University Park, Pa. -- A device about the size of a dime can manipulate living materials such as blood cells and entire small organisms, using sound waves, according to a team of bioengineers and biochemists from Penn State. The device, called acoustic tweezers, is the first technology capable of touchlessly trapping and manipulating Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a one millimeter long roundworm that is an important model system for studying diseases and development in humans. Acoustic tweezers are also capable of precisely manipulating cellular-scale objects that ...

WASHINGTON — Innovation in computing will be essential to finding real-world solutions to sustainability challenges in such areas as electricity production and delivery, global food production, and climate change. The immense scale, numerous interconnected effects of actions over time, and diverse scope of these challenges require the ability to collect, structure, and analyze vast amounts of data. A new report from the National Research Council says that advances in computing -- such as ones that allow us to make trade-offs, understand complex systems and their connections, ...

A simple and cost effective imaging device for breast tumor detection based on a flexible and wearable antenna system has been developed by researchers at the Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. The team based in the Integrated Nanosystems Development Institute (INDI) describes details in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology and point out that their system holds the promise of much earlier detection than mammography. INDI's Kody Varahramyan and colleagues, Sudhir Shrestha, Mangilal Agarwal, Azadeh ...

A University of Texas at Austin research team successfully demonstrated for the first time that the GPS signals of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, can be commandeered by an outside source — a discovery that could factor heavily into the implementation of a new federal mandate to allow thousands of civilian drones into the U.S. airspace by 2015. Cockrell School of Engineering Assistant Professor Todd Humphreys and his students were invited by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to attempt the demonstration in White Sands, New Mexico in late June. Using ...

TEMPE, Ariz. – Scientists at Arizona State University have discovered that honey bees may teach us about basic connections between taste perception and metabolic disorders in humans. By experimenting with honey bee genetics, researchers have identified connections between sugar sensitivity, diabetic physiology and carbohydrate metabolism. Bees and humans may partially share these connections. In a study published in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics (Public Library of Science), Gro Amdam, an associate professor, and Ying Wang, a research scientist, in the School ...

For bacteria, snipping apart DNA that bears certain signature sequences is a defense mechanism. For scientists working in the lab, the same strategy can be a powerful research tool. With a newly discovered component of an adaptive bacterial immune system, scientists have identified a targeted method of slicing DNA that they say can be easily customized for a variety of applications in the lab. Tools that snip apart DNA strands in defined locations are essential for editing genomes in the laboratory to study or alter gene function. To target the specific site in the genome ...

GenSpera, Inc. (OTCBB:GNSZ) announced that a study titled, "Engineering the Plant Product Thapsigargin into a PSMA-Activated Tumor Endothelial Cell Prodrug for Cancer Therapy," was published in the journal, Science Translational Medicine, on June 27, 2012 (http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/140/140ra86). The manuscript documents the extensive pre-clinical data and rationale for the development of G-202 as a potential treatment for a variety of solid tumors in human patients. The paper also validated the enzyme, PSMA, as an appropriate molecular target for G-202. ...

PITTSBURGH-- A new study led by University of Pittsburgh researchers reveals that moderate amounts of alcohol--consumed in a social setting--can enhance positive emotions and social bonding and relieve negative emotions among those drinking. While it is usually taken for granted that people drink to reduce stress and enhance positive feelings, many studies have shown that alcohol consumption has an opposite effect. In a new paper titled "Alcohol and Group Formation: A Multimodal Investigation of the Effects of Alcohol on Emotion and Social Bonding," research shows that ...

SEATTLE – June 28, 2012 – A research team led by Seattle Children's Research Institute has discovered new gene mutations associated with markedly enlarged brain size, or megalencephaly. Mutations in three genes, AKT3, PIK3R2 and PIK3CA, were also found to be associated with a constellation of disorders including cancer, hydrocephalus, epilepsy, autism, vascular anomalies and skin growth disorders. The study, "De novo germline and postzygotic mutations in AKT3, PIK3R2 and PIK3CA cause a spectrum of related megalencephaly syndromes," was published online June 24 in Nature ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- You'd be amazed at how much you can learn from a plant. In a paper published this week in the journal Science, a Michigan State University professor and a colleague discuss why if humans are to survive as a species, we must turn more to plants for any number of valuable lessons. "Metabolism of plants provides humans with fiber, fuel, food and therapeutics," said Robert Last, an MSU professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. "As the human population grows and nonrenewable energy sources diminish, we need to rely increasingly on plants and ...

Cambridge, Mass. -– June 29, 2012 -- Imagine a kerosene lamp that continued to shine after the fuel was spent, or an electric stove that could remain hot during a power outage. Materials scientists at Harvard have demonstrated an equivalent feat in clean energy generation with a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC) that converts hydrogen into electricity but can also store electrochemical energy like a battery. This fuel cell can continue to produce power for a short time after its fuel has run out. "This thin-film SOFC takes advantage of recent advances in low-temperature ...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, U.S.A. (June 29, 2012) -- Cognitive skills such as learning and memory diminish with age in everyone, and the drop-off is steepest in Alzheimer's disease. Texas scientists seeking a way to prevent this decline reported exciting results this week with a drug that has Polynesian roots. The researchers, appointed in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, added rapamycin to the diet of healthy mice throughout the rodents' life span. Rapamycin, a bacterial product first isolated from soil on Easter Island, enhanced ...

