Boston, Mass.—A new method of vaccine design, called the Multiple Antigen Presentation System (MAPS), may result in vaccines that bring together the benefits of whole-cell and acellular or defined subunit vaccination. The method, pioneered by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital, permits rapid construction of new vaccines that activate mulitple arms of the immune system simultaneously against one or more pathogens, generating robust immune protection with a lower risk of adverse effects. As reported by Fan Zhang, PhD, Ying-Jie Lu, PhD, and Richard Malley, MD, from ...

Astronomers have found a new way of measuring the spin in supermassive black holes, which could lead to better understanding about how they drive the growth of galaxies. The scientists at Durham University, UK, observed a black hole - with mass 10 million times that of our Sun - at the centre of a spiral galaxy 500 million light years from Earth while it was feeding on the surrounding disc of material that fuels its growth and powers its activity. By viewing optical, ultra-violet and soft x-rays generated by heat as the black hole fed, they were able to measure how ...

Scientists studying an aggressive form of leukaemia have discovered that rather than displacing healthy stem cells in the bone marrow as previously believed, the cancer is putting them to sleep to prevent them forming new blood cells. The finding offers the potential that these stem cells could somehow be turned back on, offering a new form of treatment for the condition, called Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML). The work was led by scientists at Queen Mary, University of London with the support of Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute. Around 2,500* people are diagnosed ...

A team of researchers has devised a way to measure the internal properties of stars—a method that offers more accurate assessments of their orbiting planets. The research, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by a multi-national team of scientists, including physicists at New York University, Princeton University, and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. The researchers examined HD 52265—a star approximately 92 light years away and nearly 20 percent more massive than our Sun. More than a decade ago, scientists ...

Hamilton, ON -- Researchers at McMaster University have discovered a solution to a long-standing medical mystery in Huntington's disease (HD). HD is a brain disease that can affect 1 in about 7,000 people in mid-life, causing an increasing loss of brain cells at the centre of the brain. HD researchers have known what the exact DNA change is that causes Huntington's disease since 1993, but what is typically seen in patients does not lead to disease in animal models. This has made drug discovery difficult. In this week's issue of the science journal, the Proceedings of ...

Social monogamy, where one breeding female and one breeding male are closely associated with each other over several breeding seasons, appears to have evolved as a mating strategy, new research reveals. It was previously suspected that social monogamy resulted from a need for extra parental care by the father. The comparative study, by University of Cambridge researchers Dieter Lukas and Tim Clutton-Brock, shows that the ancestral system for all mammalian groups is of females living in separate ranges with males defending overlapping territories, and that monogamy evolved ...

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS –Have you ever applied for a job and wondered why it is offered to someone who appears to be less qualified than you? A new study by Berkeley-Haas Associate Professor Don Moore finds employment managers tend to ignore the context of past performance. The article, "Attribution Errors in Performance Evaluation," (PLOS ONE, July 24, 2013), is co-authored by Samuel A. Swift, a Berkeley-Haas post-doctoral fellow; Zachariah S. Sharek, director of strategy and innovation at CivicScience; and Francesco Gino, associate ...

Alexandria, VA – Few destinations capture the imagination like Cuba; a forbidden fruit to U.S. citizens since the 1960s. Recently, 14 earth scientists from the U.S.-based Association for Women Geoscientists travelled there to explore its geology and culture. The expedition is chronicled in the August issue of EARTH Magazine. While Cuba is an intriguing destination as an actor on the global political stage, its geological history captures events that tell scientists even more about the history of the planet. While there, the scientists studied rocks that captured the ...

To address the growing problem of people being overdiagnosed and overtreated for cancer, a group of scientists convened by the National Cancer Institute and chaired by a UC San Francisco breast cancer expert is proposing a major update of the way the nation approaches diseases now classified as “cancer.” The “Viewpoint” article will be published online Monday, July 29, in the Journal of the American Medical Association. When cancer screening programs were widely initiated three decades ago, medical knowledge of the disease was more simplistic. The intent was ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 26, 2013) — It appears tiny and inconsequential enough, but the "super mouse" — created by researchers at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center some six years ago — has spawned plenty of new research into preventing and/or treating many types of cancer. Back in 2007, cancer researcher Vivek Rangnekar and his team announced that they discovered a gene — known as Par-4 —that specifically kills cancer cells without killing normal cells. Rangnekar's team used this gene to develop cancer-resistant mice that become known as "super mice" for ...

It may seem like a stretch to envision a 3D printer in every home. However, a Michigan Technological University researcher is predicting that personal manufacturing, like personal computing before it, is about to enter the mainstream in a big way. "For the average American consumer, 3D printing is ready for showtime," said Associate Professor Joshua Pearce. 3D printers deposit multiple layers of plastic or other materials to make almost anything, from toys to tools to kitchen gadgets. Free designs that direct the printers are available by the tens of thousands on websites ...

New York, NY – In time for the third annual International Tiger Day, recent findings from a camera trap survey in Sumatra, Indonesia have uncovered a burgeoning tiger stronghold on an island that typically makes headlines for its rampant loss of forests and wildlife. Mr. Tomy Winata, an Indonesian businessman, conservationist and founder of Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation (TWNC, which is a 450km2 privately managed concession), has carried out critical tiger conservation initiatives in the region since 1996, and recently partnered with Panthera, a global big cat ...

