The human skin is home to countless microorganisms that we can't see, but these microbes help define who we are. Our invisible passengers – known as the skin microbiome - contribute to our health in numerous ways including educating our immune system, protecting us from pathogens, and mediating skin disorders. In a new study, researchers investigated how the skin microbiome is transmitted between players in a contact sport, using roller derby as their model system. The skin is the largest organ and an important barrier that regulates microbial entry into the human body. ...

HEIDELBERG, 12 March 2013 – Attaching chains of the small molecule ADP-ribose to proteins is important for a cell's survival and the repair of DNA damage, making this process a promising target for the development of new cancer drugs. Researchers have now identified a much sought after enzyme that removes such ADP-ribose modifications from proteins by studying a genetic mutation that causes neurodegenerative disease in humans. These findings, published today in The EMBO Journal, suggest that not only addition but also removal of ADP-ribose from proteins is essential for ...

Pasadena, CA—For only the second time in history, a team of scientists--including Carnegie's Michele Fumagalli--have discovered an extremely rare triple quasar system. Their work is published by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. It is available online. Quasars are extremely bright and powerful sources of energy that sit in the center of a galaxy, surrounding a black hole. In systems with multiple quasars, the bodies are held together by gravity and are believed to be the product of galaxies colliding. It is very difficult to observe triplet quasar ...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will soon decide whether to approve hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the state. To date, no alternative to expanded gas drilling has been proposed. But a new study finds that it is technically and economically feasible to convert New York's all-purpose energy infrastructure to one powered by wind, water and sunlight (WWS). The plan, scheduled for publication in the journal Energy Policy, shows the way to a sustainable, inexpensive and reliable energy supply that creates local jobs and saves the state billions of dollars in pollution-related ...

Coral reefs not only provide the world with rich, productive ecosystems and photogenic undersea settings, they also contribute an economic boost valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. But their decline in recent years due to a variety of threats—from pollution to climate warming—has lent urgency to the search for new ways to evaluate their health. A new study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego scientists has revealed that fluorescence, the dazzling but poorly understood light produced by corals, can be an effective tool for gauging their health. As ...

Human norovirus (hNoV), also known as the winter vomiting bug, is one of the most common stomach bugs in the world. The virus is highly contagious, causing vomiting and diarrhea, and the number of affected cases is growing. Currently there is no cure; sufferers have to let the virus run its course for a few days. The consumption of fresh produce is frequently associated with outbreaks of hNoV but it remains difficult to identify where in the supply chain the virus first enters production. A new study, published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology investigated ...

Enriching crops by adding a naturally-occurring soil mineral to fertilisers could potentially help to reduce disease and premature death in the African country of Malawi, researchers have said. An international study led by academics at The University of Nottingham has shown that dietary deficiency of the mineral selenium — which plays a vital role in keeping the immune system healthy and fighting illness — is likely to be endemic among the Malawi population. They found that most Malawi soils cannot supply enough selenium for adequate human nutrition and, in a paper ...

Babies have a dark side under their cute exteriors, according to University of British Columbia-led study that finds infants as young as nine months embrace those who pick on individuals who are different from them. While previous research has shown that babies generally prefer kind actors, the new study – published by the Association for Psychological Science – is the first to suggest that infants condone antisocial behavior when it is directed at individuals who are dissimilar. "Our research shows that by nine months, babies are busy assessing their surroundings, ...

Infants as young as nine months old prefer individuals who are nice to people like them and mean to people who aren't like them, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In our social lives, we tend to gravitate toward people who have things in common with us, whether it's growing up in the same town, disliking the same foods, or even sharing the same birthday. And research suggests that babies evaluate people in much the same way, preferring people who like the same foods, clothes, and toys that ...

The energy produced by solar panels, be it heat or electricity, has to be used right away. It is hard to store and preserve and also its transportation can be rather complicated. Creating solar cells capable of producing energy in an easily storable and transportable way, that is to say fuel, is therefore the future challenge of solar energy. For this reason the scientists at SISSA are working on a catalyst that imitates and improves what nature has been able to do for millions of years. Plants turn solar energy into sugars, the true "green" fuel, through photosynthesis. ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A new study by a Rhode Island Hospital researcher has found it's possible to maintain high-quality CT colonography diagnostic images while reducing the radiation dose. This is important as the use of CT colonography, or virtual colonoscopy, becomes more widely used for colorectal cancer screenings. Through his research, Kevin J. Chang, M.D., of the department of diagnostic imaging, found that decreasing the tube voltage would not negatively impact the integrity of the CT colongraphy. His research is published in the current issue of the journal Radiology. "Radiation ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Butterflies are among the most vibrant insects, with colorations sometimes designed to deflect predators. New University of Florida research shows some of these defenses may be driven by enemies one-tenth their size. Since the time of Darwin 150 years ago, researchers have believed large predators like birds mainly influenced the evolution of coloration in butterflies. In the first behavioral study to directly test the defense mechanism of hairstreak butterflies, UF lepidopterist Andrei Sourakov found that the appearance of a false head – a wing ...

A century old mystery as to why, for some animals, it's the father rather than the mother that takes care of their young has been cracked by scientists at the University of Sheffield and University of Bath. Researchers from the University, in collaboration with the University of Bath and Veszprém (Hungary) found that role reversal was caused by an imbalance in the numbers of males relative to females. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Communications. Darwin noted in 1871 that in most animals, it is the females that spend most time looking after ...

