Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is diagnosed in about 700,000 people in the United States every year. Commonly contributing to SCC is a protein called DNp63a – it goes abnormally high and the ability of a patient's body to kill cancer cells goes abnormally low. In many cases of SCC, it's just that simple. And science thought the function of DNp63a was simple, as well: the tumor suppressor gene p53 is responsible for recognizing and killing cancer cells, and in SCC, it's usually inactivated. It looked like high DNp63a repressed p53, made SCC. A University of Colorado Cancer ...

Nebulae are among the most visually impressive objects in the night sky. They are interstellar clouds of dust, molecules, hydrogen, helium and other ionised gases where new stars are being born. Although they come in different shapes and colours many share a common characteristic: when observed for the first time, their odd and evocative shapes trigger astronomers' imaginations and lead to curious names. This dramatic region of star formation, which has acquired the nickname of the Seagull Nebula, is no exception. This new image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO ...

The most unambiguous data to date on the elusive 113th atomic element has been obtained by researchers at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-based Science (RNC). A chain of six consecutive alpha decays, produced in experiments at the RIKEN Radioisotope Beam Factory (RIBF), conclusively identifies the element through connections to well-known daughter nuclides. The groundbreaking result, reported in the Journal of Physical Society of Japan, sets the stage for Japan to claim naming rights for the element. The search for superheavy elements is a difficult and painstaking ...

For two decades, scientists have known the biochemical factors that trigger penile erection, but not what's needed to maintain one. Now an article by Johns Hopkins researchers, scheduled to be published this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), uncovers the biochemical chain of events involved in that process. The information, they say, may lead to new therapies to help men who have erectile dysfunction. "We've closed a gap in our knowledge," says Arthur Burnett, M.D., professor of urology at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the senior author ...

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, concerned that women who quit smoking during their pregnancies often resume smoking after they deliver their baby, tested self-help interventions designed to prevent postpartum smoking relapse. "We'd first like to see more women quit smoking when they become pregnant," said Thomas H. Brandon, Ph.D., senior member at Moffitt and chair of the Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior. "However, even among those who do quit, the majority return to smoking shortly after they give birth." According to the researchers, nearly 50 percent ...

Jewish women who were severely exposed to hunger during World War Two were five times more likely to develop breast cancer than women who were mildly exposed, according to research in the October issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice. The study also found that women who were up to seven-years-old during that period had a three times higher risk of developing breast cancer than women who were aged 14 years or over. Sixty-five women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2010 were compared with 200 controls without breast cancer. All ...

Ants that are held as slaves in nests of other ant species damage their oppressors through acts of sabotage. Ant researcher Professor Dr. Susanne Foitzik of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany first observed this "slave rebellion" phenomenon in 2009. According to the latest findings, however, this behavior now appears to be a widespread characteristic that is not limited to isolated occurrences. In fact, in three different populations in the U.S. states of West Virginia, New York, and Ohio, enslaved Temnothorax longispinosus workers have been observed to ...

This press release is available in German. The hippocampus represents an important brain structure for learning. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich discovered how it filters electrical neuronal signals through an input and output control, thus regulating learning and memory processes. Accordingly, effective signal transmission needs so-called theta-frequency impulses of the cerebral cortex. With a frequency of three to eight hertz, these impulses generate waves of electrical activity that propagate through the hippocampus. Impulses of a different ...

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 ...

The combination of two neuroprotective therapies, voluntary physical exercise, and the daily intake of melatonin has been shown to have a synergistic effect against brain deterioration in rodents with three different mutations of Alzheimer's disease. A study carried out by a group of researchers from the Barcelona Biomedical Research Institute (IIBB), in collaboration with the University of Granada and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, shows the combined effect of neuroprotective therapies against Alzheimer's in mice. Daily voluntary exercise and daily intake ...

What does a yoghurt look like over time? The food industry will soon be able to answer this question using a new fluid simulation tool developed by the Department of Computer Science (DIKU) at the University of Copenhagen as part of a broad partnership with other research institutions. An epoch-making shift in the way we simulate the physical world is now a reality. A five-year collaboration between the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Alexandra Institute on simulating fluids in movement is now bearing fruit, and has earned the ...

Over millions of years, biological organisms – from the chameleon and cuttlefish to the octopus and squid – have developed color-changing abilities for adaptive concealment (e.g., camouflage) and communication signaling (e.g., warning or mating cues). Over the past two decades, humans have begun to develop sophisticated e-Paper technology in electronic devices that reflect and draw upon the ambient light around you to create multiple colors, contrast and diffusion to communicate text and images. And given the more than 100 million years head start that evolution has ...

The process for preparing frozen, par-fried potato strips — distributed to some food outlets for making french fries — can influence the formation of acrylamide in the fries that people eat, a new study has found. Published in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the study identifies potential ways of reducing levels of acrylamide, which the National Toxicology Program and the International Agency for Research on Cancer regard as a "probable human carcinogen." Acrylamide forms naturally during the cooking of many food products. Donald S. Mottram and colleagues ...

