A researcher at the Auburn University Museum of Natural History and Department of Biological Sciences has reported the discovery 33 new trapdoor spider species from the American Southwest. These newly described species all belong to the genus Aptostichus that now contains 40 species, two of which are already famous – Aptostichus stephencolberti and Aptostichus angelinajolieae. The genus now includes other such notable species as Aptostichus barackobamai, named for Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, and reputed fan of Spiderman comics; Aptostichus edwardabbeyi, ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In most cities, traffic growth has outpaced road capacity, leading to increased congestion, particularly during the morning and evening commutes. In 2007, congestion on U.S. roads was responsible for 4.2 billion hours of additional travel time, as well as 2.8 billion gallons of fuel consumption and an accompanying increase in air pollution. One way to prevent traffic tie-ups is to have fewer cars on the road by encouraging alternatives such as public transportation, carpooling, flex time and working from home. But a new study — by researchers at MIT, ...

What is most important when buying fish: the price, the country of origin, whether it is fresh or frozen or whether it is wild or farm-raised? The average Spanish consumer prefers above all that their fish comes from Spain, according to a study published in the 'Food Quality and Preference' journal. Spain is the largest producer of fish in the European Union but in recent years its population has consumed less fish, especially seafood. A team of scientists brought together nearly 900 consumers from nine Autonomous Communities (Andalusia, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Following up on earlier theoretical predictions, MIT researchers have now demonstrated experimentally the existence of a fundamentally new kind of magnetic behavior, adding to the two previously known states of magnetism. Ferromagnetism — the simple magnetism of a bar magnet or compass needle — has been known for centuries. In a second type of magnetism, antiferromagnetism, the magnetic fields of the ions within a metal or alloy cancel each other out. In both cases, the materials become magnetic only when cooled below a certain critical temperature. ...

If the key to winning battles is knowing both your enemy and yourself, then scientists are now well on their way toward becoming the Sun Tzus of medicine by taking a giant step toward a priceless advantage – the ability to see the soldiers in action on the battlefield. Investigators at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have invented a way to directly image biological structures at their most fundamental level and in their natural habitats. The technique is a major advancement toward the ultimate goal of imaging biological processes in action at the atomic ...

We use many different types of chemicals and plastics for the convenience of our everyday life. The current sources of these materials are provided from petrochemical industry, using fossil oil as a raw material. Due to our increased concerns on the environmental problems and fossil resource availability, there has been much interest in producing those chemicals and materials from renewable non-food biomass through biorefineries. For the development of biorefinery process, microorganisms have successfully been employed as the key biocatalysts to produce a wide range of ...

PHILADELPHIA—Researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson (KCC) (insert link to "Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson" www.kimmelcancercenter.org) have developed potentially game-changing diagnostic and prognostic genetic tests shown to better predict prostate cancer survival outcomes and distinguish clinically-relevant cancers. The team, led by Richard G. Pestell, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the KCC and the Chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at Thomas Jefferson University, report their preclinical findings from a blinded, retrospective analysis of over 350 ...

As the human population increases, so too do the demands and stresses on agriculture. In the January 2013 issue of International Journal of Plant Sciences, Penn State University Waller Professor of Plant Biology Dr. Sarah Assmann explores how the responses to environmental stresses by one small, genetically diverse plant species might illuminate possible approaches to addressing growing human demand for crop products amid decreasing resources. In the article, Dr. Assmann describes how human population growth presents new challenges to twenty-first-century agriculture, ...

A University of Colorado Cancer Center study in this month's edition of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology describes a new target and potential treatment for melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer. MicroRNA can decide which genes in a cell's DNA are expressed and which stay silent. Melanoma tends to lack microRNA-26a, which makes the gene SODD go silent. "It's a double negative," says Yiqun Shellman, PhD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center, associate professor at the CU School of Medicine, and the study's co-senior author. "miR-26a works to stop the ...

New research examining the role of race and ethnicity in an individual's decision to become a donor for hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) identifies several factors associated with varied participation rates in national donor registries across racial/ethnic groups. Results of this first-of-its-kind study are published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). Hematopoietic cell transplants serve as valuable treatments for a range of blood disorders, as they generate new, healthy blood cells to replace diseased cells. While ...

This press release is available in German. In their quest for new agents, pharmaceutical researchers test millions of substances all over the world. They like using color-forming reactions to identify new molecules. However, in intensively colored solutions or in the case of mixtures with multiple substances these tests fail. As part of his doctoral thesis, Martin Stein, member of staff at the Chair of Biochemistry at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen, developed a testing reaction based on magnetic resonance data. It helps find a specific pharmaceutical molecule ...

The Seventies: Smog alert in the Ruhr area, acid rain, dying spruce trees in the Bavarian Forest. In those days, the solution was filter systems for the smokestacks in the Ruhr area. Today, people in the urban areas are suffering from high levels of pollution that is being caused by, among other things, automotive traffic. Particularly undesired: the nitrogen oxides (NOX). In the meantime, the European Union tightened the limit values even further; in many communities they are being exceeded. Michael Hüben of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology ...

