This press release is available in German. From protozoans to mammals, evolution has created more and more complex structures and better-adapted organisms. This is all the more astonishing as most genetic mutations are deleterious. Especially in small asexual populations that do not recombine their genes, unfavourable mutations can accumulate. This process is known as Muller's ratchet in evolutionary biology. The ratchet, proposed by the American geneticist Hermann Joseph Muller, predicts that the genome deteriorates irreversibly, leaving populations on a one-way street ...

Scientists of the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine have breathed new life into a forgotten technique and so succeeded in detecting resistant tuberculosis in circumstances where so far this was hardly feasible. Tuberculosis bacilli that have become resistant against our major antibiotics are a serious threat to world health. If we do not take efficient and fast action, 'multiresistant tuberculosis' may become a worldwide epidemic, wiping out all medical achievements of the last decades. A century ago tuberculosis was a lugubrious word, more terrifying than 'cancer' ...

Of course scientists like it when the results of measurements fit with each other. However, when they carry out measurements in nature and compare their values, the results are rarely "smooth". A contemporary example is the ocean's nitrogen budget. Here, the question is: how much nitrogen is being fixed in the ocean and how much is released? "The answer to this question is important to predicting future climate development. All organisms need fixed nitrogen in order to build genetic material and biomass", explains Professor Julie LaRoche from the GEOMAR | Helmholtz Centre ...

DURHAM, N.C.-- Duke researchers may have found a promising stem cell therapy for preventing osteoarthritis after a joint injury. Injuring a joint greatly raises the odds of getting a form of osteoarthritis called post-traumatic arthritis, or PTA. There are no therapies yet that modify or slow the progression of arthritis after injury. Researchers at Duke University Health System have found a very promising therapeutic approach to PTA using a type of stem cell, called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), in mice with fractures that typically would lead to them developing ...

CAMBRDIGE, Mass. — For decades, academic and industry researchers have been working on control algorithms for autonomous helicopters — robotic helicopters that pilot themselves, rather than requiring remote human guidance. Dozens of research teams have competed in a series of autonomous-helicopter challenges posed by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI); progress has been so rapid that the last two challenges have involved indoor navigation without the use of GPS. But MIT's Robust Robotics Group — which fielded the team that won the last ...

Boston, MA—Migraines currently affect about 20 percent of the female population, and while these headaches are common, there are many unanswered questions surrounding this complex disease. Previous studies have linked this disorder to an increased risk of stroke and structural brain lesions, but it has remained unclear whether migraines had other negative consequences such as dementia or cognitive decline. According to new research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), migraines are not associated with cognitive decline. This study is published online by the British ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – August 10, 2012) A faulty gene linked to a rare blood vessel disorder has led investigators to discover a mechanism involved in determining the fate of possibly thousands of proteins working inside cells. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists directed the study, which provides insight into one of the body's most important regulatory systems, the ubiquitin system. Cells use it to get rid of unneeded proteins. Problems in this system have been tied to cancers, infections and other diseases. The work appears in today's print edition of the journal ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Why, after millions of years of evolution, do organisms build structures that seemingly serve no purpose? A study conducted at Michigan State University and published in the current issue of The American Naturalist investigates the evolutionary reasons why organisms go through developmental stages that appear unnecessary. "Many animals build tissues and structures they don't appear to use, and then they disappear," said Jeff Clune, lead author and former doctoral student at MSU's BEACON Center of Evolution in Action. "It's comparable to building ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Millions of American cancer survivors experience chronic discomfort as a result of lymphedema, a common side effect of surgery and radiation therapy in which affected areas swell due to protein-rich fluid buildup. After reviewing published literature on lymphedema treatments, a University of Missouri researcher says emphasizing patients' quality of life rather than focusing solely on reducing swelling is critical to effectively managing the condition. Jane Armer, professor in the MU Sinclair School of Nursing and director of nursing research at Ellis Fischel ...

A large-scale review of national patient records reveals that although survival rates are the same, the cost of treating trauma patients in the western United States is 33 percent higher than the bill for treating similarly injured patients in the Northeast. Overall, treatment costs were lower in the Northeast than anywhere in the United States. The findings by Johns Hopkins researchers, published in The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, suggest that skyrocketing health care costs could be reined in if analysts focus on how caregivers in lower-cost regions manage ...

This press release is available in German. So-called "superheavy" elements owe their very existence exclusively to shell effects within the atomic nucleus. Without this stabilization they would disintegrate in a split second due to the strong repulsion between their many protons. The constituents of an atomic nucleus, the protons and neutrons, organize themselves in shells. Certain "magic" configurations with completely filled shells render the protons and neutrons to be more strongly bound together. Long-standing theoretical predictions suggest that also in superheavy ...

A new 3-D view of the body's response to infection – and the ability to identify proteins involved in the response – could point to novel biomarkers and therapeutic agents for infectious diseases. Vanderbilt University scientists in multiple disciplines combined magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and imaging mass spectrometry to visualize the inflammatory response to a bacterial infection in mice. The techniques, described in Cell Host & Microbe and featured on the journal cover, offer opportunities for discovering proteins not previously implicated in the inflammatory response. Access ...

