Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a way for photographers and microscopists to create a 3D image through a single lens, without moving the camera. Published in the journal Optics Letters, this improbable-sounding technology relies only on computation and mathematics—no unusual hardware or fancy lenses. The effect is the equivalent of seeing a stereo image with one eye closed. That's easier said than done, as principal investigator Kenneth B. Crozier, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences, explains. "If ...

Chronic stress can lead to depression and anxiety in humans. Scientists working with Herwig Baier, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, recently discovered a very similar correlation in fish. Normally, the stress hormone cortisol helps fish, as in humans, to regulate stress. Fish that lack the receptor for cortisol as a result of a genetic mutation exhibited a consistently high level of stress. They were unable to become accustomed to a new and unfamiliar situation. The fishes' behaviour returned to normal when an antidepressant was added ...

Employment gaps may promote but also reduce cognitive function in older age, as new research from the University of Luxembourg has shown. In particular, some of the findings suggest that leaves reported as unemployment and sickness are associated with higher risk of cognitive impairment indicating that these kinds of employment gaps may decrease cognitive reserve in the long run. Strongest evidence was found for training and maternity spells being related to slower cognitive decline, suggesting beneficial associations of these kinds of leaves on cognitive function. In ...

LOS ANGELES – (August 5, 2013) – With some 300 million people around the world living with asthma, a study by Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) researchers that was released ahead-of- print found for the first time that maternal smoking can cause the third generation of offspring to suffer from the chronic lung disease. The study, published online by the American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, reported that maternal nicotine exposure during pregnancy is linked to asthma in the third generation ...

Whether you hope to lose weight or just stay healthy, what you eat is a crucial factor. The right nutrients can not only trim your waistline, but also provide energy, improve your mood, and stave off disease. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher has found that it's not just what you eat — but when. Metabolism is impacted by the body's circadian rhythm – the biological process that the body follows over a 24 hour cycle. So the time of day we eat can have a big impact on the way our bodies process food, says Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The strikingly high prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in the American South can be partially traced to rapid economic growth between 1950 and 1980, new research suggests. The study tests the "thrifty phenotype" hypothesis, which suggests that if economic conditions present during fetal development improve dramatically during a person's childhood, the prospects of poor health in adulthood increase. According to the hypothesis, children whose parents endured being poor were unprepared biologically to manage the riches of processed foods and the more sedentary ...

A team of scientists, led by Napoleone Ferrara, MD, has shown for the first time that a signaling protein involved in inflammation also promotes tumor resistance to anti-angiogenic therapy. The findings by Ferrara – professor of pathology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and senior deputy director for basic science at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center – and colleagues at Genentech, a biotechnology firm based in South San Francisco, are published in the August 4 Advance Online Publication of the journal Nature Medicine. Angiogenesis is ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A study of 47 children who began stuttering at an early age found that those who were breastfed in infancy were more likely to recover from stuttering and return to fluent speech. The analysis, reported in the Journal of Communication Disorders, found a dose-dependent association between breastfeeding and a child's likelihood of recovering from stuttering, with children who were breastfed longer more likely to recover. Boys, who are disproportionately affected by stuttering, appeared to benefit the most. Boys in the study who breastfed for more than ...

The results of a large-scale analysis of the association between DNA viruses and human malignancies suggest that many of the most common cancers are not associated with DNA viruses. The findings, published in the August 2013 issue of the Journal of Virology, challenge earlier studies suggesting as high as 40 percent of tumors are caused by viruses. For years scientists believed viruses played a role in the development of maybe 10 to 20 percent of cancers. In 2011, scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden identified potential viral links to several cancers not ...

Researchers have achieved dynamic, atomic-scale views of a protein needed to maintain the transparency of the lens in the human eye. The work, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, could lead to new insights and drugs for treating cataract and a variety of other health conditions. Aquaporin proteins form water channels between cells and are found in many tissues, but aquaporin zero (AQP0) is found only in the mammalian lens, which focuses light onto the retina, at the back of the eye. The lens is primarily made up of unique cells called lens fibers that ...

URBANA, Ill. – University of Illinois scientists have evidence that lifelong exposure to genistein, a bioactive component in soy foods, protects against colon cancer by repressing a signal that leads to accelerated growth of cells, polyps, and eventually malignant tumors. "In our study, we report a change in the expression of three genes that control an important signaling pathway," said Hong Chen, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition. The cells in the lining of the human gut turn over and are completely replaced weekly, she noted. "However, in 90 ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Now that the Internet's basic protocols are more than 30 years old, network scientists are increasingly turning their attention to ad hoc networks — communications networks set up, on the fly, by wireless devices — where unsolved problems still abound. Most theoretical analyses of ad hoc networks have assumed that the communications links within the network are stable. But that often isn't the case with real-world wireless devices — as anyone who's used a cellphone knows. At the Association for Computing Machinery's Symposium on Principles of Distributed ...

