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Technology8 Feb 2013

Researchers explore quantum entanglement

Albert Einstein called quantum entanglement—two particles in different locations, even on other sides of the universe, influencing each other—"spooky action at a distance." Einstein made the comment while criticizing quantum mechanics as incomplete—the phenomenon of quantum entanglement seems to be at odds with Einstein's theory of relativity. "Eighty years after Einstein, quantum physics is still so mysterious that there are many different interpretations of its physical meaning. All the interpretations agree on what is going to be observed in any given experiment, ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

A*STAR scientists' groundbreaking discovery of nucleus structure crucial to understanding diseases

1. Scientists from Singapore and Germany have identified that the proteins lamin A (Lmna) and lamin B receptor (Lbr) are essential for holding silent genes in their correct position at the edge of the nucleus, in the form of heterochromatin . A deviation from their normal position will cause the genes to malfunction, leading to heart failure, vascular disease and muscle wasting. 2. For hundreds of years before this discovery, scientists were puzzled by why heterochromatin clustered at the edge of the nucleus and how it was relevant to normal cell function. This recent ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

Rooting out recurrent breast cancer

Due to chemotherapy resistance and a high rate of relapse, triple negative cancers are among the most difficult breast cancers to treat. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Carlos Arteaga at Vanderbilt University identified a protein, TGF-β, that is highly expressed in triple negative breast cancer cells after chemotherapy. In a mouse model of breast cancer, TGF-β both diverted cells down a path to becoming cancerous and allowed for cancer to come back after treatment. Importantly, loss of TGF-β prevented tumor recurrence ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

New insight into RASopathy-associated lymphatic defects

The RAS pathway is a cellular signaling pathway that regulates growth and development in humans. RASopathies are a group of diseases characterized by defects in RAS signaling. Many patients with RASopathies present with defects in the lymphatic system, which removes excess fluid from tissues, absorbs fats from the digestive system, and transports immune cells. To determine how alterations in the RAS pathway affect development of the lymphatic system, researchers at Yale University generated transgenic mice that expressed mutations associated with a RASopathy known as Noonan ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

Targeting T cells in rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder in which immune cells attack the joints, causing inflammation, swelling, and erosion. Specific sets of immune cells, known as T cells, are responsible for inducing disease. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Harvey Cantor at Harvard University analyzed the contributions of different subsets of T cells to an RA-like condition in mice. Cantor and colleagues identified a subset of regulatory T cells (CD8+ Tregs) that can remove pathogenic T cell subsets and inhibit disease progression. ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

JCI early table of contents for Feb. 8, 2013

Rooting out recurrent breast cancer Due to chemotherapy resistance and a high rate of relapse, triple negative cancers are among the most difficult breast cancers to treat. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Carlos Arteaga at Vanderbilt University identified a protein, TGF-β, that is highly expressed in triple negative breast cancer cells after chemotherapy. In a mouse model of breast cancer, TGF-β both diverted cells down a path to becoming cancerous and allowed for cancer to come back after treatment. Importantly, loss ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

Comparing mechanical clot removal and standard medical therapy for severe stroke

WASHINGTON – Results of the first randomized controlled study to evaluate a procedure that removes blood clots in the brain from patients experiencing severe strokes will be presented at the International Stroke Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii on Feb. 8. The study also evaluates if imaging techniques were helpful in identifying patients who potentially would benefit most from clot removal. In addition to the presentation, the full study, led by Chelsea Kidwell, M.D., professor of neurology and director of the Stroke Center at Georgetown University Medical Center, will ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

Yeast we can! New report answers questions on microbiology and beer

WASHINGTON, DC – February 5, 2013 – What do microbes have to do with beer? Everything! Because the master ingredient in beer is yeast – a microbe – and every step in the brewing process helps the yeast do its job better. A new freely-available report; FAQ: If the Yeast Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy: The Microbiology of Beer explores the synergy between microbiology and brewing beer. "Every time someone brews a batch of beer, in a very real sense he or she is doing a microbiology experiment. If you brew beer at home, you're a microbiologist.' says Dr. Charles Bamforth ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

