Monozygotic twins have the same genome, that is, the same DNA molecule in both siblings. Despite being genetically identical, both twins may have different diseases at different times. This phenomenon is called "twin discordance". But how can people who have the same genetic sequence present different pathologies and at different ages? The explanation partly lies in the fact that the chemical signals added in the DNA to "switch off" or "switch on" genes can be different. These signals are known as epigenetic marks. The research team led by Manel Esteller, director of ...

Athens, Ga. – Ecologists in the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology have found that evolutionary diversity can be an effective method for identifying hotspots of mammal biodiversity. In a paper published Oct. 17 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, they report that evolutionary diversity can be an effective proxy for both the sheer number of species as well as their characteristics and ecological roles. Their findings could help conservation organizations better protect threatened species across the globe. There are several measures of biodiversity, ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — There's a new contender in the race to find an inexpensive alternative to platinum catalysts for use in hydrogen fuel cells. Brown University chemist Shouheng Sun and his students have developed a new material — a graphene sheet covered by cobalt and cobalt-oxide nanoparticles — that can catalyze the oxygen reduction reaction nearly as well as platinum does and is substantially more durable. The new material "has the best reduction performance of any nonplatinum catalyst," said Shaojun Guo, postdoctoral researcher in Sun's lab and ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Twitter, best known as the 140-character social-networking site where Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga chit-chat with fans, has become a new literary format that is improving student learning, a new study argues. Christine Greenhow, assistant professor of education at Michigan State University, found that college students who tweet as part of their instruction are more engaged with the course content and with the teacher and other students, and have higher grades. "Tweeting can be thought of as a new literary practice," said Greenhow, who also studies ...

Amsterdam, October 17, 2012 – The claim that nanopore technology is on the verge of making DNA analysis so fast and cheap that a person's entire genome could be sequenced in just minutes and at a fraction of the cost of available commercial methods, has resulted in overwhelming academic, industrial, and global interest. But a review by Northeastern University physicist Meni Wanunu, published in a special issue on nanopore sequencing in Physics of Life Reviews, questions whether the remaining technical hurdles can be overcome to create a workable, easily produced commercial ...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, and TRIESTE, Italy — To encourage researchers around the world to adhere to universal science values and ethical behavior, a new report on responsible science has been issued by the InterAcademy Council and the IAP – the global network of science academies. The report is the first product of the IAC and IAP's project on scientific integrity, initiated in response to several major trends reshaping the research enterprise, including the increasingly global and interdisciplinary nature of science, its heightened role in policy debates, and the continued ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed a new technique that uses sound waves to rapidly separate selected collections of cells for use in biomedical research. "We think this is important because it will make it faster and easier for researchers to sort out the live cells they need for research ranging from disease study to drug development," says Dr. Xiaoning Jiang, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at NC State and co-author ...

WASHINGTON, DC, October 17, 2012 — Hindus and Muslims are less likely than Christians and Jews to have premarital sex, and Muslims are the least likely among people of these religious groups to have extramarital sex, according to a new study that analyzed data on premarital and extramarital sexual behaviors in over 30 developing countries around the world. Co-authored by Amy Adamczyk, an Associate Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Brittany Hayes, a Ph.D. student in John Jay's Criminal Justice program, the study, "Religion and Sexual Behaviors: ...

The scale of the challenge to reduce the use of anti-psychotic drugs by people with dementia may be under-estimated, according to researchers from Aston University and the University of East Anglia, working with NHS Kent and Medway. There is a key public health challenge to reduce the prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs to people with dementia as they are thought to be associated with up to 1,800 deaths a year. Ian Maidment, corresponding author and a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacy from Aston University has worked in medication management in dementia for 20 ...

In newscasts after intense wind and ice storms, damaged trees stand out: snapped limbs, uprooted trunks, entire forests blown nearly flat. In a storm's wake, landowners, municipalities and state agencies are faced with important financial and environmental decisions. A study by Harvard University researchers, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and published in the journal Ecology, yields a surprising result: when it comes to the health of forests, native plants and wildlife, the best management decision may be to do nothing. Salvage logging is a ...

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have carried out a clinical trial in which patients with metastatic melanoma were given chemotherapy and an immunotherapy of adoptive cell transfer (ACT) with tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL). Tumor tissues were surgically removed from patients, minced and grown in culture. The treatment combined chemotherapy, then ACT with TIL, followed by interleukin-2 (IL-2). The combination therapy drew a high response rate from some patients. The study appears in the October issue of the Journal of Immunotherapy. "Our purpose was to demonstrate ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- A team led by MIT neuroscientists has developed a way to monitor how brain cells coordinate with each other to control specific behaviors, such as initiating movement or detecting an odor. The researchers' new imaging technique, based on the detection of calcium ions in neurons, could help them map the brain circuits that perform such functions. It could also provide new insights into the origins of autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other psychiatric diseases, says Guoping Feng, senior author of a paper appearing in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal ...

The use of electronic health records is linked to significantly higher quality care, according to a new study¹ by Lisa Kern and her team, from the Health Information Technology Evaluation Collaborative in the US. Their work appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer. Electronic health records (EHRs) have become a priority in the US, with federal incentives for 'meaningful' use of EHRs. Meaningful use entails tracking and improving specific patient outcomes, as well as gathering and storing information. Kern and colleagues examined ...

