CAMBRIDGE, MA -- A humble soil bacterium called Ralstonia eutropha has a natural tendency, whenever it is stressed, to stop growing and put all its energy into making complex carbon compounds. Now scientists at MIT have taught this microbe a new trick: They've tinkered with its genes to persuade it to make fuel — specifically, a kind of alcohol called isobutanol that can be directly substituted for, or blended with, gasoline. Christopher Brigham, a research scientist in MIT's biology department who has been working to develop this bioengineered bacterium, is currently ...

A study conducted in Mongolian schoolchildren supports the possibility that daily vitamin D supplementation can reduce the risk of respiratory infections in winter. In a report that will appear in the journal Pediatrics and has received early online release, an international research team found that vitamin D supplementation decreased the risk of respiratory infections among children who had low blood levels of vitamin D at the start of the study. "Our randomized controlled trial shows that vitamin D has important effects on infection risk," says Carlos Camargo, MD, ...

Films made of semiconductor nanocrystals — tiny crystals measuring just a few billionths of a meter across — are seen as a promising new material for a wide range of applications. Nanocrystals could be used in electronic or photonic circuits, detectors for biomolecules, or the glowing pixels on high-resolution display screens. They also hold promise for more efficient solar cells. The size of a semiconductor nanocrystal determines its electrical and optical properties. But it's very hard to control the placement of nanocrystals on a surface in order to make structurally ...

New research from Psychological Science explores factors operating in political attitudes that could explain why political ideology and prejudice are often linked. Liberals and Conservatives Both Prejudiced Against Groups with Opposing Values Research has associated political conservatism with prejudice toward various stereotyped groups. But research has also shown that people select and interpret evidence consistent with their own pre-existing attitudes and ideologies. In this article, Chambers and colleagues hypothesized that, contrary to what some research might ...

Researchers at a recent worldwide conference on fusion power have confirmed the surprising accuracy of a new model for predicting the size of a key barrier to fusion that a top scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has developed. The model could serve as a starting point for overcoming the barrier. "This allows you to depict the size of the challenge so you can think through what needs to be done to overcome it," said physicist Robert Goldston, the Princeton University professor of astrophysical sciences and former PPPL ...

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have identified a common compound in the modern diet that could play a major role in the development of abdominal obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. The findings are published in the August 20, 2012 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research team, led by Helen Vlassara, MD, Professor and Director of the Division of Experimental Diabetes and Aging, found that mice with sustained exposure to the compound, methyl-glyoxal (MG), developed significant abdominal weight gain, early insulin ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Sunscreens, lotions, and cosmetics contain tiny metal nanoparticles that wash down the drain at the end of the day, or are discharged after manufacturing. Those nanoparticles eventually end up in agricultural soil, which is a cause for concern, according to a group of environmental scientists that recently carried out the first major study of soybeans grown in soil contaminated by two manufactured nanomaterials (MNMs). The team was led by scientists at UC Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. The team is also affiliated ...

Botany is plagued by the same problem as the rest of science and society: our ability to generate data quickly and cheaply is surpassing our ability to access and analyze it. In this age of big data, scientists facing too much information rely on computers to search large data sets for patterns that are beyond the capability of humans to recognize—but computers can only interpret data based on the strict set of rules in their programming. New tools called ontologies provide the rules computers need to transform information into knowledge, by attaching meaning to data, ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- The simple act of picking up a pencil requires the coordination of dozens of muscles: The eyes and head must turn toward the object as the hand reaches forward and the fingers grasp it. To make this job more manageable, the brain's motor cortex has implemented a system of shortcuts. Instead of controlling each muscle independently, the cortex is believed to activate muscles in groups, known as "muscle synergies." These synergies can be combined in different ways to achieve a wide range of movements. A new study from MIT, Harvard Medical School and the ...

