A research team led by scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has discovered that massive earthquakes in the range of 8 to 8.5 magnitudes on the Richter scale have left clear ground scars in the central Himalayas. This ground-breaking discovery has huge implications for the area along the front of the Himalayan Mountains, given that the region has a population density similar to that of New York City. NTU Professor Paul Tapponnier, who is recognised as a leading scientist in the field of neotectonics, said that the existence of such devastating quakes ...

Female university students get drunk – on purpose – quicker than their male counterparts, and live a more sedentary life than they do, according to a study by the University of Vigo. Results show that 56.1% of female students are considered binge drinkers, as opposed to 41.3% of males. Researchers from the HealthyFit group at the University of Vigo have studied university students' lifestyles; their analysis, which includes alcohol and illegal drug consumption habits, sport and food, concludes that most students indulge in unhealthy behaviour. One of the main results ...

It is a well known fact that children often swallow things. Children aged 6 months to 6 years are most often affected, but even adults sometimes end up with a foreign body stuck in their throats—and not only there. Peter Ambe, Düsseldorf University Hospital, and his coauthors review this clinical problem in this issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109(50): 869−75). Adults ingest foreign bodies mostly with their food. The most commonly swallowed objects are fish bones and chicken bones. The clinical approach depends on the characteristics ...

MANHASSET, NY -- People who study or treat Alzheimer's disease and its earliest clinical stage, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), have focused attention on the obvious short-term memory problems. But a new study suggests that people on the road to Alzheimer's may actually have problems early on in processing semantic or knowledge-based information, which could have much broader implications for how patients function in their lives. Terry Goldberg, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine and director ...

By showing that tiny particles injected into a liquid crystal medium adhere to existing mathematical theorems, physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have opened the door for the creation of a host of new materials with properties that do not exist in nature. The findings show that researchers can create a "recipe book" to build new materials of sorts using topology, a major mathematical field that describes the properties that do not change when an object is stretched, bent or otherwise "continuously deformed." Published online Dec. 23 in the journal Nature, ...

CHICAGO (December 28, 2012): When researchers from UCLA Medical Center investigated the link between racial disparities and appendicitis outcomes in children, they found that the type of hospital in which black, Hispanic and other minority patients receive care—community, children's or county—affects their odds of developing a perforated appendix. The study published in the January issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons is a first-of-its-kind look at the role hospital type plays in race-based treatment variances among this patient subset. Appendicitis—a ...

A new study, published December 27 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, finds that vector-borne and parasitic diseases have substantial effects on economic development across the globe, and are major drivers of differences in income between tropical and temperate countries. The burden of these diseases is, in turn, determined by underlying ecological factors: it is predicted to rise as biodiversity falls. This has significant implications for the economics of health care policy in developing countries, and advances our understanding of how ecological conditions can ...

Australian scientists have shown in the laboratory how a 'transcription factor' causes breast cancer cells to develop an aggressive subtype that lacks sensitivity to estrogen and does not respond to known anti-estrogen therapies. The research, which has significant implications for breast cancer treatment, is published December 27 in the open access journal PLOS Biology. Transcription factors are molecules that switch genes on or off. In this case, the transcription factor known as 'ELF5' inhibits sensitivity to estrogen very early in the life of a breast cancer cell. ...

(SALT LAKE CITY–Researchers have discovered that adding lovastatin, a widely used cholesterol-lowering drug, to traditional antimalarial treatment decreases neuroinflammation and protects against cognitive impairment in a mouse model of cerebral malaria. Although there are differences between mouse models of cerebral malaria and human disease, these new findings indicate that statins are worthy of consideration in clinical trials of cerebral malaria, according to an article published in the Dec. 27 issue of PLOS Pathogens. Malaria, a parasitic infection that is transmitted ...

A collaboration between researchers at the School of Biochemistry and Immunology and the Department of Microbiology at Trinity College Dublin has identified a mechanism by which the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) colonizes our nasal passages. The study, published today in the Open Access journal PLOS Pathogens, shows for the first time that a protein located on the bacterial surface called clumping factor B (ClfB) has high affinity for the skin protein loricrin. S. aureus is a major human pathogen, with the potential to cause severe invasive diseases. It ...

December 27, 2012, Shenzhen, China - A Chinese research team, led by Beijing Forestry University, BGI, Beijing Lin Fu Ke Yuan Flowers Co., Ltd, and other institutes, has completed the first genomic sequence of Prunus mume, known as mei. This work is extremely important for the deeper understanding of Rosaceae evolution and provides an invaluable resource for the improvement of fruit trees. The latest study was published online today in Nature Communication. As one of the longest-lived flowering fruit trees, the P. mume was domesticated in China more than 3,000 years ago. ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, December 27, 2012 -- Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's (BGU) Social Networks Security Research Group in its Department of Information Systems Engineering has developed a novel method to predict how well or badly a student will perform in an academic course. The information can be used to determine which students need the most help, as well as which ones excel and might be guided to further study or careers in that subject area. The paper, "Predicting Student Exam Scores by Analyzing Social Network Data," was presented earlier this month at the Advanced ...

Two studies in The Journal of General Physiology (JGP) help pave the way for a "shortcut" model-free approach to studying activation of "polymodal" ion channels—channels that open in response to multiple stimuli. Transmembrane ion channels respond to various physiological stimuli to regulate numerous cellular functions. Different classes of channels respond to different types of stimuli; some channels, for instance, respond to changes in membrane potential whereas others are activated by ligand binding. Polymodal channels integrate different cellular signals, enabling them ...

