Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues have demonstrated that the inhibition of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) in mouse models of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), an aggressive and incurable subtype of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma that becomes resistant to treatment, can harness the immune system to eradicate residual malignant cells responsible for disease relapse. Their study appears in a recent issue of Cancer Research, published by the American Association for Cancer Research. "Despite good initial response to first-line treatment ...

Scientists at The University of Nottingham believe they've found a way of fighting obesity — with a pioneering technique which uses thermal imaging. This heat-seeking technology is being used to trace our reserves of brown fat — the body's 'good fat' — which plays a key role in how quickly our body can burn calories as energy. This special tissue known as Brown Adipose Tissue, or brown fat, produces 300 times more heat than any other tissue in the body. Potentially the more brown fat we have the less likely we are to lay down excess energy or food as white fat. Michael ...

The University of Central Florida has detected what could be its first planet, only two-thirds the size of Earth and located right around the corner, cosmically speaking, at a mere 33light- years away. The exoplanet candidate called UCF 1.01, is close to its star, so close it goes around the star in 1.4 days. The planet's surface likely reaches temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The discoverers believe that it has no atmosphere, is only two-thirds the gravity of Earth and that its surface may be volcanic or molten. "We have found strong evidence for ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A team of archaeologists led by Brown University's Stephen Houston has uncovered a pyramid, part of the Maya archaeological site at El Zotz, Guatemala. The ornately decorated structure is topped by a temple covered in a series of masks depicting different phases of the sun, as well as deeply modeled and vibrantly painted stucco throughout. The team began uncovering the temple, called the Temple of the Night Sun, in 2009. Dating to about 350 to 400 A.D., the temple sits just behind the previously discovered royal tomb, atop the Diablo ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Most U.S. adults support laws that allow teens to get medical care for sexually transmitted infections without parental consent. But when asked about the vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV), most adults want parents to have the final say on whether their teen or pre-teen gets the shots. The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health recently asked a national sample of adults about allowing adolescents age 12 to 17 years old to receive the HPV vaccinations without parental consent. Only 45 percent ...

It's summer. For many of us, summer is a time synonymous with fresh corn, one of the major field crops produced in the United States. In 2011, corn was planted on more than 92 million acres in the U.S., helping the nation continue its trend as the world's largest exporter of the crop. Corn is a nitrogen-loving plant. To achieve desired production levels, most U.S. farmers apply synthetic nitrogen fertilizer to their fields every year. Once nitrogen fertilizer hits the ground, however, it's hard to contain and is easily lost to groundwater, rivers, oceans and the atmosphere. "That's ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, July 17, 2012 –Sleep deprivation in the first few hours after exposure to a significantly stressful threat actually reduces the risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to a study by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and Tel Aviv University. The new study was published in the international scientific journal, Neuropsychopharmacology. It revealed in a series of experiments that sleep deprivation of approximately six hours immediately after exposure to a traumatic event reduces the development of post trauma-like ...

Using a two-photon microscope capable of peering deep within living tissue, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have found new evidence that alpha-synuclein protein build-up inside neurons causes them to not only become "leaky," but also to misfire due to calcium fluxes. The findings – the first recorded in vivo using a transgenic mouse model of Parkinson's disease – are published in the July 18 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience and provide new insights into how Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders known as ...

U.S. Forest Service scientists have found that prescribed fires with the heat insulation of leaf litter and soil can help restore oak ecosystems. Forest Service researchers are helping land managers find the best time to use prescribed fire when oak regeneration from acorns is a concern. "Acorns inside the leaf litter or in the soil are for the most part protected from fire," says Cathryn Greenberg, Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) researcher and lead author of the study published in July in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. "However, when acorns ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Climate change, habitat destruction, pollution and invasive species are all involved in the global crisis of amphibian declines and extinctions, researchers suggest in a new analysis, but increasingly these forces are causing actual mortality in the form of infectious disease. Amphibians are now, and always have been hosts for a wide range of infectious organisms, including viruses, bacteria and fungi, scientists said in a review published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. But in recent decades, disease seems to have taken a more ...

Patients who are frequently hospitalized account for a disproportionate amount of health care spending in the United States. Working with a $6.1 million grant, a new University of Chicago Medicine program will test whether an updated version of the traditional general practitioner can reduce spending while also improving care for these patients. Under the new model, funded by a Health Care Innovation Award from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, multidisciplinary teams led by a comprehensive care physician (CCP) will care for patients in both outpatient and ...

Trees, bushes and other greenery growing in the concrete-and-glass canyons of cities can reduce levels of two of the most worrisome air pollutants by eight times more than previously believed, a new study has found. A report on the research appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. Thomas Pugh and colleagues explain that concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and microscopic particulate matter (PM) — both of which can be harmful to human health — exceed safe levels on the streets of many cities. Past research suggested that trees and other green ...

The widespread practice of allowing laboratory rats and mice to eat as much as they want may be affecting the outcome of experiments in which scientists use these "test-tubes-on-four-feet" to test new drugs and other substances for toxicity and other effects. That's the conclusion of a new analysis published in ACS' journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. Laboratory mice and rats serve as stand-ins for people for research that cannot be done on humans. In the article, Gale Carey and Lisa Merrill point out that the millions of lab rodents used in laboratory studies each ...

