Tumor necrosis factor – normally an infection-fighting substance produced by the body– can actually heighten susceptibility to tuberculosis if its levels are too high. University of Washington TB researchers unravel this conundrum in a report this week in Cell. Their study shows how excess production of this disease-cell destroyer at first acts as a TB germ killer. But later the opposite occurs: too much tumor necrosis factor encourages TB pathogens to multiply in the body. In addition to figuring out some reasons behind this back-pedaling, the scientists learned ...

A "garden variety" leaf is a broad, flat structure, but if the garden happens to be somewhere arid, it probably includes succulent plants with plump leaves full of precious water. Fat leaves did not emerge in the plant world easily. A new Brown University study published in Current Biology reports that to sustain efficient photosynthesis, they required the evolution of a fundamental remodeling of leaf vein structure: the addition of a third dimension. Leaves, after all, are food factories complete with plumbing to transport water and sugar. The farther those veins are ...

In order to improve a simulation designed to study the evolution of the solar system through time, numerical mathematical methods have been developed at the Computing Faculty of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Specifically, the methods proposed enable the simulation calculations to be done faster and more accurately. The methodology developed at the UPV/EHU's Computing Faculty is a clear example of interdisciplinarity and collaboration. Indeed, mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists and astronomers have been working together on this task, and ...

Circadian rhythms keep time for all living things, from regulating when plants open their flowers to foiling people when they try to beat jet lag. Day-night cycles are controlled through ancient biological mechanisms, evolutionarily speaking, so in essence, a human has the same internal clock as a fly does. These circadian clocks govern daily rhythms through genes that synchronize molecular pathways that promote or repress protein production, influencing a multitude of body functions. Even before waking, for example, our clock-driven metabolism turns on enzymes and transporters ...

Twelve years after a breakthrough discovery in his University of California, Berkeley, laboratory, professor of chemical engineering Jay Keasling is seeing his dream come true. On April 11, the pharmaceutical company Sanofi will launch the large-scale production of a partially synthetic version of artemisinin, a chemical critical to making today's front-line antimalaria drug, based on Keasling's discovery. The drug is the first triumph of the nascent field of synthetic biology and will be, Keasling hopes, a lifesaver for the hundreds of millions of people in developing ...

Traditional opinion polls may severely underestimate the openness for political change among voters, according to research published on 10 April in the open access journal PLOS ONE. Polarisation and partisanship in politics are a constant topic of discussion, and political candidates often believe they must focus their campaign efforts on a small number of swing voters open to ideological change. Based on the wisdom of opinion polls, this might seem like a good idea. But do most voters really hold their political attitudes so firmly that they are unreceptive to persuasion? ...

This press release is available in German. The application of light for information processing opens up a multitude of possibilities. However, to be able to adequately use photons in circuits and sensors, materials need to have particular optical and mechanical properties. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now for the first time used polycrystalline diamond to manufacture optical circuits and have published their results online in Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2710). "Diamond has several properties that allow us to manufacture ...

Philadelphia, PA, April 11, 2013 – A potential new treatment for alcoholism called nalmefene is effective and safe for reducing alcohol consumption in alcohol dependent individuals, says a new study published this week in Biological Psychiatry. Traditionally, abstinence has been regarded as the primary treatment goal for alcohol dependence, and current pharmacological treatments for alcoholism are approved only for relapse prevention. However, relapse rates remain high and a goal of abstinence is unacceptable to many patients. To address these concerns and provide opportunities ...

New Orleans, LA – Research led by Dr. Suresh Alahari, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, is the first to report that two specific tumor suppressor genes work in concert to inhibit the growth and spread of breast tumor cells to the lungs. The research is published this week online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Working in a mouse model, the LSUHSC research team studied LKB1, an enzyme that functions as a tumor suppressor in the small intestine, and Nischarin, a novel protein that regulates breast cancer cell ...

Web tools and social media are our key sources of information when we make decisions as citizens and consumers. But these information technologies can mislead us by magnifying social processes that distort facts and make us act contrary to our own interests – such as buying property at wildly inflated prices because we are led to believe that everybody else is. New research from the University of Copenhagen, which has just been published in the journal Metaphilosophy, combines formal philosophy, social psychology, and decision theory to understand and tackle these phenomena. "Group ...

The plaque deposits in the brain of Alzheimer's patients are surrounded by the brain's own immune cells, the microglia. This was already recognized by Alois Alzheimer more than one hundred years ago. But until today it still remains unclear what role microglia play in Alzheimer's disease. Do they help to break down the plaque deposit? A study by researchers of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin has now shed light on these mysterious microglia during the progression of Alzheimer's disease. (PLOS One, ...

Clinical pharmacologists at Heidelberg University Hospital have achieved major progress for improving the reliability of drugs. In a pharmacological study, they showed for the first time that interactions between drugs can be detected with minute doses in the range of nanograms. However, at these low doses, the drugs are neither effective nor do they have side effects. This means that studies on interactions occurring in drug combinations can be conducted practically without posing risks or negative impacts on the participants. This is true not only for healthy volunteers, ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Every day, millions of people with bipolar disorder take medicines that help keep them from swinging into manic or depressed moods. But just how these drugs produce their effects is still a mystery. Now, a new University of Michigan Medical School study of brain tissue helps reveal what might actually be happening. And further research using stem cells programmed to act like brain cells is already underway. Using genetic analysis, the new study suggests that certain medications may help "normalize" the activity of a number of genes involved in communication ...

