Water repelling molecules are said to be hydrophobic. The hydration – or formation of water interfaces around hydrophobic molecules – is important for many biological processes: protein folding, membrane formation, transport of proteins across an interface, the transmission of action potentials across membranes. It is involved as well in the process of creating mayonnaise, or in the fact that you can get rid of fat with soap. Hydrophobic interfaces although long studied, are poorly understood. Here's an amusing kitchen-table experiment to illustrate waters unusual properties: ...

Measles vaccine given with painless and easy-to-administer microneedle patches can immunize against measles at least as well as vaccine given with conventional hypodermic needles, according to research done by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the study, the researchers developed a technique to dry and stabilize the measles vaccine – which depends on a live attenuated virus – and showed that it remained effective for at least 30 days after being placed onto the microneedles. They also demonstrated that the ...

URBANA – University of Illinois scientists have found a way to boost current industry capabilities when it comes to reducing the number of E. coli 0157:H7 cells that may live undetected on spinach leaves. "By combining continuous ultrasound treatment with chlorine washing, we can reduce the total number of foodborne pathogenic bacteria by over 99.99 percent," said Hao Feng, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition. According to Feng, the USDA is looking for proposed technologies that can achieve a 4 to 6 log reduction in pathogen cells (a 6 log reduction ...

Researchers at the University of Southampton are to undertake a new stage of a study aimed at improving the health and mobility of those suffering from the common complaint of 'walking on marbles' associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) in the feet. RA is the second most common form of arthritis in the UK, affecting almost 600,000 people, which results in the destruction of joints around the body caused by inflammation. Forefeet often contain some of the first joints to be affected and those with the condition often say that they feel like they are 'walking on marbles'. ...

She is a captive bred Sumatran orangutan. He is a neuroscientist specialising in cognitive and sensory systems research. With the help of specially adapted eye tracking equipment they are hoping to explain some of the mysteries of the visual brain and improve the lives of captive bred animals. Dr Neil Mennie, from The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC), has received funding from Ministry of Science and Technology and Innovation, Malaysia (MOSTI) to study the eye movements of Tsunami — a seven year old orangutan at The National Zoo of Malaysia (Zoo Negara). ...

Some infants are more susceptible to potentially life-threatening breathing problems after birth, and rare, inherited DNA differences may explain why, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study is the first to identify a single gene — ABCA3 — that is associated with a significant number of cases of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in babies born at or near full term. RDS is the most common respiratory problem in newborns and the most common lung-related cause of death and disease among U.S. infants less than a year old. Their ...

Berkeley, CA — The installed price of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States fell substantially in 2011 and through the first half of 2012, according to the latest edition of Tracking the Sun, an annual PV cost-tracking report produced by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The median installed price of residential and commercial PV systems completed in 2011 fell by roughly 11 to 14 percent from the year before, depending on system size, and, in California, prices fell by an additional 3 to 7 percent within ...

Philadelphia, PA, November 27, 2012 – Delayed wound healing is a major complication of diabetes because the physiological changes in tissues and cells impair the wound healing process. This can result in additional disease outcomes such as diabetic foot ulcer, a significant cause of morbidity in the growing population of diabetic patients. A new study has found that topically applied simvastatin accelerates wound healing in diabetic mice, suggesting important implications for humans with diabetes. This study is published in the December issue of The American Journal of ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (November 27, 2012) – A test to detect brain amyloid deposits associated with Alzheimer disease (AD) provides doctors with useful information on treatment and further testing for patients with cognitive impairment, according to a study published online by the journal Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part ofWolters Kluwer Health. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans using a biomarker called florbetapir F18 can show amyloid plaques in the brain—a characteristic feature of AD. ...

PHILADELPHIA — Most healthy cells rely on a complicated process to produce the fuel ATP. Knowing how ATP is produced by the cell's energy storehouse – the mitochondria -- is important for understanding a cell's normal state, as well as what happens when things go wrong, for example in cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, and many rare disorders of the mitochondria. Two years ago, Kevin Foskett, PhD, professor of Physiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues discovered that fundamental control of ATP production ...

A new review of existing studies points toward a potential role for vitamin D in helping to prevent dental caries, or tooth decay. The review, published in the December issue of Nutrition Reviews, encompassed 24 controlled clinical trials, spanning the 1920s to the 1980s, on approximately 3,000 children in several countries. These trials showed that vitamin D was associated with an approximately 50 percent reduction in the incidence of tooth decay. "My main goal was to summarize the clinical trial database so that we could take a fresh look at this vitamin D question," ...

Log exports from Washington, Oregon, northern California, and Alaska increased about nine percent in the third quarter of 2012, totaling 412 million board feet, according to the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station. At the same time, lumber exports decreased about eight percent to 186 million board feet, compared to the second quarter of this year. "Sixty-two percent of West coast log exports went to China during the third quarter," said Xiaoping Zhou, a research economist with the station who compiled the data. "China increased its importation of ...

1. Task Force Reviews Evidence to Update Hepatitis C Screening Recommendations for Asymptomatic Adults In 2004, the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended against routine screening for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in asymptomatic adults who are not at increased risk for infection. At the time, the Task Force also found insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routine HCV screening for adults at high risk for infection. Since then, other groups have recommended screening higher-risk patients, including a recommendation by the Centers for ...

