Bethesda, MD—Earth Day may be more than a month away, but another, more personal, ecosystem has been shown to also be worth protecting—within our bodies are communities of microbes that affect the behavior of human cells hosting them. These communities, called the "microbiome," are so crucial to our health that some consider it to be a complex "second genome." Understanding the interaction of these microbes among one another and their human hosts has the potential to yield insights into numerous diseases and complex human disorders from obesity to susceptibility to infection. ...

A European study published in the 'Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention' journal has analysed the association between physical activities and in situ or non-invasive breast cancer, or, in other words, cancer that has not yet invaded cells within or outside of the breast. Headed by researchers from ten European countries including Spain, the work carried out under the framework of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) concludes that physical activity has no relation with the risk of developing this type of non-invasive cancer. ...

Bethesda, MD—Here's another reason why a healthy diet during pregnancy is critical to the future health of your children: New research published in the March 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal, suggests that pregnant mothers who consume junk food actually cause changes in the development of the opioid signaling pathway in the brains of their unborn children. This change results in the babies being less sensitive to opioids, which are released upon consumption of foods that are high in fat and sugar. In turn, these children, born with a higher "tolerance" to junk food need ...

A group of international ecological scientists led by the University of Adelaide have rejected a doomsday-like scenario of sudden, irreversible change to the Earth's ecology. In a paper published today in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, the scientists from Australia, US and UK argue that global-scale ecological tipping points are unlikely and that ecological change over large areas seem to follow a more gradual, smooth pattern. This opposes recent efforts to define 'planetary tipping points' ‒ critical levels of biodiversity loss or land-use change ...

Cockroaches (Blattodea) are an insect order remarkable in their biodiversity and distribution, with more than 4500 species known and great geographical reach. Cockroach fossils date back around 400 million years, which testifies to their great adaptability and endurance that puts them among the planet's great survivors. The cockroach genus Pseudophoraspism has has been reported from China for the first time thanks to the discovery of three new species: Pseudophoraspis clavellata, Pseudophoraspis recurvata and Pseudophoraspis incurvata, alongside the first regional record ...

This press release is available in German. Max Planck scientists in Jena, Germany, have discovered an unusual regulation of enzymes that catalyze chain elongation in an important secondary metabolism, the terpenoid pathway. In the horseradish leaf beetle Phaedon cochleariae a single enzyme can trigger the production of two completely different substances depending on whether it is regulated by cobalt, manganese or magnesium ions: iridoids, which are defensive substances the larvae use to repel predators, or juvenile hormones, which control insect's development. Insects ...

A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Yan Jie from the Department of Physics at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Science has identified three new distinct overstretched deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) structures caused by mechanical stretching. This discovery provides a clear answer to a long-running debate among scientists over the nature of DNA overstretching. Debate on Possible DNA Structural Transitions Recent single-molecule studies revealed that mechanical stretching could induce transitions to elongated DNA structures. Three possible ...

This press release is available in German. Ice cubes in a cocktail glass melt until an equilibrium state is reached in which the ice cubes are gone. After that, the geometric shape of the ice cubes is completely lost. The liquid does not contain any memory of their shape, the ordered ice crystal has turned into disordered water molecules. Ultra cold Bose-Einstein condensates behave differently; these highly ordered clouds of ultra cold particles also approach a disordered equilibrium state, but they retain some "memory" about their initial state for a remarkably long ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Patients with pneumonia may spend fewer days in the hospital if they are given steroids along with antibiotics and supportive care. That's the finding of a Mayo Clinic analysis of eight randomized-controlled clinical trials involving more than 1,100 patients. The results appear in the March issue of the Journal of Hospital Medicine. "Given that the average hospital stay for community-acquired pneumonia can range from nine to 23 days, the prospect of speeding recovery, even by a day or two, is helpful," says co-author M. Rizwan Sohail, M.D., a Mayo infectious ...

Having more control in the workplace can have negative consequences for individuals but it depends on the form of job control, according to new research out of the University of Toronto. Sociologist Scott Schieman measured a range of work conditions using data from a national survey of 6,004 Canadian workers. To measure levels of job pressure, he asked study participants questions such as: "How often do you feel overwhelmed by how much you had to do at work?" "How often do you have to work on too many tasks at the same time?" and "How often do the demands of your job ...

Using new technology at the telescope and in laboratories, researchers have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in interstellar space. The discoveries indicate that some basic chemicals that are key steps on the way to life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars. The scientists used the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia to study a giant cloud of gas some 25,000 light-years from Earth, near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The chemicals they found in that cloud include a molecule thought ...

This press release is available in Spanish. At the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Basque Public University (UPV/EHU) the Pharmacokinetics, Nanotechnology and Gene Therapy research team is using nanotechnology to develop new formulations that can be applied to drugs and gene therapy.Specifically, they are using nanoparticles todesignsystems for delivering genes and drugs; this helps to get the genes and drugs to the point of action so that they can produce the desired effect. The research team has shown that lipid nanoparticles, which they have been working on for several ...

