Athens, Ga. – Even when at rest, the human body is a flurry of activity. Like a microscopic metropolis locked in a state of perpetual rush hour traffic, the trillions of cells that make us who we are work feverishly policing the streets, making repairs, building new structures and delivering important cargo throughout the bustling organic society. For everything to work properly there must be something to organize and direct the various workers. Enter protein kinases. Like specialized traffic signals, this huge class of proteins is critical for many aspects of cell communication, ...

Researchers used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from a young patient with Long QT syndrome (LQTS), a congenital heart disorder, to determine a course of treatment that helped manage the patient's life-threatening arrhythmias. The results, which appear in The Journal of General Physiology, could lead to improved treatments for LQTS and other channelopathies, diseases caused by disturbed ion channel function. iPSCs—adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to function like embryonic stem cells—provide a valuable tool for studying diseases and ...

This press release is available in German. Animals have developed a variety of strategies for dealing with increasing noise pollution in their habitats. It is known, for example, that many urban birds sing at a high pitch to differentiate their song from the low-frequency sound of road traffic. However, as scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology discovered, this is just a useful side effect. The real reason for this behaviour is that songs at a higher pitch are also automatically louder. The birds can make themselves heard far better in city noise ...

This press release is available in Spanish. By examining what lady beetles eat, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are learning more about the movement of these beneficial insects in farm fields—and whether they'll actively feed on crop pests. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologist Jonathan Lundgren at the North Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Brookings, S.D., and former ARS entomologist Michael Seagraves were part of a team of ARS and university scientists that examined how a lady beetle's diet alters its feeding patterns and ...

Peering deep into the dim edges of a distorted pinwheel galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear), astronomers at Case Western Reserve University and their colleagues have discovered a faint dwarf galaxy and another possible young dwarf caught before it had a chance to form any stars. Within the faint trails of intergalactic traffic, the researchers also found more evidence pointing to two already known dwarf galaxies as probable forces that pulled the pinwheel-shaped disk galaxy known as M101 out of shape. M101 is the dominant member in a group of 15 ...

With 41 states having reported widespread and severe outbreaks of flu this season, timely new research sheds light on why less than half of the American population has gotten a flu shot. Despite widespread knowledge that a vaccine is the best way to reduce the chances of catching and spreading the flu, even three of the four main TODAY show anchors recently admitted they had not gotten a flu shot (until they did so live on the air). Using an online computer game that simulates the spread of an infectious disease among its players, researchers at Wake Forest University ...

In what they acknowledge as a seismic shift in the ethical foundation of medical research, practice and policy, a prominent group of interdisciplinary healthcare experts, led by bioethicists at Johns Hopkins, rejects an ethical paradigm that has guided the American system since the 1970s and calls for morally obligatory participation in a "learning healthcare system" more in step with the digital age. The group has authored a pair of articles outlining their arguments and proposal for a new ethical framework, which appear in a special report from The Hastings Center Report, ...

Think of the epigenome like a giant musical mixing board, turning up or down the expression of various genes. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today in the journal PLOS Genetics shows that in cancer, not only can genes themselves go bad, but abnormal changes in the epigenetic mixing board can unfortunately change the expression of these genes. Researchers hope to play the role of sound engineers, controlling these harmful epigenomic changes to turn down cancer itself or perhaps sensitize cancers to existing drugs. The epigenome's primary tool – ...

SAN DIEGO – New research suggests that testing a portion of a person's saliva gland may be a way to diagnose Parkinson's disease. The study was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 65th Annual Meeting in San Diego, March 16 to 23, 2013. "There is currently no diagnostic test for Parkinson's disease," said study author Charles Adler, MD, PhD, with the Mayo Clinic Arizona and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. "We have previously shown in autopsies of Parkinson's patients that the abnormal proteins associated with Parkinson's ...

Highlight While safe and well-tolerated, angiotensin II blockade did not lessen tissue scarring or prevent kidney failure in kidney transplant recipients. Angiotensin II blockade is known to slow kidney disease progression in individuals without transplants. Washington, DC (January 10, 2013) — A drug that protects the kidneys of patients with chronic kidney disease does not seem to provide the same benefit to kidney transplant recipients, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). Immunosuppressants ...

Thousands of individuals have had kidneys removed unnecessarily because doctors misdiagnosed their disease. A new, international study published in The Lancet indicates that approximately one of every five individuals with kidney tumors common in patients with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), a genetic disorder, has had a kidney removed. Moreover, 40 percent had some kind of surgical procedure performed. Proper diagnosis could have led to treatment that would have made surgery or kidney removal unnecessary, according to John Bissler, MD, a nephrologist at Cincinnati ...

Chris Martin has bred more than 3,000 hybrid fish in his time as a graduate student in evolution and ecology at UC Davis, a pursuit that has helped him create one of the most comprehensive snapshots of natural selection in the wild and demonstrated a key prediction in evolutionary biology. "We can see a surprisingly complex snapshot of natural selection driving the evolution of new specialized species," said Martin, who with Professor Peter Wainwright published a paper on the topic in the Jan. 11, 2013, issue of the journal Science. The "adaptive landscape" is very ...