LOS ANGELES — Research conducted by University of Southern California (USC) and Children's Hospital Los Angeles scientists demonstrates that polluted air – whether regional pollution or coming from local traffic sources – is associated with autism. The study titled "Traffic Related Air Pollution, Particulate Matter, and Autism," shows that exposure to traffic-related air pollution during pregnancy and the first year of life is associated with a more than two-fold risk of autism. In addition, exposure to regional pollution consisting of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and small ...

What happens when the modern evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium collides with the older theory of mosaic evolution? Part of the answer comes from a new, wide-ranging study by paleobiologists Melanie J Hopkins at the Museum fuer Naturkunde Berlin and Scott Lidgard at the Field Museum in Chicago. Their results are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). While processes of evolution are largely studied by observation and experiment in the living world, evolutionary tempo and mode – rates and patterns of change, respectively ...

While ensuring the safety of high school and college athletes is hardly controversial, the method and associated costs of doing so are hotly debated. Conducting electrocardiographic (ECG) screenings of all young competitive athletes in the United States would cost up to $69 billion over 20 years and save about 4,813 lives, making the cost per life saved over $10 million, according to a study published online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. A corresponding editorial suggests that this number is inflated and "misleading" and blames the high ...

CHICAGO – Exposure to traffic-related air pollution, particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide during pregnancy and during the first year of a child's life appears to be associated with an increased risk of autism, according to a report published Online First by Archives of General Psychiatry, a JAMA Network publication. Autism is a diverse disorder with genetic and environmental factors likely contributing to its origins. Autism spectrum disorders are commonly characterized by problems in communication, social interaction and repetitive behaviors. Emerging evidence suggests ...

CHICAGO – A study of Medicare claims data suggests that eliminating payments for consultations commonly billed by specialists was associated with a net increase in spending on visits to both primary care physicians and specialists, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Before 2010, Medicare payments for consultations were substantially higher than for office visits of similar complexity that were commonly billed by primary care physicians (PCPs). In January 2010, Medicare eliminated consultation payments ...

PASADENA, Calif., Nov. 26, 2012 — Patients newly prescribed a cholesterol-lowering medication were more likely to pick it up from the pharmacy if they received automated phone and mail reminders, according to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine today. This is one of a few published studies to examine strategies for reducing primary nonadherence, which occurs when patients do not pick up new prescriptions. The study of 5,216 Kaiser Permanente Southern California patients found that those who received an automated reminder were 1.6 times more likely ...

The stems of shrubs have given researchers a window into a glacier's past, potentially allowing them to more accurately assess how they're set to change in the future. Their findings have been published today, 27 November, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, and show how a glacier's history of melting can be extended way past the instrumental record. Much like the rings on a tree stump indicate how old it is, measuring the width of rings on the stem of a shrub can give a good indication of how well it has grown year on year. Under extreme environmental ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- A new imaging technique developed at MIT offers the first glimpse of the degeneration of two brain structures affected by Parkinson's disease. The technique, which combines several types of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), could allow doctors to better monitor patients' progression and track the effectiveness of potential new treatments, says Suzanne Corkin, MIT professor emerita of neuroscience and leader of the research team. The first author of the paper is David Ziegler, who received his PhD in brain and cognitive sciences from MIT in 2011. The ...

For researchers who study Earth's past environment, disentangling the effects of climate change from those related to human activities is a major challenge, but now University of Massachusetts Amherst geoscientists have used a biomarker from human feces in a completely new way to establish the first human presence, the arrival of grazing animals and human population dynamics in a landscape. Doctoral student Robert D'Anjou and his advisor Raymond Bradley, director of the Climate System Research Center at UMass Amherst, with UMass colleagues Nick Balascio and David Finkelstein, ...

NEW YORK (November 26, 2012)—Scientists have developed a system to predict the timing and severity of seasonal influenza outbreaks that could one day help health officials and the general public better prepare for them. The system adapts techniques used in modern weather prediction to turn real-time, Web-based estimates of influenza infection into local forecasts of seasonal flu. Results appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Year to year, and region to region, there is huge variability in the peak of flu season, which, in temperate areas ...

Several drugs companies have ineffectively tried to produce antibodies that bind to the IGF-1 receptor on the cell surface, which has a critical part to play in the development of cancer. Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now ascertained how these antibodies work, and can explain why only some cancer patients are helped by IGF-1 blockers during clinical tests. The researchers also present a means by which drugs of this kind could help more cancer patients. Every cell contains thousands of tiny receptors that help it communicate with other cells. These ...

RENO – This week a pioneering study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and co-authored by Dr. Alison Murray and Dr. Christian Fritsen of Nevada's Desert Research Institute (DRI) reveals, for the first time, a viable community of bacteria that survives and ekes out a living in a dark, salty and subfreezing environment beneath nearly 20 meters of ice in one of Antarctica's most isolated lakes. Lake Vida, the largest of several unique lakes found in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, contains no oxygen, is mostly frozen and possesses the highest ...