Jerusalem Dec. 6, 2012 – A new understanding of what takes place on the cellular level during the development of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ALS and Huntington's diseases, offers promise towards possible new strategies for combating such diseases, say Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers. Neurodegenerative conditions result from an impairment of motor function or cognitive function or both. This impairment results from degeneration in the particular area of the brain responsible for those functions. Although these neurodegenerative ...

People who recall being absolved of their sins, are more likely to donate money to the church, according to research published today in the journal Religion, Brain and Behavior. Researchers from Royal Holloway and the University of Oxford assigned participants two memory tasks. In the first, they were asked to privately recall a sin that they had committed in the past, while in the second, they recalled attending confession for this sin or imagined doing so, if they had not confessed in reality. Each participant was also given an opportunity to donate to a local Catholic ...

We all have E.coli bacteria in our gut but each of us carries a version that is genetically slightly different. The same can be said of most gut microbes: our own gut metagenome, that is the sum of all the genomes of all our gut microbes, appears to be really specific to each of us, and to remain stable over time. For the first time, researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have studied this metagenome at such a high resolution that individual mutations in the various strains could be analysed. Their findings, published today in Nature, could have ...

Scientists at the Babraham Institute have gained a new understanding of when and how the DNA in developing egg and sperm cells is 'reset', in preparation for making a new embryo. It is well known that small chemical groups can be added to DNA to alter gene activity, these modifications to the DNA are acquired during development in the womb and throughout adult life and can arise from changes in environment. Most of these modifications are removed in immature egg and sperm cells to 'reset' the DNA and to erase any 'environmental memory', but some remain. Decoding this reprogramming ...

Fighting cancer using the body's own defense system is a promising treatment approach. Immune therapies have even become clinical routine in treating a few cancers such as malignant melanoma and prostate cancer. Natural killer cells (or NK cells) are considered to be particularly suitable weapons against cancer. They are part of the innate immune system and respond to a wide range of cancer cells of diverse origin. Moreover, NK cells also kill tumor cells that have lost a specific target and go unnoticed by other immune cells. "The big problem in using NK cells for therapy ...

The ice sheet in West Antarctica is melting faster than expected. New observations published by oceanographers from the University of Gothenburg and the US may improve our ability to predict future changes in ice sheet mass. The study was recently published in the journal Nature Geoscience. A reduction of the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland will affect the water levels of the world's oceans. It is therefore problematic that we currently have insufficient knowledge about the ocean circulation near large glaciers in West Antarctica. This means that researchers ...

Disgust – it's an emotion we experience when we encounter things that are dirty, impure, or otherwise contaminated. From an evolutionary standpoint, experiencing the intense, visceral sense of revulsion that comes with disgust presumably helps us to avoid contaminants that can make us sick or even kill us. But new research suggests that disgust not only helps us to avoid impurities, it may also make us better able to see them. If something looks dirty and disgusting, we typically assume it's contaminated in some way; when something is white, however, we are more likely ...

Research led by the University of York has found that the impacts of climate change on rare plants in tropical mountains will vary considerably from site to site and from species to species. While some species will react to climate change by moving upslope, others will move downslope, driven by changes in seasonality and water availability. The researchers believe that this predicted variation, together with the long-term isolation and relative climatic stability of the mountains, may shed light on historical processes behind current patterns of biodiversity. The study, ...

How well are the most important climate models able to predict the weather conditions for the coming year or even the next decade? The Potsdam scientists Dr. Dörthe Handorf and Prof. Dr. Klaus Dethloff from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) have evaluated 23 climate models and published their results in the current issue of the international scientific journal Tellus A. Their conclusion: there is still a long way to go before reliable regional predictions can be made on seasonal to decadal time scales. None of ...

TORONTO, DEC. 6, 2012—Rapid eye movements are significantly delayed in patients with glaucoma, even those in the early stages of the disease, research has found. The findings, led by Dr. Neeru Gupta, an ophthalmologist at St. Michael's Hospital, may shed new light on why glaucoma patients are at increased risk for falls and car accidents. Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness. Rapid (or saccadic) eye movements are the quick, simultaneous movements of both eyes in the same direction. They are involved in a myriad of everyday activities, from reading to ...

New research reveals that the greatest demand for liver transplantation due to hepatitis C (HCV)-related liver disease occurs among Americans born between 1941 and 1960. Findings in the December issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), suggest that continuing increased demand for transplantation is driven by the development of liver cancer in baby boomers with HCV, but that the demand may decrease as patients born in this time period continue to grow older. HCV is the most ...

Poor hand hygiene is often thought to be the main cause of outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. Although it is well recognized that utensils used for food preparation can harbor bacteria, a new study by Qing Wang and her colleagues from the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, USA, is the first to find that viruses can just as easily be spread by cross-contamination from utensils such as knives and graters. Their study is published in the Springer journal Food and Environmental Virology. The leading cause of foodborne illness in the US is currently Norovirus, ...