St. Louis, MO – December 18, 2012 – Researchers at Aldrich Materials Science, a strategic technology initiative of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (NASDAQ:SIAL) have discovered an innovative way to design an important class of three-dimensional (3D) hybrid structures, Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs), under completely liquid-free conditions. High purity MOF products prepared by the liquid-free process may be ideally suited as rare earth containing materials for sensors and detectors, electronic or magnetic materials. The discovery also extends liquid-free preparation techniques ...

This press release is available in German. The study conducted by Prof. Frank Bradke's team provides indications on brain development and about the causes of diseases of the nervous system. The results have now been published in "Neuron". Under the microscope, the brain appears as a network of intricate beauty comprising billions of nerve cells (the so-called "neurons") linked together. This network is engaged in a constant process of sharing information. The signals are transmitted from neuron to neuron through fine ramifications of the cell body. However, to acquire ...

A researcher with the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute is looking closely at a molecule linked to aortic aneurysms in the abdomen, and her findings could lead to a treatment to reduce swelling of the aortic artery, which would be a life-saving treatment. Zamaneh Kassiri, a professor in the Department of Physiology, and Ratnadeep Basu, a PhD trainee in Kassiri's lab, have been looking at the role of a protein called TIMP3 in the vessels. Their most recent findings, published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, shows that animal ...

URBANA – Due to the introduction of exotic pests and pathogens, tree species are being eliminated one by one from forest ecosystems. In some cases, scientists can observe immediately how their loss affects the environment, whereas in other cases, creative puzzle solving and analysis reveal unexpected repercussions. In the case of the loss of the hemlock tree, University of Illinois landscape and ecosystem ecologist Jennifer Fraterrigo uncovered a surprising benefit to hardwood species. Throughout much of the eastern United States, a pest called the hemlock woolly adelgid ...

Best known for its ability to transform simmering pots of sugared fruit into marmalades and jams, pectin is a major constituent of plant cell walls and the middle lamella, the sticky layer that glues neighboring plant cells together. Pectin imparts strength and elasticity to the plant and forms a protective barrier against the environment. Several different kinds of pectic compounds combine to form pectin. The relative proportion of each of these depends on the plant species, location within the plant, and environment. Pectic compounds decorated with β-1,4-galactan ...

LA JOLLA, CA----For humans to grow and to replace and heal damaged tissues, the body's cells must continually reproduce, a process known as "cell division," by which one cell becomes two, two become four, and so on. A key question of biomedical research is how chromosomes, which are duplicated during cell division so that each daughter cell receives an exact copy of a person's genome, are arranged during this process. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have discovered a new characteristic of human cell division that may help explain how our DNA is organized in the ...

Food enthusiasts interested in sustainable farm practices may soon have a new meat alternative: insects. Beetle larvae (called mealworms) farms produce more edible protein than traditional farms for chicken, pork, beef or milk, for the same amount of land used, according to research published December 19 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Dennis Oonincx and colleagues from the University of Wageningen, Netherlands. The researchers compared the environmental impact of meat production on a mealworm farm to traditional animal farms using three parameters: Land usage, ...

Prehistoric farming communities in Europe constructed water wells out of oak timbers, revealing that these first farmers were skilled carpenters long before metal was discovered or used for tools. The research published December 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Willy Tegel and colleagues from the University of Freiburg, Germany, contradicts the common belief that metal tools were required to make complex wooden structures. The wooden water wells discovered in eastern Germany are over 7000 years old, and suggest that these early farmers had unexpectedly refined ...

Like sheets of paper marked with perforated lines, gecko tails have unique structural marks that help them sever their tails to make a quick getaway. Though voluntarily shedding a body part in this manner is a well-known phenomenon, research published December 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE reveals aspects of the process that may have applications for structural engineers making similar, quickly detachable structures. VIDEO: Bridging structures are not present between ...

Humpback whales might be expected to take their food seriously given their enormous size, but a new study shows that they may multi-task as they eat, singing mating or breeding songs as they forage in their Antarctic feeding grounds. The research, published December 19 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Alison Stimpert from the Naval Postgraduate School and colleagues, sheds new light on the whales' singing habits in different seasons, which are still a mystery. Whales sing most frequently during the breeding season but are known to sing on other occasions, such as ...

A new mosasaur species discovered in Hungary is the first known example of this group of scaled reptiles to have lived in freshwater river environments similar to modern freshwater dolphins, according to research published December 19 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Laszlo Makadi from the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Hungary and colleagues from the University of Alberta, Canada and MTA-ELTE Lendület Dinosaur Research Group, Hungary. The species lived about 84 million years ago, the largest specimens reached about 20 feet in length, and belongs to a family ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., December 19, 2012 – Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is untreatable and fatal. Nerve cells in the spinal cord die, eventually taking away a person's ability to move or even breathe. A consortium of ALS researchers at multiple institutions, including Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, tested transplanted neural stem cells as a treatment for the disease. In 11 independent studies, they found that transplanting neural stem cells ...

From the stockings decorating mantles to the new outfits in display windows calling to shoppers, cotton is woven into the fabric of the holiday season. For bioenergy researchers, however, fiber composition matters more than color and texture as each cotton strand is composed of more than two dozen coils of cellulose, a target biomass for next-generation biofuels. In the December 20, 2012 edition of Nature, an international consortium of researchers from 31 institutions including a team from the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) present a high-quality ...