An attosecond is a ridiculously brief sliver of time – a scant billionth of a billionth of a second. This may seem too short to have any practical applications, but at the atomic level, where electrons zip and jump about, these vanishingly short timescales are crucial to a deeper understanding of science. In a paper accepted for publication in the American Institute of Physics' journal Review of Scientific Instruments, a team of researchers describes an advanced experimental system that can generate attosecond bursts of extreme ultraviolet light. Such pulses are the ...

New York, NY (June 29, 2012) -- Under-performance of small bowel biopsy during endoscopy may be a major reason that celiac disease remains underdiagnosed in the United States, according to a new study published online recently in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. Investigators at the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) found that the rate of small bowel biopsy is low in this country. "The vast majority of people with celiac disease in the United States remain undiagnosed," said lead author Benjamin Lebwohl, MD, MS, assistant professor of clinical ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Water Resources Research (WRR), Space Weather, Journal of Geophysical Research-Earth Surface (JGR-F), Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres (JGR-D), Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans (JGR-C), and Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). In this release: 1. Section of Atlantic circulation driven by transient southern Africa current 2. Prediction system to protect astronauts from solar storms 3. Streamflow changes following the 2010 Chile earthquake 4. Reanalyses find rising ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – Topics in this new batch of Geology papers posted online 29 June include ecospace utilization; Little Bahama Bank; climatic asynchrony; oceanic crust; sand budgets; the Alpine fault's seismic hazard to New Zealand; volcano behavior; gravity oscillations; chemical weathering in the Critical Zone; giant wave ripples; the location of high peaks as a function of drainage network; and soils as ledgers recording transactions of energy and material between Earth's plants, rocks, water, and atmosphere. Highlights are provided below. Geology articles published ...

If the day seems a little longer than usual on Saturday, June 30, 2012, that's because it will be. An extra second, or "leap" second, will be added at midnight to account for the fact that it is taking Earth longer and longer to complete one full turn--a day--or, technically, a solar day. "The solar day is gradually getting longer because Earth's rotation is slowing down ever so slightly," says Daniel MacMillan of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Scientists know exactly how long it takes Earth to rotate because they have been making that measurement ...

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. is leading an international effort to develop and launch the High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C, on a sounding rocket from the White Sands Missile Range at White Sands, N.M. Hi-C is a next-generation suborbital space telescope designed to capture the highest-resolution images ever taken of the million-degree solar corona. Key partners include the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, University of Central Lancashire in Lancashire, England, and the Lebedev Physical Institute ...

Boulder, Colorado, USA – Mountain belts on Earth are most commonly formed by collision of one or more tectonic plates. The process of collision, uplift, and subsequent erosion of long mountain belts often produces profound global effects, including changes in regional and global climates, as well as the formation of important economic resources, including oil and gas reservoirs and ore deposits. Understanding the formation of mountain belts is thus a very important element of earth science research. One common but poorly understood aspect of mountain belts are the many ...

Ewing's sarcoma is a bone cancer commonly diagnosed in about 250 U.S. teenagers per year. If early chemotherapy is effective, improvement can be durable. But for children and teens who respond poorly to a first attempt at chemotherapy or if the disease spreads, long-term survival can be less than 10 percent. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published this week in the journal Molecular Cancer Research shows an important difference that may explain why some respond and some don't: the existence of high levels of the protein EYA3. "First, levels of EYA3 could ...

DARIEN, IL – Severe sleep loss jolts the immune system into action, reflecting the same type of immediate response shown during exposure to stress, a new study reports. Researchers in the Netherlands and United Kingdom compared the white blood cell counts of 15 healthy young men under normal and severely sleep-deprived conditions. The greatest changes were seen in the white blood cells known as granulocytes, which showed a loss of day-night rhythmicity, along with increased numbers, particularly at night. "Future research will reveal the molecular mechanisms behind ...

PeopleSurance announces that it now offers life insurance and health insurance in the state of New York.  PeopleSurance now offers life insurance from New York Life, Principle Financial, ING, and many other providers to residents of the state of New York.  PeopleSurance provides resources, including insurance videos, buyers' guides, and news and updates on health care reform.  PeopleSurance President Brandon Beavers states, "We are pleased to be able to continuously offer an expanding line of coverage for our clients.  The recent addition of New York to our growing ...

International Business Ethics Awards, the IBEA, identifies businesses that excel at business ethics, social responsibility and community involvement. Most business awards are based upon revenue growth or are vanity based, the IBEA process differs significantly. The IBEA is the first business ethics award of its kind that is international in scope and rewards businesses of all types, sizes, revenue levels and from varying industry segments. What truly makes the IBEA unique is the fact that professionals and businesses are nominated anonymously by third parties. Nominators ...

Pennsylvania Court Rules Sheriff's Sale Must Stand Despite Later Offer A three-judge panel on the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled recently that a sheriff's sale of real estate could not be set aside after a latecomer offered more than double the purchase price. The case arose from the sheriff's sale of a home in Middlesex Township, Pennsylvania. The property, which had been foreclosed upon, had an outstanding mortgage of about $204,000 when it was put up for sheriff's sale in September 2010. The winning bid at the sale was $255,800. About a month after the sheriff's ...

In California, Motorcycle "Lane Splitting" Legal if Done Properly Two cars, side-by-side, are motoring along two lanes of a California highway. Though the cars are only feet away from each other, a motorcycle cuts in, traveling in between the two lanes. This is known as "lane splitting," which is legal in California when done in a safe and prudent manner. When motorcyclists ride too fast, though, it can quickly turn fatal; motorcyclists are about 39 times more likely to die in crashes than car occupants, according to the California Office of Traffic ...