In a paper published in the July 11 online issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified two key regulatory proteins critical to clearing away misfolded proteins that accumulate and cause the progressive, deadly neurodegeneration of Huntington's disease (HD). The findings explain a fundamental aspect of how HD wreaks havoc within cells and provides "clear, therapeutic opportunities," said principal investigator Albert R. La Spada, MD, PhD, professor of cellular and molecular medicine, ...

OAKLAND, Calif. July 11, 2012 – Weight loss that occurs in conjunction with a low-fat, high fruit and vegetable diet may help to reduce or eliminate hot flashes and night sweats associated with menopause, according to a Kaiser Permanente Division of Research study that appears in the current issue of Menopause. This Women's Health Initiative study of 17,473 women found that women on a diet low in fat and high in whole grains, fruit and vegetables, who had menopausal symptoms, who were not taking hormone replacement therapy, and who lost weight (10 or more pounds or 10 ...

What can explain extreme differences in altruism among individuals, from Ebenezer Scrooge to Mother Teresa? It may all come down to variation in the size and activity of a brain region involved in appreciating others' perspectives, according to a study published by Cell Press in the July 12th issue of the journal Neuron. The findings also provide a neural explanation for why altruistic tendencies remain stable over time. "This is the first study to link both brain anatomy and brain activation to human altruism," says senior study author Ernst Fehr of the University of ...

Lifestyle behaviour in adolescents may adversely affect blood pressure and cardiovascular risk in adulthood, according to results from a large pregnancy follow-up study in Australia.(1) In particular, alcohol consumption among boys, use of the Pill among girls, and high salt intake and increasing body mass index (BMI) in both sexes were important factors linked to blood pressure levels in late adolescence. The substantial differences in blood pressure found in the study between those with a healthier or less favourable lifestyle "are likely to significantly affect their ...

Scientists have found that Native American populations — from Canada to the southern tip of Chile — arose from at least three migrations, with the majority descended entirely from a single group of First American migrants that crossed over through Beringia, a land bridge between Asia and America that existed during the ice ages, more than 15,000 years ago. By studying variations in Native American DNA sequences, the international team found that while most of the Native American populations arose from the first migration, two subsequent migrations also made important genetic ...

Dark galaxies are small, gas-rich galaxies in the early Universe that are very inefficient at forming stars. They are predicted by theories of galaxy formation and are thought to be the building blocks of today's bright, star-filled galaxies. Astronomers think that they may have fed large galaxies with much of the gas that later formed into the stars that exist today. Because they are essentially devoid of stars, these dark galaxies don't emit much light, making them very hard to detect. For years astronomers have been trying to develop new techniques that could confirm ...

Boston, MA—Until recently, it seemed well-established that high-density lipoprotein (HDL) is the "good cholesterol". However there are many unanswered questions on whether raising someone's HDL can prevent coronary heart disease, and on whether or not HDL still matters. A team of researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) and other institutions, have discovered that measuring HDL particles (HDL-P) as opposed to HDL cholesterol (HDL-C) is a much better indicator of coronary heart disease (CHD), ...

Cambridge, Mass. – July 11, 2012 – Living organisms have developed sophisticated ways to maintain stability in a changing environment, withstanding fluctuations in temperature, pH, pressure, and the presence or absence of crucial molecules. The integration of similar features in artificial materials, however, has remained a challenge—until now. In the July 12 issue of Nature, a Harvard-led team of engineers presented a strategy for building self-thermoregulating nanomaterials that can, in principle, be tailored to maintain a set pH, pressure, or just about any other desired ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Researchers who are studying a new magnetic effect that converts heat to electricity have discovered how to amplify it a thousand times over - a first step in making the technology more practical. In the so-called spin Seebeck effect, the spin of electrons creates a current in magnetic materials, which is detected as a voltage in an adjacent metal. Ohio State University researchers have figured out how to create a similar effect in a non-magnetic semiconductor while producing more electrical power. They've named the amplified effect the "giant spin-Seebeck" ...

BOSTON, MA—Is anxiety related to premature aging? A new study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) shows that a common form of anxiety, known as phobic anxiety, was associated with shorter telomeres in middle-aged and older women. The study suggests that phobic anxiety is a possible risk factor for accelerated aging. The study will be electronically published on July 11, 2012 in PLoS ONE. Telomeres are DNA-protein complexes at the ends of chromosomes. They protect chromosomes from deteriorating and guard the genetic information at the ends of chromosomes ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Among patients with mild or no cognitive impairment, brain scans using a new radioactive dye can detect early evidence of Alzheimer's disease that may predict future decline, according to a multi-center study led by researchers at Duke University Medical Center. The finding is published online July 11, 2012, in the journal Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. It expands on smaller studies demonstrating that early detection of tell-tale plaques could be a predictive tool to help guide care and treatment decisions for patients ...

BETHESDA, MD – July 11, 2012 -- Important insights that explain why our ability to ward off infection declines with age are published in a new research report in the July 2012 issue of the Genetics Society of America's journal, GENETICS (http://www.genetics.org/). A team of U.S. scientists identified genes responsible for this decline by examining fruit flies – a model organism often used to study human biology in an experimentally tractable system – at different stages of their lives. They found that a completely different set of genes is responsible for warding off infection ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have laid bare a novel molecular mechanism responsible for the most important symptom of major depression: anhedonia, the loss of the ability to experience pleasure. While their study was conducted in mice, the brain circuit involved in this newly elucidated pathway is largely identical between rodents and humans, upping the odds that the findings point toward new therapies for depression and other disorders. Additionally, opinion leaders hailed the study's inventive methodology, saying it may offer ...

