Researchers have found that the budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is an acceptable model system to study KP1019, an anti-cancer drug that uses ruthenium, a rare metal, a new study found. Researchers had previously been interested in studying KP1019 because it is believed to cause cancer cell death and is not known to have negative secondary side effects for healthy tissues. "We wanted to learn more about how KP1019 works on a cellular level, and how the drug acts on yeast cells can be indicative of how it will perform on mammalian cells," said Pamela Hanson, ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- People who worry constantly are at greater risk for post-traumatic stress disorder, according to new Michigan State University research published in the journal Psychological Medicine. Many people experience traumatic events such as the death of a loved one, being assaulted or witnessing violence, but only a small minority develop PTSD, said study author Naomi Breslau, a professor of epidemiology at MSU. "So the question is, 'What's the difference between those who develop PTSD and the majority who don't,'" Breslau said. "This paper says people ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Building a tunnel made up of both hard and soft materials to guide the reconnection of severed nerve endings may be the first step toward helping patients who have suffered extensive nerve trauma regain feeling and movement, according to a team of biomedical engineers. "Nerve injury in both central nervous system and peripheral nervous system is a major health problem," said Mohammad Reza Abidian, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, Penn State. "According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center, there are approximately ...

DALLAS – Dec. 17, 2012 – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have taken another step toward better understanding the metabolic functions of obesity and its connection to type 2 diabetes. Dr. Philipp Scherer, Director of the Touchstone Center for Diabetes Research at UT Southwestern, led a group of researchers in a recent multicenter study published in Nature Medicine that successfully identified ways to manipulate the protein mitoNEET. This is the first time the protein has been effectively altered to expand fat tissue in a way that allows subjects – in this ...

Alexandria, VA – For more than 35 years, scientists from the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program have been scouring glacial landscapes in search of meteorites. Since 1976, teams of physicists, meteorite specialists, and mountaineers have recovered thousands of untouched specimens from meteoroids, the moon and even Mars. Despite subzero temperatures and razor-sharp winds, scientists are lining up for the chance to experience the ultimate hunt for alien objects in the alien environment. ANSMET teams either conduct systematic searches of a region or work as ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A plant may start to prime its defenses as soon as it gets a whiff of a male fly searching for a mate, according to Penn State entomologists. Once tall goldenrod plants smell a sex attractant emitted by true fruit fly males, they appear to prepare chemical defenses that make them less appealing to female flies that could damage the plants by depositing eggs on them, the researchers said. "It's become increasingly clear in recent years that plants are responsive to odors," said Mark Mescher, assistant professor of entomology. "But previous examples ...

Highlights, including authors and their institutions The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). In this release: 1. First satellite detection of volcanogenic carbon monoxide 2. Antarctic sea ice thickness affects algae populations 3. Central European Summer Temperature Variability to Increase 4. Global ocean salinity changing due to anthropogenic climate change 5. Chamber measurements find plants potentially important methane sink 6. Low-frequency radio emissions from high-altitude ...

PITTSBURGH—African American adolescents tend to have more success in school if their parents instill in them a sense of racial pride, reducing their vulnerability to the effects of racial discrimination from teachers and peers. This is the conclusion of a University of Pittsburgh study published this fall in the journal Child Development. Titled "Parental Racial Socialization as a Moderator of the Effects of Racial Discrimination on Educational Success Among African American Adolescents," the research article shows that when African American parents use racial socialization—talking ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Just 20 years ago, the soils of the Amazon basin were thought unsuitable for large-scale agriculture, but then industrial agriculture — and the ability to fertilize on a massive scale — came to the Amazon. What were once the poorest soils in the world now produce crops at a rate that rivals that of global breadbaskets. Soils no longer seem to be the driver — or the limiter — of agricultural productivity. But a new Brown University-led study of three soybean growing regions, including Brazil, finds that soils have taken on a new role: ...

Physicians should not prescribe cognitive enhancers to healthy individuals, states a report being published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). Dr. Eric Racine and his research team at the IRCM, the study's authors, provide their recommendation based on the professional integrity of physicians, the drugs' uncertain benefits and harms, and limited health care resources. Prescription stimulants and other neuropharmaceuticals, generally prescribed to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD), are often used by healthy people to enhance concentration, memory, ...

Imagine riding in an airplane as the plane is jolted back and forth by gusts of wind that you can't prove exist but are there nonetheless. Similar turbulence exists in space, and a research team led by the University of Iowa reports to have directly measured it for the first time in the laboratory. "Turbulence is not restricted to environments here on Earth, but also arises pervasively throughout the solar system and beyond, driving chaotic motions in the ionized gas, or plasma, that fills the universe," says Gregory Howes, assistant professor of physics and astronomy ...

There's a reason emergency personnel train for the aftermath of a dirty bomb or an explosion at a nuclear power plant. They'll be faced with a deluge of urgent tasks, such as identifying who's been irradiated, who has an injury-induced infection, and who's suffering from both. Unfortunately, there isn't a quick way to screen for people exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. There also isn't a quick way to distinguish between people suffering from radiation exposure versus an infection due to an injury or chemical exposure. The most common way to measure exposure ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Global travel and climate warming could be creating the right conditions for outbreaks of a new virus in this country, according to a new Cornell University computer model. The model predicts that outbreaks of chikungunya, a painful virus transported by travelers and spread by the invasive Asian tiger mosquito, could occur in 2013 in New York City during August and September, in Atlanta from June through September, and year-round in Miami. The probability of a disease outbreak is correlated with temperature, as warmer weather allows the Asian tiger mosquito ...

