DENVER (Oct. 4, 2012) – A skull fragment unearthed by anthropologists in Tanzania shows that our ancient ancestors were eating meat at least 1.5 million years ago, shedding new light into the evolution of human physiology and brain development. "Meat eating has always been considered one of the things that made us human, with the protein contributing to the growth of our brains," said Charles Musiba, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver, who helped make the discovery. "Our work shows that 1.5 million years ago we were not opportunistic ...

Researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have developed the first animal model that duplicates the human response in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an important step that may enable scientists to discover better medicines to treat the disease. Corresponding and senior author Harris Perlman, associate professor of rheumatology at Feinberg, introduced his team's new prototype mouse model in a recent online issue of the Journal of Translational Medicine. "This is the first time human stem cells have been transplanted into mice in order to find RA ...

CHICAGO — Surgeons are making progress toward preventing initial and recurrent episodes of clostridium difficile colitis (C. difficile or C. diff), a vicious bacterial infection that is estimated to affect about 336,000 people each year, typically patients on antibiotics. Using mouse models, researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, found that an oral medication may prevent C. difficile infections (CDI). Also, surgeons at Penn State University College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, examined human patients to detect a genetic mutation that could steer ...

VIDEO: This is a direct observation of neuronal reprogramming of PDGFR-sorted pericyte-derived cells from the adult human brain by continuous live imaging in culture. Note the change in morphology of a cell... Click here for more information. Researchers have discovered a way to generate new human neurons from another type of adult cell found in our brains. The discovery, reported in the October 5th issue of Cell Stem Cell, a Cell Press publication, is one step toward cell-based ...

VIDEO: For newborn mice to suckle for the very first time and survive, they depend on a signature blend of scents that is unique to their mothers. The findings, published online... Click here for more information. For newborn mice to suckle for the very first time and survive, they depend on a signature blend of scents that is unique to their mothers. The findings, published online on October 4 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveal that mom's natural perfume consists ...

MAYWOOD – Botox® (onabotulinum toxin-A) injections to the bladder are as effective as medication for treating urinary urgency incontinence in women, but the injection is twice as likely to completely resolve symptoms. These findings were published in the latest issue of The New England Journal of Medicine by a National Institutes of Health clinical trials network including Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine (SSOM). Urgency incontinence is urinary incontinence with a strong or sudden need to urinate. Traditionally, this condition has been treated with ...

The body's blood clot-busting enzymes are much busier than previously imagined, with new research showing that they also dispose of every cell that dies prematurely from disease or trauma. In research published today in Cell Reports, scientists from Monash University have demonstrated for the first time the enzyme t-PA, which plays a vital role in the removal of blood clots, is also a major player in the removal of necrotic, or dead, cells. Necrosis occurs when cells in living tissue die prematurely due to external stress or injury. The body's system for removing waste ...

LA JOLLA, CA – A team led by biologists at The Scripps Research Institute has solved the long-standing scientific mystery of how mice first know to nurse or suckle. This basic mammalian instinct, which could be a key to understanding instinctive behavior more generally, was thought to be triggered by a specific odor (pheromone) that all mouse mothers emit. But, as described online ahead of print by the journal Current Biology on October 4, 2012, the trigger in mice turns out to be a more complicated blend of nature and nurture: a signature mix of odors, unique for each ...

There are some genes that are only activated in the very first days of an embryo's existence. Once they have accomplished their task, they are shut down forever, unlike most of our genes, which remain active throughout our lives. EPFL scientists have unveiled part of this strange mechanism. The same process, accidentally initiated later in life, could be responsible for many kinds of cancer. The discovery is described in a recent article in the journal Cell Reports. The researchers identified a group of proteins that play a key role in this phenomenon. They bind to a ...

BOSTON, MA—Uterine fibroids are the most common type of pelvic tumors in women and are the leading cause of hysterectomy in the United States. Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) are the first to discover a genetic risk allele (an alternative form of a gene) for uterine fibroids in white women using an unbiased, genome-wide approach. This discovery will pave the way for new screening strategies and treatments for uterine fibroids. The study will be published online on October 4, 2012 in The American Journal of Human Genetics. The research team, led by ...

Oral medication for treating a type of incontinence in women is roughly as effective as Botox injections to the bladder, reported researchers who conducted a National Institutes of Health clinical trials network study, with each form of treatment having benefits and limitations. After six months, women in both treatment groups said that the average number of daily episodes had declined from about five per day to about 1-2 per day. In the study, the researchers compared the effectiveness of Botox injections to oral anticholinergic medications for treating urge urinary ...

Researchers show for the first time that a mammal begins to suckle its mother's milk through a learned response built on learning her unique combination of smells. When it is born, the newborn is exposed to the smell of its mother's amniotic fluid and the baby then responds to those smells to feed. Prevailing thought has been that pheromones –chemicals that trigger an innate behaviour – drove the suckling response as an automatic behaviour. The new work determines that, in mice, the smells must be learned before the behaviour can occur. Suckling is a critical step for ...

Researchers from IMIM, Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, have succeeded in determining the function of a new variant of enzyme IKKalpha (IKKα) to activate some of the genes taking part in the tumor progressions of colorectal cancer. In the future, this fact will make it possible to design new drugs that inhibit this enzyme specifically and are less toxic for the remaining body cells, hence improving the treatment for this disease. The study is the culmination of previous research by the IMIM Research Group on Stem Cells and Cancer that had proven the ...

