Bethesda, MD—April 30, 2013 – Listed below are the selected highlights for the May 2013 issue of the Genetics Society of America's journal, GENETICS. The May issue is available online at http://www.genetics.org/content/current. Please credit GENETICS, Vol. 194, MAY 2013, Copyright © 2013. Please feel free to forward to colleagues who may be interested in these articles on a wide array of topics including: developmental and behavioral genetics; genome integrity and transmission; genetics of complex traits; cellular genetics; and population and evolutionary genetics. ISSUE ...

Cells ingest proteins and engulf bacteria by a gymnastic, shape-shifting process called endocytosis. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health revealed how a key protein, dynamin, drives the action. Endocytosis lets cells absorb nutrients, import growth factors, prevent infections and accomplish many other vital tasks. Yet, despite decades of research, scientists don't fully understand this membrane remodeling process. New research reveals, on the real-life scale of nanometers, how individual molecules work together during a single act of endocytosis. "We've ...

New research from experts within the University of Minnesota School of Nursing has found teen girls at high risk for pregnancy reported being significantly less likely to participate in social bullying after participating in an 18-month preventive intervention program. This research, in combination with University of Minnesota School of Nursing research findings from March 2013, demonstrate the preventative intervention program can reduce social bullying among all girls, including those who did and did not have strong family ties. Furthermore, girls in the intervention ...

Washington, DC, April 30, 2013 – The nation's more than 2,900 nonprofit hospitals are facing new requirements to qualify for federal tax-exempt status under the Affordable Care Act, including producing a Community Health Needs Assessment that identifies local health needs. With obesity affecting more than one-third of adults and 17 percent of children in the United States, the Strategies to Overcome and Prevent (STOP) Obesity Alliance released five research-based, consensus recommendations today to help guide nonprofit hospitals in developing programs that address obesity ...

Research from the University of Adelaide suggests that mothers who eat junk food while pregnant have already programmed their babies to be addicted to a high fat, high sugar diet by the time they are weaned. In laboratory studies, the researchers found that a junk food diet during pregnancy and lactation desensitised the normal reward system fuelled by these highly palatable foods. Led by Dr Bev Mühlhäusler, Postdoctoral Fellow in the University's FOODplus Research Centre, this is the first study to show the effects of maternal junk food consumption at such an early ...

From methanol to formaldehyde - this reaction is the starting point for the synthesis of many everyday plastics. Using catalysts made of gold particles, formaldehyde could be produced without the environmentally hazardous waste generated in conventional methods. Just how the mysterious gold catalyst works has been found out by theoretical and experimental researchers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in a cooperation project. In the international edition of the journal "Angewandte Chemie" they report in detail on what happens on the gold surface during the chemical reaction. "Gold ...

Seaweed has been eaten for thousands of years by people all over the world, and it can be considered a tasty and healthy food item. This is the conclusion from professor Ole G. Mouritsen, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Southern Denmark, who has scientifically studied the species dulse (Palmaria palmata). Dulse has traditionally been eaten by populations along North Atlantic coasts in countries such as Iceland, Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Norway and along the North American and Canadian Atlantic coasts. Dulse has particularly ...

Being a physicist offers many perks. For one, it allows an understanding of the substances ubiquitous in everyday industrial products such as emulsions, gels, granular pastes or foams. These are known for their intermediate behaviour between fluid and solid. Paint, for example, can be picked up on a paintbrush without flowing and spread under the stress of the brush stroke like a fluid. Baudouin Geraud and colleagues from the Light Matter Institute at the University of Lyon, France, have studied the flow of a microgel confined in microchannels. They have shown, in a study ...

Do frogs live underground? The answer is yes, some amphibians, such as salamanders and frogs have been often reported to dwell in subterranean habitats, some of them completely adjusted to the life in darkness, and others just spending a phase of their lifecycle in an underground shelter. Up until 2010, however, no one suspected that the Mediterranean anuran frog Rana iberica - commonly known as Iberian brown frog and usually found in streams - also participates in underground adventures. A new study published in the open access journal Subterranean Biology confirms the ...

As planets age they become darker and cooler. Saturn however is much brighter than expected for a planet of its age - a question that has puzzled scientists since the late sixties. New research published in the journal Nature Geoscience has revealed how Saturn keeps itself looking young and hot. Researchers from the University of Exeter and the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon found that layers of gas, generated by physical instability deep within the giant planet, prevent heat from escaping and have resulted in Saturn failing to cool down at the expected rate. Professor ...

Atmospheric contamination due to heavy metals is currently a severe problem of global proportions, with important repercussions in public health. However, this type of pollution is not a recent fact and can even be detected during pre-historic times. A team of scientists, which includes scientists from the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences and the University of Granada, has discovered evidence of atmospheric pollution caused by lead. This evidence was found in a lagoon in Sierra Nevada (Granada), at an altitude of 3,020 m. The pollution comes from metallurgical activities, ...

With the remains of a recent lottery winner having been exhumed for foul play related to cyanide poisoning, future winners might wonder what they can do to avoid the same fate. A new report in The FASEB Journal involving zebrafish suggests that riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2, may mitigate the toxic effects of this infamous poison. In addition, the report shows that zebrafish are a viable model for investigating the effects of cyanide on humans. As with any research involving animal models, these findings are preliminary until thoroughly tested in clinical trials. ...

