HOUSTON -- (May 9, 2013) – Amoeba eat bacteria and other human pathogens, engulfing and destroying them – or being destroyed by them, but how these single-cell organisms distinguish and respond successfully to different bacterial classes has been largely unexplained. In a report in the journal Current Biology, researchers from Baylor College of Medicine use the model of the social amoeba – Dictyostelium discoideum – to identify the genetic controls on how the amoeba differentiate the different bacteria and respond to achieve their goal of destruction. "No one has looked ...

Cambridge, MA, May 9, 2013 - Two Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers – one a stem cell biologist and one a practicing cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital – have identified a protein in the blood of mice and humans that may prove to be the first effective treatment for the form of age-related heart failure that affects millions of Americans. When the protein, called GDF-11, was injected into old mice, which develop thickened heart walls in a manner similar to aging humans, the hearts were reduced in size and thickness, resembling the healthy hearts of younger ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Doctors often diagnose tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) based on the abnormal growths the genetic disease causes in organs around the body. Those overt anatomical structures, however, belie the microscopic and mysterious neurological differences behind the disease's troublesome behavioral symptoms: autism, intellectual disabilities, and seizures. In a new study in mice, Brown University researchers highlight a role for a brain region called the thalamus and show that the timing of gene mutation during thalamus development makes a huge ...

SALT LAKE CITY—Researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have discovered that while the genes provided by the father arrive at fertilization pre-programmed to the state needed by the embryo, the genes provided by the mother are in a different state and must be reprogrammed to match. The findings have important implications for both developmental biology and cancer biology. In the earliest stages, embryo cells have the potential to develop into any type of cell, a state called totipotency. Later, this potency becomes restricted through ...

Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences have identified a gene that when mutated is responsible for a spectrum of disorders affecting the bones and connective tissue. This finding opens new avenues for research into a diagnosis and treatment for these until now incurable diseases. The study is published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics. Spondyloepimetaphyseal dysplasia with joint laxity, type I or SEMD-JL1 is a disorder of the skeleton resulting in short stature and spinal problems starting from birth, and worsening with age. ...

At the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the team led by Professor Jean Gruenberg has long been interested in the movement of lysosomes, the sub-compartments of cells to where endocytic vesicles deliver their waste content and the molecules destined to be destroyed. Within this context, researcher Christin Bissig, along with her international colleagues, carried out a detailed study of the route taken by Alix which is lodged inside the endosomal membrane. This tailing has highlighted how protein contributes to avoiding cellular digestion, like a door opening into the endosomal ...

DENVER, May 9, 2013 – A new Canadian study shows that operating without interrupting warfarin treatment at the time of cardiac device surgery is safe and markedly reduces the incidence of clinically significant hematomas compared to the current standard of care. The new findings were released today at Heart Rhythm 2013, the Heart Rhythm Society's 34th Annual Scientific Sessions, and will be published online today in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). At least a quarter of patients that require pacemaker or implantable defibrillator surgery are taking warfarin ...

LA JOLLA, CA – May 9, 2013 – A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has found how to boost or inhibit a gene-silencing mechanism that normally serves as a major controller of cells' activities. The discovery could lead to a powerful new class of drugs against viral infections, cancers and other diseases. "Learning to control natural gene silencing processes will allow an entirely new approach to treating human disease," said Ian J. MacRae, assistant professor in TSRI's Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology and principal ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – Two teams of investigators led by Professor Gregory Hannon of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) today publish studies revealing many previously unknown components of an innate system that defends sex cells – the carriers of inheritance across generations – from the ravages of transposable genetic elements. When activated, these troublesome segments of DNA, also called jumping genes or transposons, can copy and insert themselves at random spots across the chromosomes. In sperm and egg cells the proliferation of transposons can be particularly ...

Many medical issues affect nerves, from injuries in car accidents and side effects of chemotherapy to glaucoma and multiple sclerosis. The common theme in these scenarios is destruction of nerve axons, the long wires that transmit signals to other parts of the body, allowing movement, sight and sense of touch, among other vital functions. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a way the body can remove injured axons, identifying a potential target for new drugs that could prevent the inappropriate loss of axons and maintain ...

Often, it's not what you know, but who you know when it comes to business and research success and that still applies even in the age of online social networking, according to results to be published in the International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering. Peter Gloor, Pierre Dorsaz, Hauke Fuehres and Manfred Vogel of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, in Cambridge, Massachusetts have compared the success of startup entrepreneurs and innovators with their activity on the social networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook as well as email networks including ...

Toddlers living in socially-deprived areas are at the greatest risk of suffering a scald in the home, researchers at The University of Nottingham have found. The study, published in the journal Burns, showed that boys aged between one and two years old and those with multiple siblings were statistically more likely to suffer a hot water-related injury, while children born to mothers aged 40 years and over were at less risk than those with teenage mums. The results could help GPs and Health Visitors identify those children most at risk of a scald and prevent injuries ...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shown that some atomic nuclei can assume the shape of a pear which contributes to our understanding of nuclear structure and the underlying fundamental interactions. Most nuclei that exist naturally are not spherical but have the shape of a rugby ball. While state-of-the-art theories are able to predict this, the same theories have predicted that for some particular combinations of protons and neutrons, nuclei can also assume very asymmetric shapes, like a pear where there is more mass at one end of the nucleus than the ...

