MELBOURNE, FLA.—"What are the radiation doses to airplane passengers from the intense bursts of gamma-rays that originate from thunderclouds?" Florida Institute of Technology Department of Physics and Space Science faculty members addressed the issue and presented their terrestrial gamma ray flashes research modeling work at a press conference meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria, April 10. Joseph Dwyer, Ningyu Liu and Hamid Rassoul discussed a new physics-based model of radiation dose calculations and compared the calculations to previous work. Scientists ...

The majority of family doctors receive little or no information about harmful effects of medicines when visited by drug company representatives, according to an international study involving Canadian, U.S. and French physicians. Yet the same doctors indicated that they were likely to start prescribing these drugs, consistent with previous research that shows prescribing behaviour is influenced by pharmaceutical promotion. The study, which had doctors fill out questionnaires about each promoted medicine following sales visits, was published online today in the Journal ...

LA JOLLA, CA – April 10, 2013 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have shed light on one of the major toxic mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease. The discoveries could lead to a much better understanding of the Alzheimer's process and how to prevent it. The findings, reported in the April 10, 2013 issue of the journal Neuron, show that brain damage in Alzheimer's disease is linked to the overactivation of an enzyme called AMPK. When the scientists blocked this enzyme in mouse models of the disease, neurons were protected from loss of synapses—neuron-to-neuron ...

Estrogen and progesterone receptors, and the gene HER2 – these are the big three markers and/or targets in breast cancer. Evidence presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 adds a fourth: androgen receptors. "This is a continuing line of work with all evidence pointing toward the addition of the androgen receptor as potential target and useful marker in all of the major subtypes of breast cancer," says Jennifer Richer, PhD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and co-director of the CU Cancer Center Tissue Processing and Procurement Core. The finding ...

Stars the size of the Sun end their lives as tiny and faint white dwarf stars. But as they make the final transition into retirement their atmospheres are blown away into space. For a few tens of thousands of years they are surrounded by the spectacular and colourful glowing clouds of ionised gas known as planetary nebulae. This new image from the VLT shows the planetary nebula IC 1295, which lies in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). It has the unusual feature of being surrounded by multiple shells that make it resemble a micro-organism seen under a microscope, ...

Sophia Antipolis, 10 April 2013. Despite their greater life expectancy, the adults of today are less "metabolically" healthy than their counterparts of previous generations. That's the conclusion of a large cohort study from the Netherlands which compared generational shifts in a range of well established metabolic risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Assessing the trends, the investigators concluded that "the more recently born generations are doing worse", and warn "that the prevalence of metabolic risk factors and the lifelong exposure to them have increased and ...

EGU Press Conference, Wednesday, 10 April-- Not only do humans emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but they also do things that help remove these gases from the atmosphere—for example, planting more forests or other land management techniques can lead to greater uptake of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. New research presented by IIASA researcher Hannes Böttcher at the EGU General Assembly this week estimates future land use emissions for the European Union. These scenarios provide the basis for policy discussions in the EU, and also help identify the least ...

New research has questioned the reliability of neuroscience studies, saying that conclusions could be misleading due to small sample sizes. A team led by academics from the University of Bristol reviewed 48 articles on neuroscience meta-analysis which were published in 2011 and concluded that most had an average power of around 20 per cent – a finding which means the chance of the average study discovering the effect being investigated is only one in five. The paper, being published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience today [10 April], reveals that small, low-powered studies ...

This press release is available in German. Fruit-eating animals are known to use their spatial memory to relocate fruit, yet, it is unclear how they manage to find fruit in the first place. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now investigated which strategies chimpanzees in the Taï National Park in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, use in order to find fruit in the rain forest. The result: Chimpanzees know that trees of certain species produce fruit simultaneously and use this botanical knowledge during their daily ...

April 10, 2013, New York, NY – A dozen Ludwig scientists from around the world presented the latest advancements in basic and clinical cancer research at this week's American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2013. Progress in immunotherapy and epigenetics led the program with important diagnostic and treatment implications for emerging cancer therapy. "With new immunotherapy agents available to help patients with melanoma, researchers are developing prognostic biomarkers to determine who will benefit most to fully realize the potential of these ...

The "holy grail" for understanding how and why koalas respond to infectious diseases has been uncovered in an Australian-led, world-first genome mapping project. The joint undertaking between QUT (Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia) and The Australian Museum has unearthed a wealth of data, including the koala interferon gamma (IFN-g) gene - a chemical messenger that plays a key role in the iconic marsupial's defence against cancer, viruses and intracellular bacteria. Professor Peter Timms, from QUT's Institue of Health and Biomedical Innovation ...

Scientists have revealed a new technique to introduce disease-blocking bacteria into mosquitoes, with promising results that may halt the spread of diseases such as dengue, yellow fever and potentially malaria. When infected with the bacteria Wolbachia, mosquitoes are unable to spread viruses such as dengue, a disease which kills round 40,000 people each year with no vaccines or specific treatments currently available. There have been around 2,400 cases of dengue infection in Northern Australia in recent years. However, the bacteria has been difficult to spread within ...

