WASHINGTON – Federal agencies have started taking steps to address the recommendations in a 2010 report from the presidential bioethics commission to improve the governance of synthetic biology research and development, though the government has not fully addressed any of the report recommendations, according to a scorecard tracking the efforts. The Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars launched the web-based Synthetic Biology Scorecard in February to track federal and non-federal efforts to implement the recommendations in ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Clogged printer nozzles waste time and money while reducing print quality. University of Missouri engineers recently invented a clog-preventing nozzle cover by mimicking the human eye. "The nozzle cover we invented was inspired by the human eye," said Jae Wan Kwon, associate professor in the College of Engineering. "The eye and an ink jet nozzle have a common problem: they must not be allowed to dry while, simultaneously, they must open. We used biomimicry, the imitation of nature, to solve human problems." Kwon's invention uses a droplet of silicone ...

A rare type of cancer thought to derive from cells in the bile ducts of the liver may actually develop when one type of liver cell morphs into a totally different type, a process scientists used to consider all but impossible. UCSF researchers triggered this kind of cellular transformation—and caused tumors to form in mice—by activating just two genes. Their discovery suggests that drugs that are able to target those genes may provide a way to treat the deadly cancer, known as cholangiocarcinoma. It also shows, yet again, how the process of scientific discovery involves ...

VIDEO: This brief video shows a cell division within a tissue and the mechanical forces clearly at play in the cell's placement in the tissue. Click here for more information. If you place certain types of living cells on a microscope slide, the cells will inch across the glass, find their neighbors, and assemble themselves into a simple, if primitive tissue. A new study at Stanford University may help explain this phenomenon, and then some, about the mechanical structure ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), a tear of the layers of the artery wall that can block normal blood flow into and around the heart, is a relatively rare and poorly understood condition. It often strikes young, otherwise healthy people -- mostly women -- and can lead to significant heart damage, even sudden death. Now, in the first study of its kind of such patients, Mayo Clinic researchers have started to uncover important clues about SCAD, including its potential risk factors, optimal treatment approaches and short- and long-term cardiovascular ...

Baltimore, Md., July 16, 2012 – U.S. Army researchers made a surprising discovery while examining the impact of an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear (a common knee injury), on four serum biomarkers associated with cartilage health. The researchers found that pre-injury concentrations for all but one of the four serum biomarkers studied were associated with the subsequent likelihood of ACL injury. The findings were presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM). "We expected to see post-injury differences in ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The recommended dietary allowance, or RDA, of vitamin C is less than half what it should be, scientists argue in a recent report, because medical experts insist on evaluating this natural, but critical nutrient in the same way they do pharmaceutical drugs and reach faulty conclusions as a result. The researchers, in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, say there's compelling evidence that the RDA of vitamin C should be raised to 200 milligrams per day for adults, up from its current levels in the United States of 75 milligrams for women and ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A Rhode Island Hospital researcher has found that emergency department patients prefer technology-based interventions for high-risk behaviors such as alcohol use, unsafe sex and violence. ER patients said they would choose technology (ie text messaging, email, or Internet) over traditional intervention methods such as in-person or brochure-based behavioral interventions. The paper by Megan L. Ranney, M.D., is available now online in advance of print in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. The study was a cross-sectional survey of urban emergency department ...

An uncommon mutation of the BRAF gene in melanoma patients has been found to respond to MEK inhibitor drugs, providing a rationale for routine screening and therapy in melanoma patients who harbor the BRAF L597 mutation. The new study by co-first-authors Kimberly Brown Dahlman, Ph.D., Junfeng Xia, Ph.D., and Katherine Hutchinson, B.S., Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), Nashville, Tenn., was published online July 14 in Cancer Discovery. The research was led by co-senior authors William Pao, M.D., Ph.D., Jeffrey Sosman, M.D., and Zhongming Zhao, Ph.D., VICC, and ...

SAN ANTONIO (July 16, 2012) — A novel technique for measuring tiny, rapid-fire secretions in the brains and mouthparts of fruit flies (drosophila) is providing insights into the beneficial effects of eating less — information that ultimately could help people suffering from neuromuscular disorders. Using the method, researchers uncovered never-before-seen brain chemistry that helps explain why fruit flies genetically manipulated to mimic conditions such as Parkinson's disease and myasthenia gravis are more vigorous and live longer when fed a restricted diet. Published ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — A team of University of Missouri researchers has found that introducing a missing gene into the central nervous system could help extend the lives of patients with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) – the leading genetic cause of infantile death in the world. SMA is a rare genetic disease that is inherited by one in 6,000 children who often die young because there is no cure. Children who inherit SMA are missing a gene that produces a protein which directs nerves in the spine to give commands to muscles. The MU team, led by Christian Lorson, professor in ...

U of S researchers have discovered the chemical pathway that Cannabis sativa uses to create bioactive compounds called cannabinoids, paving the way for the development of marijuana varieties to produce pharmaceuticals or cannabinoid-free industrial hemp. The research appears online in the July 16 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). U of S adjunct professor of biology Jon Page explains that the pathway is an unusual one, involving a specialized version of one enzyme, called hexanoyl-CoA synthetase, and another enzyme, called olivetolic ...