It's a common lament among parents: Kids are growing up too fast these days. Parents worry about their kids getting involved in all kinds of risky behavior, but they worry especially about their kids' forays into sexual relationships. And research suggests that there may be cause for concern, as timing of sexual development can have significant immediate consequences for adolescents' physical and mental health. But what about long-term outcomes? How might early sexual initiation affect romantic relationships in adulthood? Psychological scientist Paige Harden of the ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Oct. 17, 2012 — Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory have devised a method to use cosmic rays to gather detailed information from inside the damaged cores of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, which were heavily damaged in March 2011 by a tsunami that followed a great earthquake. In a paper in Physical Review Letters, researchers compared two methods for using cosmic-ray radiography to gather images of nuclear material within the core of a reactor similar to Fukushima Daiichi Reactor No. 1. The team found that Los Alamos' scattering method ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 17, 2012—SELEX is a rapid, efficient, and iterative high-throughput method for screening large libraries of molecules to identify those with the potential to be developed as drug compounds or research tools. Advances in SELEX technology that have enabled screening in live cells, called Cell-SELEX, are explored in a comprehensive Review article published in BioResearch Open Access, a bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free on the BioResearch Open Access website. Cell-SELEX uses live ...

PASADENA, Calif.—Imagine navigating through a grocery store with your cell phone. As you turn down the bread aisle, ads and coupons for hot dog buns and English muffins pop up on your screen. The electronics industry would like to make such personal navigators a reality, but, to do so, they need the next generation of microsensors. Thanks to an ultrasensitive accelerometer—a type of motion detector—developed by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Rochester, this new class of microsensors is a step closer to reality. Beyond ...

(Boston) – A study led by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) provides novel insight into the impact that Huntington's disease has on the brain. The findings, published online in Neurology, pinpoint areas of the brain most affected by the disease and opens the door to examine why some people experience milder forms of the disease than others. Richard Myers, PhD, professor of neurology at BUSM, is the study's lead/corresponding author. This study, which is the largest to date of brains specific to Huntington's disease, is the product of nearly 30 ...

NEW YORK (October 17, 2012) — A new study co-authored by the Wildlife Conservation Society identifies countries most vulnerable to declining coral reef fisheries from a food-security perspective while providing a framework to plan for alternative protein sources needed to replace declining fisheries. The study looked at 27 countries around the world and found two common characteristics: nations with low incomes that lack the ability to adapt to alternative protein sources; and middle-income nations with higher adaptive capacity but higher sensitivity to climate change. ...

One of the most frequent is the existence of tumours that induce an over-secretion of this hormone. These women present with chronic infertility due to anovulation. Thanks to the work of the Inserm researchers from unit 693 "Steroid receptors: endocrinian and metabolic physiopathology", the intimate mechanism of the hyperprolactinaemia alterations affecting reproduction in mice has been discovered. This work has been published in the journal JCI. Hyperprolactinaemia is a major cause of anovulation and is responsible for menstruation disorders and infertility. However, ...

Arlington, Va. — A new 90-day intravaginal ring has been developed — that for the first time — enables the long-lasting vaginal delivery of tenofovir (TFV), the only topical prophylactic shown to be effective at reducing the sexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) when formulated in a short-lasting gel. This research is being presented at the 2012 American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Chicago, Ill., Oct. 14 – 18. Lead researcher Patrick Kiser and colleagues from the University of Utah, in collaboration ...

Contact: Gabriele Ende, Dr.rer.nat gabi.ende@zi-mannheim.de 49.621.1703.2971 (Germany) Central Institute of Mental Health Natalie May Zahr, Ph.D. nzahr@stanford.edu 650.859.5243 Stanford University Recovery of brain volumes with abstinence may vary for different brain regions A new study examined what brain volume recovery may take place during the first 14 days of abstinence from alcohol. Findings indicate that recovery of cerebral gray matter volume can begin for alcoholic patients after only a few days of detoxification. Recovery may vary among ...

Contact: Ulrich John, Ph.D. ujohn@uni-greifswald.de 49.3834.867700 (Germany) University Medicine Greifswald Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Alcohol dependence seems to shorten life more than smoking, especially among women While researchers and clinicians know that the mortality rates among alcohol dependent (AD) individuals are high, most of that knowledge is based on studies of clinical populations. A new study is the first to examine excess mortality and its predictors among AD individuals in the general population throughout a 14-year span, ...

Contact: Sarah N. Mattson, Ph.D. smattson@sunstroke.sdsu.edu 619.594.7228 San Diego State University Piyadasa W. Kodituwakku, Ph.D. pkodituwakku@salud.unm.edu 505.272.1861 University of New Mexico School of Medicine Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research A family history of alcoholism may add to damaging effects of prenatal alcohol exposure Prenatal exposure to alcohol (PAE) can lead to serious deficiencies, including deficits in spatial working memory (SWM). This is the first study to examine the role of family history of alcoholism (FHP) ...

Contact: Simon Levey s.levey@imperial.ac.uk 44-122-344-2837 Imperial College London Tree of life branches out online Exploring the evolutionary tree of life is now as easy as navigating an online map, thanks to a new interactive website called OneZoom, which goes live Tuesday 16 October at www.onezoom.org. The launch is accompanied by an explanatory article in the 'Cool Tools' series of the open access journal PLOS Biology. All living species on Earth descended from a common ancestor that lived in the distant past. Since Darwin, biologists have struggled to draw ...