PULLMAN, Wash.—Since the 1960s, when the defoliant Agent Orange was widely used in Vietnam, military, industry and environmental groups have debated the toxicity of its main ingredient, the chemical dioxin, and how it should be regulated. But even if all the dioxin were eliminated from the planet, Washington State University researchers say its legacy will live on in the way it turns genes on and off in the descendants of people exposed over the past half century. Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, biologist Michael Skinner and members of his lab say dioxin administered ...

Is aging inevitable? What factors make older tissues in the human body less able to maintain and repair themselves, as in the weakening and shrinkage of aging muscles in humans? A new study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators and collaborators at King's College London describes the mechanism behind impaired muscle repair during aging and a strategy that may help rejuvenate aging tissue by manipulating the environment in which muscle stem cells reside. The report will appear in the journal Nature and has received advance online release. Rare muscle ...

VIDEO: Studying gut bacteria can reveal a range of human illness. Now, new research shows that the composition of a person’s intestinal bacteria could play an important role in the development... Click here for more information. The number of people suffering from type 2 diabetes world-wide has risen rapidly in recent years, and scientists estimate that just as many people could be suffering from the illness without realising it. New research now indicates that your gut bacteria ...

Washington D.C., September 26, 2012 – The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is proud to announce its new Practice Parameter on issues related to and affecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and gender variant youth. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and gender variant children and adolescents face unique developmental challenges and stressors that can influence their mental health and wellbeing. Social issues such as stigma, bullying, and discrimination, and personal factors like internalized prejudice and feelings of being different are just a few of the concerns ...

September 26, 2012, Shenzhen, China – BGI announces the online publication in the international journal Nature of a novel metagenomic study on human gut microbiota and their potential impact on type 2 diabetes (T2D), the most common form of diabetes. This work lays an important foundation for comprehensively understanding the genetic characteristics of gut microbiota and their relationship to T2D risk, as well as providing a new way of classifying microbes detected by DNA sequence. The work here also opens the way for transferring the potential value of a gut-microbiota-based ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A small African mammal with an unusual ability to regrow damaged tissues could inspire new research in regenerative medicine, a University of Florida study finds. For years biologists have studied salamanders for their ability to regrow lost limbs. But amphibian biology is very different than human biology, so lessons learned in laboratories from salamanders are difficult to translate into medical therapies for humans. New research in the Sept. 27 issue of the journal Nature describes a mammal that can regrow new body tissues following an injury. ...

MOSS LANDING, CA — About 100 years ago, marine biologists hauled the first vampire squid up from the depths of the sea. Since that time, perhaps a dozen scientific papers have been published on this mysterious animal, but no one has been able to figure out exactly what it eats. A new paper by MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow Henk-Jan Hoving and Senior Scientist Bruce Robison shows for the first time that, unlike its relatives the octopuses and squids, which eat live prey, the vampire squid uses two thread-like filaments to capture bits of organic debris that sink down from the ...

PASADENA, Calif.—Almost everyone knows the feeling: you see a delicious piece of chocolate cake on the table, but as you grab your fork, you think twice. The cake is too fattening and unhealthy, you tell yourself. Maybe you should skip dessert. But the cake still beckons. In order to make the healthy choice, we often have to engage in this kind of internal struggle. Now, scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have identified the neural processes at work during such self-regulation—and what determines whether you eat the cake. "We seem to ...

A research team led by investigators at New York University and NYU School of Medicine has determined how cells that cause inflammatory ailments, such as Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, and arthritis, differentiate from stem cells and ultimately affect the clinical outcome of these diseases. "We've found that hundreds of new genes are involved in the function and development of these cells," said co-author Richard Bonneau, an associate professor at New York University's Center for Genomics and Systems Biology and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. "This ...

VIDEO: Under heavy fire from a human judge, UT^2 manages to fight his way to a nearby weapon and obliterate his opponent. Click here for more information. AUSTIN, Texas — An artificially intelligent virtual gamer created by computer scientists at The University of Texas at Austin has won the BotPrize by convincing a panel of judges that it was more human-like than half the humans it competed against. The competition was sponsored by 2K Games and was set inside the virtual ...

New Haven, Conn.— The water quality of lakes and coastal systems will be altered if hurricanes intensify in a warming world, according to a Yale study in Geophysical Research Letters. Bryan Yoon, the study's co-author and a doctoral student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, found that last summer during Hurricane Irene — the worst storm in the New York area in 200 years — record amounts of dissolved organic matter darkened Catskill waters and affected the Ashokan Reservoir that supplies New York City with drinking water. "This is the biggest rain ...

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Large earthquakes can alter seismicity patterns across the globe in very different ways, according to two new studies by U.S. Geological Survey seismologists. Both studies shed light on more than a decade of debate on the origin and prevalence of remotely triggered earthquakes. Until now, distant but damaging "aftershocks" have not been included in hazard assessments, yet in each study, changes in seismicity were predictable enough to be included in future evaluations of earthquake hazards. In a study published in this week's issue of "Nature," USGS ...

PASADENA, Calif.—As the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words." For people in certain professions — acting, modeling, and even politics — this phrase rings particularly true. Previous studies have examined how our social judgments of pictures of people are influenced by factors such as whether the person is smiling or frowning, but until now one factor has never been investigated: the distance between the photographer and the subject. According to a new study by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), this turns out to make a difference ...