How strong can earthquakes in Germany be? Where in Europa are the earthquake activities concentrated? These questions are the basis for risk assessments and become relevant when it comes to the safety of buildings or the generation of tsunami.For the first time, scientists of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences have succeeded in setting up a harmonized catalogue of earthquakes for Europe and the Mediterranean for the last thousand years. This catalogue consists of about 45000 earthquakes, reported in the latest issue of the „Journal of Seismology". Earthquakes ...

Athens, Ga. – Shifting sands and tides make it difficult to measure accurately the amount of beach that's available for recreation, development and conservation, but a team of University of Georgia researchers has combined several remote sensing technologies with historical data to create coastal maps with an unsurpassed level of accuracy. In a study published in the August issue of the journal Tourism Management, they apply their technique to Georgia's Jekyll Island and unveil a new website that allows developers, conservationists and tourists access to maps and data ...

Vaccination against the hepatitis A virus (HAV) in children two years of age and younger remains effective for at least ten years, according to new research available in the August issue of Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). The study found that any transfer of the mother's HAV antibodies does not lower the child's immune response to the vaccine. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.4 million cases of HAV occur worldwide each year. HAV affects the liver and typically occurs in areas with poor sanitation ...

The sought-after equanimity of "living in the moment" may be impossible, according to neuroscientists who've pinpointed a brain area responsible for using past decisions and outcomes to guide future behavior. The study, based on research conducted at the University of Pittsburgh and published today in the professional journal Neuron, is the first of its kind to analyze signals associated with metacognition—a person's ability to monitor and control cognition (a term cleverly described by researchers as "thinking about thinking.") "The brain has to keep track of decisions ...

Magnetic monopoles, entities with isolated north or south magnetic poles, weren't supposed to exist. If you try to saw a bar magnet in half, all you succeed in getting are two magnets, each with a south and north pole. In recent years, however, the existence of monopoles, at least in the form of "quasiparticles" consisting of collective excitations among many atoms, has been predicted and demonstrated in the lab. Now Stephen Powell, a scientist at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI*) and the University of Maryland, has sharpened the theoretical framework under which ...

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, known as TRMM can measure the rate rain is falling with a tropical cyclone from its orbit in space, and data from August 9 reveals areas of heavy rainfall in Tropical Storm Ernesto as it heads for a second landfall in Mexico. The TRMM satellite saw tropical storm Ernesto on August 9, 2012 at 0656 UTC (2:36 a.m. EDT) after it moved from the Yucatan Peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico. An analysis of TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) rainfall shows that powerful convective thunderstorms were dropping ...

Sea surface temperatures cooler than 80 degrees Fahrenheit can sap the strength from a tropical cyclone and Tropical Storm Kirogi is headed toward waters below that threshold on its track through the northwestern Pacific Ocean, according to data from NASA's Aqua satellite. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Kirogi on August 9 at 0241 UTC. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared image of the cloud temperatures that showed a concentrated area of strongest storms and heaviest rainfall west of the center of circulation. Vertical ...

Follow-up research from the Pediatric Study of Hepatitis C (PEDS-C) trial reveals that children treated with peginterferon alpha (pegIFNα) for hepatitis C (HCV) display significant changes in height, weight, body mass index (BMI), and body composition. Results appearing in the August issue of Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, indicate that most growth-related side effects are reversible with cessation of therapy. However, in many children the height-for-age score had not returned to baseline two years after stopping ...

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System have demonstrated that the effects on white matter brain volume from long-term alcohol abuse are different for men and women. The study, which is published online in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, also suggests that with abstinence, women recover their white matter brain volume more quickly than men. The study was led by Susan Mosher Ruiz, PhD, postdoctoral research scientist in the Laboratory for Neuropsychology at BUSM and research ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Earthworms creep along the ground by alternately squeezing and stretching muscles along the length of their bodies, inching forward with each wave of contractions. Snails and sea cucumbers also use this mechanism, called peristalsis, to get around, and our own gastrointestinal tracts operate by a similar action, squeezing muscles along the esophagus to push food to the stomach. Now researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting ...

NASA scientist Tom Hanisco is helping to fill a big gap in scientists' understanding of how much urban pollution -- and more precisely formaldehyde -- ultimately winds up in Earth's upper atmosphere where it can wreak havoc on Earth's protective ozone layer. He and his team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have developed an automated, lightweight, laser-induced fluorescence device that measures the levels of this difficult-to-measure organic compound in the lower troposphere and then again at much higher altitudes. The primary objective is determining ...

Many of the long term goals people strive for — like losing weight — require us to use self-control and forgo immediate gratification. And yet, denying our immediate desires in order to reap future benefits is often very hard to do. In a new article in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers Kentaro Fujita and Jessica Carnevale of The Ohio State University propose that the way people subjectively understand, or construe, events can influence self-control. Research from psychological ...

NEW YORK, N.Y. (August 9, 2012) – Over 400 attendees from across the U.S. and around the world participated in the first national conference for families and professionals, "Treating the Whole Person with Autism: Comprehensive Care for Children and Adolescents with ASD." Autism Speaks, the world's leading autism science and advocacy organization, organized and hosted the conference in collaboration with educational partners at Nationwide Children's Hospital (NCH), The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the Health ...