Genetics Society of America's Genetics journal highlights for February 2013

Bethesda, MD—February 8, 2013 – Listed below are the selected highlights for the February 2013 issue of the Genetics Society of America's journal, Genetics. The February issue is available online at www.genetics.org/content/current. Please credit Genetics, Vol. 193, February 2013, Copyright © 2013. Please feel free to forward to colleagues who may be interested in these articles on population and evolutionary genetics; gene expression; genome and systems biology; and methods, technology and resources. ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS Population and Evolutionary Genetics Patterns ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

Combining plasma screening methods better identifies diagnostic and therapeutic targets

BETHESDA, MD — February 8, 2013 — For the first time, scientists have combined genomic and proteomic analysis of blood plasma to enhance identification of genetically regulated protein traits. This could be applied to any large association study of civilization diseases where blood plasma has been collected, vastly improving a clinician's ability to identify disease susceptibility in individuals and populations. This advance is published in the February 2013 issue of the journal Genetics. "We hope that combining genome-wide with proteome-wide screening of blood plasma ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

Putting our heads together: Canines may hold clues to human skull development

BETHESDA, MD – February 8, 2013 -- Man's best friend may touch our hearts with their empathy, companionship, playfulness and loyalty, and they may also lead us to a deeper understanding of our heads. In the article, "The Genetics of Canine Skull Shape Variation," in the February issue of the Genetics Society of America's journal, Genetics, Jeffrey J. Schoenebeck, PhD, and Elaine A. Ostrander, PhD, researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), review progress in defining the genes and pathways that determine ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

Physicians' belief about obesity causes impacts advice and care

How physicians view the causes of obesity may impact the advice they give their patients. The findings are from a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who compared the relationship between primary care physicians' beliefs about the causes of obesity with the frequency of nutritional counseling. They found that physicians who believed over consumption of food to be a major contributor to obesity were significantly more likely to counsel their patients to modify nutritional habits. The results are featured in the February 2013 ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

New strategy prevents rheumatoid arthritis in mice

BOSTON—Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have demonstrated a new strategy for treating autoimmune disease that successfully blocked the development of rheumatoid arthritis in a mouse model. They say it holds promise for improved treatment of arthritis and other autoimmune disorders in people. The scientists report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that infusing a highly specific type of cell that regulates immune responses into arthritis-prone mice shut down the cascade of inflammation that damages tissues and joints. The method worked best when the infusions ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

New brain-test app

Two years ago, researcher Josef Bless was listening to music on his phone when he suddenly had an idea. "I noticed that the sounds of the different instruments were distributed differently between the ears, and it struck me that this was very similar to the tests we routinely use in our laboratory to measure brain function. In dichotic listening, each ear is presented with a different syllable at the same time (one to the left and one to the right ear) and the listener has to say which syllable seems clearest. The test indicates which side of the brain is most active during ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

Implants make light work of fixing broken bones

Artificial bone, created using stem cells and a new lightweight plastic, could soon be used to heal shattered limbs. The use of bone stem cells combined with a degradable rigid material that inserts into broken bones and encourages real bone to re-grow has been developed at the Universities of Edinburgh and Southampton. Researchers have developed the material with a honeycomb scaffold structure that allows blood to flow through it, enabling stem cells from the patient's bone marrow to attach to the material and grow new bone. Over time, the plastic slowly degrades as ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

New insight on relationship between parents, preschoolers and obesity

PULLMAN, Wash. - While sugary drinks, lack of exercise and genetics contribute to a growing number of overweight American children, new research from Washington State University reveals how a mom's eating habits and behavior at the dinner table can influence her preschooler's obesity risk. The findings come from WSU alumna Halley Morrison's undergraduate honors thesis, which recently was published in the journal Appetite. As a biology major and student fitness instructor, Morrison knew she wanted to focus on health and the human body. She learned about the childhood ...