Cod are among Sweden's most common and most popular edible fish and have been fished hard for many years. One consequence is the risk of serious changes in cod stocks, reveals research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. In overfished areas, there is often a shortage of large and old cod, and the fish become sexually mature at a younger age. Researchers have feared that this change may have impacted on the fish's health, physiological ageing and reproductive capacity. In a recently published study, a research group from the University of Gothenburg working with ...

The search for a "greener" way to prevent corrosion on the kind of aluminum used in jetliners, cars and other products has led scientists to an unlikely source, according to a report in ACS' journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. It's the juice of the date palm — those tall, majestic trees that, until now, were noted mainly as sources of food and traditional medicines. Husnu Gerengi points out that strong, lightweight aluminum alloys are used to make planes, cars and industrial equipment. Aluminum corrodes when exposed to air, but unlike rusting steel, the ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (September 26, 2012) – Same-sex partners and inconsistent condom use were among the major risk factors for HIV infection among U.S. Navy and Marines personnel during the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) era, reports a study in the October 1 issue of JAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "[M]ale-to-male sexual contact was a much more common mode of infection than previously reported," reports the new study, led by Shilpa Hakre, DrPH, MPH, of the ...

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Researchers at Kansas State University have developed a simple blood test that can accurately detect the beginning stages of cancer. In less than an hour, the test can detect breast cancer and non-small cell lung cancer -- the most common type of lung cancer -- before symptoms like coughing and weight loss start. The researchers anticipate testing for the early stages of pancreatic cancer shortly. The test was developed by Stefan Bossmann, professor of chemistry, and Deryl Troyer, professor of anatomy and physiology. Both are also researchers affiliated ...

When will men have their own birth control pill? Scientists have been predicting the debut of a male pill within 5 years for the last 30 years. The factors accounting for that delay — and new optimism that a male pill will emerge within a decade — are the topic of a story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. In the story, Michael M. Torrice, C&EN associate editor, describes the need for a male version of the oral contraceptive pill that revolutionized ...

High biodiversity acts as an insurance policy for nature and society alike as it increases the likelihood that at least some species will be sufficiently resilient to sustain important functions such as water purification and crop pollination in a changing environment. "It's the same principle as an investment portfolio – you'd be mad to put all your eggs in one basket," says researcher Johan Eklöf. Experiments with eelgrass meadows in shallow inlets on the west coast of Sweden are now showing that climate change can exacerbate the negative effects of losing sensitive ...

A recent study in The Journal of General Physiology characterizes the movement of rhodopsin, a GPCR and member of a large family of transmembrane receptors responsible for many cellular responses and involved in many human diseases. In living Xenopus rod photoreceptor cells, rhodopsin is found in stacks of disc membranes that are difficult to study due to their small size. Now, Peter Calvert (SUNY Upstate Medical University) and colleagues have developed an approach with two-photon microscopy that, for the first time, allows direct examination within the living cell ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 26, 2012) — A study by a team of University of Kentucky researchers has shed new light on the potential habit-forming properties of the popular pain medication tramadol, in research funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The paper is slated to appear in an upcoming edition of the academic journal Psychopharmacology. Prescription pain killer abuse is a major public health problem in the U.S. In 2010, more individuals over the age of 12 reported nonmedical use of prescription pain relievers in the past month than use of cocaine, methamphetamine ...

CFTR is an important protein that, when mutated, causes the life-threatening genetic disease cystic fibrosis. A study in The Journal of General Physiology (JGP) details how an accidental discovery has provided new understanding about CFTR functionality. From a scientific standpoint, CFTR is unique in that it is the only known ion channel—a protein pore that enables the passive diffusion of ions across cell membranes—in the enormous superfamily of ABC proteins, which normally operate as active transporters. As active transporters, ABC proteins use energy derived from ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Federal law ought to play a stronger role in regulating social networking sites by allowing users to determine what happens to their "digital afterlives," says a recently published paper by a University of Illinois expert in intellectual property law. Allowing social networking sites to set their own policies regarding the content associated with the accounts of deceased users does not adequately protect individual and collective interests, especially with people spending an increasing part of their lives online using social networking sites, says Jason ...

DURHAM, N.C. – The structures of key bacterial proteins have revealed one of the biochemical secrets that enables bacteria to outwit antibiotics. In a paper published Sept. 20, 2012 in the journal Cell Reports, Duke University School of Medicine researchers and their colleagues describe the results of a series of experiments exploring multi-drug tolerance, a phenomenon that allows bacteria to become dormant and tolerate antibiotics, only to later awaken and re-infect the host. Drug tolerance is a factor in several types of stubborn, recurring infectious diseases caused ...

With more than half of all adults allergic to poison ivy, oak and sumac, scientists are reporting an advance toward an inexpensive spray that could reveal the presence of the rash-causing toxic oil on the skin, clothing, garden tools, and even the family cat or dog. Using the spray, described in ACS' The Journal of Organic Chemistry would enable people to wash off the oil, or avoid further contact, in time to sidestep days of misery. Rebecca Braslau and colleagues explain that allergic reactions to oils of the toxic trio are more than a nusiance. They claim a huge human ...