Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a computational model of 1,366 genes in E. coli that includes 3D protein structures and has enabled them to compute the temperature sensitivity of the bacterium's proteins. The study, published June 7 in the journal Science, opens the door for engineers to create heat-tolerant microbial strains for production of commodity chemicals, therapeutic proteins and other industrial applications. Students of microbiology learn early that bacterial growth is temperature sensitive. For most pathogens, the optimum ...

A new set of long-term climate records based on cave stalagmites collected from tropical Borneo shows that the western tropical Pacific responded very differently than other regions of the globe to abrupt climate change events. The 100,000-year climate record adds to data on past climate events, and may help scientists assess models designed to predict how the Earth's climate will respond in the future. The new record resulted from oxygen isotope analysis of more than 1,700 calcium carbonate samples taken from four stalagmites found in three different northern Borneo ...

Making small lifestyle changes could reduce your risk of having a stroke, according to a new study in the American Heart Association journal Stroke. Researchers assessed stroke risk using the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7 health factors: be active, control cholesterol, eat a healthy diet, manage blood pressure, maintain a healthy weight, control blood sugar and don't smoke. "We used the assessment tool to look at stroke risk and found that small differences in health status were associated with large reductions in stroke risk," said Mary Cushman, M.D., ...

Psychologists who analyzed video footage of a female chimpanzee, a female bonobo and a female human infant in a study to compare different types of gestures at comparable stages of communicative development found remarkable similarities among the three species. This is the first time such data have been used to compare the development of gestures across species. The chimpanzee and bonobo, formerly called the "pygmy chimpanzee," are the two species most closely related to humans in the evolutionary tree. "The similarity in the form and function of the gestures in ...

Astronomers now know that planets around other stars are plentiful. But they do not fully understand how they form and there are many aspects of the formation of comets, planets and other rocky bodies that remain a mystery. However, new observations exploiting the power of ALMA are now answering one of the biggest questions: how do tiny grains of dust in the disc around a young star grow bigger and bigger — to eventually become rubble, and even boulders well beyond a metre in size? Computer models suggest that dust grains grow when they collide and stick together. However, ...

Frontiers in Neuroscience Immune regulation of ovarian development: programming by neonatal immune challenge Bacterial infections during early life, such as Chlamydia which is present in 15% of newly born babies, may reduce reproductive success in adult women. For example, exposure to bacteria can lead to a change in the onset of puberty, as well as in ovarian morphology and sexual behavior. Luba Sominsky and colleagues from the University of Newcastle, Australia, here show that when infant rats are injected with lipopolysaccharide molecules that are normally found ...

A few days. This is the short period of time during which our body's construction plan is put in place, during its embryonic life. The appea- rance of limbs and vertebrae is orchestrated by a family of 'architect' genes called Hox, each providing precise instructions at a given time. Denis Duboule, a geneticist at the Faculty of Science of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), demonstrated that these genes were aligned within our chromosomes according to the order of structures that will emerge: first the components ...

WASHINGTON, DC—A 2012 law that loosened conflict-of-interest restrictions for FDA advisory panels could weaken the agency's review system and could allow more drugs with safety problems to gain market approval, says a new analysis published June 7 in Science by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS). The 2012 legislation removed measures put in place by an earlier law passed in 2007, according to the report by Susan F. Wood, PhD, an associate professor of health policy at SPHHS and Jillian K. Mador, a medical ...

A report, published in Stroke, showed that small improvements in cardiovascular risk factors reduce the chances a person will suffer a stroke. The report is part of an ongoing national study called Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) which is funded by NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability in the United States. Strokes are caused by abnormal changes in blood flow in the brain or the bursting of brain blood vessels. Previous studies suggest that strokes can be prevented ...

Based on a treasure trove of recent discoveries, astronomers now know that planets are remarkably plentiful in our galaxy and may be common throughout the Universe. Though planets appear to form readily, the actual process of planet formation remains a mystery and astronomers are searching for the missing pieces to this cosmic puzzle. An international team of researchers using the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope has discovered an intriguing clue that could help explain how rocky planets are able to evolve out of a swirling disk of dust ...

SEATTLE – Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientists have, for the first time, mapped a young gene's short, dramatic evolutionary journey to becoming essential, or indispensable. In a study published online June 6 in Science, the researchers detail one gene's rapid switch to a new and essential function in the fruit fly, challenging the long-held belief that only ancient genes are important. "We really haven't paid much attention to what is new, because there's so much emphasis on what is old," said Harmit Singh Malik, Ph.D., a member of the Hutchinson Center's ...

SEATTLE—China made substantial gains in health over the past two decades, including increases in life expectancy, reductions in child mortality, and declines in infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and lower respiratory infections. But with that success accompanies the growth of non-communicable diseases and risk factors such as tobacco use and high blood pressure, which could overwhelm the health system. These are some of the findings published June 8 in The Lancet in an analysis by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Peking Union Medical College ...

Colonies of gannets maintain vast exclusive fishing ranges despite doing nothing to defend their territory from rival colonies, scientists have discovered. A team of researchers led by the University of Leeds and the University of Exeter observed that northern gannets, which can fly hundreds of kilometres on a single fishing trip, avoided visiting the fishing grounds of gannets from neighbouring colonies. The findings, published in the journal Science, could transform our understanding of animals' foraging patterns because individual gannets do nothing to enforce this ...

