydroxy- butyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) conduits in the repair of 30-mm sciatic nerve gap in a rat model. The researchers found that at 4 months after nerve conduit implantation, ...

Amsterdam, 4 September 2013: Close to thirty thousand delegates converged from all over the world, to the ESC Congress 2013 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, this week. Cardiologists came to hear first-hand about the latest research. "A record number of Hot Lines and scientific sessions with new formats allowed for more exchanges between peers presenting results of clinical trials, new Clinical Practice Guidelines and new devices and treatments," said Professor Keith Fox, Chair of the ESC Scientific Programme Committee. We have much to learn from each other! Some of the most ...

"New physics is about searching for unknown physical phenomena not known from the current perception of the universe. Such phenomena are inherently very difficult to detect," explains PhD student Matin Mojaza from CP3-Origins. Together with colleagues Stanley J. Brodsky from Stanford University in the U.S. and Xing-Gang Wu from Chongqing University in China, Mojaza has now succeeding in creating a new method that can make it easier to search for new physics in the universe. The method is a so called scalesetting procedure, and it fills out some empty, but very ...

According to the theory, small clusters of molecules in the atmosphere have difficulty growing large enough to act as "cloud condensation nuclei" on which water droplets can gather to make our familiar low-altitude clouds. The SKY2 experiment shows that the growth of clusters is much more vigorous, provided ionizing rays -- gamma rays in the experiment or cosmic rays in the atmosphere -- are present to work their chemical magic. Details of the experiment appear in the latest issue of Physics Letters A. Back in 1996 Danish physicists suggested that cosmic rays, energetic ...

New research has found a "very significant" relationship between a nation's wealth and hygiene and the Alzheimer's "burden" on its population. High-income, highly industrialised countries with large urban areas and better hygiene exhibit much higher rates of Alzheimer's. Using 'age-standardised'* data - which predict Alzheimer's rates if all countries had the same population birth rate, life expectancy and age structure -- the study found strong correlations between national sanitation levels and Alzheimer's. This latest study adds further weight to the "hygiene hypothesis" ...

A joint Australian-German research team led by Curtin University's Dr Christian Hirt has created the highest-resolution maps of Earth's gravity field to date -- showing gravitational variations up to 40 percent larger than previously assumed. Using detailed topographic information obtained from the US Space Shuttle, a specialist team including Associate Professor Michael Kuhn, Dr Sten Claessens and Moritz Rexer from Curtin's Western Australian Centre for Geodesy and Professor Roland Pail and Thomas Fecher from Technical University Munich improved the resolution of previous ...

A team of researchers in Ireland have found evidence that altering the chemistry of an electrode surface (surface engineering) can help microbial communities to connect to the electrode to produce more electricity (electron-exchange) more rapidly compared to unmodified electrodes. Electron exchange is at the heart of all redox reactions occurring in the natural world, as well as in bioengineered systems: so called 'biolectrochemical systems'. Practical applications of these systems include current generation, wastewater treatment, and biochemical and biofuel production. ...

Obesity gene testing does not put people off weight loss and may help to reduce self-blame, according to a new study by researchers from the Health Behaviour Research Centre at UCL (University College London). Previous studies have shown that genes play a role in a person's risk of becoming overweight. One gene, called FTO, has been found to have the biggest influence so far. FTO has two variants, one associated with greater risk of weight gain (A) and one associated with lower risk (T). One in two people carries at least one copy of the A variant. People who inherit ...

In 2008 the Spanish company PharmaMar, dedicated to developing marine-derived drugs against cancer, isolated a promising substance called pipecolidepsin A from the sponge Homophymia lamellosa collected off the coast of Madagascar. The Combinatorial Chemistry group at the IRB, led by Fernando Albericio, has been working alongside this company for twenty years. As part of a collaboration agreement, they worked together to reproduce pipecolidepsin A in the laboratory and have been successful in this endeavour. The journal Nature Communications now reveals the procedure after ...

Researchers at the Xiamen University in China and the University of Jyväskylä in Finland have characterized a series of stable 1.5 nm metal nanoclusters containing 44 metal atoms, stabilized by 30 organic thiol molecules on the surface. Two types of clusters were synthesized, containing either 44 silver atoms or an intermetallic cluster of 12 gold and 32 silver atoms. The work in the University of Jyväskylä is funded by the Academy of Finland. The special electronic structure of the clusters leads to peaked absorption of radiation in a wide region of ultraviolet and visible ...

TORONTO, Sept. 4, 2013—Problem gamblers are a hidden population among people with mental health or substance abuse issues who often don't get the treatment they need, a new study shows. Anywhere from 10 to 20 per cent of people with substance abuse problems also have significant gambling problem, yet few programs are targeted at them and most social service agencies don't have funds to treat them, the study's main author says. Dr. Flora Matheson, a research scientist at St. Michael's Hospital's Centre for Research on Inner City Health, with colleagues from the Centre ...

Engineers working in the nanoscale will have a new tool at their disposal thanks to an international group of researchers led by Drexel University's College of Engineering. This innovative procedure could alleviate the persistent challenge of measuring key features of electron behavior while designing the ever-shrinking components that allow cell phones, laptops and tablets to get increasingly thinner and more energy efficient. "The interface between two semiconductor materials enables most of the electronic gadgets we use each day, from computers to mobile phones, ...

Our sense of touch can contribute to our ability to perceive faces, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "In daily life, we usually recognize faces through sight and almost never explore them through touch," says lead researcher Kazumichi Matsumiya of Tohoku University in Japan. "But we use information from multiple sensory modalities in order to perceive many everyday non-face objects and events, such as speech perception or object recognition – these new findings suggest that even face ...