October 31, 2012, Cambridge, MA, and Shenzhen, China – BGI, the world's largest genomics organizations, announced today it is among 101 research organizations comprising the 1000 Genomes Project Consortium that has successfully constructed an integrated map of genetic variation from 1,092 human genomes, providing an invaluable resource for researchers to better understand the contribution of genetics to diseases. The latest study was published as an Advance Online Publication in Nature. As an international public-private consortium, the 1000 Genomes Project Consortium ...

High blood cholesterol, a serious hereditary disease, is far more common than previously recognised and not treated sufficiently. This is shown in new research from the University of Copenhagen and Herlev Hospital, and the results have recently been published in the well-reputed American scientific journal, The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. A group of scientists from the University of Copenhagen has recently shown that far more Danes than expected suffer from high blood cholesterol. The study also shows that the serious hereditary disease is not treated ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Scientists have discovered that breaking a biological signaling system in an embryo allows them to change the destiny of a cell. The findings could lead to new ways of making replacement organs. The discovery was made in the laboratory of Joel H. Rothman, a professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at UC Santa Barbara. The studies were reported in the interdisciplinary journal Genes and Development, and were carried out by Ph.D student Nareg Djabrayan, in collaboration with Rothman and two other members of ...

The post-touchdown celebration is a familiar part of many football games. However, new research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University suggests that black players may be more likely than white players to be penalized for putting their feelings on display. As a part of the study, Kellogg Ph.D. candidate Erika V. Hall and Professor Robert Livingston first analyzed all of the unsportsmanlike conduct penalties by NFL athletes during the entire 2010-2011 NFL season. Unsportsmanlike conduct includes the excessive celebration penalty. They found that ...

A research team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a model* for making quantifiable predictions of how a group of cells will react and change in response to a given environment or stimulus—and how quickly. The NIST model, in principle, makes it possible to assign reliable numbers to the complex evolution of a population of cells, a critical capability for efficient biomanufacturing as well as for the safety of stem cell-based therapies, among other applications. The behavior and fate of cells are only partially determined by their ...

NORMAN, Okla. – A new discovery by University of Oklahoma and North Carolina State University researchers shows a breakthrough in speeding up the process for synthesizing transition metal oxide nanostructures. What had once taken days can now be accomplished instantaneously. After previous success using an oxygen-enriched flame to synthesize common nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes, nanofibers and fullerenes, OU College of Engineering professor Wilson Merchán-Merchán and his team conducted experiments using the same method to create a new form of nanostructures. ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A team of investigators led by UC Davis found that eating soy products such as soy milk and tofu did not prevent the onset of hot flashes and night sweats as women entered menopause. Unlike previous studies investigating the relationship between soy and these menopausal symptoms, the current study included a very large population over a long period of time: more than 1,600 women over 10 years. The article, titled "Phytoestrogen and Fiber Intakes in Relation to Incident Vasomotor Symptoms: Results from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation," ...

A gene that is associated with regeneration of injured nerve cells has been identified by scientists at Penn State University and Duke University. The team, led by Melissa Rolls, an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State, has found that a mutation in a single gene can entirely shut down the process by which axons -- the parts of the nerve cell that are responsible for sending signals to other cells -- regrow themselves after being cut or damaged. "We are hopeful that this discovery will open the door to new research related to spinal-cord ...

Charlottesville, VA (November 1, 2012). The November issue of Neurosurgical Focus is dedicated to lessening the number and severity of adverse events surrounding neurosurgical intervention for a variety of disorders. Guest editors Alexander Khalessi (University of California, San Diego), James Forrest Calland (University of Virginia), Gabriel Zada (University of Southern California), and Michael Y. Wang (University of Miami Health System) selected 16 articles on systems-based quality improvement for neurosurgical procedures. The articles are divided into four major subtopics: ...

An Asian elephant named Koshik can imitate human speech, speaking words in Korean that can be readily understood by those who know the language. The elephant accomplishes this in a most unusual way: he vocalizes with his trunk in his mouth. The elephant's vocabulary consists of exactly five words, researchers report on November 1 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Those include "annyong" ("hello"), "anja" ("sit down"), "aniya" ("no"), "nuo" ("lie down"), and "choah" ("good"). Ultimately, Koshik's language skills may provide important insights into the biology ...

Congenital diarrheal disorder linked to a mutation in DGAT1 Congenital diarrheal disorders (CDD) are a group of rare intestinal diseases that are caused by genetic mutations. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Robert Farese and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, identified a family with two of three children affected by CDD. The affected children both carried a rare mutation in the DGAT1 gene. DGAT1 mediates the formation of triglycerides and is being assessed as a therapeutic target in the treatment of obesity. The study ...

Congenital diarrheal disorders (CDD) are a group of rare intestinal diseases that are caused by genetic mutations. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Robert Farese and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, identified a family with two of three children affected by CDD. The affected children both carried a rare mutation in the DGAT1 gene. DGAT1 mediates the formation of triglycerides and is being assessed as a therapeutic target in the treatment of obesity. The study by Farese's group suggests that targeting of DGAT1 could ...

HOUSTON - (Nov. 2, 2012) – Notch – the protein that can help determine cell fate – maintains a stable population of basal cells in the prostate through a positive feedback loop system with another key protein – TGF beta (transforming growth factor beta), said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in the journal Cell Stem Cell. "When basal cell homeostasis (or maintenance of a stable population) is disrupted, it may be part of the process that initiates prostate cancer," said Dr. Li Xin, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology at BCM and a senior author ...

