VIDEO: This shows confidence regions (grey contours) for the location of a fish at Palmyra Atoll, along with home range (green line) estimated by the state-space model. Click here for more information. There's no "Google Maps" for finding fish. The radio signals that are the backbone of traditional GPS cannot pass through seawater. But sound travels remarkably well, so scientists often use acoustic telemetry to estimate an individual fish's location. That means attaching ...

In a pioneer study published in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature Communications*, a research team at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC; Portugal), led by Miguel Godinho Ferreira in collaboration with Isabel Gordo, show for the first time that chromosomes rearrangements (such as inversions or translocations) can provide advantages to the cells that harbor them depending on the environment they are exposed. This study contributes to better understand different biological problems such as: how cancer cells that have chromosomal rearrangements can outgrow ...

African mountain bamboos are something of a mystery, as nearly all bamboos are found in Asia or South America. Hidden away up mountains in the tropics where they provide food for gorillas, just as China's bamboos provide food for the Giant Panda, there are apparently only 2 species, and they had not been examined in very great detail, except by the gorillas, Fig. 1. It had been thought that they were very closely related to the hundreds of similar bamboos in Asia, but their respective ranges are separated by thousands of miles. As flowering in bamboos is such a rare ...

A new scanning technique developed by Danish and US researchers reveals how susceptible patients with aggressive brain cancer are to the drugs they receive. The research behind the ground-breaking technique has just been published in Nature Medicine. Each year sees 260 new cases of the most aggressive type of brain cancer in Denmark. Some patients survive only a few months, while others survive for 18 months. Only very few, 3.5%, are alive five years after their diagnosis. A new scanning technique can now reveal how the brain tumour responds to the drug administered: "We ...

Researchers at the University of Adelaide have discovered that the way the gut "tastes" sweet food may be defective in sufferers of type 2 diabetes, leading to problems with glucose uptake. This is the first time that abnormal control of so-called "sweet taste receptors" in the human intestine has been described by researchers. The work could have implications for a range of health and nutrition problems experienced by diabetes patients. Dr Richard Young, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher in the University of Adelaide's Nerve-Gut Research Laboratory, says taste buds aren't ...

New Orleans, LA – Mei-Chin Hsieh, MSPH, CTR, of LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health's Louisiana Tumor Registry, is the lead author of a study that reports racial and ethnic differences in the incidence of soft tissue sarcomas in adolescents and young adults. The research, conducted at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health, is published online in the Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jayao.2012.0031. The LSUHSC research team, which also included Xiao-Cheng Wu, ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (August 22, 2013) – A statistical model accounting for dozens of different genes in combination—and the interactions between them—is an important step forward in understanding the genetic factors affecting the risk of Crohn's disease (CD), reports a study in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, official journal of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA). The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. It's not just how many risk genes are present but how those genes interact with each other that determines ...

MADISON — In an era of widespread genetic sequencing, the ability to edit and alter an organism's DNA is a powerful way to explore the information within and how it guides biological function. A paper from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the August issue of the journal GENETICS takes genome editing to a new level in fruit flies, demonstrating a remarkable level of fine control and, importantly, the transmission of those engineered genetic changes across generations. Both features are key for driving the utility and spread of an approach that promises to give ...

New Rochelle, NY -- With the widespread popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, it is increasingly common for people to use interpersonal electronic surveillance to monitor the activities of current and former romantic partners. They can gather information on partners anonymously, view past and current photos and audio and video clips, and look for clues to explain any "suspicious" behaviors. Why some individuals engage in this type of behavior more than others is the subject of an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed ...

BOSTON –– A new study has revealed marked differences in the genomic terrain of the two most common types of cervical cancer, suggesting that patients might benefit from therapies geared to each type's molecular idiosyncrasies. The study, published August 23, 2013 in the online version of the journal Cancer by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), is the first to compare the spectrum of cancer-related gene mutations in the two main subtypes of cervical cancer – adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. In tests on 80 cervical ...

Hostile sexism hurts intimate relationships Men who generally believe that women who challenge men's power are manipulative and subversive — so-called hostile sexism — carry over those antagonistic attitudes into their intimate relationships. In two studies, researchers gathered behavior data from committed heterosexual couples either five times across a year or daily for three weeks. They found that men who endorse hostile sexism perceived their female partners to behave more negatively than they actually did. These biased perceptions led the men to behave more negatively ...

This news release is available in French, Spanish and German. This news release is also available in Chinese. AUDIO: In this podcast, researcher Luis Rodriguez-Lado is interviewed about his work to build a model used to predict the risk of groundwater contamination by arsenic in China. Click here for more information. A new model to predict the risk of contaminants in groundwater will save those ...

A pair of experimental atomic clocks based on ytterbium atoms at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has set a new record for stability. The clocks act like 21st-century pendulums or metronomes that could swing back and forth with perfect timing for a period comparable to the age of the universe. NIST physicists report in the Aug. 22 issue of Science Express that the ytterbium clocks' tick is more stable than any other atomic clock.* Stability can be thought of as how precisely the duration of each tick matches every other tick. The ytterbium clock ...

