From sore feet to backaches, blame it on human evolution. "Because we are the only mammals to walk on two feet," says Bruce Latimer, an anthropologist from the Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine. Latimer will present "A Backache of Longstanding: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Human Vertebral Column" at the 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Boston, Feb. 14-18. His talk will be featured in the session, "The Scars of Human Evolution." Latimer and other panelists will explain how adapting to upright ...

BOSTON - The notion of "personalizing" health care through the use of an individual's genetic code has attracted considerable enthusiasm and investment. Impressive examples, confirmed through formal studies of clinical validity and utility, suggest that we have only scratched the surface of applications to treat disease more precisely, identify risk factors for complex disease, and guide preventative measures. As the cost of sequencing entire genomes falls, the opportunities for people around the world to take possession of their entire genetic code will proliferate. ...

When it comes to healing the terrible wounds of war, success may hinge on the first blood clot – the one that begins forming on the battlefield right after an injury. Researchers exploring the complex stream of cellular signals produced by the body in response to a traumatic injury believe the initial response – formation of a blood clot – may control subsequent healing. Using that information, they're developing new biomaterials, including artificial blood platelets laced with regulatory chemicals that could be included in an injector device the size of an iPhone. Soldiers ...

More people are meeting recommended goals in the three key markers of diabetes control, according to a study conducted and funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report, published online February 15 in Diabetes Care, shows that, from 1988 to 2010, the number of people with diabetes able to meet or exceed all three of the measures that demonstrate good diabetes management rose from about 2 percent to about 19 percent. Each measure also showed substantial improvement, with over half of people meeting each individual ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Throughout 2012, the United States was battered by severe weather events such as hurricanes and droughts that affected both pocketbooks and livelihoods. Research suggests that in the coming years, U.S. five-day forecasts will show greater numbers of extreme weather events, a trend linked to human-driven climate change. Donald Wuebbles, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will discuss extreme weather in a presentation Feb. 15 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science ...

LA JOLLA, CA – February 15, 2013 – Doctors currently struggle to determine whether a breast tumor is likely to shift into an aggressive, life-threatening mode—an issue with profound implications for treatment. Now a group from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has identified a mechanism through which mitochondria, the powerhouses of a cell, control tumor aggressiveness. Based on their findings, the team developed a simple treatment that inhibits cancer progression and prolongs life when tested in mice. The research team, which describes its results February 15, 2013, ...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. –Feb. 14, 2013– The pharmaceutical industry's efforts to self-regulate its direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising are "an industry-sponsored ruse," intended to deflect criticism and collectively block new Federal regulation, a study released today in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law found. The paper, "The Politics and Strategy of Industry Self-Regulation: The Pharmaceutical Industry's Principles for Ethical Direct-to-Consumer Advertising as a Deceptive Blocking Strategy," was written by Denis Arnold, Associate Professor of Management and Surtman ...

In our ongoing quest for alternative energy sources, researchers are looking more to plants that grow in the wild for use in biofuels, plants such as switchgrass. However, attempts to "domesticate" wild-growing plants have a downside, as it could make the plants more susceptible to any number of plant viruses. In a presentation at this year's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Michigan State University plant biologist Carolyn Malmstrom said that when we start combining the qualities of different types of plants into one, there can be ...

(Boston) – A breast cancer risk prediction model developed for African Americans tends to underestimate risk in certain subgroups, according to a new study from the Slone Epidemiology Center (SEC) at Boston University. The model predicted estrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer, which is a more aggressive form of breast cancer that disproportionately affects African American women, more poorly than ER-positive breast cancer. The study, published online today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, was led by Deborah Boggs, ScD, postdoctoral associate at ...

HEIDELBERG, 15 February 2013 – Researchers from King's College London have discovered that neuronal activity can stimulate tau release from healthy neurons in the absence of cell death. The results published by Diane Hanger and her colleagues in EMBO reports show that treatment of neurons with known biological signaling molecules increases the release of tau into the culture medi-um. The release of tau from cortical neurons is therefore a physiological process that can be regulated by neuronal activity. Tau proteins stabilize microtubules, the long threads of polymers ...

WATERLOO, Ont. (Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013) A team of researchers at the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing has proposed a new computational model that may become the architecture for a scalable quantum computer. In a paper to be published in the journal Science this week, the research team of IQC Associate Professor Andrew Childs, post-doctoral fellow David Gosset and PhD student Zak Webb proposes using multi-particle quantum walks for universal computation. In a multi-particle quantum walk, particles live on the vertices of a graph and can move between ...

DALLAS – Feb. 15, 2013 – Two studies by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center could lead to new treatments for lupus and other autoimmune diseases and strengthen current therapies for viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections. The studies identify a new enzyme that acts as a sensor of innate immunity – the body's first line of defense against invaders – and describe a novel cell signaling pathway. This pathway detects foreign DNA or even host DNA when it appears in a part of the cell where DNA should not be. In addition, the investigations show that the process ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Researchers don't know the exact cause of Behçet's disease, a chronic condition that leads to oral and genital sores and serious complications such as blindness, but new research brings better understanding to what makes some people more susceptible to being affected. In one of the most extensive genetic analyses of Behçet's disease, a University of Michigan-led, international team of researchers has identified novel gene variants in the inflammatory disorder and uncovered data that could apply to studies of other diseases. The results appear in the ...