In a joint project between the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, Imperial College London and the National Physical Laboratory, researchers have developed a portable way to produce ultracold atoms for quantum technology and quantum information processing. Their research has been published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, where it is featured on the front cover. Many of the most accurate measurement devices, including atomic clocks, work by observing how atoms transfer between individual quantum states. The highest precision is obtained with long observation ...

Different brain areas are activated when we choose to suppress an emotion, compared to when we are instructed to inhibit an emotion, according a new study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Ghent University. In this study, published in Brain Structure and Function, the researchers scanned the brains of healthy participants and found that key brain systems were activated when choosing for oneself to suppress an emotion. They had previously linked this brain area to deciding to inhibit movement. "This result shows that emotional self-control involves ...

The understanding of how a powerful protein called p53 protects against cancer development has been upended by a discovery by Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers. More than half of human cancers carry defects in the gene for p53, and almost all other cancers, with a normal p53 gene, carry other defects that somehow impair the function of the p53 protein. Inherited mutations in the p53 gene put people at a very high risk of developing a range of cancers. The p53 protein's functions are normally stimulated by potentially cancer-causing events, such as DNA damage ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Men who experience high levels of sexual harassment are much more likely than women to induce vomiting and take laxatives and diuretics in an attempt to control their weight, according to a surprising finding by Michigan State University researchers. Their study is one of the first to examine the effects of sexual harassment on body image and eating behaviors in both women and men. As expected, women reported more sexual harassment and greater overall weight and shape concerns and disordered eating behavior (such as binge eating) in response to that ...

Athens, Ga. – The sun provides the most abundant source of energy on the planet. However, only a tiny fraction of the solar radiation on Earth is converted into useful energy. To help solve this problem, researchers at the University of Georgia looked to nature for inspiration, and they are now developing a new technology that makes it possible to use plants to generate electricity. "Clean energy is the need of the century," said Ramaraja Ramasamy, assistant professor in the UGA College of Engineering and the corresponding author of a paper describing the process in ...

The Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development, Neiker-Tecnalia, has developed a new method for the early detection of the diseases mildew, powdery mildew and botrytis in vines. The new methodology based on molecular biology techniques makes it possible to detect the disease before the symptoms appear on the plant. That way it is possible to carry out the rapid treatment of the plots or areas affected and prevent the disease from spreading all over vineyard, which reduces infective pressure. The R&D centre has also studied the evolution of infection by the ...

TORONTO, May 9, 2013—More than 80 per cent of youth who die by suicide had some form of contact with the health care system in the year before their death, according to a new study from St. Michael's Hospital. "This suggests there are a lot of opportunities for prevention," said Dr. Anne Rhodes, a research scientist at the hospital's Suicide Studies Research Unit. "Most of these youth were seen by an outpatient physician or went to an emergency department where they could have potentially benefited from an intervention." Among those seen by an outpatient physician, ...

People who experience warmer, more upbeat emotions may have better physical health because they make more social connections, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research, led by Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Bethany Kok of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences also found it is possible for a person to self-generate positive emotions in ways that make him or her physically healthier. "People tend to liken their emotions ...

TORONTO, ON – The offspring of parents who were addicted to drugs or alcohol are more likely to be depressed in adulthood, according to a new study by University of Toronto researchers. In a paper published online in the journal Psychiatry Research this month, investigators examined the association between parental addictions and adult depression in a representative sample of 6,268 adults, drawn from the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey. Of these respondents, 312 had a major depressive episode within the year preceding the survey and 877 reported that while they ...

For young women in high school, the risk of childbearing may depend on the prevalence of obesity in their schools, according to sociologists, who found that as the prevalence of obesity rises in a school, so do the odds of obese high school students bearing children. "We did find that obese females are at lower risk of having a child while in high school," said Jennifer Buher Kane, recent Penn State Ph. D. recipient and current postdoctoral fellow at Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina. "But that relative risk depends a lot on the type of school ...

Alexandria, VA — Antibiotics for acute rhinosinusitis (ARS) are prescribed frequently— especially for younger adult patients and in primary care settings—despite recent consensus guidelines that discourage antibiotic use in mild cases, according to a study in the May 2013 issue of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. "These variations should be of high relevance to policy makers, patients, and clinicians, with implications for payment for quality," the authors state. The authors set out to identify national variations in using antibiotics to treat ARS. Study data ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – May 9, 2013 – Predicting outcomes for cancer patients based on tumor-immune system interactions is an emerging clinical approach, and new research from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is advancing the field when it comes to the most deadly types of breast cancer. "We know that one function of our immune system is to detect and destroy pre-malignant cells before they can become cancer," said lead author Lance D. Miller, Ph.D., associate professor of cancer biology at Wake Forest Baptist. "However, sometimes the immune system becomes unresponsive ...