PHILADELPHIA - Nearly 100 years after a British neurologist first mapped the blind spots caused by missile wounds to the brains of soldiers, Perelman School of Medicine researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have perfected his map using modern-day technology. Their results create a map of vision in the brain based upon an individual's brain structure, even for people who cannot see. Their result can, among other things, guide efforts to restore vision using a neural prosthesis that stimulates the surface of the brain. The study appears in the latest issue of Current ...

CHICAGO—Wounded soldiers who sustained chest injuries in Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) had higher mortality rates than soldiers in Korea and Vietnam, according to a military trauma study presented at the 2012 American College of Surgeons Annual Clinical Congress. However, better battlefield triage and transport may have meant that severely wounded soldiers whom would have been considered killed in action in previous conflicts are more likely to get sent to trauma centers in the United States sooner in their course of care, ...

Can you bite into an apple? If so, you are more likely to maintain mental abilities, according to new research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The population is ageing, and the older we become the more likely it is that we risk deterioration of our cognitive functions, such as memory, decision-making and problem solving. Research indicates several possible contributors to these changes, with several studies demonstrating an association between not having teeth and loss of cognitive function and a higher risk of dementia. One reason for this could be that few ...

HEIDELBERG, 4 October 2012 – Scientists in Canada and the United States have used three-dimensional imaging techniques to settle a long-standing debate about how DNA and structural proteins are packaged into chromatin fibres. The researchers, whose findings are published in EMBO reports, reveal that the mouse genome consists of 10-nm chromatin fibres but did not find evidence for the wider 30-nm fibres that were previously thought to be important components of the DNA architecture. "DNA is an exceptionally long molecule that can reach several metres in length. This means ...

Researchers from Queen Mary, University of London have developed a new gene test that can detect pre-cancerous cells in patients with benign-looking mouth lesions. The test could potentially allow at-risk patients to receive earlier treatment, significantly improving their chance of survival. The study, published online in the International Journal of Cancer, showed that the quantitative Malignancy Index Diagnostic System (qMIDS) test had a cancer detection rate of 91-94 per cent when used on more than 350 head and neck tissue specimens from 299 patients in the UK and ...

Los Angeles, CA(04 October, 2012) Effective teamwork among an organization's top management makes employees happier and more productive, with positive benefits to the organization. Despite an abundance of research on teamwork in the workplace, studies of how teamwork right at the top impacts employees lower down the food chain is surprisingly thin on the ground. Now researchers have surveyed business theory and put it to the test empirically, showing that top management's behaviour does trickle down. This new research is published by SAGE in the journal Human Relations. Does ...

A study by Queen Mary, University of London researchers has shown the scale of the challenge facing those in charge of delivering the Olympic legacy. In three London boroughs they have found that, overall, as many as one in ten of the local population has a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes within the next ten years. In some areas close to the Stratford Olympic Park up to one in six adults are at high risk. The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice [1], analysed half a million electronic records for all people without diabetes, aged between ...

Academics at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are set to investigate the removal of space debris and deflection of asteroids – leading the first research-based training network of its kind in the world. The 'Stardust' project will train the next generation of scientists, engineers and policy-makers with Strathclyde leading 14 partners across Europe in a new €4 million programme. The European Commission-funded network will launch early next year and its pioneering research will have a significant impact on the future decisions of Europe on some of the most pressing ...

A study at the University of Valencia ensures that science fiction, especially the cinema, is very popular amongst secondary school students and teachers see it as a good way of motivating interest in the sciences. However, out of the 31 textbooks analysed, only nine make some form of reference to science fiction cinema as a teaching resource. "A current concern is that students are no longer studying science and engineering and this trend is more common amongst females. Science fiction can be useful in awaking the scientific vocation of younger students," as explained ...

Many quantum technologies—such as cryptography, quantum computing and quantum networks—hinge on the use of single photons. While she was at the Kastler Brossel Laboratory (affiliated with the Pierre and Marie Curie University, École Normale Supérieure and CNRS) in Paris, France, Virginia d'Auria and her colleagues identified the extent to which photon detector characteristics shape the preparation of a photon source designed to reliably generate single photons. In a paper about to be published in EPJ D, the French team determined the value of key source parameters that ...

The study in question has been carried out by a group of researchers at the Department of Biology at Lund University. The research team is specifically focusing on predictions regarding how our water resources will be like in the future, in terms of drinking water, recreation, fishing and biodiversity. They have now published findings on the impact of a warmer climate on lakes in the journal Nature Climate Change. "The most interesting and unexpected result from the study is that the reaction to climate change will vary between lakes; this has been observed previously ...

Our eyes are our window to the world. Thousands of people have lost their eyesight due to damages to the cornea, such as trauma, absent limbal stem cells or diseases. Transplantation of a donor cornea is the therapy of choice for a great number of those patients. Let alone the issue of scarce donor material, a sub-group of patients do not tolerate transplanted corneas, necessitating the employment of an alternative means of restoring eye sight. In Germany alone, around 7,000 patients are waiting to be treated. In close cooperation with the Aachen Centre of Technology ...