DURHAM, N.C. – Researchers at Duke University Medical Center may finally have discovered why people with sickle cell disease get milder cases of malaria than individuals who have normal red blood cells. In a finding that has eluded scientists for years, Duke researchers discovered that genetic material in red blood cells may help alter parasite activity via a novel mechanism that alters parasite gene regulation. "One of the most interesting findings in our study is that the human microRNA (very small units of genetic material) found in sickle red cells directly participate ...

Melting over the Greenland ice sheet shattered the seasonal record on August 8 – a full four weeks before the close of the melting season, reports Marco Tedesco, assistant professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at The City College of New York. The melting season in Greenland usually lasts from June – when the first puddles of meltwater appear – to early-September, when temperatures cool. This year, cumulative melting in the first week in August had already exceeded the record of 2010, taken over a full season, according to Professor Tedesco's ongoing analysis. ...

In our zest for cleanliness, have we permanently muddied our nation's waters? A science team from Arizona State University, in collaboration with federal partners, has completed the first statewide analysis of freshwater bodies in Minnesota, finding widespread evidence of the presence of active ingredients of personal care products in Minnesota lakes, streams and rivers. These products are a billion dollar industry and can be found in antimicrobial soaps, disinfectants, and sanitizers to scrub our hands and clean countertops. Hundreds of antimicrobial products are ...

New research from New Zealand's University of Otago is casting doubt on a landmark US study that suggested infants as young as six months old possess an innate moral compass that allows them to evaluate individuals as 'good' or 'bad'. The 2007 study by Yale University researchers provided the first evidence that 6- and 10-month-old infants could assess individuals based on their behaviour towards others, showing a preference for those who helped rather than hindered another individual. Based on a series of experiments, researchers in the Department of Psychology at ...

LOS ANGELES (Aug. 14, 2012) – An experimental immune-based therapy more than doubled median survival of patients diagnosed with the most aggressive malignant brain tumor, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center researchers reported in Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy, published online Aug. 3. Median survival in a Phase I clinical trial at Cedars-Sinai's Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Brain Tumor Center was 38.4 months, significantly longer than the typical 14.6-month survival of patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma receiving standard therapy alone, which includes radiation and chemotherapy. Median ...

Long-term methadone treatment can cause changes in the brain, according to recent studies from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. The results show that treatment may affect the nerve cells in the brain. The studies follow on from previous studies where methadone was seen to affect cognitive functioning, such as learning and memory. Since it is difficult to perform controlled studies of methadone patients and unethical to attempt in healthy volunteers, rats were used in the studies. Previous research has shown that methadone can affect cognitive functioning in ...

A sense of fairness is an important part of human behaviour, yet a research team involving Queen Mary, University of London (UK) found it did not evolve from our closest living relatives. The study, published in the journal Biology Letters today (15 August) tested whether our great ape relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, have a sense of fairness like humans. The scientists, involving Professor Keith Jensen, from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, put the apes through a series of ultimatum games. One against the other, they had to choose ...

Philadelphia, PA, August 15, 2012 – Depression takes a substantial toll on brain health. Brain imaging and post-mortem studies provide evidence that the wealth of connections in the brain are reduced in individuals with depression, with the result of impaired functional connections between key brain centers involved in mood regulation. Glial cells are one of the cell types that appear to be particularly reduced when analyzing post-mortem brain tissue from people who had depression. Glial cells support the growth and function of nerve cells and their connections. Over ...

Web shops, Cloud Computing, Online CRM systems: Each day many IT systems require the user to identify himself. Single Sign-On (SSO) systems were introduced to circumvent this problem, and to establish structured Identity Management (IDM) systems in industry: Here the user only has to identify once, all subsequent authentications are done automatically. However, SSO systems based on the industry standard SAML have huge vulnerabilities: Roughly 80 percent of these systems could be broken by the researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Protection through digital signatures ...

One of the most sought-after goals in nuclear physics is an understanding of the structure of superheavy elements in the so-called "island of stability". These nuclei contain a large number of protons, and would ordinarily be ripped apart by the strong Coulomb repulsion between them. However, quantum mechanical shell-effects act to stabilize the nuclei, meaning that they can then live long enough to be observed in the laboratory. In order to understand these "shell effects", detailed experimental studies are needed. Such studies are unfortunately precluded by the fact ...

Biomedical engineer Muhammet Uzuntarla from Bulent Ecevit University, Turkey, and his colleagues present a biologically accurate model of the underlying noise which is present in the nervous system. The article is about to be published in EPJ B¹. This work has implications for explaining how noise, modulated by unreliable synaptic transmission, induces a delay in the response of neurons to external stimuli as part of the neurons coding mechanism. Neurons communicate by means of electrical pulses, called spikes, exchanged via synapses. The time it takes for brain cells ...

Marijuana is up to 20 times more potent than it was 40 years ago and most pregnant women who use the drug are totally unaware that it could harm their unborn child before they even know they are pregnant. Writing in the journal Drug Testing and Analysis, American researcher's state the argument that marijuana is a harmless drug is no longer valid due to the emergence of 'high potency' marijuana and synthetic marijuana which pose a potential real threat for pregnant women. They also express concerns that marijuana's increased popularity among teenagers and young adults ...