A protein profile of people with restless leg syndrome (RLS), identifies factors behind disrupted sleep, cardiovascular dysfunction and pain finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal Fluids and Barriers of the CNS. The research gives insights into the disorder, and could be useful in the development of new treatments. It is not completely clear what causes RLS, also known as Willis Ekbom disease (WED), but in some people it is associated with iron deficiency in the brain, kidney failure, or low levels of the ' pleasure' neurotransmitter dopamine. It can ...

A gene expression study of grapevine berries grown in different Italian vineyards has highlighted genes that help buffer the plants against environmental change and may explain the different quality performances of grapevine when grown in different "terroirs". The research, reported in the open access journal Genome Biology, could be used to help identify and breed grapevine varieties better suited to climate change and improve berry and wine quality. Much to the inconvenience of winemakers and drinkers, grapevine berries vary within berries on vines grown in different ...

This news release is available in German. "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." Thus spoke the American physicist Richard Feynman — underlining that even leading scientists struggle to develop an intuitive feeling for quantum mechanics. One reason for this is that quantum phenomena often have no counterpart in classical physics. A typical example is the quantum entanglement: Entangled particles seem to directly influence one another, no matter how widely separated they are. It looks as if the particles can 'communicate' with one another ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- By activating a brain circuit that controls compulsive behavior, MIT neuroscientists have shown that they can block a compulsive behavior in mice — a result that could help researchers develop new treatments for diseases such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette's syndrome. About 1 percent of U.S. adults suffer from OCD, and patients usually receive antianxiety drugs or antidepressants, behavioral therapy, or a combination of therapy and medication. For those who do not respond to those treatments, a new alternative is deep brain stimulation, ...

Social and structural factors – such as poverty, marginalisation and stigma – and not just individual behaviours are shaping the HIV epidemic in Europe and central Asia. This is the main conclusion of a new report released today (Friday 7 June) by the World Bank Group, WHO/Europe and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The study systematically reviews evidence on HIV vulnerability and response in all countries of the WHO European Region. The report, HIV in the European Region: vulnerability and response, focuses on key populations most at risk of HIV infection: ...

(June 6, 2013 – Chicago, IL) When health care reform in Thailand increased payments to public hospitals for indigent care, more poor people sought medical treatment and infant mortality was reduced, even though the cost of medical care remained free for the poor, a new study shows. The study, "The Great Equalizer: Health Care Access and Infant Mortality in Thailand," funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, found that reducing out-of-pocket costs of medical care had less of an impact than providing more money to hospitals. The study also suggests that health ...

Combat troops must minimize the humanness of their enemies in order to kill them. They can't be effective fighters if they're distracted by feelings of empathy for opponents. But indifference to the enemy, rather than loathing, may help prevent war crimes and provide troops with a better path back to healthy civilian lives, researchers at Case Western Reserve University propose. Their hypothesis is based on new work showing how the brain operates when people objectify—that is, think of others as mere objects — or dehumanize, which entails seeing others as disgusting animals. These ...

Difficult-to-study diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, and autism now can be probed more safely and effectively thanks to an innovative new method for obtaining mature brain cells called neurons from reprogrammed skin cells. According to Gong Chen, the Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences and professor of biology at Penn State University and the leader of the research team, "the most exciting part of this research is that it offers the promise of direct disease modeling, allowing for the creation, in a Petri dish, of mature human neurons that behave a lot like ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and colleagues report that the herpes simplex virus type-1 (HSV-1), which affects an estimated 50 to 80 percent of all American adults, exploits an immune system receptor to boost its infectivity and ability to cause disease. The findings are published in the June 6, 2013 issue of Nature Communications. HSV-1 is a persistent and problematic pathogen. Typically, it infects victims through oral secretions (kissing, sharing a contaminated toothbrush) or through openings in the skin. In healthy people, ...

Rosemont, Ill. –Most aging adults will experience back pain or a spinal disorder at some time in their life. In fact, about 25.8 million visits were made to physicians' offices due to primary back problems. Treatment focuses on pain relief and is available in both non-surgical (medication or physical therapy) and surgical forms. A retrospective study in the June 5th issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) looked at one type of back treatment– a lumbar epidural steroid injection (LESI) – and whether or not that treatment had an impact on bone fragility ...

The Cardiovascular Research Laboratory of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) led by the cardiologist of the Bellvitge University Hospital José Luis Ferreiro has conducted a study on the effect of antiplatelet drugs given to high risk patients suffering from acute myocardial infaction (heart attack) in the context of the Infarction Code. The study concludes that when patients arrive to the hospital, in most cases the administered antiplatelet drugs have not worked yet. Therefore, in high-risk patients, the researhers recommend the use of faster and more ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis Health System Eye Center research has found that visually impaired individuals and those with uncorrected refractive error — those who could benefit from glasses to achieve normal vision but don't wear glasses — have a significantly greater risk of diminished balance with their eyes closed on a compliant, foam surface than individuals with normal vision. The research, published in the June 6 issue of JAMA Ophthalmology, suggests that vision may play an important role in calibrating the vestibular system, which includes the bones and soft ...