Scientists historically have argued that evolution proceeds through gradual development of traits. But how can incremental changes apply to the binary switch between two sexes, male or female? Researchers at Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine have found that a genetic process among the many species of rodents could have significant implications regarding our assumptions about sex determination and the pace of evolution. "What we addressed is a long-standing puzzle in natural history: why different types of rodents can exhibit profound differences in ...

SALT LAKE CITY, July 29, 2013 – A University of Utah biologist has identified 33 new species of predatory ants in Central America and the Caribbean, and named about a third of the tiny but monstrous-looking insects after ancient Mayan lords and demons. "These new ant species are the stuff of nightmares" when viewed under a microscope, says entomologist Jack Longino, a professor of biology. "Their faces are broad shields, the eyes reduced to tiny points at the edges and the fierce jaws bristling with sharp teeth. "They look a little like the monster in 'Alien.' They're ...

UCLA computer science professor Amit Sahai and a team of researchers have designed a system to encrypt software so that it only allows someone to use a program as intended while preventing any deciphering of the code behind it. This is known in computer science as "software obfuscation," and it is the first time it has been accomplished. Sahai, who specializes in cryptography at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, collaborated with Sanjam Garg, who recently earned his doctorate at UCLA and is now at IBM Research; Craig Gentry, Shai Halevi ...

For the first time since exoplanets, or planets around stars other than the sun, were discovered almost 20 years ago, X-ray observations have detected an exoplanet passing in front of its parent star. An advantageous alignment of a planet and its parent star in the system HD 189733, which is 63 light-years from Earth, enabled NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM Newton Observatory to observe a dip in X-ray intensity as the planet transited the star. "Thousands of planet candidates have been seen to transit in only optical light," said ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- A study of mortality and fertility patterns among seven species of wild apes and monkeys and their relatives, compared with similar data from hunter-gatherer humans, shows that menopause sets humans apart from other primates. Nonhuman primates aren't immune to the fading female fertility that comes with age, the researchers say. But human females are unique in living well beyond their childbearing years. "Unlike other primates women tend to have a long post-reproductive life. Even before modern medicine, many women lived for 30 to 35 years after their ...

Human bodies recognize at the molecular level that not all happiness is created equal, responding in ways that can help or hinder physical health, according to new research led by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The sense of well-being derived from "a noble purpose" may provide cellular health benefits, whereas "simple self-gratification" may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness, researchers found. "A functional ...

A good state of mind — that is, your happiness — affects your genes, scientists say. In the first study of its kind, researchers from UCLA's Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology and the University of North Carolina examined how positive psychology impacts human gene expression. What they found is that different types of happiness have surprisingly different effects on the human genome. People who have high levels of what is known as eudaimonic well-being — the kind of happiness that comes from having a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life (think Mother ...

The GOES-R Magnetometer Engineering Development Unit made an important development in the construction of the spacecraft recently after completing a successful boom deployment test at an ATK facility in Goleta, Calif. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – R Series advanced spacecraft and instrument technology will result in more timely and accurate weather forecasts. It will improve support for the detection and observations of meteorological phenomena and directly affect public safety, protection of property, and ultimately, economic health and development. ...

NASA and NOAA satellites continue to keep a close eye on the remnants of Tropical Storm Dorian as they make their way through the eastern Caribbean Sea. On Saturday, July 27 at 11 a.m. EDT, Dorian was still a tropical storm, but that didn't last. Dorian was near 18.5N and 52.1W, about 720 miles (1,160 km) east of the Northern Leeward Islands. Dorian's maximum sustained winds were near 40 mph (65 kph) and it was moving to the west at 23 mph (37 kph). By July 28, Dorian weakened to a remnant low pressure area. It was producing showers and thunderstorms that extended ...

VIDEO: This NOAA GOES-West satellite animation from July 26 to July 39 shows the movement of Tropical Storm Flossie from the Eastern Pacific into the Central Pacific Ocean and approaching Hawaii.... Click here for more information. NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Tropical Storm Flossie as it neared Hawaii. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Flossie on ...

Children with disabilities who live in developing countries are more likely to experience harsh punishment than children without disabilities in those countries. That's the conclusion of a new study that looked at data from nationally representative samples of about 46,000 parents and other caregivers of 2- to 9-year-olds in 17 low- and middle-income countries; most prior research on children with disabilities has been done in developed countries. The study, in the journal Child Development, is the largest examination to date of how different forms of disability relate ...

Help your teenager stay engaged in school and he or she will be less likely to drop out. That's the conclusion of a new longitudinal study that found that teens who were less engaged in school tended to engage in more delinquency and substance use over time, and that lower levels of engagement and greater problem behaviors in turn predicted a higher likelihood of dropping out of school. Specifically, the study points to the importance of creating a supportive learning environment that provides opportunities for students to feel competent and autonomous, and that sustains ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. -- Surgery is not always necessary for women with a type of breast tissue abnormality associated with a higher risk of cancer, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology. Researchers said that periodic imaging and clinical exam are effective in these patients when radiology and pathology findings are benign and concordant, or in agreement. Atypical lobular hyperplasia (ALH) and lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) are abnormal breast lesions that occasionally appear as incidental findings in breast biopsies. Women with ALH or LCIS have ...