A new study shows for the first time that natural killer (NK) cells, which are part of the body's first-line defence against infection, can contribute to the immune response against HIV. In an article in the August 4 issue of Nature, a research team based at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard reports that the HIV strains infecting individuals with particular receptor molecules on their NK cells had variant forms of key viral proteins, implying that the virus had mutated to avoid NK cell activity. "This study suggests for the first time that NK cells can impose ...

This result comes just one year after the start of the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea programme (VVV) [1], one of the six public surveys on the new telescope. The results will appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. "This discovery highlights the potential of VISTA and the VVV survey for finding star clusters, especially those hiding in dusty star-forming regions in the Milky Way's disc. VVV goes much deeper than other surveys," says Jura Borissova, lead author of the study. The majority of stars with more than half of the mass of our Sun form in groups, ...

Bremerhaven, 1 August 2011. For the first time researchers have examined on a global scale how calcified algae in their natural habitat react to increasing acidification due to higher marine uptake of carbon dioxide. In the current issue of the magazine Nature they explain that Coccolithophores, a certain group of algae, form thinner calcite skeletons when the pH value in the ocean drops. In marine ecosystems, changes in the degree of calcification are much more pronounced than presumed to date based on laboratory tests. These changes have an impact on the global carbon ...

SANTA CRUZ, CA--The mountainous region on the far side of the moon, known as the lunar farside highlands, may be the solid remains of a collision with a smaller companion moon, according to a new study by planetary scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The striking differences between the near and far sides of the moon have been a longstanding puzzle. The near side is relatively low and flat, while the topography of the far side is high and mountainous, with a much thicker crust. The new study, published in the August 4 issue of Nature, builds on the ...

Carbon dioxide remains the undisputed king of recent climate change, but other greenhouse gases measurably contribute to the problem. A new study, conducted by NOAA scientists and published online today in Nature, shows that cutting emissions of those other gases could slow changes in climate that are expected in the future. Discussions with colleagues around the time of the 2009 United Nations' climate conference in Copenhagen inspired three NOAA scientists – Stephen Montzka, Ed Dlugokencky and James Butler of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. ...

Unusually high clustering of last names within Italian academic institutions and disciplines indicates widespread nepotism in the country's schools, according to a new computational analysis. By comparing the frequency of last names among more than 61,000 professors in medicine, engineering, law, and other fields, University of Chicago researcher Stefano Allesina found the pattern to be incompatible with unbiased, equal opportunity hiring. The analysis, published online in the journal PLoS ONE, refutes the notion that recently publicized cases of academic nepotism in ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have identified a compound that attacks the Achilles' heel of certain cancer cells by depriving them of their energy source, the sugar glucose. Cancer chemotherapy can be a rough ride, in part because most of these drugs don't distinguish between what's cancerous and what's not. The chemicals attack all rapidly dividing cells, from cancer cells, to blood cells and the cells that make hair. However, drugs that target a biological phenomenon only found in cancer cells, such as the compound recently discovered ...

Deerfield, IL (Aug. 3, 2011) – An examination of the world's largest river basins found nutrient-rich and powerful river discharges led to spikes in the blooms of plankton associated with cholera outbreaks. These increased discharges often occur at times of increased temperature in coastal water, suggesting that predicting global warming's potential temperature effect on cholera will be more complicated than first thought, according to a new study published today in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. The findings by the authors will help give public ...

A combination of several well-known safety procedures could greatly reduce patient-harming errors in the use of radiation to treat cancer, according to a new study led by Johns Hopkins researchers. Radiation oncologists use more than a dozen quality assurance (QA) checks to prevent radiotherapy errors, but until now, the Hopkins researchers say, no one has systematically evaluated their effectiveness. Working with researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, the Hopkins team gathered data on about 4,000 "near miss" events that occurred during 2008-2010 at the two ...

For Immediate Release – August 3, 2011 – (Toronto) – Twenty-five percent of people who were hospitalized for depression were readmitted or visited an emergency room again for depression within 30 days of discharge, according to a new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The results are published in this month's edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. A team led by Dr. Elizabeth Lin, Scientist in CAMH's Social and Epidemiological Research Department, tracked hospitalizations for depression across Ontario and found that one-third of patients ...

MIAMI – August 3, 2011 -- Scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science have discovered a technique to track urban atmospheric plumes thanks to a unique isotopic signature found in vehicle emissions. Brian Giebel, a Marine and Atmospheric Chemistry graduate student working with Drs. Daniel Riemer and Peter Swart discovered that ethanol mixed in vehicle fuel is not completely burned, and that ethanol released in the engine's exhaust has a higher 13C to 12C ratio when compared to natural emissions from most living plants. In other ...