You're waiting in the reception area of your doctor's office. The magazines are uninteresting. The pictures on the wall are dull. The second hand on the wall clock moves so excruciatingly slowly that you're sure it must be broken. You feel depleted and irritated about being stuck in this seemingly endless moment. You want to be engaged by something—anything—when a thought, so familiar from childhood, comes to mind: "I'm bored!" Although boredom is often seen as a trivial and temporary discomfort that can be alleviated by a simple change in circumstances, it can also be ...

Akron, Ohio, Sept. 26, 2012 — Leptin — commonly dubbed the "fat hormone" — does more than tell the brain when to eat. A new study by researchers at The University of Akron and Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) shows that leptin may play a role in hearing and vision loss. This discovery, made in zebrafish treated to produce low leptin, could ultimately help doctors better understand sensory loss in humans. While the scientists expected the leptin-deficient fish would be unable metabolize fat, "we did not expect that the leptin also affects the development of sensory ...

BOSTON – September 26, 2012 — As part of their ongoing research investigating the biology of aging, the greatest risk factor for type 2 diabetes and other serious diseases, scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center have identified a new factor — microRNA processing in fat tissue — which plays a major role in aging and stress resistance. This finding may lead to the development of treatments that increase stress resistance and longevity and improve metabolism. The findings appear in the September 5 online edition of Cell Metabolism. Over the past several years, it has become ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — An international team of scientists, including geochemists from the University of California, Riverside, has uncovered new evidence linking extreme climate change, oxygen rise, and early animal evolution. A dramatic rise in atmospheric oxygen levels has long been speculated as the trigger for early animal evolution. While the direct cause-and-effect relationships between animal and environmental evolution remain topics of intense debate, all this research has been hampered by the lack of direct evidence for an oxygen increase coincident with the appearance ...

Despite being infamously demoted from its status as a major planet, Pluto (and its largest companion Charon) recently posed as a surrogate extrasolar planetary system to help astronomers produce exceptionally high-resolution images with the Gemini North 8-meter telescope. Using a method called reconstructive speckle imaging, the researchers took the sharpest ground-based snapshots ever obtained of Pluto and Charon in visible light, which hint at the exoplanet verification power of a large state-of-the-art telescope when combined with speckle imaging techniques. The data ...

The green stink bug is one of the most damaging native stink bug species in the United States. Stink bugs feeding on cotton, soybeans, tomatoes, peaches, and other crops can result in cosmetic damage as well as reduced quality and yield. A new article in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management, "Biology and Management of the Green Stink Bug," offers farmers and growers advice on how to deal with this insect pest. According to the authors, stink bugs have become a major challenge to integrated pest management systems because control options are basically limited ...

NASA's TRMM satellite measured the rainfall of Super Typhoon Jelawat and Tropical Storm Ewiniar as they continue moving through the western North Pacific Ocean. Super Typhoon Jelawat had super rainfall rates around its eye, while nearby Tropical Storm Ewinar's heaviest rainfall was pushed north and west of its center because of wind shear. Jelawat was intensifying and close to a category five super typhoon when NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed above on September 24, 2012 at 1611 UTC (12:11 p.m.). A 3-D image was created using TRMM's Precipitation ...

Once a powerful hurricane, Miriam is now a tropical storm off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. Tropical Storm Miriam was seen in the Eastern Pacific Ocean by NOAA's GOES-15 satellite, and the visible image revealed that the strongest part of the storm was north and west of the center. NOAA's GOES-15 satellite sits in a fixed position over the western U.S. that allows it to monitor the Eastern Pacific Ocean and it captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Miriam on Sept. 26, 2012 at 10:45 a.m. EDT off the coast of Baja California. The image, created by NASA's GOES ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Coating a bone graft with an inorganic compound found in bones and teeth may significantly increase the likelihood of a successful implant, according to Penn State researchers. Natural bone grafts need to be sterilized and processed with chemicals and radiation before implantation into the body to ensure that disease is not transmitted by the graft. Human bones have a rough surface. However, once a graft is sterilized the surface changes and is not optimal for stimulating bone formation in the body. "We created a method for resurfacing bone that ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- When nurses feel safe admitting to their supervisors that they've made a mistake regarding a patient, they are more likely to report the error, which ultimately leads to a stronger commitment to safe practices and a reduction in the error rate, according to an international team of researchers. In addition, when nurse leaders' safety actions mirror their spoken words -- when they practice what they preach -- unit nurses do not feel caught between adhering to safety protocols and speaking up about mistakes against protocols. "Patient errors remain ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- People are more likely to trust health messages tweeted by doctors who have a lot of followers, but not the messages they retweet, according to researchers. A study of the credibility of health messages on Twitter showed that credibility dips when doctors who have a large number of Twitter followers passed on messages, instead of composing their own tweets, said Ji Young Lee, a former master's degree student in media studies, Penn State. When non-medical professionals with a lot of Twitter followers forward messages about health on Twitter, however, ...

Total knee replacement is a very common and safe surgery that's used to relieve severe pain and disability caused by knee osteoarthritis, and to improve patients' quality of life. However, it's also very expensive at approximately $15,000 per procedure. With an estimated 600,000 total knee replacements performed annually in the United States, the aggregate annual cost for total knee replacement (also known as total knee arthroplasty or TKA) is $9 billion. Researchers at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine studied trends in TKA surgeries over a 20-year period ...