January 10, 2013 Scientists engineer the Schmallenberg virus genome to understand how to reduce disease caused by the virus. Researchers from the MRC Centre for Virus Research at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have developed methods to synthesize and change the genome of Schmallenberg virus (SBV). SBV is a recently discovered pathogen of livestock such as cattle, sheep and goats. The researchers have laid bare important ways by which this virus causes disease. The full report about the study publishes on January 10 in the Open Access journal, PLOS Pathogens. SBV ...

Scientists have identified the chemical 'fingerprints' given off by specific bacteria when present in the lungs, potentially allowing for a quick and simple breath test to diagnose infections such as tuberculosis. Publishing their study today, 11 January, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Breath Research, the researchers have successfully distinguished between different types of bacteria, as well as different strains of the same bacteria, in the lungs of mice by analysing the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in exhaled breath. It is hoped that a simple breath ...

VIDEO: Professor Leigh’s molecular machine is based on the ribosome. It features a functionalized nanometre-sized ring that moves along a molecular track, picking up building blocks located on the path and... Click here for more information. An industrial revolution on a minute scale is taking place in laboratories at The University of Manchester with the development of a highly complex machine that mimics how molecules are made in nature. The artificial molecular machine developed ...

VIDEO: Scientists have created the first pure carbon nanotube fibers that combine many of the best features of highly conductive metal wires, strong carbon fibers and pliable textile thread. In a... Click here for more information. Rice University's latest nanotechnology breakthrough was more than 10 years in the making, but it still came with a shock. Scientists from Rice, the Dutch firm Teijin Aramid, the U.S. Air Force and Israel's Technion Institute this week unveiled ...

A new study out today in the journal Science turns two decades of understanding about how brain cells communicate on its head. The study demonstrates that the tripartite synapse – a model long accepted by the scientific community and one in which multiple cells collaborate to move signals in the central nervous system – does not exist in the adult brain. "Our findings demonstrate that the tripartite synaptic model is incorrect," said Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., D.M.Sc., lead author of the study and co-director of the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Center ...

Women with pre-eclampsia are at a higher risk of complications following delivery and should continue to be monitored for up to 72 hours, suggests a new review published today (11/01/13) in The Obstetrician and Gynaecologist (TOG). The review analyses the health risks associated with postnatal hypertension, elevated blood pressure that occurs after childbirth, and looks at the women at risk of this condition and treatments available. There is extensive literature on hypertension in the antenatal and intrapartum period, but there is little information on postpartum ...

Women should wait at least 12 months before trying for a baby following weight loss surgery and need further advice and information on reproductive issues, suggests a new evidence-based literature review published today (11/01/13) in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG). The review looks at the safety, advantages and limitations of bariatric surgery and multidisciplinary management of patients before, during and after pregnancy. With the prevalence of obesity among women of reproductive age expected to rise from 24.2% in 2005 to 28.3% in 2015, the number of women ...

Herbal and complementary medicines could be recommended as an alternative to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for treating postmenopausal symptoms says a new review published today in The Obstetrician and Gynaecologist (TOG). The review outlines the advantages and limitations of both pharmacological and herbal and complementary treatments for women with postmenopausal symptoms. The menopause is defined as the time after a woman's menstrual periods have ceased (12 months after a woman's final menstrual period). It is associated with an estrogen deficiency and can cause ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT engineers have created a new polymer film that can generate electricity by drawing on a ubiquitous source: water vapor. The new material changes its shape after absorbing tiny amounts of evaporated water, allowing it to repeatedly curl up and down. Harnessing this continuous motion could drive robotic limbs or generate enough electricity to power micro- and nanoelectronic devices, such as environmental sensors. "With a sensor powered by a battery, you have to replace it periodically. If you have this device, you can harvest energy from the environment ...

Ever since he was a kid growing up in Germany, Holger Müller has been asking himself a fundamental question: What is time? That question has now led Müller, today an associate professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, to a fundamentally new way of measuring time. Taking advantage of the fact that, in nature, matter can be both a particle and a wave, he has discovered a way to tell time by counting the oscillations of a matter wave. A matter wave's frequency is 10 billion times higher than that of visible light. "A rock is a clock, so to speak," ...

New research shows China's controversial One Child Policy (OCP) has not only dramatically re-shaped the population, but has produced individuals lacking characteristics important for economic and social attainment. In research published today in Science, Professors Lisa Cameron and Lata Gangadharan from Monash University, Professor Xin Meng from the Australian National University (ANU) and Associate Professor Nisvan Erkal from the University of Melbourne examined cohorts of children born just before and after the OCP was introduced. They assessed social and competitive ...

RAPID deterioration in mangrove health is occurring in the Sundarbans, resulting in as much as 200m of coast disappearing in a single year. A report published today (11th Jan) in Remote Sensing by scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) states that as human development thrives, and global temperature continues to rise, natural protection from tidal waves and cyclones is being degraded at alarming rates. This will inevitably lead to species loss in this richly biodiverse part of the world, if nothing is done to stop it. ZSL's Dr Nathalie Pettorelli, senior ...

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (January 10, 2013) –With millions of adolescent users, social network sites (SNSs) are a rich data source for academic research studies. But ethical guidelines governing how researchers should obtain and use this data is seriously lacking, says Tufts University's R. Benjamin Shapiro, Ph.D., the McDonnell Family Professor in Engineering Education at Tufts University's School of Engineering, in an article published in the January 11 edition of Science. "The use of social network sites for design research is accelerating but the academic research ...