Scientists have identified the key molecular pathway leading to depression, revealing potential new targets for drug discovery, according to research led by King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry. The study, published today in Neuropsychopharmacology, reveals for the first time that the 'Hedgehog pathway' regulates how stress hormones, usually elevated during depression, reduce the number of brain cells. Depression affects approximately 1 in 5 people in the UK at some point in their lives. The severity of symptoms can range from feelings of sadness and hopelessness ...

December 6, 2012 — (Bronx, NY) — Children with sleep-related breathing problems (such as snoring or apnea) frequently have concurrent behavioral sleep problems (such as waking repeatedly) — and vice versa, according to research led by a scientist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. However, children with one type of sleep problem are not routinely evaluated and treated for the other. The findings suggest that pediatricians, respiratory specialists and sleep medicine specialists should work together whenever a sleep problem is suspected. The study ...

Thanks to improved data analysis techniques and a new operating mode, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is now 10 times better at catching the brief outbursts of high-energy light mysteriously produced above thunderstorms. The outbursts, known as terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs), last only a few thousandths of a second, but their gamma rays rank among the highest-energy light that naturally occurs on Earth. The enhanced GBM discovery rate helped scientists show most TGFs also generate a strong burst of radio waves, a finding ...

Researchers at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, have discovered a new genetic process that could one day provide a novel target for the treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as intellectual disability and autism. The research study, which appears in the December issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, was led by Carl Ernst, a Douglas Institute researcher, an assistant professor in McGill's Department of Psychiatry and a Canada Research Chair in Psychiatric Genetics. Ernst and his colleagues found that genetic mutations that negatively ...

Montreal, December 6, 2012 – Rows of new toys, endless racks of sweaters on clothing store shelves, long lines of books arranged in the bestsellers section at the bookstore. From mall displays to boutique exhibits, long lines of horizontally arranged products are the norm when it comes to the holiday shopping experience. But how does a product's placement on the storeroom shelf influence which one a consumer ultimately chooses? It turns out that the shopper's eye has a very central focus. "Consumers are more likely to purchase products placed in the middle of a display ...

WASHINGTON – A new method for detecting abnormalities in unborn children is providing physicians with more information to analyze the results than conventional, microscopic testing, according to two George Washington University researchers. Elizabeth Thom, research professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, and Julia Zachary, senior research scientist, are co-authors of the lead article appearing in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine showing that microarray technology provides a more comprehensive result from genetic testing during prenatal care ...

HOUSTON - Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found statins, the commonly used drug to lower cholesterol, improved progression-free survival in patients with inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). The retrospective study was presented today in a poster discussion at the 2012 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium and follows a previously reported Danish study indicating there is some evidence to suggest the anti-inflammatory properties of statins could reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence. Still, the overall effects of statins have ...

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Of the two bat species known to visit the flowers of the cardon cactus in Baja California, one depends entirely on nectar and is highly specialized to feed from the flowers, which are adapted for pollination by bats. The other is an insect-eating bat best known for its ability to hear the footsteps of large insects and scorpions and capture them on the ground. In a surprising result, scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have found that the insect-eating pallid bat is a more effective pollinator of the cactus flowers than the nectar-feeding ...

MAYWOOD, Il. - A groundbreaking clinical trial involving the breast cancer drug tamoxifen should prompt certain breast cancer patients to reconsider their treatment options, according to Loyola University Medical Center breast cancer specialist Dr. Kathy Albain. The trial is called ATLAS (Adjuvant Tamoxifen Longer Against Shorter). It included women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer that had not spread to distant organs. Women who took tamoxifen for 10 years had a lower risk of recurrence and lower mortality rate than women who took the drug for 5 years, ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Fit kids aren't only first picked for kickball. New research from Michigan State University shows middle school students in the best physical shape outscore their classmates on standardized tests and take home better report cards. Published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, it's the first study linking children's fitness to both improved scores on objective tests and better grades, which rely on subjective decisions by teachers. The study also is among the first to examine how academic performance relates to all aspects of ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Media articles and nutritionists alike have perpetuated the idea that for healthy metabolisms individuals should consume small meals multiple times a day. However, new research conducted at the University of Missouri suggests all-day snacking might not be as beneficial as previously thought, especially for obese women. "Our data suggests that, for obese women, eating fewer, bigger meals may be more advantageous metabolically compared to eating smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day," said the study's lead author, Tim Heden, a doctoral student ...

SAN FRANCISCO—Satellite observations have revealed the first direct evidence of smoke from Arctic wildfires drifting over the Greenland ice sheet, tarnishing the ice with soot and making it more likely to melt under the sun. At the American Geophysical Union meeting this week, an Ohio State University researcher presented images from NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite, which captured smoke from Arctic fires billowing out over Greenland during the summer of 2012. Jason Box, associate professor of geography at ...

A discovery that promises transistors – the fundamental part of all modern electronics – controlled by laser pulses that will be 10,000 faster than today's fastest transistors has been made by a Georgia State University professor and international researchers. Professor of Physics Mark Stockman worked with Professor Vadym Apalkov of Georgia State and a group led by Ferenc Krausz at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics and other well-known German institutions. There are three basic types of solids: metals, semiconductors, used in today's transistors, ...