A quantum computer is controlled by the laws of quantum physics; it promises to perform complicated calculations, or search large amounts of data, at a speed that exceeds by far those that today's fastest supercomputers are capable of. "You could say that a quantum computer can think several thoughts simultaneously, while a traditional computer thinks one thought at a time," says Weimin Chen, professor in the Division of Functional Electronic Materials at the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology at LiU, and one of the main authors of the article in Nature Communications. A ...

A new use for compounds related in composition to the active ingredient in marijuana may be on the horizon: a new research report published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology shows that compounds that stimulate the cannabinoid type 2 (CB2) receptor in white blood cells, specifically macrophages, appear to weaken HIV-1 infection. The CB2 receptor is the molecular link through which the pharmaceutical properties of cannabis are manifested. Diminishing HIV-1 infection in this manner might make current anti-viral therapies more effective and provide some protection against ...

By targeting the factors that may play a significant role in the development of postpartum depression (PPD) in adolescent mothers, researchers at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island believe they have found a way to prevent it. The team – led by Maureen G. Phipps, MD, MPH, interim chief of obstetrics and gynecology and director of the Division of Research at Women & Infants, and Caron Zlotnick, PhD, of the hospital's Center for Women's Behavioral Health – recently published "Randomized controlled trial to prevent postpartum depression in adolescent mothers" in the ...

Over the past two decades governments around the world have been experimenting with a new strategy for managing waste. By making producers responsible for their products when they become wastes, policy makers seek to significantly increase the recycling—and recyclability—of computers, packaging, automobiles, and household hazardous wastes such as batteries, used oil motor, and leftover paint—and save money in the process. This strategy, known as extended producer responsibility (EPR), is the subject of a new special feature in Yale University's Journal of Industrial ...

CINCINNATI – An experimental procedure successfully tested in obese laboratory rats may provide a less-invasive alternative to bariatric weight-loss surgery, researchers report online in Endocrinology. Scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center used a catheter to re-direct the flow of bile from the bile duct into the small intestine, producing the same metabolic and weight-loss benefits as bariatric surgeries such as gastric by-pass. They named the procedure bile diversion, or BD. "This may lead to novel ways to treat obesity related conditions," said ...

More and more cruise ships visit the fjords of Western Norway. But cruise tourists only spend a fraction of what other tourists spend. Over the past few years, the overall number of tourists to Western Norway has declined slightly. But one group of tourists is steadily rising: the cruise ship passenger. However, the cruise ship industry matters little to the tourism industry onshore. The average camping tourist leaves behind twice as much as the average cruise ship tourist. And this even when one excludes costs and taxes for camping, says Professor Svein Larsen of the ...

PITTSBURGH—Technology blogs have been abuzz that smartwatches may soon be on their way from companies such as Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft. But as capable as these ultra-small computers may be, how will users enter an address, a name, or a search term into them? One solution is an iterative zooming technique developed and tested by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. Called ZoomBoard, this text entry technique is based on the familiar QWERTY keyboard layout. Though the full keyboard is impossibly small on a watch-size display, simply tapping the screen ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- When it comes to deciding which light bulb to buy, a label touting the product's environmental benefit may actually discourage politically conservative shoppers. Dena Gromet and Howard Kunreuther at The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and Rick Larrick at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business conducted two studies to determine how political ideology affected a person's choice to buy energy-efficient products in the United States. The authors suggest that financial incentives or emphasizing energy independence may be better ways to get ...

AMHERST, Mass. – A team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is proposing a new investigative roadmap for the field of evolutionary developmental biology, or "evo devo," to better understand how innovation at the genetic level can lead to ecological adaptations over time. Evo devo seeks to understand the specific genetic mechanisms underlying evolutionary change. Seven UMass Amherst authors, all biologists but with diverse research programs including evolutionary genetics, developmental biology, biomechanics and behavioral ecology, describe the new ...

Rochester, MN, April 30, 2013 – There is worldwide concern in the biomedical research community that enrollment in clinical trials is lagging, putting clinical research and consequent benefits to society in jeopardy. Experts explore ways to embed patient voices and values in clinical research in the current issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Clinical trials of new drugs, devices, or procedures require the active participation of human volunteers. Mark A. Yarborough, PhD, of the Bioethics Program, University of California Davis, calls for greater transparency about the ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., – April 30, 2013 – Many diseases – obesity, Type 2 diabetes, muscular dystrophy – are associated with fat accumulation in muscle. In essence, fat replacement causes the muscles to weaken and degenerate. Scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have discovered the biological mechanism involved in this process, which could point the way to potential therapies. The findings are published in the April 27 online edition of Stem Cells and Development. The Wake Forest Baptist researchers proved that pericytes, stem cells associated with blood vessels, ...

WASHINGTON -- When determining the potential effects pesticides could pose to endangered or threatened species, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) should use a common scientific approach, says a new report from the National Research Council. Specifically, the agencies should use a risk assessment approach that addresses problem formulation, exposure analysis, effects analysis, and risk characterization. Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, before a pesticide ...

Toronto – The best investment portfolios are selected from the widest array of choices, right? Not so, says a new study authored by researchers at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and the Bank of Canada. It says that a shorter "menu" of options is often better than a longer one. That's because "menu-setters" who develop shorter lists have superior selection skills, on average. The conclusion goes against findings in other research suggesting that more choices lead to better outcomes. "Skilled menu-setters will put together a shorter menu because ...