Forcepflies are usually known as earwigflies, because the males have a large genital forceps that resembles the cerci of earwigs. A new species of forcepfly Meropeidae (Mecoptera) from Brazil was described, representing only the 3rd extant species described in this family and the 1st record of the family from the Neotropical region. The distribution and biogeography of the family are discussed and it is even proposed that Meropeidae originated before continental drift and then divided into two branches, northern and southern, with the breakup of the old supercontinent Pangea. ...

The Achilles heel of the body – getting over damage to tendons can be a long and painful process. By combining the nuclear tests of the 1950s with tissue samples and modern technology, a research collaboration between the Aarhus University and University of Copenhagen now reveals why the healing process is so slow. Many people are affected by injuries caused by straining the Achilles tendon and other tendons in the body. Danish athletes alone account for up to 200,000 injuries per year. This often leads to frustration over the poor treatment options available, and it can ...

The most common genetic cause of Parkinson's is not only responsible for the condition's distinctive movement problems but may also affect vision, according to new research by scientists at the University of York. Parkinson's, the second most common form of neurodegenerative disease, principally affects people aged over 60. Its most common symptom is tremor and slowness of movement (bradykinesia) but some people with Parkinson's also experience changes in vision. Now for the first time, researchers in the University's Department of Biology have established a link between ...

This press release is available in German. A team of physicists at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, performed an experiment that seems to contradict the foundations of quantum theory -- at first glance. The team led by Rainer Blatt reversed a quantum measurement in a prototype quantum information processor. The experiment is enabled by a technique that has been developed for quantum error correction in a future quantum computer. Measurements on quantum systems have puzzled generations of physicists due to their counterintuitive properties. One of them is the fact ...

MAYWOOD, Il. - When hospital patients have to be readmitted soon after discharge, hospitals look bad. A high readmission rate also can result in reduced Medicare reimbursements. But a study of spine surgery patients has found that the standard method used to calculate readmission rates is a misleading indicator of hospital quality. Loyola University Medical Center neurosurgeon Beejal Amin, MD, and colleagues found that 25 percent of the readmissions of spine surgery patients were not due to true quality-of-care issues. Results are reported in a featured article in the ...

Pompe disease, a severe glycogen storage disease appearing in Lapphunds is caused by a genetic defect in acid α-glucosidase gene. The same genetic mutation also causes the equivalent disease in humans. Based on this finding, canine Pompe disease can now be diagnosed with a genetic test. This research was completed at the Canine Genetics Research Group lead by professor Hannes Lohi in the University of Helsinki and Folkhälsan Research Center in Finland and will be published in PLOS ONE on February 14, 2013. Human Pompe disease is caused by complete or partial deficiency ...

Experts from the Centre for Advanced Studies of Blanes and the University of Barcelona (UB) collected and studied different crustacean specimens during recent expeditions to Madagascar, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, the Philippines and French Polynesia. Using morphological and molecular data they have discovered five new species of crustaceans in the waters of these regions. They are genetically different but morphologically very similar and they also found a new genus, named Triodonthea. The five new species documented in the study belong to the Lauriea genus of the Galatheidae ...

Ever wonder why sand can both run through an hourglass like a liquid and be solid enough to support buildings? It's because granular materials – like sand or dirt – can change their behavior, or state. Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that the forces individual grains exert on one another are what most affect that transition. Physicists have explored the changing behavior of granular materials by comparing it to what happens in thermodynamic systems. In a thermodynamic system, you can change the state of a material – like water – from a liquid ...

Chemists at the University of Liverpool have created a new technique that could be used in industry to separate complex organic chemical mixtures. Chemical feedstocks containing benzene are used extensively in industry to create modern materials and polymers. Their use relies heavily on distillation techniques which separate complex mixtures into more simple molecules used as building blocks to develop drugs, plastics and new materials. These distillation techniques can be expensive and involve large amounts of energy for hard-to-separate mixtures. A team of researchers ...

Organic semiconductors hold promise for making low-cost flexible electronics – conceivably video displays that bend like book pages or roll and unroll like posters, or wearable circuitry sewn into uniforms or athletic wear. Researchers have demonstrated the ability to "print" transistors made of organic crystals on flexible plastic sheets, using technology that resembles inkjet or gravure printing. However, for the technology's potential to be realized, scientists have to show that these organic semiconductors will withstand the rugged handling they invite – they will ...

Wcologists from Umeå University and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim have studied fish communities and fish habitat and reviewed the importance of winter conditions for fish in streams and rivers in cold regions. The findings are now being published in the journal BioScience. It is well known that winter can be a stressful season for plants and animals in streams and rivers. It is reasonable to assume that more extreme weather conditions are the most taxing, but the ecological significance of this is poorly understood. The research team, ...

University of Cincinnati-led research takes a new direction in examining the availability of healthy foods for urban populations by examining the commuting patterns of its residents. This new approach to identifying so-called food deserts, now published online, will appear in the May journal of Health and Place. Neighborhoods without access to stores that provide healthy food options – such as fresh fruits and vegetables – are often labeled as food deserts. However, current methods for determining which neighborhoods have access to nutritious foods focus only on where ...