One of the first planets discovered outside of the Solar System, Tau Bootis b, has eluded numerous attempts to measure the light coming from its atmosphere and so has remained something of a mystery. Now, for the first time, an international team has used an innovative technique to unravel direct light from the exoplanet itself to reveal its mass and orbit. Their results will be reported in Nature on June 28. "The problem with exoplanets is that in general we do not know the orientation of their orbit as we see them from Earth," says team member Ernst de Mooij, a postdoctoral ...

NEW YORK (June 27, 2012) -- Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have developed and successfully tested in mice an innovative vaccine to treat nicotine addiction. In the journal Science Translational Medicine, the scientists describe how a single dose of their novel vaccine protects mice, over their lifetime, against nicotine addiction. The vaccine is designed to use the animal's liver as a factory to continuously produce antibodies that gobble up nicotine the moment it enters the bloodstream, preventing the chemical from reaching the brain and even the heart. ...

University of British Columbia scientists, in collaboration with an industry partner, have successfully reversed diabetes in mice using stem cells, paving the way for a breakthrough treatment for a disease that affects nearly one in four Canadians. The research by Timothy Kieffer, a professor in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, and scientists from the New Jersey-based BetaLogics, a division of Janssen Research & Development, LLC, is the first to show that human stem cell transplants can successfully restore insulin production and reverse diabetes ...

LA JOLLA, CA – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have developed a powerful new technique for manipulating the building-block molecules of organic chemistry. The technique enables chemists to add new functional molecules to previously hard-to-reach positions on existing compounds—making it easier for them to generate new drugs and other organic chemicals. "This is a basic tool for making novel chemical compounds, and it should have a wide range of applications," said Jin-Quan Yu, PhD, a professor at Scripps Research and senior author of the new report, published ...

Geckos are known for sticky toes that allow them to climb up walls and even hang upside down on ceilings. A new study shows that geckos have gained and lost these unique adhesive structures multiple times over the course of their long evolutionary history in response to habitat changes. "Scientists have long thought that adhesive toepads originated just once in geckos, twice at the most," says University of Minnesota postdoctoral researcher Tony Gamble, a coauthor of the study. "To discover that geckos evolved sticky toepads again and again is amazing." The findings ...

Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have uncovered a link between two genes which shows how stem cells could develop into cancer. The research, published in the online journal PLoS ONE, found a novel mechanism which could be the catalyst for stem cells changing into a tumour. Dr Ahmad Waseem, a reader in oral dentistry at Queen Mary, University of London who led the research, said: "It was quite an unexpected discovery. We set out to investigate the role of the stem cell gene Keratin K15 which was thought to be a biomarker for normal stem cells. "Through ...

Stem cells from patients with a rare form of muscular dystrophy have been successfully transplanted into mice affected by the same form of dystrophy, according to a new study published today in Science Translational Medicine. For the first time, scientists have turned muscular dystrophy patients' fibroblast cells (common cells found in connective tissue) into stem cells and then differentiated them into muscle precursor cells. The muscle cells were then genetically modified and transplanted into mice. The new technique, which was initially developed at the San Raffaele ...

Medical residents are an essential part of the hospital workforce. Although still in training the take on much of the day to day care of patients. A systematic review published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine shows that patient by properly supervised residents care is safe and of equal quality to that of fully trained doctors. Residency training is an essential part of a doctors education after they leave university. Once completed doctors are expected to provide high quality care and while many studies have looked at different aspects of residency ...

Standing for long periods during pregnancy may curb the growth of the developing fetus, suggests research published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Previous research has indicated that long working hours may increase the risk of birth defects, premature birth, stillbirth and low birthweight. The researchers assessed the fetal growth rates of 4680 mums to be from early pregnancy onwards between 2002 and 2006. Midway through their pregnancy, the women were quizzed about their work conditions and the physical demands of their jobs, including whether ...

A diet rich in vegetables could help stave off the development of the serious condition acute pancreatitis, suggests a large study published online in the journal Gut. Pancreatitis refers to inflammation of the pancreas - the gland behind the stomach, which, among other things, releases digestive enzymes to break down food. Occasionally these enzymes become active inside the pancreas, and start to digest the gland itself. In up to one in five of those with acute pancreatitis symptoms are severe and potentially life threatening. Previous research suggests that excessive ...

A heart attack doesn't just damage heart muscle tissue by cutting off its blood supply, it also sets off an inflammatory cascade that worsens underlying atherosclerosis, actively increasing the risk for a future heart attack. These findings from a study receiving advance online publication in Nature suggest an important new therapeutic strategy for preventing heart attacks and strokes, both of which are caused when atherosclerotic plaques rupture and block important blood vessels. "We have known for a long time that heart attack patients are at increased risk for ...

Geckos are known for sticky toes that allow them to climb up walls and even hang upside down on ceilings. A new study shows that geckos have gained and lost these unique adhesive structures multiple times over the course of their long evolutionary history in response to habitat changes. "Scientists have long thought that adhesive toepads originated just once in geckos, twice at the most," says University of Minnesota postdoctoral researcher Tony Gamble, a coauthor of the study. "To discover that geckos evolved sticky toepads again and again is amazing." The findings ...