HOUSTON – (Nov. 1, 2012) – Researchers at Rice University have refined silicon-based lithium-ion technology by literally crushing their previous work to make a high-capacity, long-lived and low-cost anode material with serious commercial potential for rechargeable lithium batteries. The team led by Rice engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal and research scientist Madhuri Thakur reported in Nature's open access journal Scientific Reports on the creation of a silicon-based anode, the negative electrode of a battery, that easily achieves 600 charge-discharge cycles at 1,000 milliamp ...

AUDIO: This is an audio clip of Deborah Sweet of Cell Stem Cell interviewing Dr. Kyle Orwig of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine regarding his recent preclinical study "Spermatogonial... Click here for more information. A promising stem-cell-based approach for treating infertility has been successfully demonstrated in non-human primates, as reported in a study published by Cell Press in the November issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell. The preclinical study ...

LA JOLLA, CA – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have performed successful tests of an experimental methamphetamine vaccine on rats. Vaccinated animals that received the drug were largely protected from typical signs of meth intoxication. If the vaccine proves effective in humans too, it could become the first specific treatment for meth addiction, which is estimated to affect 25 million people worldwide. "This is an early-stage study, but its results are comparable to those for other drug vaccines that have then gone to clinical trials," said Michael ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Twitter's home page features a regularly updated list of topics that are "trending," meaning that tweets about them have suddenly exploded in volume. A position on the list is highly coveted as a source of free publicity, but the selection of topics is automatic, based on a proprietary algorithm that factors in both the number of tweets and recent increases in that number. At the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Information and Decision in Social Networks at MIT in November, Associate Professor Devavrat Shah and his student, Stanislav Nikolov, will present ...

Plant roots are surrounded by thousands of bacteria and fungi living in the soil and on the root surface. To survive in this diverse environment, plants employ sophisticated detection systems to distinguish pathogenic microorganisms from beneficial microorganisms. Here the so-called chitin molecules from microorganisms, along with modified versions, play an important role as they are detected by the plant surveillance system. Legumes, for example, build a defence against pathogenic microorganisms in response to simple chitin molecules. However, when the plant detects ...

This is the first study in the world to evaluate the risks posed to transport by weather phenomena on a country-specific and mode-specific basis. Among the EU Member States, Poland has the highest risk level indicator. The highest-risk regions are in the countries of Eastern Europe and in mountainous areas. Low-risk countries include Ireland, Austria, Luxembourg and the Nordic countries. The risk-level evaluation was conducted using a risk indicator designed by VTT scientists. The calculations were performed on substantial datasets and involved estimating the ...

New research from the University of Adelaide shows that Australia's Generation X is already on the path to becoming more obese than their baby boomer predecessors. Studies show that boomers currently have the highest level of obesity of any age group in Australia. However, new research by University of Adelaide PhD student Rhiannon Pilkington has revealed some alarming statistics. As part of her research, she has compared obesity levels between the two generations at equivalent ages. Using data from the National Health Survey, Ms Pilkington compared Generation X in ...

A new study has found that the sensitivity and recovery of UK butterfly populations to extreme drought is affected by the overall area and degree of fragmentation of key habitat types in the landscape. The analysis, published this week in the scientific journal Ecography, used data on the Ringlet butterfly collected from 79 UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme sites between 1990 and 1999, a period which spanned a severe drought event in 1995. The study was led by Dr Tom Oliver from the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) in collaboration with colleagues from CEH and ...

Philadelphia, PA, November 1, 2012 – There are a growing number of clues that immune and inflammatory mechanisms are important for the biology of schizophrenia. In a new study in Biological Psychiatry, Dr. Mar Fatjó-Vilas and colleagues explored the impact of the interleukin-1β gene (IL1β) on brain function alterations associated with schizophrenia. Fatjó-Vilas said that "this study is a contribution to the relatively new field of 'functional imaging genetics' which appears to be potentially powerful for the study of schizophrenia, where genetic factors are ...

Following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011, the German government took the nation's eight oldest reactors offline immediately and passed legislation that will close the last nuclear power plant by 2022. This nuclear phase-out had overwhelming political support in Germany. Elsewhere, many saw it as "panic politics," and the online business magazine Forbes.com went as far as to ask, in a headline, whether the decision was "Insane -- or Just Plain Stupid." But a special issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, ...

If you can't sleep at night, you're not alone. Around ten per cent of the population suffer from insomnia, where you have trouble falling asleep, wake up frequently at night, and still feel tired when the morning comes. – When you feel tired and indisposed, your performance at work suffers, says Børge Sivertsen, professor at UiB's Department of Clinical Psychology and senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Sleep apnoea is a more severe problem, affecting four to five per cent of the population. Sufferers can stop breathing for up to 40 seconds ...

On 6 June, the high-resolution stereo camera on ESA's Mars Express revisited the Argyre basin as featured in our October release, but this time aiming at Nereidum Montes, some 380 km northeast of Hooke crater. The stunning rugged terrain of Nereidum Montes marks the far northern extent of Argyre, one of the largest impact basins on Mars. Nereidum Montes stretches almost 1150 km and was named by the noted Greek astronomer Eugène Michel Antoniadi (1870). Based on his extensive observations of Mars, Antoniadi famously concluded that the 'canals' on Mars reported by Percival ...