Brain scans have revealed distinctive features in the brain structure of karate experts, which could be linked to their ability to punch powerfully from close range. Researchers from Imperial College London and UCL (University College London) found that differences in the structure of white matter – the connections between brain regions – were correlated with how black belts and novices performed in a test of punching ability. Karate experts are able to generate extremely powerful forces with their punches, but how they do this is not fully understood. Previous studies ...

New research from Western University, Canada, has identified a potential new target for the treatment of melanoma, the deadliest of all skin cancers. Silvia Penuela and Dale Laird discovered a new channel-forming protein called Pannexin (Panx1) that is expressed in normal levels on the surface of healthy skin cells. But they found, in melanoma, Panx1 is over-produced to a pathological level. The researchers also discovered that if you reduce it or knock it down, the cell becomes more normal. The research is published in the August 17th issue of the Journal of Biological ...

Acute stress alters the methylation of the DNA and thus the activity of certain genes. This is reported by researchers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum together with colleagues from Basel, Trier and London for the first time in the journal Translational Psychiatry. "The results provide evidence how stress could be related to a higher risk of mental or physical illness", says Prof. Dr. Gunther Meinlschmidt from the Clinic of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the LWL University Hospital of the RUB. The team looked at gene segments which are relevant to biological ...

New research may help explain why hundreds of thousands of Americans a year get sick – and tens of thousands die – after bacteria get into their blood. It also suggests why some of those bloodstream infections resist treatment with even the most powerful antibiotics. In a new paper in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, a team of University of Michigan researchers demonstrate that bacteria can form antibiotic-resistant clumps in a short time, even in a flowing liquid such as the blood. The researchers made the discovery by building a special device that closely simulates ...

New Rochelle, NY, August 15, 2012—Childhood Obesity, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers, has published a special issue dedicated to the role that schools can and should play in providing and encouraging healthy nutrition and good eating habits to help stem the tide of the obesity epidemic in children and adolescents. The special issue provides comprehensive coverage of food policy, systems, and programs to improve food culture, practices, and nutrition standards in the school environment, and is available free on the Childhood Obesity website ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A group of Kansas State University researchers has made valuable findings in the search for cancer's cure. While researching ways to improve animal health, the scientists -- Raymond "Bob" Rowland, a virologist and professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, and Deryl Troyer, professor of anatomy and physiology --have made two important discoveries that can also improve human health. Not only have they found pigs with severe combined immunodeficiency, or SCID, but they are also the first to discover the connection with human cancer, particularly ...

Dieters often use online calorie calculators to stay true to their weight-loss plan. Translating the concept to the population health arena, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health created the Caloric Calculator to help policymakers, school district administrators, and others assess the potential impact of health policy choices on childhood obesity. Select a target population (middle-school-age boys, for example) and the Caloric Calculator tells you the percentage of this group who are obese (18%) and the average daily calorie cuts necessary ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2012 — The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series describes a potential new approach for treating urinary tract infections (UTIs) — which affect millions of people annually — without traditional antibiotics. Because it involves non-antibiotic compounds, the approach would not contribute to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or "superbugs." Based on a report by Beat Ernst, Ph.D., and colleagues in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, the new podcast ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2012 — Progress toward developing an alternative to organ transplantations in which doctors could actually grow a new heart or liver for a patient is among the topics in the 2012 premier of a popular video series from the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The videos are available at www.acs.org/PrizedScience and on DVD. Titled Prized Science: How the Science Behind American Chemical Society Awards Impacts Your Life, the first episode of the 2012 series features the research of Dr. Robert Langer, winner of the ...

VIDEO: This computer animation, created using new software called Arepo, simulates nine billion years of cosmic history. Arepo can accurately follow the birth and evolution of thousands of galaxies over billions... Click here for more information. Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and their colleagues at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS) have invented a new computational approach that can accurately follow the birth and ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A professor at Michigan State University is part of a team developing a new method of removing phosphorous from our wastewater – a problem seriously affecting lakes and streams across the country. In addition, Steven Safferman, an associate professor of biosystems and agricultural engineering, and colleagues at Columbus, Ohio, based-MetaMateria Technologies, are devising a cost-effective way of recovering the phosphorous, which then can be reused for fertilizer products. Although its use is regulated in many states, including Michigan, in items ...

In public comments submitted yesterday, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) applauds the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Center for Veterinary Biologics (CVB) for announcing its plans to allow firms to secure exemptions from the target animal batch safety tests (TABST) that have until now been required for each batch of veterinary biologics products, including live and inactivated vaccines. In draft memorandum 453, USDA states that CVB intends to consider TABST exemptions in line with recommendations in the TABST waiver guideline drafted by ...

Amid policy debate over potential liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the United States, a new paper from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy predicts the long-term volume of exports from the U.S. will not likely be very large. The paper also argues that the impact on U.S. domestic natural gas prices will not be large if exports are allowed by the U.S government. Significant changes in the global gas market in the past decade, particularly the emergence of shale in North America, have dramatically altered the global outlook for LNG markets and ...