Scientists have discovered a way to make worker bees produce an enhanced version of royal jelly (RJ) – the super-nutritious substance that dictates whether larvae become workers or queens, and that is also renowned as a health supplement for people. Their study, which found that the super RJ that makes queen bee larvae grow 2-3 times larger than normal, appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Chia-Nan Chen and colleagues explain that royal jelly is a thick liquid made up of proteins, sugars and fats that is secreted by glands in the throats and jaws ...

Suppliers of the orange, vanilla and other flavor and fragrance ingredients used in hundreds of foods, beverages and personal care products are putting their faith in microbes as new sources for these substances. That migration away from the natural plant oils used for centuries to delight the taste buds and nose is the topic of a story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. Melody M. Bomgardner, C&EN senior business editor, points out that manufacturers ...

Building on previous work with the botanical abscisic acida, researchers in the Nutritional Immunology and Molecular Medicine Laboratory (NIMML) have discovered that abscisic acid has anti-inflammatory effects in the lungs as well as in the gut. The results will be published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. "While the immune effects of abscisic acid are well understood in the gut, less was known about its effects in the respiratory tract. We've shown definitively that not only does abscisic acid ameliorate disease activity and lung inflammatory pathology, it ...

What makes soldiers abuse prisoners? How could Nazi officials condemn thousands of Jews to gas chamber deaths? What's going on when underlings help cover up a financial swindle? For years, researchers have tried to identify the factors that drive people to commit cruel and brutal acts and perhaps no one has contributed more to this knowledge than psychological scientist Stanley Milgram. Just over 50 years ago, Milgram embarked on what were to become some of the most famous studies in psychology. In these studies, which ostensibly examined the effects of punishment on ...

Putnam Valley, NY. (July 18 , 2012) – Meeting in Amman, Jordan April 27-30, 2011, members of the International Association of Neurorestoratology (IANR) presented research aimed at improving the lives of people with neurological conditions such as amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, stroke and muscular dystrophy through a variety of therapies, including cell transplantation. The field of neurorestoratology has emerged as a new discipline in neuroscience, exploring the impact of cell transplantation and other factors on neurological recovery. This ...

Family members or professional caregivers who do everything for older adults with Alzheimer's disease may just be wanting to help, but one University of Alberta researcher says that creating excess dependency may rob the patients of their independence and self-worth. U of A psychologist Tiana Rust, who recently completed her doctoral program, says her research indicated that caregivers adopted a "dependency support script," assuming control of tasks they believed patients seemed no longer capable of doing for themselves. She says this model shows that the caregivers' ...

In a landmark study of atrial fibrillation, researchers from UCLA, UC San Diego and Indiana University report having found for the first time that these irregular heart rhythms are caused by small electrical sources within the heart, in the form of electrical spinning tops ("rotors") or focal beats. Importantly, they found a way of detecting these key electrical sources and of shutting them down in minutes using a precisely targeted therapy with long-lasting results. The team, which included cardiologists, physicists and bioengineers, reports the findings in the ...

Two species of single-cell parasites have co-opted "ready-made" genes from their hosts that in turn help them exploit their hosts, according to a new study by University of British Columbia and University of Ottawa researchers. Part of a group of parasitic microbes called microsporidia, Encephalitozoon hellem and Encephalitozoon romaleae are related to fungi and are commonly found in the intestines of vertebrates. In humans, they are associated with people with immune deficiencies. The research team identified six genes in these parasites that were not found in any ...

WASHINGTON, July 18, 2012 –– The American Chemical Society (ACS) applauds a White House initiative unveiled yesterday to create a national corps of 10,000 master teachers in the next four years who are exceptional in teaching science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) subjects. "Teaching STEM subjects is most effectively achieved by teachers who are masters in the field," said ACS President Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, Ph.D. "To really teach our kids science, math, and engineering it is imperative that teachers have deep knowledge in the discipline itself. I am pleased ...

Infrared imagery of Tropical Storm Khanun shows that the storm is weakening as it heads toward a landfall in the Chungcheongnam-do province of western South Korea. Khanun is already bringing rainfall and stirring up seas around southwestern South Korea. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Khanun on July 18 at 0459 UTC (12:59 a.m. EDT), the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured temperature data on cloud tops. Infrared imagery from the AIRS instrument showed that convection (rising air that forms thunderstorms that make up a tropical ...

Infrared satellite data from NASA's Aqua satellite showed a very small area of strong thunderstorms north of the center of what is now post-tropical storm Fabio as it moves toward the southern California coast. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over post-tropical storm Fabio on July 18 at 1023 UTC (6:23 a.m. EDT), the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured temperatures of cloud tops and the sea surface. AIRS data showed very little strong convection and heavy rainfall occurring in the post-tropical storm and it was north of the center of circulation. ...

Researchers from UC San Diego, the University of California Los Angeles and Indiana University report having found, for the first time, that atrial fibrillation or irregular heart rhythms is caused by small electrical sources within the heart, in the form of electrical spinning tops ("rotors") or focal beats. Importantly, they found a way of detecting these key sources, then precisely targeting them for therapy that can shut them down in minutes with long lasting results. The team, which included cardiologists, physicists and bioengineers, report the findings in the ...