It could be a grotto. Light is glowing up from below and gives the moving waves a glance of an opal under the sunlight. "This computer graphic was written with our new description language by a schoolboy in not more than two hours after a briefly reading of the instructions", explains Felix Klein, doctoral candidate at the chair of Computer Graphics at Saarland University. As Klein is moving three slide switches with the mouse which are placed under the wave graphic on the display, the water is transforming. Now, the waves are spreading circularly from the center point, ...

A single mutation in the H5N1 avian influenza virus that affects the pH at which the hemagglutinin surface protein is activated simultaneously reduces its capacity to infect ducks and enhances its capacity to grow in mice according to research published ahead of print today in the Journal of Virology. "Knowing the factors and markers that govern the efficient growth of a virus in one host species, tissue, or cell culture versus another is of fundamental importance in viral infectious disease," says Charles J. Russell of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, ...

VIDEO: This shows fibroblast cells using integrins to migrate through tissue. Click here for more information. Scientists at The University of Manchester have identified the method by which cells control the recycling of molecules, a process that is essential for them to move. The discovery provides researchers with a better understanding of how our bodies heal wounds. Working under Professor Martin Humphries, the Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences, Dr Mark Morgan and ...

Tiny particles filled with a drug could be a new tool for treating cancer in the future. A new study published by Swedish scientists in Particle & Particle Systems Characterization shows how such nanoparticles can be combined to secure the effective delivery of cancer drugs to tumour cells – and how they can be given properties to make them visible in MR scanners and thus rendered trackable. The team, which consisted of scientists from Karolinska Institutet (KI) and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, and from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, ...

PASADENA, Calif., Feb. 27, 2013 – Patients with diabetes who undergo total knee replacement surgery do not have increased risk of surgical complications compared to those patients without diabetes, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Researchers studied the electronic health records of more than 40,000 patients who had a first-time knee replacement from January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2009. Of the patients studied, 12.5 percent had controlled diabetes, 6.2 percent had uncontrolled diabetes and 81.3 percent ...

Researchers at IDIBELL and CIBERER Virginia Nunes and Miguel López de Heredia have collected data from 400 patients with Wolfram syndrome published worldwide in the last fifteen years to better understand the natural history of disease. The findings lead them to propose a revision of the diagnostic criteria of the disease because 15% of paediatric patients escape from diagnosis. The results of this review have been published this week in the online edition of the journal Genetics in Medicine to coincide with the World Day of rare diseases, on February 28th. These rare ...

CSIC researcher Maxi San Miguel, director of the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems (IFISC), a joint research Institute of CSIC and the University of the Balearic Islands, explains: "We say there is a conflict when there is an unusual high number of editing and corrections in articles related to some topic or personage on which there are very divergent or polarised opinions. Our model identifies the different types of behaviours according to two main parameters: the reposition rate of editors as time goes by; and the level of tolerance, that is, ...

A new model suggests that inhospitable hydrodgen-sulphide rich waters could have delayed the spread of complex life forms in ancient oceans. The research, published online this week in the journal Nature Communications, considers the composition of the oceans 550-700 million years ago and shows that oxygen-poor toxic conditions, which may have delayed the establishment of complex life, were controlled by the biological availability of nitrogen. In contrast to modern oceans, data from ancient rocks indicates that the deep oceans of the early Earth contained little oxygen, ...

Tel Aviv — In addition to struggling in school, many learning disabled children are known to face social and emotional challenges including depression, anxiety, and isolation. Often beginning early in childhood, they become more pronounced during adolescence, an emotionally turbulent time. For these youngsters, more positive relationships with the significant adults in their lives — including parents and teachers — can improve learning and "socioemotional" experiences, says Dr. Michal Al-Yagon of Tel Aviv University's Jaime and Joan Constantiner School of Education. In ...

The study(*) has enabled scientists to develop a new model that will allow agricultural landholders to determine and improve their climate balance. As part of the study, scientists investigated 40 organic and 40 conventional agricultural holdings across Germany's four agricultural regions. They focused exclusively on crop and dairy farms. The scientists recorded all relevant climate gas streams during the entire production process, including methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. In the case of dairy farms, they also factored in the purchase of soybean meal from ...

About St. Michael's Hospital St. Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in more than 23 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, and care of the homeless are among the hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Center, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at ...

New Rochelle, NY, February 28, 2013—Sexting, the use of technology to send or receive sexually explicit messages, photos, or videos, is a relatively new trend and, in many cases, has legal implications. As many as 25-50% of young people may participate in sexting. A close-up look at the sexting practices of a group of urban ethnic minority youths is presented in an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available online on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking ...

Previous studies have shown that carnivores can have indirect positive effects on each other, which means that when one species is lost, others could soon follow. A team from the University of Exeter and the University of Bern has now found that reducing the numbers of one species of carnivore can lead to the extinction of others. Published online today (28 February 2013) in the journal Ecology Letters, the study shows that simply reducing the population size of one carnivore can indirectly cause another similar species to become extinct. The research shows that changes ...