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (December, 26 2012) – Tufts University School of Engineering researchers have developed a novel method for fabricating collagen structures that maintains the collagen's natural strength and fiber structure, making it useful for a number of biomedical applications. Collagen, the most abundant protein in the body, is widely used to build scaffolds for tissue engineering because it is biocompatible and biodegradable. Collagen is, however, hard to work with in its natural form because it is largely insoluble in water, and common processing techniques ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – GSA BULLETIN articles posted online between 10 Dec. and 21 Dec. 2012 include a new version of The Geological Society of America's Geologic Time Scale. This paper marks the beginning of a special series of invited papers in celebration of GSA's 125th Anniversary in 2013. Highlights are provided below. 1. A new/revised GSA geologic time scale. 2. Complex mammal fossil record of the Gran Barranca, Patagonia, Argentina. 3. A new and simple method for estimating the rate of sediment delivery to ancient basins. 4. A study of the provenance of volcanic ...

Research using new technology shows that our ability to imitate facial expressions depends on learning that occurs through visual feedback. Studies of the chameleon effect confirm what salespeople, tricksters, and Lotharios have long known: Imitating another person's postures and expressions is an important social lubricant. But how do we learn to imitate with any accuracy when we can't see our own facial expressions and we can't feel the facial expressions of others? Richard Cook of City University London, Alan Johnston of University College London, and Cecilia Heyes ...

One approach to understanding components in living organisms is to attempt to create them artificially, using principles of chemistry, engineering and genetics. A suite of powerful techniques—collectively referred to as synthetic biology—have been used to produce self-replicating molecules, artificial pathways in living systems and organisms bearing synthetic genomes. In a new twist, John Chaput, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute and colleagues at the Department of Pharmacology, Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ have fabricated an artificial ...

PHILADELPHIA - Calpain, a calcium-regulated enzyme, is essential to a host of cellular processes, but can cause severe problems in its overactivated state. It has been implicated as a factor in muscular dystrophy, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. As such, finding and exploiting calpain inhibitors is an important area of research. A team from the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with the University of California at San Francisco and the Department of Biochemistry and Protein Function Discovery at Queen's ...

Nashville (Tenn.) - The decision by several states not to expand Medicaid health insurance for the poor may create unintended cuts for hospitals that provide uncompensated care, according to a study by John Graves, Ph.D., a Vanderbilt policy expert in the Department of Preventive Medicine. Graves used financial data from U.S. hospitals and insurance data in each state to predict cuts in Medicare and Medicaid disproportionate share (DSH) funds paid to the nearly three-fourths of U.S. hospitals that serve low-income patients. The results, published in the Dec. 20 issue ...

PHILADELPHIA - One of the world's most devastating diseases is malaria, responsible for at least a million deaths annually, despite global efforts to combat it. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, working with collaborators from Drexel University, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Johns Hopkins University, have identified a protein in human blood platelets that points to a powerful new weapon against the disease. Their work was published in this months' issue of Cell Host and Microbe. Malaria is caused by parasitic ...

Researchers from the University of Vigo, in collaboration with the Environmental Services Unit at the Alejandro de Humboldt National Park (Cuba), have discovered two new species of Caribbean orchid. The Caribbean islands have been natural laboratories and a source of inspiration for biologists for over two centuries now. Suffice to say that the studies by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the tropical archipelagos contributed to the emergence of the theory of evolution. In this case, a Spanish research team from the University of Vigo has discovered two new ...

UC Davis Health System is improving lives and transforming health care by providing excellent patient care, conducting groundbreaking research, fostering innovative, interprofessional education, and creating dynamic, productive partnerships with the community. The academic health system includes one of the country's best medical schools, a 619-bed acute-care teaching hospital, a 1000-member physician's practice group and the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. It is home to a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, an international neurodevelopmental ...

AURORA, Colo. (Dec. 27, 2012) – Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine have figured out intimate details of how the hepatitis C virus takes over an invaded cell, a breakthrough that could point to way for new treatments for the virus. Hep C hijacks the machinery by which a cell makes proteins and uses it instead to create proteins for the virus. Over the last two decades, researchers have figured out that Hep C uses an RNA molecule to do this. Now they're trying to fill in the details. One key detail is reported in a paper published online Dec. ...

(CHICAGO)--Researchers at Rush University Medical Center, in collaboration with researchers at Northwestern University, have identified a molecular mechanism central to the development of osteoarthritis (OA) pain, a finding that could have major implications for future treatment of this often-debilitating condition. "Clinically, scientists have focused on trying to understand how cartilage and joints degenerate in osteoarthritis. But no one knows why it hurts," said Dr. Anne-Marie Malfait, associate professor of biochemistry and of internal medicine at Rush, who led ...

Australian scientists have shown how a 'transcription factor' causes breast cancer to develop an aggressive subtype that lacks sensitivity to oestrogen and does not respond to anti-oestrogen therapies such as Tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors. Transcription factors are molecules that switch genes on or off. In this case, the transcription factor known as 'ELF5' inhibits sensitivity to oestrogen very early in the life of a breast cancer cell. In 2008, Associate Professor Chris Ormandy from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research showed that ELF5 was responsible ...