Washington, DC (August 22, 2013) — Variants in a particular gene are linked with an increased risk for kidney complications in patients with lupus, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The findings could lead to better treatments to protect the kidney health of patients with the disease. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that affects many different body systems, including the central nervous system, joints, skin, heart, lungs, and kidneys. Kidney involvement—termed lupus nephritis—occurs in about ...

Washington, DC (August 22, 2013) — A structured exercise and lifestyle program can improve fitness, body composition, and heart function in patients with kidney disease, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). The findings suggest that patients with kidney disease can benefit from greater physical activity and can do so safely even though they may have other medical problems. Approximately 60 million people globally have chronic kidney disease (CKD). These individuals have a high risk of ...

This news release is available in French, Italian and German. Since the 1960s, it has been known that groundwater resources in certain provinces of China are contaminated with arsenic. Estimates of the numbers of affected people have risen year by year. In the most recent survey – conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Health between 2001 and 2005 – more than 20,000 (5%) of the 445,000 wells tested showed arsenic concentrations higher than 50 µg/L. According to official estimates, almost 6 million people consume drinking water with an arsenic content of more than 50 ...

DALLAS, August 22, 2013 — In the case of mild or moderate strokes, getting treatment ultra-fast – within 90 minutes of experiencing symptoms – greatly reduces the risk of suffering disability, according to a new study reported in the American Heart Association's journal Stoke. The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association recommends getting to a hospital within three hours of the onset of stroke symptoms. According to guidelines, clot-busting drugs may be given to treat stroke up to 4.5 hours after the onset of symptoms. The study found that survivors ...

DALLAS, Aug. 22, 2013 — Smoking cigarettes may cause similar stroke risks for men and women, but women smokers may be at greater risk for a more deadly and uncommon type of stroke, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke. When compared to non-smokers of the same gender, smoking increases the risk of having any type of stroke by 60 to 80 percent in women and men. Researchers said the finding is intriguing because other studies have found strong evidence that smoking conveys a much higher risk of heart disease – which shares a common ...

Volunteering may be good for your health, reveals a large systematic review and meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter Medical School. Volunteering can improve mental health and help you live longer, finds the study which is published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. The research pools and compares data from multiple experimental trials and longitudinal cohort studies. Some observational evidence points to around a 20 per cent reduction in mortality among volunteers compared to non-volunteers in cohort studies. Volunteers also reported lower levels ...

An often-overlooked form of manganese, an element critical to many life processes, is far more prevalent in ocean environments than previously known, according to a study led by University of Delaware researchers that was published this week in "Science." The discovery alters understanding of the chemistry that moves manganese and other elements, like oxygen and carbon, through the natural world. Manganese is an essential nutrient for most organisms and helps plants produce oxygen during photosynthesis. "You wouldn't think manganese is that important, but without manganese, ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A drug used to treat blood cancers may also stop the spread of invasive breast cancer, researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida have discovered. Their study, published online in Breast Cancer Research, found that in the lab and in animals, the drug decitabine turns on a gene coding for protein kinase D1 (PRKD1) that halts the ability of cancer cells to separate from a tumor and spread to distant organs. "Treatment with low doses of decitabine in an animal model of breast cancer restored PRKD1 expression, reduced tumor size, and blocked metastasis to ...

Levels of a protein in the urine of kidney transplant recipients can distinguish those at low risk of developing kidney injury from those at high risk, a study suggests. The results also suggest that low levels of this protein, called CXCL9, can rule out rejection as a cause of kidney injury. The study appears online Aug. 22 in the American Journal of Transplantation. The work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. To prevent rejection, kidney transplant recipients typically take immunosuppressive ...

Astronomers have assembled, from more than 13 years of observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a series of time-lapse movies showing a jet of superheated gas -- 5,000 light-years long -- as it is ejected from a supermassive black hole. The movies promise to give astronomers a better understanding of how black holes shape galaxy evolution. "Central, supermassive black holes are a key component in all big galaxies," said Eileen T. Meyer of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. "Most of these black holes are believed to have gone through an active ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Cells are very good at protecting their precious contents — and as a result, it's very difficult to penetrate their membrane walls to deliver drugs, nutrients or biosensors without damaging or destroying the cell. One effective way of doing so, discovered in 2008, is to use nanoparticles of pure gold, coated with a thin layer of a special polymer. But nobody knew exactly why this combination worked so well, or how it made it through the cell wall. Now, researchers at MIT and the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne in Switzerland have figured out how the ...

Computer simulations conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) could help scientists make sense of a recently observed and puzzling wrinkle in one of nature's most important chemical processes. It turns out that calcium carbonate—the ubiquitous compound that is a major component of seashells, limestone, concrete, antacids and myriad other naturally and industrially produced substances—may momentarily exist in liquid form as it crystallizes from solution. Calcium carbonate is a huge player in the planet's carbon cycle, ...