Contact: Arne Mooers, 778.782.3979, amooers@sfu.ca Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca END ...

There's new hope in the fight against Huntington's disease. A group of researchers that includes scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have designed a compound that suppresses symptoms of the devastating disease in mice. The compound is a synthetic antioxidant that targets mitochondria, an organelle within cells that serves as a cell's power plant. Oxidative damage to mitochondria is implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's. The scientists administered ...

We humans organize ourselves in myriad kinds of social groups, from scout troops and sports teams to networks of friends, colleagues, or classmates. But how do these social groups work? How do we decide whom to trust and whom to follow? And how do we deal with people that don't seem to fit the norms of our social groups? New research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, explores these issues by examining various facets of social perception and behavior. The Herding Hormone: Oxytocin Stimulates In-Group Conformity Mirre ...

Contact: Iman Hajirasouliha, 778.782.7040, 604.418.4834 (cell), imanh@sfu.ca Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca Flickr: http://at.sfu.ca/skirFz END ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A team of UC Davis investigators has discovered a protein on the surface of lung cancer cells that could prove to be an important new target for anti-cancer therapy. A series of experiments in mice with lung cancer showed that specific targeting of the protein with monoclonal antibodies reduced the size of tumors, lowered the occurrence of metastases and substantially lengthened survival time. The findings will be published in the November issue of Cancer Research. "Lung cancer continues to be one of the biggest killers in the United States, and ...

Negatively framed political attitudes ("I don't like Obama") are stronger than positively framed attitudes ("I like Romney"), and this effect is strengthened when people think more deeply about the issues involved. That is the finding of a paper published in the latest issue of the British Journal of Social Psychology by George Bizer, a psychology professor at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. Bizer and his co-authors Iris Žeželj (University of Belgrade) and Jamie Luguri (Yale University) presented participants with information about two fictional (though ostensibly ...

In one of the largest studies of its kind ever conducted, an international team of scientists has thrown new light on the genetic basis of the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the two most common forms of IBD, are chronic inflammatory digestive disorders affecting 230,000 Canadians. Dr. John Rioux, researcher at the Montreal Heart Institute and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Université de Montréal, is one of the researchers who have identified 71 genetic regions newly associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), increasing ...

Adding an angiogenesis inhibitor to treatment with a HER2-inhibiting drug could improve outcomes for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer who develop brain metastases. In their report published online in PNAS Plus, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators report the first preclinical study combining antiangiogenic and anti-HER2 drugs in an animal model of brain metastatic breast cancer. "We have shown dramatic improvement in survival by slowing the growth of brain metastatic, HER2-amplified breast cancer," says Rakesh Jain, PhD, director of the Steele ...

PHILADELPHIA - Arterial stiffening has long been considered a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Keeping arteries soft and supple might reduce disease risk, but the mechanisms of how arteries stave off hardening has remained elusive. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Wistar Institute, and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have discovered that the protein apolipoprotein E (apoE) plays a major role in maintaining arterial softness by suppressing production of the extracellular matrix, a network of connective ...

AMES, Iowa – The human body has more than a trillion cells, most of them connected, cell to neighboring cells. How, exactly, do those bonds work? What happens when a pulling force is applied to those bonds? How long before they break? Does a better understanding of all those bonds and their responses to force have implications for fighting disease? Sanjeevi Sivasankar, an Iowa State assistant professor of physics and astronomy and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, is leading a research team that's answering those questions as it studies ...

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, or TRMM, satellite acts as a rain gauge in space as it orbits the Earth's tropics. As TRMM flew over Hurricane Sandy since its birth on Oct. 21 it was gathering data that has now been mapped to show how much rain the storm dropped along the U.S. eastern seaboard. Much of the recent deadly flooding along the northeastern United States coastlines was caused by super storm Sandy's storm swell. Strong winds from Sandy persistently pushed Atlantic Ocean waters toward the coast. High tides that occurred at the same time also magnified ...

Wind shear is pushing the bulk of Tropical Storm Rosa southeast of the storm's center, and that's evident on infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite. Meanwhile System 99E, that was trailing behind Rosa on Oct. 31, has now "given up the ghost" as a result of that same wind shear. When NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Tropical Storm Rosa at 5:41 a.m. EDT (0951 UTC) on Nov. 1, 2012 the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument took an infrared picture of Tropical Storm Rosa and remnants of System 99E. The AIRS data showed the strongest convection (rising air that ...

Parents with social anxiety disorder are more likely than parents with other forms of anxiety to engage in behaviors that put their children at high risk for developing angst of their own, according to a small study of parent-child pairs conducted at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Authors of the federally funded study say past research has linked parental anxiety to anxiety in children, but it remained unclear whether people with certain anxiety disorders engaged more often in anxiety-provoking behaviors. Based on the new study findings, they do. A report on the team's ...