Move over Elle Macpherson – the search is now on for the pig with the best legs as part of a new research project to improve the health and welfare of pigs on farms across the UK. The study, being led by Newcastle University, UK, was set up to see if we can predict from an early age whether a pig is at risk of becoming lame, simply by analysing the way it walks. Using video motion capture – a technique similar to that used in animation for Hollywood blockbusters such as Avatar and Lord of the Rings – the team measured changes in the pigs' gait, focussing on the angle ...

Scientists have identified a new mechanism of bacterial pathogenesis. The results of the research project, partly funded by the Academy of Finland, have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). Bacteria that cause chronic infections have an amazing but yet poorly known ability to subvert immune response, live and produce offspring, enter and wake up from a dormant phase to cause, in some instances, deadly complications. Bartonella bacteria cause chronic infections in mammals (incl. humans), ...

A new study confirms that doing short journeys on foot rather than taking the car or motorbike would avoid the death of 108 men and 79 women a year in Catalonia alone. This would imply annual savings of more than 200 million euros. Researchers from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Barcelona Public Health Agency (ASPB), headed by Catherine Pérez from the Healthcare Information Systems Service, have estimated the yearly economic benefits from a reduction in death rates by substituting at least one short vehicle journey for a walk. The authors conducted a ...

A condition that temporarily causes heart failure in people who experience severe stress might actually protect the heart from very high levels of adrenaline, according to a new study published in the journal Circulation. The research provides the first physiological explanation for Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also called "broken heart syndrome" because it affects people who suffer severe emotional stress after bereavement, and suggests guidance for treatment. Around 1-2% of people who are initially suspected of having a heart attack are finally discovered to have this ...

The exhaust from diesel-fuelled vehicles, wood fires and coal-driven power stations contains small particles of soot that flow out into the atmosphere. The soot is a scourge for the climate but also for human health. Now for the first time, researchers have studied in detail how diesel soot gets stuck in the lungs. The results show that more than half of all inhaled soot particles remain in the body. The figure is higher than for most other types of particles. For example "only" 20 per cent of another type of particle from wood smoke and other biomass combustion gets ...

Over 60 per cent of Swedish young people today have a smartphone, and in addition to telephoning and messaging, they use them to communicate via social media and e-mail, and to play games. Each year, Nordicom at Gothenburg University carries out a nationally representative survey of media use among the Swedish people. Media Barometer 2011 (Mediebarometern 2011) presents the results of the most recent survey. – Smartphones have contributed to an already notable increase in the use of computer games, particularly among young people, says Professor Ulla Carlsson. Online ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for controlling the crystalline structure of titanium dioxide at room temperature. The development should make titanium dioxide more efficient in a range of applications, including photovoltaic cells, hydrogen production, antimicrobial coatings, smart sensors and optical communication technologies. Titanium dioxide most commonly comes in one on of two major "phases," meaning that its atoms arrange themselves in one of two crystalline structures. These phases are "anatase" or "rutile." The ...

Scientists who search for new pesticides for use in humanity's battle of the bugs and other threats to the food supply have been learning lessons from Mother Nature, according to a new analysis. It concludes that more than two out of every three new pesticide active ingredients approved in recent years had roots in natural substances produced in plants or animals. The article appears in ACS' Journal of Natural Products. Charles L. Cantrell and colleagues point out that there have been many analyses of the impact of natural products – substances produced by living plants, ...

Concerns about terrorist attacks, the prospect of a rogue nation using nuclear weapons and the Fukushima power plant accident in Japan are fostering efforts to develop a new family of drugs that everyone hopes will never be used, according to an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. Ann M. Thayer, C&EN senior correspondent, explains that the federal government has launched programs to develop medical countermeasures against nuclear threats. ...

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2012 — The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series describes the first-of-its-kind "pyroelectric nanogenerator," a new device designed to harvest the enormous amounts of energy wasted as heat every year to produce electricity. Based on a report by Zhong Lin Wang, Ph.D., and colleagues in the ACS journal Nano Letters, the new podcast is available without charge at iTunes and from www.acs.org/globalchallenges. In the report, Wang and colleagues explain that more ...

One of the basic elements of cognition―the ability to estimate quantities―grows more precise across the first 30 years or more of a person's life, according to researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health. This intuitive grasp of numbers, also called an approximate number sense, or ANS, is tied to concrete math skills at every stage of life, the researchers found. Previously, the researchers have reported that ninth graders with a math disability were more likely to have an imprecise number sense. They also have found a correlation between ...

Grand Rapids, Mich. (June 27, 2012) –Van Andel Institute announces that researchers at Lund University in Sweden have published a study detailing how Parkinson's disease spreads through the brain. Experiments in rat models uncover a process previously used to explain mad cow disease, in which misfolded proteins travel from sick to healthy cells. This model has never before been identified so clearly in a living organism, and the breakthrough brings researchers one step closer to a disease-modifying drug for Parkinson's. "Parkinson's is the second most common neurodegenerative ...

Scientists are reporting an advance toward treating disease with minute capsules containing not drugs — but the DNA and other biological machinery for making the drug. In an article in ACS' journal Nano Letters, they describe engineering micro- and nano-sized capsules that contain the genetically coded instructions, plus the read-out gear and assembly line for protein synthesis that can be switched on with an external signal. Daniel Anderson and colleagues explain that development of nanoscale production units for protein-based drugs in the human body may provide a new ...