The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has initiated a quest for alternatives to conventional antibiotics. One potential alternative is PlyC, a potent enzyme that kills the bacteria that causes strep throat and streptococcal toxic shock syndrome. PlyC operates by locking onto the surface of a bacteria cell and chewing a hole in the cell wall large enough for the bacteria's inner membrane to protrude from the cell, ultimately causing the cell to burst and die. Research has shown that alternative antimicrobials such as PlyC can effectively kill bacteria. However, fundamental ...

New insights into how a promising HIV vaccine works are provided in a study published by Cell Press January 10th in the journal Immunity. By analyzing the structure of antibody-virus complexes produced in vaccine recipients, the researchers have revealed how the vaccine triggers immune responses that could fight HIV-1 infection. The study could help guide efforts to increase the vaccine's production, which currently is not high enough for clinical use. "This is the first comprehensive study of the repertoire of antibodies that were induced by an HIV vaccine and were ...

A noninvasive, sequencing-based approach for detecting chromosomal abnormalities in the developing fetus is safer and more informative in some cases than traditional methods, according to a study published by Cell Press January 10th in The American Journal of Human Genetics. This method, which analyzes fetal DNA in the mother's blood, could provide women with a cost-effective way to find out whether their unborn baby will have major developmental problems without risking a miscarriage. "Our study is the first to show that almost all the information that is available from ...

Repression of a single protein in ordinary fibroblasts is sufficient to directly convert the cells – abundantly found in connective tissues – into functional neurons. The findings, which could have far-reaching implications for the development of new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, will be published online in advance of the January 17 issue of the journal Cell. In recent years, scientists have dramatically advanced the ability to induce pluripotent stem cells to become almost any type of cell, a major step in ...

Type 1 and type 2 diabetes results when beta cells in the pancreas fail to produce enough insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar. One approach to treating diabetes is to stimulate regeneration of new beta cells. There are currently two ways of generating endocrine cells (cell types, such as beta cells, that secrete hormones) from human embryonic stem cells, or hESCs: either generating the cells in vitro in culture or transplanting immature endocrine cell precursors into mice. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, collaborating ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Four years ago, a potential HIV vaccine showed promise against the virus that causes AIDS, but it fell short of providing the broad protection necessary to stem the spread of disease. Now researchers -- led by Duke Medicine and including team members from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Military HIV Research Program and the Thailand Ministry of Health -- have gained additional insights into the workings of the vaccine that help explain why it benefited a third of recipients and left ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – A team of cancer researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has solved the mystery of how one of the most powerful of the body's natural tumor-suppressing proteins, called Chd5, exerts its beneficial effects. The findings, published online today in the journal Cell Reports, are important because Chd5 engages processes fundamental to cancer prevention. Conversely, when Chd5 is mutated or missing, an important door is opened to cancer initiation. "For this reason, figuring out the mechanics of how Chd5 works to prevent cancer can directly ...

We rely on our visual system more heavily than previously thought in determining the causality of events. A team of researchers has shown that, in making judgments about causality, we don't always need to use cognitive reasoning. In some cases, our visual brain—the brain areas that process what the eyes sense—can make these judgments rapidly and automatically. The study appears in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology. "Our study reveals that causality can be computed at an early level in the visual system," said Martin Rolfs, who conducted much of the research ...

ARLINGTON, VA, January 10, 2013—A study released today from the upcoming issue of the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (JPIDS) found that taking early and repeated white blood cell counts (WBC) is critical in determining whether infants have pertussis and which of those children are at highest risk of death from the disease. In 2010, California reported its highest pertussis rates in 60 years. Murray, et al.'s retrospective study used medical records from five Southern California Pediatric Intensive Care Units between September 2009 and June 2011. ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Cholera could be contained in Haiti by vaccinating less than half the population, University of Florida researchers suggest in a paper to be published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. The work places UF's Emerging Pathogens Institute in the pro-vaccination camp in an ongoing international debate over how best to contain the two-year-old epidemic that has claimed thousands of lives. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been skeptical about the effectiveness of vaccination against cholera in this setting. It has instead ...

Teenagers with a low muscular strength have a 30% higher risk of committing suicide before the age of 55 years, and a 65% higher risk of developing psychiatric diseases such as depression of schizophrenia. In addition, a low muscular strength during childhood and adolescence is a strong predictor of early death –i.e. before 55 years of age– from cardiovascular disease. A low muscular strength is as powerful a predictor as obesity and high blood pressure. This was the conclusion drawn in a study recently published in the Medical Journal –a world-leading medical journal– ...

Philadelphia, PA, January 10, 2013 – Horrific images from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest notwithstanding, modern electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) remains one of the safest and most effective antidepressant treatments, particularly for patients who do not tolerate antidepressant medications or depression symptoms that have failed to respond to antidepressant medications. Since its introduction in the 1930s, ECT has evolved into a more refined, but more expensive and extensively regulated clinical procedure. Each treatment involves the assembly of a multidisciplinary clinical ...

