Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London have tracked bumblebees for the first time to see how they select the optimal route to collect nectar from multiple flowers and return to their nest. In a paper published September 18 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, the scientists, working with the Harmonic Radar Group at Rothamsted Research, were able to use radar tracking to show how bumblebees discover flowers, learn their location and use trial and error to find the most efficient route between flowers over large distances. Professor Lars Chittka and Dr Mathieu ...

HOUSTON -- (Sept. 21, 2012) – The androgen receptor in human cells inhibits fat accumulation, but its activity can be sabotaged by glucocorticoids, steroids that regulate fat deposition and are known drivers of obesity and insulin resistance, said researchers led by those at Baylor College of Medicine (www.bcm.edu) in a report in the journal Chemistry & Biology (https://www.cell.com/chemistry-biology/home). "The project started with a straightforward search for genes or signals specific to human fat cells," said Dr. Michael A. Mancini (http://www.bcm.edu/mcb/index.cfm?pmid=9330), ...

Researchers have new evidence in rats to explain how it is that chocolate candies can be so completely irresistible. The urge to overeat such deliciously sweet and fatty treats traces to an unexpected part of the brain and its production of a natural, opium-like chemical, according to a report published online on September 20th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. "This means that the brain has more extensive systems to make individuals want to overconsume rewards than previously thought," said Alexandra DiFeliceantonio of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. ...

Scientists have been trying to explain the causes of diabetes for many years. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen and Novo Nordisk A/S have now shown that the increased activity of one particular iron-transport protein destroys insulin-producing beta cells. In addition, the new research shows that mice without this iron transporter are protected against developing diabetes. These results have just been published in the prestigious journal Cell Metabolism. Almost 300,000 Danes have diabetes – 80 per cent have type-2 diabetes, a so-called lifestyle disease. The ...

In any living organism, all cells have the same DNA, but each cell's identity is defined by the combination of genes that are turned on or off, any given moment in time. In animals, this cellular memory is erased between generations, so that the new egg has no memory and, as such, has the potential to become any type of cell. In flowering plants, on the contrary, cellular memory passes from generation to generation, with potentially harmful implications for the development of new plants. In the latest issue of the journal Cell*, scientists from Instituto Gulbenkian de ...

In the body's ongoing effort to maintain a healthy weight, an arsenal of cellular proteins called androgen receptors is critical for blocking fat accumulation. Now researchers reporting in the September issue of the Cell Press Journal Chemistry & Biology have discovered that naturally occurring steroids called glucocorticoids can thwart the receptors' activity, ultimately encouraging fat buildup. "This has implications in this era of an obesity epidemic," says senior author Dr. Michael Mancini, from Baylor College of Medicine. "If you can reduce glucocorticoids, you might ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Sept. 20, 2012) -- University of Oregon scientists have found a way to correctly reproduce not only the structure but also important thermodynamic quantities such as pressure and compressibility of a large, multiscale system at variable levels of molecular coarse-graining. The method is a mathematically driven predictive modeling of a real system, built on liquid state theory, and utilizing powerful computing resources. The team's theory appears in the Sept. 21 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. Understanding multiscale systems is of vital ...

The cost of sequencing the entire human genome, or exome – the regions of the genome that are translated into proteins that affect cell behavior – has decreased significantly, to the point where the cost of looking at the majority of a patient's genomic data may be less expensive than undertaking one or two targeted genetic tests. While efficient, the acquisition of this much genetic data – in some cases as many as 1.5 to 2 million variants – creates other challenges. In a paper that appears today in the advance online edition of Genetics in Medicine, researchers from ...

Anyone who wants to lose weight has a wide variety of diets to choose from, but knowledge of what works is often poor. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University have now evaluated a Swedish commercial weight loss programme called Itrim, and found it to be effective. After one year, participants had lost 11 kg on average. "Most of the participants lost a lot of weight in the first three months and then showed very good weight stability after one year," says Erik Hemmingsson, researcher at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital's Obesity ...

On average, children in Switzerland are 9 years old when they use the internet for the first time. They spend on average 64 minutes per day online, which is substantially less than the European average (88 minutes). These are the results of a new study carried out by the Institut für Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung (Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research) at the University of Zurich. The survey was conducted in the German-speaking and western part of Switzerland with 1,000 children and young people as well as one of their parents in each case. Internet ...

We are not all the same when it comes to illness. In fact, the risk of developing a disease such as diabetes or heart disease varies from one individual to another. A study led by Emmanouil Dermitzakis, Louis-Jeantet Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) reveals that the genetic predisposition to develop certain diseases may differ from one individual to another depending on their sex. Together with his collaborators, the professor has shown that genetic variants have a different impact on the level of gene expression between men and women. ...

Nurses can play a key role in feeding people and restoring their humanity in times of great crisis and this was very evident during their little-known involvement in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen at the end of World War Two. That is the key finding of a historical research paper published in the October issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. "Much has been written about the role of the armed forces and medical teams during this distressing time in our history, but the contribution of nurses is rarely mentioned when it comes to the liberation of this concentration ...

A study at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) reveals that humans from the Upper Palaeolithic Age recycled their stone artefacts to be put to other uses. The study is based on burnt artefacts found in the Molí del Salt site in Tarragona, Spain. The recycling of stone tools during Prehistoric times has hardly been dealt with due to the difficulties in verifying such practices in archaeological records. Nonetheless, it is possible to find some evidence, as demonstrated in a study published in the ...