Bethesda, MD—July 11, 2012 – Listed below are the selected highlights for the July 2012 issue of the Genetics Society of America's journal, Genetics. The July issue is available online at www.genetics.org/content/current. Please credit Genetics, Vol. 191, JULY 2012, Copyright © 2012. ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS Increasing association mapping power and resolution in mouse genetic studies through the use of meta-analysis for structured populations, pp. 959-967 Nicholas A. Furlotte, Eun Yong Kang, Atila Van Nas, Charles R. Farber, Aldons J. Lusis, and Eleazar Eskin Because ...

PHOENIX, Ariz. — July 11, 2012 — Researchers at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) have developed a method of isolating biospecimens that could lead to a less costly, less invasive and more accurate way of diagnosing chronic kidney disease, or CKD. CKD is a major complication of diabetes, high blood pressure and a form of kidney disease known as glomerulonephritis, which is characterized by a progressive deterioration of the kidney's ability to filter waste from the blood. TGen's customized procedure produced high amounts of protein-rich urinary exosomes, ...

The cause of rapid sea level rise in the past has been found by scientists at the University of Bristol using climate and ice sheet models. The process, named 'saddle-collapse', was found to be the cause of two rapid sea level rise events: the Meltwater pulse 1a (MWP1a) around 14,600 years ago and the '8,200 year' event. The research is published today in Nature. Using a climate model, Dr Lauren Gregoire of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences and colleagues unearthed the series of events that led to saddle-collapse in which domes of ice over North America ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Cellular change thought to happen only in late-stage cancers to help tumors spread also occurs in early-stage lung cancer as a way to bypass growth controls, say researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida. The finding, reported in the July 11 issue of Science Translational Medicine, represents a new understanding of the extent of transformation that lung cancer — and likely many other tumor types — undergo early in disease development, the scientists say. They add that the discovery also points to a potential strategy to halt this process, known as epithelial-mesenchymal ...

A new study suggests that global budgets for health care, an alternative to the traditional fee-for-service model of reimbursement, can slow the growth of medical spending and improve the quality of care for patients. Researchers from Harvard Medical School's Department of Health Care Policy have analyzed claims data from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts's Alternative Quality Contract (AQC), a global budget program in which 11 health care provider organizations were given a budget to care for patients who use BCBSMA insurance. Such a model contrasts with widely ...

AUDIO: A change in the formula of a frequently abused prescription painkiller seems to have convinced many drug abusers to switch to a substance that’s potentially more dangerous. Washington university researchers... Click here for more information. A change in the formula of the frequently abused prescription painkiller OxyContin has many abusers switching to a drug that is potentially more dangerous, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in ...

Scientists have assembled the most detailed chronology to date of the human brain's long, slow slide into full-blown Alzheimer's disease. The timeline, developed through research led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, appears July 11 in The New England Journal of Medicine. As part of an international research partnership known as the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer's Network (DIAN), scientists at Washington University and elsewhere evaluated a variety of pre-symptomatic markers of Alzheimer's disease in 128 subjects from families ...

Menopausal hormone therapy use is associated with higher odds of high blood pressure, according to research published July 11 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. Longer hormone use was associated with further increased odds of high blood pressure, although this association decreased with subjects' ages. The authors of the study, led by Joanne Lind of the University of Western Sydney, included 43,405 postmenopausal women in their study to identify the association. As Dr. Lind explains, the study shows that "longer use of menopausal hormone therapy is associated with ...

Sharing a meal with a former romantic partner is more likely than other, non-food-related activities to make your current partner jealous, according to a study published July 11 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The authors, led by Kevin Kniffin of Cornell University, asked undergraduate students to rate their jealousy in response to hypothetical scenarios involving their romantic partner engaging with a former partner, either by email, phone, coffee, or a meal. They found that a meal elicited the highest jealousy ratings, potentially pointing to the importance of ...

When the human genome project was completed in 2003, some expected it to herald a new age of personalized genomic medicine, but the resulting single "reference" sequence has significant shortcomings for these applications and does not account for the actual variability in the human population, as reported in a study published July 11 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. Using genomic data from a large number of individuals, the authors of the study, led by Todd Smith of PerkinElmer in Seattle, Washington, show that current genomic research resources and bioinformatics ...

Researchers have found evidence of the earliest known instance of domesticated caprines (sheep and goats) in southern Africa, dated to the end of the first millennium BC, providing new data to the ongoing debate about the origins of domestication and herding practices in this region. The full results are published July 11 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, led by David Pleurdeau of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and Eugène Marais of the National Museum of Namibia, investigated remains from Leopard Cave in Namibia. They could not determine ...

New research refutes a commonly held belief that certain eye movements are associated with lying. The idea that looking to the right indicates lying, while looking left suggests truth telling, is shown to be false in a report published July 11 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, led by Caroline Watt of the University of Edinburgh, completed three different studies to show that there was no correlation between the direction of eye movement and whether the subject was telling the truth or lying. "A large percentage of the public believes that certain eye ...