Boston, Mass. — Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have found, for the first time that young humans (infants, children and adolescents) are capable of generating new heart muscle cells. These findings refute the long-held belief that the human heart grows after birth exclusively by enlargement of existing cells, and raise the possibility that scientists could stimulate production of new cells to repair injured hearts. Findings of the study, "Cardiomyocyte proliferation contributes to post-natal heart growth in young humans," were published in Proceedings of the ...

Scientists observed that blocking the expression of the gene TRIP-Br2 in mice protects them against obesity and insulin resistance. The study shows that the gene modulates fat storage by regulating energy expenditure and lipolysis, the process which transforms fat into lipids for the body's energy consumption. If the gene expression is blocked, the mice increase their lipolysis and their energy expenditure, thus reducing their obesity. Obesity is the result of an alteration in the processes that regulate food absorption and energy production. This alteration tips the ...

This new infrared image from ESO's VISTA telescope shows the globular cluster 47 Tucanae in striking detail. This cluster contains millions of stars, and there are many nestled at its core that are exotic and display unusual properties. Studying objects within clusters like 47 Tucanae may help us to understand how these oddballs form and interact. This image is very sharp and deep due to the size, sensitivity, and location of VISTA, which is sited at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. Globular clusters are vast, spherical clouds of old stars bound together by gravity. ...

Research at the University of Edinburgh tracked electrical signals in the part of the brain linked to spatial awareness. The study could help us understand how, if we know a room, we can go into it with our eyes shut and find our way around. This is closely related to the way we map out how to get from one place to another Scientists found that brain cells, which code location through increases in electrical activity, do not do so by talking directly to each other. Instead, they can only send each other signals through cells that are known to reduce electrical activity. This ...

Royal Holloway is among a select group of top universities to receive £21.5 million in government funding to explore commercial uses for graphene. Announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne just after Christmas, the funding will focus attention on the so-called 'super-material' graphene, one of the thinnest, strongest and most conductive materials known to man. The project at Royal Holloway will focus on using graphene to develop new equipment that can operate at high frequencies. This could include devices useful for security purposes, which can ...

Southampton researchers have demonstrated that mothers who have higher levels of n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are found in cooking oils and nuts, during pregnancy have fatter children. The study, carried out by the Medical Research Council (MRC) Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, assessed the fat and muscle mass of 293 boys and girls at four and six years, who are part of the Southampton Women's Survey (SWS), a large prospective mother-offspring cohort. Their assessments were compared to the concentrations of PUFAs which were ...

The University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) is pioneering research into developing the strongest silica nanofibres in the world. Globally the quest has been on to find ultrahigh strength composites, leading ORC scientists to investigate light, ultrahigh strength nanowires that are not compromised by defects. Historically, carbon nanotubes were the strongest material available, but high strengths could only be measured in very short samples just a few microns long, providing little practical value. Now research by ORC Principal Research Fellow ...

One of the most difficult problems in the field of genomics is assembling relatively short "reads" of DNA into complete chromosomes. In a new paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences an interdisciplinary group of genome and computer scientists has solved this problem, creating an algorithm that can rapidly create "virtual chromosomes" with no prior information about how the genome is organized. The powerful DNA sequencing methods developed about 15 years ago, known as next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, create thousands of short fragments. ...

Could marriage, and associated companionship, be one key to a longer life? According to new research, not having a permanent partner, or spouse, during midlife is linked to a higher risk of premature death during those midlife years. The work, by Dr. Ilene Siegler and colleagues from Duke University Medical Center in the US, is published online in Springer's journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine. Survival through middle age to become elderly is expected; therefore understanding who does not survive to become elderly and why is important. Siegler and colleagues looked ...

This press release is available in German. Animals are more eloquent than previously assumed. Even the monosyllabic call of the banded mongoose is structured and thus comparable with the vowel and consonant system of human speech. Behavioral biologists from the University of Zurich have thus become the first to demonstrate that animals communicate with even smaller sound units than syllables. When humans speak, they structure individual syllables with the aid of vowels and consonants. Due to their anatomy, animals can only produce a limited number of distinguishable ...

The Mathematical Sciences in 2025, a new report from the National Research Council, finds that the mathematical sciences are an increasingly integral component of many disciplines -- including biology, medicine, the social sciences, business, advanced design, and climate studies. However, the expanding role of the mathematical sciences over the past 15 years has not been matched by a comparable increase in federal funding, and the number of federal agencies that provide significant support for this research is considerably smaller than the number that profit from it. The ...

New Rochelle, NY, January 10, 2013—Repeat traumatic brain injury affects a subgroup of the 3.5 million people who suffer head trauma each year. Even a mild repeat TBI that occurs when the brain is still recovering from an initial injury can result in poorer outcomes, especially in children and young adults. A metabolic marker that could serve as the basis for new mild TBI vulnerability guidelines is described in an article in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Neurotrauma ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A new tool that could allow for faster, more comprehensive testing of brain tissue during surgery successfully identified the cancer type, grade and tumor margins in five brain surgery patients, according to a Purdue University and Brigham and Women's Hospital study. The tool sprays a microscopic stream of charged solvent onto the tissue surface to gather information about its molecular makeup and produces a color-coded image that reveals the nature and concentration of tumor cells. Researchers analyzed specimens removed from the patients, but ...