This press release is available in French. Montréal, February 13, 2013 – Since the beginning of time, living organisms have developed ingenious mechanisms to monitor their environment. As part of an international study, a team of researchers has adapted some of these natural mechanisms to detect specific molecules such as cocaine more accurately and quickly. Their work may greatly facilitate the rapid screening—less than five minutes—of many drugs, infectious diseases, and cancers. Professor Alexis Vallée-Bélisle of the University of Montreal Department of Chemistry ...

HOUSTON – (Feb.12, 2013) – New findings by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health may help identify situations in which smokers who are trying to quit are at a higher risk of relapse. More than 1,200 people die in the United States every day from smoking-related illnesses. This is equivalent to three airplanes loaded with passengers crashing everyday in America. Smoking-related illnesses are the No. 1 cause of preventable deaths in the country, killing more Americans than drugs, homicides, suicides, ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Scientists at UC Santa Barbara are researching cocaine addiction, part of a widespread problem, which, along with other addictions, costs billions of dollars in damage to individuals, families, and society. Laboratory studies at UCSB have revealed that the diminished brain function and learning impairment that result from cocaine addiction can be treated –– and that learning can be restored. Karen Szumlinski, a professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at UCSB, and her colleagues Osnat Ben-Shahar and Tod Kippin, have worked ...

Cancer drugs should kill tumors, not encourage their spread. But new evidence suggests that an otherwise promising class of drugs may actually increase the risk of tumors spreading to bone, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The drugs, IAP antagonists, block survival signals that many cancer cells rely on to stay alive. Working in mice, the investigators found that targeting the same protein that makes tumors vulnerable to death also overactivates cells called osteoclasts, which are responsible for tearing down bone. "These ...

Classroom rosters combined with human-networking theory may give a clearer picture of just how infectious diseases such as influenza can spread through a closed group of people, and even through populations at large. Using high-school schedule data for a community of students, teachers, and staff, Penn State University's Marcel Salathé, an assistant professor of biology, and Timo Smieszek, a post-doctoral researcher, have developed a low-cost but effective method to determine how to focus disease-control strategies based on which individuals are most likely to spread the ...

Philadelphia, PA, February 12, 2013 – Opioids are frequently prescribed for pain management in noncancer patients, but recommended clinical guidelines for monitoring effectiveness and signs of drug abuse are often not implemented. Alongside well-documented racial disparities in prescribing opioid medications for pain, researchers report racial differences in the use of recommended opioid monitoring and follow-up treatment practices. The study is published in the current issue of PAIN®. "In our study, we examined whether racial disparities exist in a more comprehensive ...

Researchers have shown that part of Australia's rich plant diversity was wiped out by the ice ages, proving that extinction, instead of evolution, influences biodiversity. The research led by the University of Melbourne and University of Tasmania has shown that plant diversity in South East Australia was as rich as some of the most diverse places in the world, and that most of these species went extinct during the ice ages, probably about one million years ago. The team's work was published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr ...

New research has come up with ways to quickly assess flood damage to houses while also showing most people didn't intend to make changes to reduce their vulnerability after the 2010-11 floods in Australia. Two separate reports from the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility released today show how lessons learned from households affected by the 2010-11 Australian floods can minimise damage under current and future climates. The report Analysis of Damage to Buildings Following the 2010 Eastern Australia Floods evaluated the role of development controls ...

This press release is available in German. Street lamps, traffic lights and lighting from homes are causing a rise in our night-time light levels. For some time now, scientists have suspected that artificial light in our towns and cities at night could affect plants, animals and us, humans, too. Studies, however, that have tested this influence directly are few. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany, recently investigated how light conditions in urban areas at night affect European blackbirds (Turdus merula). They found that animals ...

NEW YORK (February 13, 2013) -- An anti-copper drug compound that disables the ability of bone marrow cells from setting up a "home" in organs to receive and nurture migrating cancer tumor cells has shown surprising benefit in one of the most difficult-to-treat forms of cancer -- high-risk triple-negative breast cancer. The median survival for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer patients is historically nine months. However, results of a new phase II clinical trial conducted by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College and reported in the Annals of Oncology shows ...

Chapel Hill, NC – Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) hide within the worldwide human population. While dormant in the vast majority of those infected, these active herpesviruses can develop into several forms of cancer. In an effort to understand and eventually develop treatments for these viruses, researchers at the University of North Carolina have identified a family of human genes known as Tousled-like kinases (TLKs) that play a key role in the suppression and activation of these viruses. In a paper published by Cell Host ...

This part of the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer) is one of the richest star fields in the whole sky -- the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud. The huge number of stars that light up this region dramatically emphasise the blackness of dark clouds like Barnard 86, which appears at the centre of this new picture from the Wide Field Imager, an instrument mounted on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. This object, a small, isolated dark nebula known as a Bok globule [1], was described as "a drop of ink on the luminous sky" by its discoverer ...

(TORONTO, Canada – Feb. 13, 2013) – An international team of tropical medicine researchers have discovered a potential method for preventing low birth weight in babies born to pregnant women who are exposed to malaria. Low birth weight is the leading cause of infant death globally. The findings of Malaria Impairs Placental Vascular Development, published today online ahead of print in Cell Host & Microbe, showed that the protein C5a and its receptor, C5aR, seem to control the blood vessel development in the mother's placenta. Without adequate blood vessels in the placenta, ...

