An Asian elephant named Koshik can imitate human speech, speaking words in Korean that can be readily understood by those who know the language. The elephant accomplishes this in a most unusual way: he vocalizes with his trunk in his mouth. The elephant's vocabulary consists of exactly five words, researchers report on November 1 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Those include "annyong" ("hello"), "anja" ("sit down"), "aniya" ("no"), "nuo" ("lie down"), and "choah" ("good"). Ultimately, Koshik's language skills may provide important insights into the biology ...

Congenital diarrheal disorder linked to a mutation in DGAT1 Congenital diarrheal disorders (CDD) are a group of rare intestinal diseases that are caused by genetic mutations. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Robert Farese and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, identified a family with two of three children affected by CDD. The affected children both carried a rare mutation in the DGAT1 gene. DGAT1 mediates the formation of triglycerides and is being assessed as a therapeutic target in the treatment of obesity. The study ...

Congenital diarrheal disorders (CDD) are a group of rare intestinal diseases that are caused by genetic mutations. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Robert Farese and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, identified a family with two of three children affected by CDD. The affected children both carried a rare mutation in the DGAT1 gene. DGAT1 mediates the formation of triglycerides and is being assessed as a therapeutic target in the treatment of obesity. The study by Farese's group suggests that targeting of DGAT1 could ...

HOUSTON - (Nov. 2, 2012) – Notch – the protein that can help determine cell fate – maintains a stable population of basal cells in the prostate through a positive feedback loop system with another key protein – TGF beta (transforming growth factor beta), said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in the journal Cell Stem Cell. "When basal cell homeostasis (or maintenance of a stable population) is disrupted, it may be part of the process that initiates prostate cancer," said Dr. Li Xin, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology at BCM and a senior author ...

HOUSTON – (Nov. 1, 2012) – Researchers at Rice University have refined silicon-based lithium-ion technology by literally crushing their previous work to make a high-capacity, long-lived and low-cost anode material with serious commercial potential for rechargeable lithium batteries. The team led by Rice engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal and research scientist Madhuri Thakur reported in Nature's open access journal Scientific Reports on the creation of a silicon-based anode, the negative electrode of a battery, that easily achieves 600 charge-discharge cycles at 1,000 milliamp ...

AUDIO: This is an audio clip of Deborah Sweet of Cell Stem Cell interviewing Dr. Kyle Orwig of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine regarding his recent preclinical study "Spermatogonial... Click here for more information. A promising stem-cell-based approach for treating infertility has been successfully demonstrated in non-human primates, as reported in a study published by Cell Press in the November issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell. The preclinical study ...

LA JOLLA, CA – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have performed successful tests of an experimental methamphetamine vaccine on rats. Vaccinated animals that received the drug were largely protected from typical signs of meth intoxication. If the vaccine proves effective in humans too, it could become the first specific treatment for meth addiction, which is estimated to affect 25 million people worldwide. "This is an early-stage study, but its results are comparable to those for other drug vaccines that have then gone to clinical trials," said Michael ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Twitter's home page features a regularly updated list of topics that are "trending," meaning that tweets about them have suddenly exploded in volume. A position on the list is highly coveted as a source of free publicity, but the selection of topics is automatic, based on a proprietary algorithm that factors in both the number of tweets and recent increases in that number. At the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Information and Decision in Social Networks at MIT in November, Associate Professor Devavrat Shah and his student, Stanislav Nikolov, will present ...

Plant roots are surrounded by thousands of bacteria and fungi living in the soil and on the root surface. To survive in this diverse environment, plants employ sophisticated detection systems to distinguish pathogenic microorganisms from beneficial microorganisms. Here the so-called chitin molecules from microorganisms, along with modified versions, play an important role as they are detected by the plant surveillance system. Legumes, for example, build a defence against pathogenic microorganisms in response to simple chitin molecules. However, when the plant detects ...

This is the first study in the world to evaluate the risks posed to transport by weather phenomena on a country-specific and mode-specific basis. Among the EU Member States, Poland has the highest risk level indicator. The highest-risk regions are in the countries of Eastern Europe and in mountainous areas. Low-risk countries include Ireland, Austria, Luxembourg and the Nordic countries. The risk-level evaluation was conducted using a risk indicator designed by VTT scientists. The calculations were performed on substantial datasets and involved estimating the ...

New research from the University of Adelaide shows that Australia's Generation X is already on the path to becoming more obese than their baby boomer predecessors. Studies show that boomers currently have the highest level of obesity of any age group in Australia. However, new research by University of Adelaide PhD student Rhiannon Pilkington has revealed some alarming statistics. As part of her research, she has compared obesity levels between the two generations at equivalent ages. Using data from the National Health Survey, Ms Pilkington compared Generation X in ...

A new study has found that the sensitivity and recovery of UK butterfly populations to extreme drought is affected by the overall area and degree of fragmentation of key habitat types in the landscape. The analysis, published this week in the scientific journal Ecography, used data on the Ringlet butterfly collected from 79 UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme sites between 1990 and 1999, a period which spanned a severe drought event in 1995. The study was led by Dr Tom Oliver from the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) in collaboration with colleagues from CEH and ...