An additional 1,000 patients could undergo kidney transplants in the United States annually if hospitals performed more transplants using paired kidney exchanges, new Johns Hopkins research suggests. Also known as kidney chains, paired kidney exchanges, which allow incompatible donors to give a kidney on a loved one's behalf and ensure that loved one gets a compatible kidney from a third party — usually a stranger — in return, have become much more common since 1999 when The Johns Hopkins Hospital pioneered the practice. But the dramatic growth in the use of these exchanges ...

Researchers have determined a way to predict and protect against new strains of the flu virus, in the hope of improving immunity against the disease. Influenza is a rapidly spreading acute respiratory disease. Worldwide, annual seasonal epidemics of the flu result in 3-5 million cases of severe illness, and up to 500 000 deaths. A newly emerged virus can spread across 74 countries in 2 months. The study led by the University of Melbourne with Monash University and international colleagues has found how to predict and potentially stop the mutating cells of the influenza ...

Although they live in similarly extreme ecosystems at opposite ends of the world, Antarctic insects appear to employ entirely different methods at the genetic level to cope with extremely dry conditions than their counterparts that live north of the Arctic Circle, according to National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded researchers. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers concluded, "Polar arthropods have developed distinct... mechanisms to cope with similar desiccating conditions." The researchers noted that aside from the significance ...

New Rochelle, NY, March 12, 2013—The foodborne bacteria Listeria monocytogenes sickens about 2,500 people in the U.S. each year and many more worldwide, killing about 25-30% of those infected. Listeriosis is caused by eating food contaminated with L. monocytogenes, and current methods for detecting the bacteria are costly and time consuming. An innovative nanotechnology-based method for developing an inexpensive biosensor to detect the pathogen in food is described in Industrial Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The skin cancer growing on Carolyn Bohlmann's nose was not a very aggressive variety. But it was deep and located right on her nostril. The tricky part was not so much removing it – MOHS surgery, the procedure Bohlmann had, is a fairly common outpatient procedure. The tricky part would be reconstructing her nostril so that it didn't lift up or droop down. It's an important cosmetic issue, but it's also critical for breathing. Bohlmann opted for a new reconstruction technique her surgeon, Jeffrey Moyer, M.D., was offering at the University of Michigan ...

ANN ARBOR— Cryptic comments seem to have an ambiguous, obscure or hidden meaning. In biology, cryptic species are outwardly indistinguishable groups whose differences are hidden inside their genes. Two University of Michigan marine biologists have identified three cryptic species of tiny clams, long believed to be members of the same species, which have been hiding in plain view along the rocky shores of southern Australia for millions of years. The unusual convergence of a climate-cooling event and the peculiarities of local geography caused the three cryptic species ...

HeLa cells are the world's most commonly used human cell lines, and have served as a standard for understanding many fundamental biological processes. In a study published today in G3: Genes, Genomes and Genetics online, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, announce they have successfully sequenced the genome of a HeLa cell line. It provides a high-resolution genomic reference that reveals the striking differences between the HeLa genome and that of normal human cells. The study could improve the way HeLa cells are used to model human biology. The ...

Once Andrei Tokmakoff gets his new laser laboratory operational later this year, he will use the world's shortest infrared light pulses to pluck molecular bonds like a stringed musical instrument. Tokmakoff, the Henry G. Gale Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry, arrived at the University of Chicago in January to tackle new problems in biology with the aid of ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy methods that he has developed. "He does very sophisticated spectroscopy, in particular vibrational spectroscopy," said Richard Jordan, professor and chairman of chemistry. ...

Researchers from Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have found that a commonly used drug to treat anemia in heart failure patients does not improve patients' health, nor does it reduce their risk of death from heart failure. Results of the international study were presented at the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting in San Francisco on March 10 and published simultaneously online by The New England Journal of Medicine. Initiated in 2006, the RED-HF (Reduction of Events With Darbepoetin Alfa in Heart Failure) trial involved 2,278 anemic ...

Des Moines, IA – A new study by researchers at the University of Arizona and Northwest Missouri State University shows that standing and lying behavior can predict heat stress in cows. In a presentation at the 2013 ADSA Midwest Branch / ASAS Midwestern Section Meeting, Dr. Jamison Allen explained that predicting heat stress is vital for keeping cows healthy and productive. Cows will pant, eat less and produce less milk when their core body temperature increases. Allen said cows prefer standing to lying on hot days. Cows stand to allow more of their surface area to disperse ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 12, 2013) – Ten years after stroke caused by a ruptured aneurysm of the brain, surviving patients have persistent difficulties in several areas affecting quality of life, reports a study in the March issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The long-term impact of ruptured aneurysms causing subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) highlights the need for "survivorship care plans" comparable to those made for long-term cancer ...

Pity the poor maxillary sinuses. Those bulbous pouches on either side of the human nose are known more for trapping mucus and causing sinus infections than anything else. They were thought to be an evolutionary relic of our distant past, with little known present value. Yet researchers led by the University of Iowa believe the unheralded maxillary sinuses play a fortuitous, integral role in the shape and function of the human nose, even today. After studying faces of African and European origin, the team has concluded that the maxillary sinuses act as a cushion of sorts, ...