Bochum, 11.7.2012 No. 242 Tracked step for step ATP splitting in membrane protein dynamically measured for the first time RUB researchers report in the Journal of Biological Chemistry How a transport protein obtains its driving force from the energy storage molecule ATP, has been tracked dynamically by RUB researchers. Using time-resolved infrared spectroscopy, they measured the structural changes in the bacterial membrane protein MsbA and its interaction partner ATP. The researchers led by Prof. Dr. Eckhard Hofmann and Prof. Dr. Klaus Gerwert from the Biophysics ...

A team of researchers from Greece and Spain have managed to synthesize silver nanoparticles, which are of great interest thanks to their application in biotechnology, by using strawberry tree leaf extract. The new technology is ecological, simple, cheap and very fast. Strawberry tree leaf (Arbutus unedo) and silver nitrate (AgNO3). With just these two ingredients scientists can now produce silver nanoparticles, a material that is used in advanced technologies from compounds for distributing medicines through to electronic devices, catalysts, contaminant solvents. The ...

A team of scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and University of Cambridge has made a significant advance in using nano-devices to create accurate electrical currents. Electrical current is composed of billions and billions of tiny particles called electrons. NPL scientists have developed an electron pump – a nano-device – which picks these electrons up one at a time and moves them across a barrier, creating a very well-defined electrical current. The device drives electrical current by manipulating individual electrons, one-by-one at very high speed. ...

The Iberian wolf lives in increasingly humanised landscapes, with limited food resources and its presence is not always welcome. But, according to Spanish researchers, food availability plays a secondary role compared to landscape characteristics, which can offer refuge and allow wolves to remain in human-dominated environments in Galicia. The habitat of the Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus) varies greatly across the Iberian Peninsula and its diet revolves around what is available, ranging from wild animals to domestic waste. In contrast, this predator is able to survive ...

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have developed a unique computer program that helps Asian students to improve their understanding of accented English speech in noisy environments. The team of researchers from the Schools of Psychology, Education, and English, recognised that some Asian students find it difficult to understand the range of different English accents spoken. They identified that some Asian students have particular difficulties with differentiating sounds at the end (e.g. rope versus robe) and start (e.g. tin versus thin) of spoken English ...

Deaths by suicide among mental health patients treated at home have reached 150 to 200 a year in England, latest national figures reveal – but suicides among patients on mental health wards continue to fall. The annual report by the University of Manchester's National Confidential Inquiry into Homicide and Suicide by People with Mental Illness (NCI) examined homicide and suicide figures for all four countries of the United Kingdom among mental health patients and found in-patient suicides have shown a sustained fall across all countries. In contrast, the number of suicides ...

A new drug combination could offer hope to children with neuroblastoma – one of the deadliest forms of childhood cancer – by boosting the effectiveness of a promising new gene-targeted treatment. Researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research in London have found a way to overcome the resistance of cancer cells to a drug called crizotinib, which recently showed positive early results in its first trial in children with cancer. Crizotinib has already been licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in adult cancers, but early experience suggests tumours ...

A new international plan to tackle cyber crime has been launched Queen's University Belfast. The new research roadmap has been developed by leading international cyber security researchers along with industry and government experts who gathered for Second World Cyber Security Summit at the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen's in March. More than 80 invited participants from around the world attended the event. They included Chief Scientific Advisor from the UK Home Office - Professor Bernard Silverman, Cyber Security Division Director of US Homeland ...

(BOSTON) -- Prenatal and early childhood exposure to the chemical solvent tetrachloroethylene (PCE) found in drinking water may be associated with long-term visual impairments, particularly in the area of color discrimination, a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers has found. The study by epidemiologists and biostatisticians at BUSPH, working with an ophthalmologist from the BU School of Medicine, found that people exposed to higher levels of PCE from gestation through age 5 exhibited poorer color-discrimination abilities than ...

It's a project 500 million years in the making. Only this time, instead of playing on a movie screen in Jurassic Park, it's happening in a lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Using a process called paleo-experimental evolution, Georgia Tech researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli(E. coli) bacteria. This bacterium has now been growing for more than 1,000 generations, giving the scientists a front row seat to observe evolution in action. "This is as close as we can get to rewinding ...

This press release is available in German. It is not primary tumors that are responsible for the majority of cancer deaths, but rather their metastases. Physiologists and neuropathologists from the University of Zurich have now identified the origin of metastasis formation, thereby becoming the first to reveal the pathway of metastasizing intestinal cancer cells out of the blood stream. The results allow new approaches in the development of cancer therapies. Every year, over seven million people die of cancer worldwide. Thanks to more effective therapy and better ...

HIV prevention must be better targeted, according to David Holtgrave from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US, and colleagues. Health care professionals need a more detailed analysis and understanding of the interplay between HIV risk behavior, access to treatment and treatment success among those living with HIV. The authors discuss their proposed framework in a study¹ in a special issue of Springer's journal AIDS and Behavior. The special issue, "Turning the Tide Together: Advances in Behavioral Interventions Research"² is freely available online ...