An unusual fossil fish that has fins behind its anus could have implications for human evolution according to a scientist at The University of Manchester. Dr Robert Sansom from the Faculty of Life Sciences identified the paired fins of Euphanerops, a fossil jawless fish that swam in the seas around 370 million years ago. The find makes the fish one of the first vertebrate to develop paired appendages such as fins, legs or arms. However, their positioning is incredibly unusual, as Dr Sansom explains: "Euphanerops is unique because its anal fin is paired meaning there ...

A new study by scientists at the University of York and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) shows that bird species which have colonised the UK in recent decades breed initially almost exclusively in nature reserves and other areas specially protected for wildlife. First author, Jonathan Hiley, a PhD student in the Department of Biology at York, said: "Nature reserves provide ecological welcome mats for new arrivals." Published online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B., the study shows that, of the 20 wetland bird species that bred for ...

New scientific evidence seems to confirm the famous Roman saying "Mens sana in corpore sano". Researchers from the University of Granada have demonstrated that people who normally practice sport have a better cognitive performance than those with bad physical health. More specifically, the results of this research indicate that the former have a better sustained attention span (they react more rapidly to an external stimulus introduced randomly while carrying out a monotonous task). Their autonomic nervous system also appears to work better when dealing with cognitive loads ...

A team led by David Reverter, a researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) of the UAB, has determined for the first time the three-dimensional structure of a protein pair: LC8 and Nek9. Depending on whether or not they bind, Nek9 ensures that the chromosomes group and separate correctly during cell division. By analysing the 3D structure, these scientists have discovered a new mechanism that interferes with the protein binding and therefore also contributes to the correct regulation of cell division and other cell processes. The discovery could ...

Variations in nutrient availability in the world's oceans could be a vital component of future environmental change, according to a multi-author review paper involving the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS). The paper, published this month in Nature Geoscience, reviews what we know about ocean nutrient patterns and interactions, and how they might be influenced by future climate change and other man-made factors. The authors also highlight how nutrient cycles influence climate by fuelling biological production, hence keeping carbon dioxide (CO2) locked ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Deep inside your brain, a legion of stem cells lies ready to turn into new brain and nerve cells whenever and wherever you need them most. While they wait, they keep themselves in a state of perpetual readiness – poised to become any type of nerve cell you might need as your cells age or get damaged. Now, new research from scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School reveals a key way they do this: through a type of internal "spring cleaning" that both clears out garbage within the cells, and keeps them in their stem-cell state. In a ...

Certain types of papilloma virus might actually prevent cervical cancer, according to a new study by researchers from The University of Manchester. There are over 100 different types of human papilloma virus (HPV). Cervical cancer is known to be caused by infection with approximately 14 so-called "high-risk" types of this virus. Researchers from Manchester looked at the different types of HPV found in cervical smears and invasive cervical cancers from HIV positive and HIV negative women in Kenya. They found high numbers of a specific type of HPV (type 53) in normal cervical ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- New research from social psychologists at Indiana University Bloomington suggests that feeling powerful might protect against the debilitating effects of negative stereotypes. "If you can make women feel powerful, then maybe you can protect them from the consequences of stereotype threat," IU social psychologist Katie Van Loo said. In new work, Van Loo and Robert Rydell, social psychologists in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the IU College of Arts and Sciences, brought the study of these two social forces -- power and stereotypes ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio—The same material that formed the first primitive transistors more than 60 years ago can be modified in a new way to advance future electronics, according to a new study. Chemists at The Ohio State University have developed the technology for making a one-atom-thick sheet of germanium, and found that it conducts electrons more than ten times faster than silicon and five times faster than conventional germanium. The material's structure is closely related to that of graphene—a much-touted two-dimensional material comprised of single layers of carbon atoms. ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have "rationally rewired" some of the cell's smallest components to create proteins that can be switched on or off by command. These "protein switches" can be used to interrogate the inner workings of each cell, helping scientists uncover the molecular mechanisms of human health and disease. In the first application of this approach, the UNC researchers showed how a protein called Src kinase influences the way cells extend and move, a previously unknown role that is consistent ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A laboratory study has shown for the first time that coenzyme Q10 offsets the cellular changes that are linked to a side-effect of some statin drugs - an increased risk of adult-onset diabetes. Statins are some of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, able to reduce LDL, or "bad" cholesterol levels, and the risk of heart attacks or other cardiovascular events. However, their role in raising the risk of diabetes has only been observed and studied in recent years. The possibility of thousands of statin-induced diabetics is a growing concern, ...

The obesity epidemic in America and its impact on musculoskeletal health, as well as related treatment outcomes and costs, was discussed during the AAOS Now forum, "Obesity, Orthopaedics and Outcomes," at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) at McCormick Place in Chicago. "From 1960 to 2000, the rate of obesity more than doubled in the United States," said Frank B. Kelly, MD, AAOS Now editorial board member and forum moderator. "By 2010, more than 72 million of U.S. adults were obese, and no state had an obesity rate of less ...

This press release is available in Spanish. Researchers at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and the Achucarro neurosciences centre have discovered a new therapy for the fragile X chromosome syndrome. This new therapy proposes the modulation of the cerebral endocannabinoid system in order to ameliorate the symptoms of the disease. "Clearly, a cure as such is not going to be achieved, as it involves a disease of genetic origin, but the fact that, by manipulating in a certain way at a cerebral level in order to obtain an improvement in the symptoms of the disease ...