A University of Washington computer scientist is calling on the international academic community and engineers working in industry to take a bolder approach when designing how people find information online. In a two-page commentary titled "Search needs a shake-up," published in the Aug. 4 issue of the journal Nature, UW professor of computer science and engineering Oren Etzioni calls on experts to, literally, think outside the search box. The piece is being published on the 20-year anniversary of Tim Berners Lee unveiling his World Wide Web project. Etzioni doesn't ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — August 3, 2011 — During pregnancy, women are counseled to refrain from consuming certain types of foods, beverages and medications in order to avoid jeopardizing the health and development of the fetus. In fact, the American Pregnancy Association has a list of a dozen items they recommend expectant mothers omit from their diets. However, there are some additions, such as folic acid, that, when taken before and/or during pregnancy, can actually reduce the risk of birth defects and other disorders.1 Research presented today at the Era of Hope conference, a ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — August 3, 2011 — In their lifetime, women have more than a 12 percent risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer. 1 This week, research on novel approaches to breast cancer treatment is being presented at the Era of Hope (EOH) conference, a scientific meeting hosted by the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP). Existing breast cancer treatments don't work for everyone, and alternative methods and delivery systems for breast cancer treatment are critical to saving and improving patient lives. New approaches to be presented at Era of ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — August 3, 2011 — Research into new methods to prevent and slow metastatic breast cancer will be presented this week at the Era of Hope conference, a scientific meeting hosted by the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP). Approximately 6 percent of women with breast cancer will have metastatic disease upon diagnosis, and up to 30 percent of node-negative and 70 percent of node-positive breast cancers will relapse. 1 Common sites for breast cancer to spread are to the lungs, liver, brain and bones. Studies presented at Era of Hope ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — August 3, 2011 — A woman's ethnicity as well as her genetic makeup are two of the main risk factors for hereditary breast cancer. Research into understanding and treating hereditary breast cancer will be presented today at the Era of Hope conference, a scientific meeting hosted by the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP). About 5 to 10 percent of breast cancers are thought to be hereditary, resulting from defective genes inherited from a parent. The most common cause of hereditary breast cancer is an inherited mutation in the BRCA1 ...

Writing in the journal Annals of Botany, Professor Douglas Kell argues that developing crops that produce roots more deeply in the ground could harvest more carbon from the air, and make crops more drought resistant, while dramatically reducing carbon levels. In principle, any crops could be treated in this way, giving more productive yields while also being better for the environment. Although the amount of carbon presently sequestered in the soil in the natural environment and using existing crops and grasses has been known for some time, Professor Kell's new analysis ...

New research funded by the Wellcome Trust has shown that sending text message reminders to healthcare workers in rural Africa can improve the implementation of national guidelines for treating malaria. The intervention led to more patients receiving accurate antimalarial treatment. The study, published today in The Lancet, was carried out by researchers at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Nairobi. Within Africa, the adherence to national malaria treatment guidelines by health workers is vital in making sure that patients ...

The theory that our universe is contained inside a bubble, and that multiple alternative universes exist inside their own bubbles – making up the 'multiverse' – is, for the first time, being tested by physicists. Two research papers published in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review D are the first to detail how to search for signatures of other universes. Physicists are now searching for disk-like patterns in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation - relic heat radiation left over from the Big Bang – which could provide tell-tale evidence of collisions ...

Scientists have found opal-like crystals in the Tagish Lake meteorite, which fell to Earth in Canada in 2000. This is the first extraterrestrial discovery of these unusual crystals, which may have formed in the primordial cloud of dust that produced the sun and planets of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago, according to a report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Katsuo Tsukamoto and colleagues say that colloidal crystals such as opals, which form as an orderly array of particles, are of great interest to for their potential use in new electronics and ...

Scientists are reporting an advance toward a fast, inexpensive urine test to detect and monitor the effectiveness of treatment for tuberculosis (TB), which is on a rampage in the developing world. Their study appears in the ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry. A team led by Virander Singh Chauhan and Ranjan Kumar Nanda notes that TB strikes an estimated 10 million people and kills 3 million each year, mostly in developing countries. Health care workers diagnose the disease by identifying the TB bacterium in sputum or blood samples. But current tests tend to be time-consuming, ...

Scientists have confirmed the feasibility of using a new drug delivery system — the basis for a battery-powered skin patch — to administer medication that shows promise for treating peripheral artery disease (PAD) and healing stubborn skin ulcers and burns. The needle-free delivery of the medication, which cannot be given by mouth and can have side effects when injected, is reported in the ACS journal, Molecular Pharmaceutics. Yogeshvar Kalia and colleagues explain that the medication consists of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs), proteins that have shown promise for treating ...

Manufacturers of everything from smart phones to SUVs are starting to design products not just for the customer's use, but also for an often troublesome life after the consumer, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine. The cover story by C&EN Senior Editor Melody M. Bomgardner focuses on product stewardship, an increasingly popular approach to environmental protection in which manufacturers, retailers, users, and disposers share responsibility for reducing the environmental impacts of products. That means, for instance, ...

The European Respiratory Journal is today (04 August 2011) publishing the updated guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) that aim to help manage drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). The new document 'The WHO guidelines for the programmatic management of drug-resistant tuberculosis: 2011 update' focuses on priority areas for healthcare professionals in the diagnosis, treatment and care of drug-resistant TB. It also calls for more research to guide the management of the condition. TB is a pandemic that killed 1.7 million people in 2009, excluding those who died ...

U.S. production of ethanol for fuel has been rising quickly, topping 13 billion gallons in 2010. With the usual rail, truck and barge transport methods under potential strain, existing gas pipelines might be an efficient alternative for moving this renewable fuel around the country. But researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) caution that ethanol, and especially the bacteria sometimes found in it, can dramatically degrade pipelines. At a conference this week,* NIST researchers presented new experimental evidence that bacteria that feed ...