PITTSBURGH—When faced with a difficult decision, it is often suggested to "sleep on it" or take a break from thinking about the decision in order to gain clarity. But new brain imaging research from Carnegie Mellon University, published in the journal "Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience," finds that the brain regions responsible for making decisions continue to be active even when the conscious brain is distracted with a different task. The research provides some of the first evidence showing how the brain unconsciously processes decision information in ways ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In a new study in mice, a scientific collaboration centered at Brown University lays out in unprecedented detail a neurological signaling breakdown in Angelman syndrome, a disorder that affects thousands of children each year, characterized by developmental delay, seizures, and other problems. With the new understanding, the team demonstrated how a synthesized, peptide-like compound called CN2097 works to restore neural functions impaired by the disease. "I think we are really beginning to understand what's going wrong. That's what's ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Why does training in mindfulness meditation help patients manage chronic pain and depression? In a newly published neurophysiological review, Brown University scientists propose that mindfulness practitioners gain enhanced control over sensory cortical alpha rhythms that help regulate how the brain processes and filters sensations, including pain, and memories such as depressive cognitions. The proposal, based on published experimental results and a validated computer simulation of neural networks, derives its mechanistic framework ...

Wetlands are a well-established and prolific source of atmospheric methane. Yet despite an abundance of seething swamps and flooded forests in the tropics, ground-based measurements of methane have fallen well short of the quantities detected in tropical air by satellites. In 2011, Sunitha Pangala, a PhD student at The Open University, who is co-supervised by University of Bristol researcher Dr Ed Hornibrook, spent several weeks in a forested peat swamp in Borneo with colleague Sam Moore, assessing whether soil methane might be escaping to the atmosphere by an alternative ...

Dallas, Feb. 13--The multidisciplinary team of scientists, who on November 24, 2012 announced the results of their five-year long study of DNA samples from a novel hominin species, commonly known as "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch," publishes their peer-reviewed findings today in the DeNovo Journal of Science (http://www.denovojournal.com). The study, which sequenced three whole Sasquatch nuclear genomes, shows that the legendary Sasquatch is extant in North America and is a human relative that arose approximately 13,000 years ago and is hypothesized to be a hybrid cross of modern ...

The September 2012 record low in Arctic sea-ice extent was big news, but a missing piece of the puzzle was lurking below the ocean's surface. What volume of ice floats on Arctic waters? And how does that compare to previous summers? These are difficult but important questions, because how much ice actually remains suggests how vulnerable the ice pack will be to more warming. New satellite observations confirm a University of Washington analysis that for the past three years has produced widely quoted estimates of Arctic sea-ice volume. Findings based on observations from ...

When it comes to having a lasting and fulfilling relationship, common wisdom says that feeling close to your romantic partner is paramount. But a new study finds that it's not how close you feel that matters most, it's whether you are as close as you want to be, even if that's really not close at all. "Our study found that people who yearn for a more intimate partnership and people who crave more distance are equally at risk for having a problematic relationship," says the study's lead author, David M. Frost, PhD, of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. ...

Using underwater video cameras to record fish feeding on South Pacific coral reefs, scientists have found that herbivorous fish can be picky eaters – a trait that could spell trouble for endangered reef systems. In a study done at the Fiji Islands, the researchers learned that just four species of herbivorous fish were primarily responsible for removing common and potentially harmful seaweeds on reefs – and that each type of seaweed is eaten by a different fish species. The research demonstrates that particular species, and certain mixes of species, are potentially critical ...

PHILADELPHIA — Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have discovered that a protein called Jagged-1 stimulates human stem cells to differentiate into bone-producing cells. This protein could help both human and animal patients heal from bone fractures faster and may form the basis of treatments for a rare metabolic condition called Alagille syndrome. The study, published in the journal Stem Cells, was authored by three members of Penn Vet's departments of Clinical Studies-New Bolton Center and Animal Biology: postdoctoral researchers ...

FASEB also praised the President's emphasis on increasing investments in science and innovation. President Obama said, "Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation. Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race." In addition, the President noted that the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration would devastate priorities like education, energy, and medical research. "We will continue our advocacy efforts to urge Congress to sustain federal funding for the National Institutes ...

Opera audiences can feel the chemistry in romance-inspired classics like Mimi's aria from La Bohème, Cavaradossi's remembrance of his beloved while awaiting execution in Tosca and that young lady pining for her man with "O mio babbino caro" in the opera Gianni Schicchi. An article in ACS' Journal of Chemical Education, however, focuses on the real chemistry — of poisons and potions — that intertwines famous operatic plots. João Paulo André points out that opera, in addition to being a form of theater, can be used as a teaching tool for chemistry students and the general ...

A new discovery promises to allow expanded use of a mainstay biological pest control method, which avoids the health, environmental and pest-resistance concerns of traditional insecticides, scientists are reporting. The advance toward broadening applicability of the so-called sterile insect technique (SIT) appears in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology. Luke Alphey and colleagues explain that the Lepidoptera, a large family of insects with a caterpillar stage, cause widespread damage worldwide to cotton; apples, pears and other fruits; and vegetable crops like broccoli, ...