Philadelphia, PA, November 1, 2012 – There are a growing number of clues that immune and inflammatory mechanisms are important for the biology of schizophrenia. In a new study in Biological Psychiatry, Dr. Mar Fatjó-Vilas and colleagues explored the impact of the interleukin-1β gene (IL1β) on brain function alterations associated with schizophrenia. Fatjó-Vilas said that "this study is a contribution to the relatively new field of 'functional imaging genetics' which appears to be potentially powerful for the study of schizophrenia, where genetic factors are ...

Following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011, the German government took the nation's eight oldest reactors offline immediately and passed legislation that will close the last nuclear power plant by 2022. This nuclear phase-out had overwhelming political support in Germany. Elsewhere, many saw it as "panic politics," and the online business magazine Forbes.com went as far as to ask, in a headline, whether the decision was "Insane -- or Just Plain Stupid." But a special issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, ...

If you can't sleep at night, you're not alone. Around ten per cent of the population suffer from insomnia, where you have trouble falling asleep, wake up frequently at night, and still feel tired when the morning comes. – When you feel tired and indisposed, your performance at work suffers, says Børge Sivertsen, professor at UiB's Department of Clinical Psychology and senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Sleep apnoea is a more severe problem, affecting four to five per cent of the population. Sufferers can stop breathing for up to 40 seconds ...

On 6 June, the high-resolution stereo camera on ESA's Mars Express revisited the Argyre basin as featured in our October release, but this time aiming at Nereidum Montes, some 380 km northeast of Hooke crater. The stunning rugged terrain of Nereidum Montes marks the far northern extent of Argyre, one of the largest impact basins on Mars. Nereidum Montes stretches almost 1150 km and was named by the noted Greek astronomer Eugène Michel Antoniadi (1870). Based on his extensive observations of Mars, Antoniadi famously concluded that the 'canals' on Mars reported by Percival ...

A new study shows that African American women coinfected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are less likely to die from liver disease than Caucasian or Hispanic women. Findings in the November issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, indicate that lower liver-related mortality in African American women was independent of other causes of death. Medical evidence reports that nearly five million Americans are infected with HCV, with 80% having active virus in ...

In a new study appearing this month in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers have unlocked the complex cellular mechanics that instruct specific brain cells to continue to divide. This discovery overcomes a significant technical hurdle to potential human stem cell therapies; ensuring that an abundant supply of cells is available to study and ultimately treat people with diseases. "One of the major factors that will determine the viability of stem cell therapies is access to a safe and reliable supply of cells," said University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) ...

Computational medicine, a fast-growing method of using computer models and sophisticated software to figure out how disease develops -- and how to thwart it -- has begun to leap off the drawing board and land in the hands of doctors who treat patients for heart ailments, cancer and other illnesses. Using digital tools, researchers have begun to use experimental and clinical data to build models that can unravel complex medical mysteries. These are some of the conclusions of a new review of the field published in the Oct. 31 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine. ...

Troy, N.Y. – Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed an ultrasensitive method for detecting sugar molecules – or glycans – coming from living organisms, a breakthrough that will make possible a more detailed understanding of cellular functions than either genetic or proteomic (the study of proteins) information can provide. The researchers hope the new technique will revolutionize the study of glycans, which has been hampered by an inability to easily detect and identify minute quantities of these molecules. "The glycome is richer in information ...

Stem cells are a valuable resource for medical and biological research, but are difficult to study due to ethical and societal barriers. However, genetically manipulated cells from adults may provide a path to study stem cells that avoid any ethical concerns. A new video-protocol in JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments), details steps to generate human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) from cells in the peripheral blood. The technique has been developed by Boston University's Dr. Gustavo Mostoslavsky and his colleagues. Stem cells are unique because they can ...

(Nov. 1, 2012 – Chicago, IL) In times of financial hardship, or when opportunities arise, the ability to borrow can be critical. Some people rely on commercial lenders, while others depend on relatives, especially in developing countries. But a new study shows that the presence of banks and relatives together are better than any one source individually. The research, funded by the Consortium on Financial Services and Poverty (CFSP), suggests that not every household in a village needs to use the banking system directly in order to benefit in terms of buffering consumption, ...

Reston, Va. (November 1, 2012) – Molecular imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) has enabled scientists for the first time to visualize binding sites of caffeine in the living human brain to explore possible positive and negative effects of caffeine consumption. According to research published in the November issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, PET imaging with F-18-8-cyclopentyl-3-(3-fluoropropyl)-1-propylxanthine (F-18-CPFPX) shows that repeated intake of caffeinated beverages throughout a day results in up to 50 percent occupancy of the brain's A1 adenosine ...

Capturing and recycling ammonia from livestock waste is possible using a process developed by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers. This invention could help streamline on-farm nitrogen management by allowing farmers to reduce potentially harmful ammonia emissions and concentrate nitrogen in a liquid product to sell as fertilizer. The work was conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists Matias Vanotti and Ariel Szogi at the agency's Coastal Plains Soil, Water and Plant Research Center in Florence, S.C. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific ...

Harvard scientists have solved the long-standing mystery of how some insects form the germ cells – the cellular precursors to the eggs and sperm necessary for sexual reproduction – and the answer is shedding new light on the evolutionary origins of a gene that had long been thought to be critical to the process. As described in a November 1 paper published in Current Biology, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Cassandra Extavour discovered that a cricket, a so-called "lower" insect, possess a variation of a gene, called ...