Research carried out at The University of Manchester has found further evidence that a simple solution, which is already used in IV drips, is an effective treatment for reducing inflammation. The researchers also identified that hypertonic solution, which is a solution with an elevated concentration of salt, can ease inflammation purely through bathing in it – proving the Victorians were right to visit spa towns to "take the waters" for ailments like rheumatoid arthritis. The research team, led by Dr Pablo Pelegrin, was investigating how cell swelling can control inflammation; ...

A team of KIT researchers directed by Professor Christian Koos has succeeded in developing a novel optical connection between semiconductor chips. "Photonic wire bonding" reaches data transmission rates in the range of several terabits per second and is suited perfectly for production on the industrial scale. In the future, this technology may be used in high-performance emitter-receiver systems for optical data transmission and, thus, contribute to reducing energy consumption of the internet. The scientists published their results in the journal "Optics Express". Communication ...

A person can be obese and metabolically healthy at the same time, which means that this person will have the same mortality risk for heart disease or cancer that people of normal weight. This is the conclusion of a study published in the prestigious journal European Heart Journal [1]. "Obesity is associated with a large number of chronic diseases as heart diseases or cancer. However, there is a group of obese people that do not suffer the metabolic complications associated with obesity", the author of the study, Prof. Francisco B.Ortega, explains. Prof. Ortega is currently ...

Plans are being implemented to create plastic floating islands containing papyrus plants to help protect the ecosystems of a renowned lake in the Rift Valley, Kenya. The German REWE Group is funding a papyrus restoration partnership between UK-owned tea producer and flower grower Finlays and Dr David Harper, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester, which aims to recreate the water-cleansing services of papyrus as artificial floating islands. The papyrus restoration project is one of several ongoing initiatives in the Lake Naivasha basin being coordinated by ...

WHAT: A new study has found that even though HIV diversifies widely within infected individuals over time, the virus strains that ultimately are passed on through heterosexual transmission often resemble the strain of virus that originally infected the transmitting partner. Learning the characteristics of these preferentially transmitted HIV strains may help advance HIV prevention efforts, particularly with regard to an HIV vaccine, according to the scientists who conducted the study. The research was led by Andrew D. Redd, Ph.D., staff scientist, and Thomas C. Quinn, ...

The VIB scientists had serious reservations about the Séralini publication, which appeared today in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology. The conclusions drawn by Séralini could not be derived from the publication. The data will have to be subjected to a thorough analysis. VIB points out that Séralini is a controversial researcher. "Séralini has published similar accounts before, but not one of them has withstood scientific scrutiny. That is because he draws conclusions that cannot be derived from the data. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has examined Séralini's ...

OTTAWA, ON – September 20, 2012 – A study of how chronically ill teenagers manage their privacy found that teen patients spend a great deal of time online and guard their privacy very consciously. "Not all my friends need to know": a qualitative study of teenage patients, privacy and social media, was published this summer in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association and co-authored by Norwegian and Canadian researchers. The study, which conducted interviews with patients aged 12 to 18 at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), is the first ...

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) experience poorer sleep quality than people of a similar age without COPD, according to research published in the journal Respirology. Researchers also found an independent relationship between how well patients with COPD slept and the oxygen levels in their arterial blood. "Patients with COPD frequently report fatigue, sleepiness and impaired quality of life," says Professor Walter McNicholas from the Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at St. Vincent's University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland. "The ...

UT Dallas computer scientists have developed a technique to automatically allow one computer in a virtual network to monitor another for intrusions, viruses or anything else that could cause a computer to malfunction. The technique has been dubbed "space travel" because it sends computer data to a world outside its home, and bridges the gap between computer hardware and software systems. "Space travel might change the daily practice for many services offered virtually for cloud providers and data centers today, and as this technology becomes more popular in a few years, ...

People with psychopathic tendencies have an impaired sense of smell, which points to inefficient processing in the front part of the brain. These findings by Mehmet Mahmut and Richard Stevenson, from Macquarie University in Australia, are published online in Springer's journal Chemosensory Perception. Psychopathy is a broad term that covers a severe personality disorder characterized by callousness, manipulation, sensation-seeking and antisocial behaviors, traits which may also be found in otherwise healthy and functional people. Studies have shown that people with psychopathic ...

Cochlear implants — electronic devices surgically implanted in the ear to help provide a sense of sound — have been successfully used since the late 1980's. But questions remain as to whether bilateral cochlear implants, placed in each ear rather than the traditional single-ear implant, are truly able to facilitate binaural hearing. Now, Tel Aviv University researchers have proof that under certain conditions, this practice has the ability to salvage binaural sound processing for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. According to Dr. Yael Henkin of TAU's Department of Communication ...

Combining the cutting-edge capabilities of the ALMA telescope with newly-developed laboratory techniques, scientists are opening a completely new era for deciphering the chemistry of the Universe. A research team demonstrated their breakthrough using ALMA data from observations of the gas in a star-forming region in the constellation Orion. Using new technology both at the telescope and in the laboratory, the scientists were able to greatly improve and speed the process of identifying the "fingerprints" of chemicals in the cosmos, enabling studies that until now would ...