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in the journal Drug Testing and Analysis, American researcher's state the argument that marijuana is a harmless drug is no longer valid due to the emergence of 'high potency' marijuana and synthetic marijuana which pose a potential real threat for pregnant women.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 ...

Amsterdam, NL, August 15, 2012 – In a study published in the current issue of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience scientists report that a therapy combining exercise with the neurovascular protective agent S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) improved recovery from stroke in a rat model. GSNO is a compound found naturally in the body and it has no known side effects or toxicity. "In our study, GSNO or motor exercise provided neuroprotection, reduced neuronal cell death, maintained tissue structure, and aided functional recovery by stimulating the expression of neuronal repair ...

The World Health Organization estimates that in 2011 there were 216 million cases of malaria and 34.2 million people living with HIV. These diseases particularly afflict sub-Saharan Africa, where large incidence of co-infection result in high mortality rates. Yet, in spite of this global pandemic, interactions between the parasite that causes malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, and HIV-1 are poorly understood. However, a new video article in JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, that describes a novel technique to study the interactions between HIV-1 and P. falciparum ...

BOSTON--The genomic tumult within tumor cells has provided scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard with clues to an entirely new class of genes that may serve as an Achilles' heel for many forms of cancer. As reported in the Aug. 17 issue of the journal Cell, the researchers identified 56 such genes, only a few of which had previously been identified as potential targets for cancer therapy. Unlike most such targets, these genes don't cause normal cells to turn cancerous. Instead, they are essential to all cells but have been ...

PHILADELPHIA — Treatment with denosumab resulted in a greater reduction in skeletal-related events in patients with breast cancer that spread to the bones compared with zoledronic acid, while also maintaining health-related quality of life, according to the results of a phase III study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Our data indicate that denosumab should be the treatment of choice for the prevention of skeletal-related events and hypercalcemia in patients with breast cancer that has metastasized to the ...

How the intricate network of blood vessels forms within the brain has long fascinated biologists. Though the human brain comprises only 2 percent of body weight it receives up to 15 percent of the cardiac output through this network, or vessel vasculature. The vasculature in the human brain consists of a complex branching network of blood vessels, in total some several hundred miles in length. The network is formed so as to distribute blood efficiently to all brain regions, and abnormalities can lead to various neurological disorders, including strokes, learning difficulties ...

Among pregnant women who did not develop gestational diabetes, overweight women were 65 percent more likely, and obese women 163 percent more likely, to have overly large babies than their healthy weight counterparts. In this study, an overly large infant was identified based on having a birth weight over the 90th percentile for their gestational age at delivery and gender. Gaining excess weight during pregnancy also contributed to having a large for gestational age baby, regardless of maternal weight or whether she developed gestational diabetes. This Kaiser Permanente ...

The small fragments of tropical forests left behind after deforestation are suffering extensive species extinction, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA). Publishing today in the journal PLoS ONE, the researchers carried out a comprehensive assessment to estimate the long-term impact of forest fragmentation and hunting on tropical biodiversity in Brazil. They studied the Atlantic Forest of eastern Brazil, including the region's largest and least disturbed old-growth forest remnants, and found that remaining habitat fragments had been virtually ...

CHICAGO – Among couples in which one partner was diagnosed as having posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), participation in disorder-specific couple therapy resulted in decreased PTSD symptom severity and increased patient relationship satisfaction, compared with couples who were placed on a wait list for the therapy, according to a study in the August 15 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on violence and human rights. "There are well-documented associations between PTSD and intimate relationship problems, including relationship distress and aggression, and studies demonstrate ...

CHICAGO – The results of two studies in the August 15 issue of JAMA report on the psychological status of workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plants in Japan several months after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, and the amount of internal radiation exposure among residents of a city north of the power plant that experienced a meltdown. As reported in a Research Letter, Jun Shigemura, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Defense Medical College, Saitama, Japan, and colleagues examined the psychological status of Fukushima workers 2 to 3 months after the disaster for ...