After Tropical Cyclone Nilam made landfall in southeastern India NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead and saw the storm's clouds blanket the entire southern portion of the country from Chennai southward. On Nov. 1 at 05:50 UTC (1:50 a.m. EDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Depression Nilam. The MODIS image showed that Nilam's clouds stretched as far north as Andra Pradesh, a state in east central India. It covered the states of Goa and Karnataka in ...

For many American teens, the road to college goes through the chapel. Sociologists from Brigham Young University and Rice University found religiously-affiliated youth are 40 percent more likely to graduate high school than their unaffiliated peers and 70 percent more likely to enroll in college. The researchers note that teens' fellow church-goers are an important factor, serving as mentors who help teens set their sights high. "Youth have a unique chance to form relationships with peers and mentors outside of their classroom at school or their neighborhood at home," ...

The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellitecaptured a night-time view of New York City, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania that revealed the extent of the power outages caused from Hurricane Sandy's landfall on October 29. Suomi NPP is a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Department of Defense. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on Suomi NPP captured a night-time view of the Mid-Atlantic on the morning of Nov. 1, 2012,revealing areas where power has not been currently ...

VIDEO: This animation tracks several gamma rays through space and time, from their emission in the jet of a distant blazar to their arrival in Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT). During... Click here for more information. Astronomers using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have made the most accurate measurement of starlight in the universe and used it to establish the total amount of light from all of the stars that have ever shone, accomplishing a primary ...

Solar systems with life-bearing planets may be rare if they are dependent on the presence of asteroid belts of just the right mass, according to a study by Rebecca Martin, a NASA Sagan Fellow from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and astronomer Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. They suggest that the size and location of an asteroid belt, shaped by the evolution of the sun's protoplanetary disk and by the gravitational influence of a nearby giant Jupiter-like planet, may determine whether complex life will evolve on an Earth-like ...

Contact: Terry Collins tc@tca.tc 416-538-8712 Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology Mansurah Raisa raisa@might.org.my 60-0-166681210 Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology Diana Friedman dfriedman@nyas.org 212-298-8645 New York Academy of Sciences Asia's newest megacity offers model for urban growth as populations swell worldwide Malaysia's low carbon Iskandar offers planning template for a planet with an urban population expected to double by 2050 Iskandar Malaysia, the first "smart metropolis" of Southeast ...

A new California sales tax law will require out-of-state online retailers to pay sales tax in California if they do substantial business with consumers in the state. Previously, Internet merchants were only required to collect California sales tax if they maintained a physical presence in the state, such as a store or distribution center. As a result, many online merchants without physical ties to the state were able to avoid collecting sales tax on purchases from California customers, which some believe gave them an unfair advantage over businesses that are physically ...

Housing cooperatives are not a new concept. In fact, according to the National Association of Housing Cooperatives this form of home ownership has been around in the United States since the 1800s. Co-ops can be found in communities of large apartment complexes, townhouses and even single family homes. There are a wide range of benefits associated with participating in a housing cooperation as a co-op member instead of purchasing a home or condo. These benefits include a greater level of control over who buys into the co-op and moves into the building, lower turnover ...

When a fatal accident is caused by another party's wrongful action, certain family members of the victim may seek legal recovery from those who are responsible. This type of lawsuit is referred to as a wrongful death suit. A wrongful death case allows a plaintiff to seek recovery for financial injury. For example, a wrongful death award can help compensate a family who has a lost a breadwinner or major source of support. A West Virginia widow's wrongful death suit exemplifies situations in which wrongful death lawsuits are typically used. The woman lost her husband to ...

Parenting after a divorce can be challenging. Parents are dealing with their own emotions while trying to move forward in their new lives as single people. At the same time, they struggle to maintain their roles as parents to their children while learning to interact with their former spouses. Parents often make mistakes along the way, which can end up causing their children significant distress. These are some of the most common mistakes divorced parents make and some tips for avoiding them. Fighting and Arguing Parents who go through divorce may have a difficult ...

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case coming out of Missouri that could very well have implications for police, prosecutors, defense attorneys and motorists all over the country: whether law enforcement agencies have the right to obtain blood samples from those suspected of drunk driving without either the person's consent or a valid warrant. Vocal Arguments on Both Sides Criminal defense attorneys and human rights watchdog groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argue that warrantless blood draws are the very height of government ...

As expected, the summer of 2012 brought plenty of heat and dry weather to the citizens of Massachusetts. What wasn't expected, however, was the scandal coming out of one of the state's premier law enforcement testing lab facilities. That scandal is now leaving police and prosecutors in the state scrambling to sift through more than 34,000 closed and pending drug cases to ensure that sufficient evidence aside from the tainted chemical samples exists to keep those convicted behind bars, to release those whose guilt was determined solely upon the strength of the improper ...