The world's most famous painting has now been created on the world's smallest canvas. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have "painted" the Mona Lisa on a substrate surface approximately 30 microns in width – or one-third the width of a human hair. The team's creation, the "Mini Lisa," demonstrates a technique that could potentially be used to achieve nanomanufacturing of devices because the team was able to vary the surface concentration of molecules on such short-length scales. The image was created with an atomic force microscope and a process called ...

There is no high quality evidence that antioxidant supplements help to increase a woman's chances of having a baby, according to the results of a new systematic review. The review, published in The Cochrane Library, found women were no more likely to conceive when taking oral antioxidants and that there was limited information about potential harms. Around a quarter of couples planning a baby are thought to have difficulty conceiving. Women undergoing fertility treatment often take dietary supplements, including antioxidants, to try to increase their chances of becoming ...

Using direct human brain recordings, a research team from Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA and Thomas Jefferson University has identified a new type of cell in the brain that helps people to keep track of their relative location while navigating an unfamiliar environment. The "grid cell," which derives its name from the triangular grid pattern in which the cell activates during navigation, is distinct among brain cells because its activation represents multiple spatial locations. This behavior is how grid cells allow the brain to keep track of navigational ...

This is a veritable mechanics of aggression on the nanoscale. Certain bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, have the ability to deploy tiny darts. This biological weapon kills the host cell by piercing the membrane. Researchers at EPFL have dismantled, piece by piece, this intriguing little machine and found an assembly of proteins that, in unfolding at the right time, takes the form of a spur. Published in Nature Chemical Biology, this discovery offers new insight into the fight against pathogens that are increasingly resistant to antibiotics. To attack the host ...

Scientists have spent decades trying to build flexible plastic solar cells efficient enough to compete with conventional cells made of silicon. To boost performance, research groups have tried creating new plastic materials that enhance the flow of electricity through the solar cell. Several groups expected to achieve good results by redesigning pliant polymers of plastic into orderly, silicon-like crystals, but the flow of electricity did not improve. Recently, scientists discovered that disorder at the molecular level actually improves the polymers' performance. Now ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Microscopic tears in a new kind of man-made material may actually help the substance bulk up like a bodybuilder at the gym. "We've shown how normally destructive mechanical forces can be channeled to bring about stronger materials," said Duke chemist Steve Craig, who led the research. "The material responses are like Silly Putty transforming into a solid as stiff as the cap of a pen or a runny liquid transforming into soft Jell-O." Scientists could one day use the stress-induced strength from these new materials to make better fluids such as engine ...

Warming oceans are causing marine species to change breeding times and shift homes with expected substantial consequences for the broader marine landscape, according to a new global study. The three-year research project, funded by the National Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in California, has shown widespread systemic shifts in measures such as distribution of species and phenology – the timing of nature's calendar – on a scale comparable to or greater than those observed on land. The report, Global imprint of climate change on marine life, will form ...

A team of researchers have shown that schizophrenia and a disorder associated with autism and learning difficulties share a common biological pathway. This is one of the first times that researchers have uncovered genetic evidence for the underlying causes of schizophrenia. The team found that a disruption of the gene TOP3B, an exceedingly rare occurrence in most parts of the world, is fairly common in a uniquely genetically distinct founder population from North-eastern Finland. In this population, which has grown in relative isolation for several centuries, the disruption ...

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have discovered a way to target the immune system to shrink or eliminate tumors in mice without causing autoimmune problems. Researchers also found evidence that the same mechanism may operate in humans. The study was published today in the advance online edition of Nature. The findings provide a new target for ongoing efforts to develop immunotherapies to harness the immune system to fight cancer and other diseases. The work focused on white blood cells called regulatory T cells. These specialized cells serve as the ...

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 4, 2013 – Not only does practice make perfect, it also makes for more efficient generation of neuronal activity in the primary motor cortex, the area of the brain that plans and executes movement, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Their findings, published online today in Nature Neuroscience, showed that practice leads to decreased metabolic activity for internally generated movements, but not for visually guided motor tasks, and suggest the motor cortex is "plastic" and a potential site for the storage of motor ...

By borrowing a tool from bacteria that infect plants, scientists have developed a new approach to eliminate mutated DNA inside mitochondria—the energy factories within cells. Doctors might someday use the approach to treat a variety of mitochondrial diseases, including the degenerative eye disease Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON). The research, published online today in Nature Medicine, was funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Mitochondria convert fuel from food into a form of energy that cells can use. ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth's surface, yet our knowledge of the impact of climate change on marine habitats is a mere drop in the proverbial ocean compared to terrestrial systems. An international team of scientists set out to change that by conducting a global meta-analysis of climate change impacts on marine systems. Counter to previous thinking, marine species are shifting their geographic distribution toward the poles and doing so much faster than their land-based counterparts. The findings were published in Nature Climate Change. The ...

VIDEO: The structure of NatA, an n-terminal acetyltransferase, is described in a paper published Aug. 4, 2013, in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. Click here for more information. A team of researchers from Philadelphia and Norway has determined the structure of an enzyme complex that modifies one end of most human proteins and is made at elevated levels in numerous forms of cancer. A study in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, led by researchers at The Wistar Institute, ...