When Olympic athletes throw up their arms, clench their fists and grimace after a win, they are displaying triumph through a gesture that is the same across cultures, a new study suggests. New findings due to be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior suggest this victory pose signals feelings of triumph, challenging previous research that labeled the expression pride. "We found that displays of triumph include different behaviors to those of pride and occur more immediately after a victory or win," said David Matsumoto, professor of psychology at San Francisco ...

Montreal, July 16, 2012 – Statistics show that today, almost one in four Canadians is obese. A deadly trend that has been on the rise for the last thirty years, obesity is associated with diabetes, heart disease and cancer. But is the obesity epidemic putting more pressure on an already strained Canadian health care system? James McIntosh, a professor in the Department of Economics at Concordia University, is the first to look at the impact of obesity on the number of doctor visits nation-wide. According to his research, obese individuals visit the doctor more frequently ...

LA JOLLA, CA----For more than 20 years, doctors have been using cells from blood that remains in the placenta and umbilical cord after childbirth to treat a variety of illnesses, from cancer and immune disorders to blood and metabolic diseases. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found a new way-using a single protein, known as a transcription factor-to convert cord blood (CB) cells into neuron-like cells that may prove valuable for the treatment of a wide range of neurological conditions, including stroke, traumatic brain injury and spinal ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences (JGR-G), Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres (JGR-D), Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets (JGR-E), Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G3), and Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). 1. Droughts threaten Bornean rainforests At 130 million years old, the rainforests of Southeast Asia are the oldest in the world and home to thousands of plant and animal species, some endemic to these forests. The rainforests ...

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has joined more than 3000 national, state, and local organizations in warning the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama that automatic budget cuts set for January could have "devastating" effects on research, education, social services, security, and international relations. The planned cuts threaten federal programs that "support economic growth and strengthen the safety and security of every American in every state and community across the nation," the groups wrote in a 12 July letter to Congress. "We ...

HOUSTON – (July 16, 2012) – Researchers at Rice University and Lockheed Martin reported this month that they've found a way to make multiple high-performance anodes from a single silicon wafer. The process uses simple silicon to replace graphite as an element in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, laying the groundwork for longer-lasting, more powerful batteries for such applications as commercial electronics and electric vehicles. The work led by Sibani Lisa Biswal, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice, and lead author Madhuri Thakur, ...

Poor people hold more traditional values toward marriage and divorce than people with moderate and higher incomes, UCLA psychologists report in the current issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family. The findings are based on a large survey about marriage, relationships and values, analyzed across income groups. They raise questions about how effectively some $1billion in government spending to promote the value of marriage among the poor is being spent. "A lot of government policy is based on the assumption that low-income people hold less traditional views about ...

NEW YORK, NY (July 16, 2012) – A team of scientists at The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Laboratory led by Scott Noggle, PhD, NYSCF–Charles Evans Senior Research Fellow for Alzheimer's Disease, has developed the first cell-based model of Alzheimer's disease (AD) by reprogramming skin cells of Alzheimer's patients to become brain cells that are affected in Alzheimer's. This will allow researchers to work directly on living brain cells suffering from Alzheimer's, which until now had not been possible. Andrew Sproul, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Noggle's laboratory, ...

Patients' non-adherence to prescribed medication costs the U.S. health care system an estimated $290 billion annually and can lead to poor clinical outcomes, increased hospitalizations and higher mortality. In an effort to understand the extent to which health care providers feel responsible for their patients' medication adherence, UCLA researchers and colleagues conducted focus-group discussions with providers and recorded out-patient office visits with 100 patients taking a total of 410 medications. They also examined how adherence discussions were initiated between ...

When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Depression Khanun on July 15, infrared data revealed some high, strong thunderstorms that hinted the cyclone would intensify. On July 16 Khanun had indeed become a tropical storm. NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Khanun on July 15, 2012 at 1635 UTC (12:35 p.m. EDT) when it was a tropical depression. At that time the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument onboard measured Khanun's cloud top temperatures. The storm's coldest cloud top temperatures were as cold as or colder than -63 Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius), indicating ...

Hurricane Fabio continues to be the big tropical news maker in the Eastern Pacific, while the Central Pacific Hurricane Center is tracking the remnants of Hurricane Emilia. Both storms were captured on one satellite image from NOAA's GOES-15 satellite on July 16. Emilia's remnants appear as a light swirl of clouds on satellite imagery from NOAA's GOES-15 satellite. GOES-15 sits in a fixed orbit over the western U.S. and provides weather imagery. In an image from July 16 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) while Hawaii was still in the pre-dawn hours, infrared imagery on GOES-15 ...

Recent excavations, sediment coring and mapping by a multi-university team led by the University of Cincinnati at the pre-Columbian city of Tikal, a paramount urban center of the ancient Maya, have identified new landscaping and engineering feats, including the largest ancient dam built by the Maya of Central America. That dam – constructed from cut stone, rubble and earth – stretched more than 260 feet in length, stood about 33 feet high and held about 20 million gallons of water in a man-made reservoir. These findings on ancient Maya water and land-use systems at ...

Consumers are more likely to select products located in the horizontal center of a display and may not make the best choices as a result, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "A close investigation of visual attention reveals that consumers do not accurately recall their choice process. Our findings emphasize the relationship between horizontal location, attention, and choice," write authors A. Selin Atalay (HEC Paris), H. Onur Bodur (Concordia University), and Dina Rasolofoarison (Aston Business School). Many products are arranged horizontally. ...