A surprising number of microorganisms – 99 percent more kinds than had been reported in findings published just four months ago – are leaping the biggest gap on the planet. Hitching rides in the upper troposphere, they're making their way from Asia across the Pacific Ocean and landing in North America. For the first time researchers have been able to gather enough biomass in the form of DNA to apply molecular methods to samples from two large dust plumes originating in Asia in the spring of 2011. The scientists detected more than 2,100 unique species compared to only ...

TORONTO, Dec. 17, 2012—New research has answered one of the most common questions parents ask their doctors: How much milk should I be giving my children? The answer is two cups per day. "We started to research the question because professional recommendations around milk intake were unclear and doctors and parents were seeking answers," said Dr. Jonathon Maguire, a paediatrician at St. Michael's Hospital and the lead author of the study. Dr. Maguire and his team looked at how cow's milk affected body stores of iron and vitamin D – two of the most important nutrients ...

Along with pollutants from Asia, transpacific dust plumes deliver vast quantities of microbes to North America, according to a manuscript published online ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. "We detected thousands of unique microbial species, many of which seem particularly well-suited for atmospheric transport," says first author David J. Smith, a graduate student at the University of Washington, Seattle. "We also detected archaea, a domain of life that has never before been sampled at high altitude. We are just starting to understand ...

Scientists at Rochester Institute of Technology have published the whole genome sequence of bacteria associated with Jamaican sugarcane and Riesling grapevines in the September and November issues of the Journal of Bacteriology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. André Hudson and Michael Savka, professors in RIT's Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences within the College of Science, isolated and identified three bacteria belonging to the genus Enterobacter from Jamaican sugarcane stalk tissue and Methylobacterium and Novosphingobium from grapevines. These ...

As a new year approaches, the University of Notre Dame's John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values has announced its first annual list of emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in Science and Technology for 2013. The Reilly Center explores conceptual, ethical and policy issues where science and technology intersect with society from different disciplinary perspectives. Its goal is to promote the advancement of science and technology for the common good. The center generated its first annual list of emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science ...

TORONTO, Dec. 17, 2012—People with HIV are being hospitalized in Ontario significantly less often than they were 15 years ago when combination antiretroviral drug therapy (cART) was introduced, new research has found. However, women with HIV are still hospitalized more than men with HIV as are low-income people with HIV compared with high-income people with HIV, according to a study by Tony Antoniou, a pharmacist and researcher in the Department of Family Medicine at St. Michael's Hospital. Immigrants with HIV who had been in Ontario three years or less had lower rates ...

Phragmites australis, an invasive species of plant called common reed, grows rapidly into dense stands of tall plants that pose an extreme threat to Great Lakes coastal wetlands. Early treatment is the key to controlling Phragmites. But how can these invasive reeds be eradicated before they take over their environment if we don't know where they are? Now we do know, thanks to scientists from Michigan Technological University's Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI), the US Geological Survey (USGS), Boston College and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). They mapped ...

Cyclone Evan is one of the strongest cyclones to affect Fiji in almost two decades, and NASA satellites are analyzing the storm and providing data on rainfall, cloud height, temperature data and more to forecasters. According to NBC News, over 3,500 people in Fiji went to emergency shelters. Today, Dec. 17, Evan is lashing Fiji, just days after battering Samoa where it killed at least three people and left thousands homeless. On Monday, Dec. 17 many warnings and watches were in effect. A tropical cyclone warning is in effect for Fiji. A Hurricane warning is in effect ...

The radar on NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite had observed Tropical Cyclone Evan four times as of Sunday, Dec. 16, and two of those overflights merit a closer examination. On Tuesday, Dec. 11, the TRMM satellite saw Evan about 24 hours before the storm struck American Samoa, and the radar data at first seem incongruous for such a weak system. At the time, Evan was estimated to be less than tropical "cyclone" strength, and had 35 knot (40.2 mph/64.8 kph) surface winds, making it a tropical storm. More specifically, the TRMM radar saw a "complete ...

University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers have launched groundbreaking research into the spread of potentially deadly drug-resistant malaria in the developing Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar, also known as Burma. The scientists, working as part of a large international team coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), have identified several promising genetic markers that could be used to develop tests to identify and track the spread of the newest type of drug-resistant malaria in Southeast Asia, including Myanmar. The scientists describe these new ...

This press release is available in French. A recent study by a researcher at the Centre for Studies on Human Stress (CSHS) at the Hôpital Louis-H. Lafontaine and professor at the Université de Montréal suggests that bullying by peers changes the structure surrounding a gene involved in regulating mood, making victims more vulnerable to mental health problems as they age. The study published in the journal Psychological Medicine seeks to better understand the mechanisms that explain how difficult experiences disrupt our response to stressful situations. "Many people ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – The lifetime risks of cancer from medical radiation may be overemphasized relative to more immediate health risks, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology. Radiation exposure from computed tomography (CT) and other medical sources has drawn considerable media attention in recent years. Stories warning of the dangers often focus on the lifetime risk estimates of radiation-induced cancer from repeat examinations. This approach has limitations, said Pari V. Pandharipande, M.D., M.P.H., abdominal and genitourinary imaging specialist ...