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Social Science8 Feb 2013

Babies born to immigrant women in Ontario bigger than those born in their mothers' native countries

TORONTO, Feb. 8, 2013—Women who immigrate to Ontario have babies who are bigger than those born in their native countries, new research has shown. But the babies of immigrant mothers from East and South Asia are still smaller than babies born to mothers who were themselves born in Canada. The typical male born to an immigrant mother in Ontario weighs 115 grams more than babies in her native country, said Dr. Joel Ray, a researcher and physician at St. Michael's Hospital. The typical female weighs 112 grams more than babies in her mother's native country, he said. His ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

Forensic pathology: tracing the origin of the Usutu Virus

The effects were dramatic: throughout Vienna it was impossible not to notice that the blackbirds were disappearing. Their melodious song no longer rang around the courtyards of the inner city nor woke tired partygoers in the outlying districts. The birds were simply no longer there. Thankfully, they gradually reappeared and a few years later their population had returned to its original levels. But the sudden crash in numbers was alarming and scientists rushed to find the cause. It soon became apparent that the birds had died as a result of a new kind of viral infection. ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

Support needed for children losing parent at early age

A study exploring the impact of early parental death has revealed the long-term damage and suffering that can be experienced by individuals in adult life if appropriate levels of support are not provided at the time of bereavement. The new research, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, describes the low self-esteem, loneliness, isolation and inability to express feelings of some individuals who lost a parent in childhood, with the effects felt for as long as 71 years after the bereavement. The researchers found common themes that affect the experience ...

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Engineering8 Feb 2013

3D printing on the micrometer scale

This press release is available in German. At the Photonics West, the leading international fair for photonics taking place in San Francisco (USA) this week, Nanoscribe GmbH, a spin-off of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), presents the world's fastest 3D printer of micro- and nanostructures. With this printer, smallest three-dimensional objects, often smaller than the diameter of a human hair, can be manufactured with minimum time consumption and maximum resolution. The printer is based on a novel laser lithography method. "The success of Nanoscribe is an example ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

Scientists using holiday snaps to identify whale sharks

Holidaymakers' photos could help scientists track the movements of giant endangered sharks living in the waters of the Indian Ocean. A new study, led by a researcher from Imperial College London, is the first to show that these publically sourced photographs are suitable for use in conservation work. Tourists scuba diving and snorkelling in the Maldives frequently take underwater pictures of the spectacular and docile whale shark, often called the world's largest fish. Conservationists have long hoped to use this photographic resource to help them trace the sharks' life ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

Evaluating evolutionary rates could shed light into functions of uncharacterized genes

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 8, 2013 – Genes that have roles in the same biological pathways change their rate of evolution in parallel, a finding that could be used to discover their functions, said a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the February issue of GENETICS. Humans have nearly 21,000 genes that make as many proteins, but the functions of most of those genes have not been fully determined, said lead investigator Nathan Clark, Ph.D., assistant professor of computational and systems biology at the Pitt School of Medicine. Knowing what a particular ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

For stroke patients, mechanical clot removal delivers no advantage over standard care

WASHINGTON – The first randomized controlled study to evaluate a procedure that removes blood clots in the brain from patients experiencing severe strokes finds it delivers no better outcomes than non-invasive standard medications. In addition, the study found imaging techniques were not helpful in identifying patients who potentially would benefit most from clot removal. The study, led by a Georgetown University Medical Center researcher, was published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine and simultaneously presented at the International Stroke Conference ...

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Medicine8 Feb 2013

Imaging acute ischemic stroke patients' brains did not lead to improved outcomes

The use of advanced imaging shortly after the onset of acute stroke failed to identify a subgroup of patients who could benefit from a clot-removal procedure, a study has found. The randomized controlled trial known as Mechanical Retrieval and Recanalization of Stroke Clots Using Embolectomy (MR RESCUE) was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, and was published online Feb. 8 in the New England Journal of Medicine. In patients with ischemic stroke (caused by a blockage in an artery), ...

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Science8 Feb 2013

Peer review matters to the public

People are bombarded with claims in newspapers and on the internet that are based on scientific studies. When faced with a headline that suggests an Alzheimer's drug increases the risk of heart attack or that watching TV is bad for children's mental health, or that pesticides are causing a decline in bee populations, people have to work out what to believe. Which claims should be taken seriously? Which are 'scares'? I Don't Know What to Believe: Making Sense of Science Stories... explains the peer review process – the system researchers use to assess the validity, significance ...

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