This press release is available in German. The volume of a small brain region influences one's predisposition for altruistic behavior. Researchers from the University of Zurich show that people who behave more altruistically than others have more gray matter at the junction between the parietal and temporal lobe, thus showing for the first time that there is a connection between brain anatomy, brain activity and altruistic behavior. Why are some people very selfish and others very altruistic? Previous studies indicated that social categories like gender, income ...

HARLINGEN, Texas (July 11, 2012) — Air samples from homes of Hispanic mothers-to-be along the Texas-Mexico border contained multiple pesticides in a majority of the houses, according to a study conducted by the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio. All the women were in the third trimester of pregnancy, when the fetal brain undergoes a growth spurt. Several studies have reported that pesticide exposure may adversely affect mental and motor development during infancy and childhood. The new report is in the summer issue of the ...

MADISON -- Like many Neotropical fauna, sloths are running out of room to maneuver. As forests in South and Central America are cleared for agriculture and other human uses, populations of these arboreal leaf eaters, which depend on large trees for both food and refuge, can become isolated and at risk. But one type of sustainable agriculture, shade grown cacao plantations, a source of chocolate, could become critical refuges and bridges between intact forests for the iconic animals. In an ongoing study in Costa Rica, wildlife biologists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison ...

WASHINGTON – Middle-aged women who report having been physically abused as children are about two times more likely than other women their age to have high blood pressure, high blood sugar, a larger waistline and poor cholesterol levels, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association. These women are diagnosed as having metabolic syndrome which, according to previous research, places them at an increased risk of developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. This link between physical abuse and metabolic syndrome persisted beyond traditional ...

New Rochelle, NY, July 11, 2012—As athletes from around the world compete for medals at the Summer Olympics in London, the city will be striving to meet Olympic-level sustainability goals. A fascinating first-person view of how these sustainability targets were developed and will be achieved is featured in Sustainability: The Journal of Record, a publication of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (www.liebertpub.com) The article is available free online at the Sustainability: The Journal of Record (www.liebertpub.com/sus) website. The central location of the Summer 2012 ...

A new Cochrane systematic review of the effects of electric fans in heatwaves has found no high quality evidence to guide future national and international policies. The review outlines the type of study that would help resolve the uncertainty which is spelt out in a podcast and an editorial all published today in The Cochrane Library. Heatwaves in Europe and the USA have led to increasing interest in health protection measures to reduce the impacts of such extreme weather events on human health. Heatwaves are also an issue for mass gatherings and heatwave planning has ...

ARLINGTON, Va.—An Office of Naval Research (ONR) universal gateway that gives Sailors access to more accurate, secure, real-time information will be delivered to the fleet in just three years from the project's inception at ONR officials announced July 11. On any Navy destroyer, cruiser or carrier today, there are two networks: one for combat systems (weapons and sensors) and one for command and control, or C2, which also encompasses intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. There are some 30 interconnections between the two networks, making it difficult to integrate ...

"Cows are happy in parts of Northern California and not in Florida" is a good way to sum up the findings of new research from the University of Washington, said Yoram Bauman, best known as the "stand-up economist." Bauman and colleagues found that the decline in milk production due to climate change will vary across the U.S., since there are significant differences in humidity and how much the temperature swings between night and day across the country. For instance, the humidity and hot nights make the Southeast the most unfriendly place in the country for dairy cows. Their ...

HOUSTON – (July 11, 2012) – Rice University researchers have settled a long-standing controversy over the mechanism by which silver nanoparticles, the most widely used nanomaterial in the world, kill bacteria. Their work comes with a Nietzsche-esque warning: Use enough. If you don't kill them, you make them stronger. Scientists have long known that silver ions, which flow from nanoparticles when oxidized, are deadly to bacteria. Silver nanoparticles are used just about everywhere, including in cosmetics, socks, food containers, detergents, sprays and a wide range of ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Communication between the brain and muscle must be strong for us to eat, breathe or walk. Now scientists have found that a protein known to be on the surface of muscle cells must be present in both tissues to ensure the conversation is robust. Scientists at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University have shown that without LRP4 in muscle cells and neurons, communication between the two cells types is inefficient and short-lived. Problems with the protein appear to contribute to disabling disorders such as myasthenia gravis ...

PHILADELPHIA – In the aftermath of the recent United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, the focus of many industrialized nations is beginning to shift toward planning for a sustainable future. One of the foremost challenges for sustainability is efficient use of renewable energy resources, a goal that hinges on the ability to store this energy when it is produced and disburse it when it is needed. A team of researchers from Drexel University's College of Engineering have taken up this challenge and has developed a new method for quickly and efficiently ...

A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. It is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system. "The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," said team lead Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. The discovery increases the number of known moons orbiting Pluto to five. The ...

Pluto's new-found moon, visible as a speck of light in Hubble images, is estimated to be irregular in shape and between 10 and 25 kilometres across. It is in a 95 000 kilometre-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to lie in the same plane as Pluto's other known moons. "The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," said Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, USA, leader of the scientific team that discovered the new moon. The Pluto team is intrigued that such a small planet can have such a complex collection ...