An international team of researchers, including a paleontologist from the University of Bonn, have proven dinosaur embryos to be the oldest ever found. The specimens of Lufengosaurus discovered in China lived during the lower Jurassic about 200 to 190 million years ago. Based on the bone tissue, Dr. Koen Stein was able to show that the fossils must have been in a very early stage of development. The rapid growth and high reproductive rate of these Chinese dinosaurs is astounding. The results are now being presented in the renowned scientific journal "Nature". Rice fields ...

This press release is available in German. Sany acquired German mid-sized company Putzmeister, a leading manufacturer of concrete pumps, to become a world leader in heavy machinery. Lenovo took over the electronics company Medion. Weichai Power bought a stake in Kion, one of the world's biggest forklift truck manufacturers. The list of Chinese companies that have recently bought German firms outright or acquired a stake in them is long. By realizing an opportunity in the midst of the economic and financial crisis, they have been have made a change towards medium-sized ...

WASHINGTON — Even with health insurance, ready access to preventive, specialty and behavioral health care and comprehensive electronic medical records, nearly 8 percent of patients in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) visit the emergency department two or more times per year, according to a study published online Tuesday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("What Drives Frequent Emergency Department Use in an Integrated Health System: National Data from the Veterans Health Administration"). The study, along with an accompanying editorial ("How Frequent Emergency Department ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – April 11, 2013 – Researchers at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, report in a new study that average-risk screening adenoma detection rates (ADR) are significantly higher than current guidelines suggest for both men and women. The study found that the overall average-risk screening ADR was 33.7 percent for both genders combined. Women had a 25.4 percent risk in the study versus a 15 percent risk noted in guidelines; men had a 41.2 percent risk in the study versus a 25 percent risk noted in guidelines. Overall advanced-pathology adenoma detection was ...

New Rochelle, NY, April 11, 2013—Pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic, deadly disease that affects five million people worldwide. It is irreversible, its cause is poorly understood, and it has a median survival of only about 3 years. A new study that implicates mast cells—an immune cell involved in allergic asthma—in the development of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis could lead to new, more effective therapies. The study is published in DNA and Cell Biology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the DNA and Cell Biology ...

Females in the animal kingdom have many methods available to them to help bias male paternity. One such process is displayed by Euxesta bilimeki, a species of Ulidiid fly, whose females expel and then consume male ejaculate after copulation. A new study by Christian Rodriguez-Enriquez and his colleagues from the Instituto de Ecologia in Mexico has been researching the possible reasons why the female of this species might adopt this behavior. Their study is published in the Springer journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Out of the 74 pairs of flies that engaged ...

Cyclone Victoria continued to intensify overnight from April 9 to April 10, and imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed a tighter storm circulation and a possible eye developing. On April 10, 2013 at 0300 UTC, Victoria had maximum sustained winds near 60 knots (69 mph/111 kph). Victoria was located near 15.2 south and 103.8 east, about 735 nautical miles northwest of Learmonth, Australia. Victoria was moving to the south-southeast at 8 knots (9 mph/15 kph). NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Victoria on April 10 at 0705 UTC (3:05 a.m. EDT). The Moderate ...

Quantum computers promise to perform certain types of operations much more quickly than conventional digital computers. But many challenges must be addressed before these ultra-fast machines become available, among them, the loss of order in the systems – a problem known as quantum decoherence – which worsens as the number of bits in a quantum computer increases. One proposed solution is to divide the computing among multiple small quantum computers that would work together much as today's multi-core supercomputers team up to tackle big digital operations. The individual ...

Cyclone Imelda has continues to strengthen, and infrared NASA satellite imagery indicated powerful convection throughout the storm. Infrared satellite imagery indicates cloud top temperatures, and the colder the temperatures, the higher the cloud top is in the troposphere. Higher cloud tops indicate stronger uplift in the air, and that means stronger thunderstorms can develop. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Cyclone Victoria on April 9 at 0935 UTC (05:35 a.m. EDT), the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument captured infrared data on the strengthening cyclone. On ...

ANN ARBOR—The explosive popularity of wireless devices—from WiFi laptops to Bluetooth headsets to ZigBee sensor nodes—is increasingly clogging the airwaves, resulting in dropped calls, wasted bandwidth and botched connections. New software being developed at the University of Michigan works like a stoplight to control the traffic and dramatically reduce interference. The software, GapSense, lets these devices that can't normally talk to one another exchange simple stop and warning messages so their communications collide less often. GapSense creates a common language ...

There are a number of fires burning in Victoria, Australia and smoke and heat signatures were captured from them by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The image was taken on April 9, 2013 at 04:35 UTC (12:35 a.m. EDT). The smoke plumes appear as a light brown color and the fires appear as a red area. In the southeast, smoke is streaming over the Tasman Sea. Victoria is peppered with many national parks some of which are experiencing fires. The National Parks seen in this MODIS image include Snowy ...

Dozens of red hot spots cluster at the tip of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. To the south, fires also speckle the neck of the Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize. Each hot spot, which appears as a red mark, is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than background. When accompanied by plumes of smoke, as in this image, such hot spots are diagnostic for fire. April is in the middle of the dry season, which runs from January through May in this region. It is also fire season. Many of these fires may have been deliberately set ...