Nanoparticles tailored to latch onto blood platelets rapidly create healthy clots and nearly double the survival rate in the vital first hour after injury, new research shows. "We knew an injection of these nanoparticles stopped bleeding faster, but now we know the bleeding is stopped in time to increase survival following trauma," said Erin Lavik, a professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University and leader of the effort. The researchers are developing synthetic platelets that first responders and battlefield medics could carry with them to stabilize ...

The risk of dying from breast cancer was not related to high mammographic breast density in breast cancer patients, according to a study published August 20 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. One of the strongest risk factors for non-familial breast cancer is elevated mammographic breast density. While women with elevated mammographic breast density have a higher risk of developing breast cancer, it is not established whether a higher density indicates a lower chance of survival in breast cancer patients. In order to determine if higher mammographic breast ...

NASA's Terra and Aqua satellite have captured Hurricane Gordon over three days as it neared the Azores Islands in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Gordon weakened to a tropical storm on August 20. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, is an instrument that flies onboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites and provides high-resolution imagery to users. When NASA's Terra satellite flew over Gordon on August 17 at 9:30 a.m. EDT it was a tropical storm and did not have a visible eye. It was followed up by a fly over of NASA's Aqua satellite on August 18 at ...

The first evidence of a planet's destruction by its aging star has been discovered by an international team of astronomers. The evidence indicates that the missing planet was devoured as the star began expanding into a "red giant" -- the stellar equivalent of advanced age. "A similar fate may await the inner planets in our solar system, when the Sun becomes a red giant and expands all the way out to Earth's orbit some five-billion years from now," said Alexander Wolszczan, Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State University, who is one of the members ...

Tropical Storm Bolaven was born over the weekend of August 18-19 in the western North Pacific, and NASA captured infrared satellite imagery of its birth and growth. NASA's Aqua satellite has been monitoring the birth and progress of Tropical Storm Bolaven in the western North Pacific from Aug 19-20, 2012. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument has provided infrared satellite imagery that shows the development of colder thunderstorm cloud-top temperatures, that were indicative of strengthening storms. Tropical Storm Bolaven also took more of a rounded shape ...

Researchers have long studied infants' perceptions of safe and risky ground by observing their willingness to cross a visual cliff, a large drop-off covered with a solid glass surface. In crawling, infants grow more likely to avoid the apparent drop-off, leading researchers to conclude that they have a fear of heights. Now a new study has found that although infants learn to avoid the drop-off while crawling, this knowledge doesn't transfer to walking. This suggests that what infants learn is to perceive the limits of their ability to crawl or walk, not a generalized fear ...

Ethnic and political violence in the Middle East can increase violence in families, schools, and communities, which can in turn boost children's aggressiveness, especially among 8-year-olds. Those are the findings of a new study that examined children and their parents in the Middle East. "The study has important implications for understanding how political struggles can spill over into the everyday lives of families and children, and suggests that intervention might be necessary in a number of different social areas to protect children from the adverse impacts of exposure ...

Young children in lower-income families who live in high-cost areas don't do as well academically as their counterparts in low-cost areas, according to a new study. The study, by researchers at Child Trends and the University of California (UCLA), appears in the journal Child Development. "Among families with incomes below 300 percent of the federal poverty threshold—that's below $66,339 for a family of four—living in a region with a higher cost of living was related to lower academic achievement in first grade," according to Nina Chien, a research scientist with Child ...

Regardless of how much a high school student generally studies each day, if that student sacrifices sleep in order to study more than usual, he or she is more likely to have academic problems the following day. Because students tend to increasingly sacrifice sleep time for studying in the latter years of high school, this negative dynamic becomes more and more prevalent over time. Those are the findings of a new longitudinal study that focused on daily and yearly variations of students who sacrifice sleep to study. The research was conducted at the University of California, ...

It's thought that children grow increasingly distant and independent from their parents during their teen years. But a new longitudinal study has found that spending time with parents is important to teens' well-being. The study, conducted at the Pennsylvania State University, appears in the journal Child Development. Researchers studied whether the stereotype of teens growing apart from their parents and spending less time with them captured the everyday experiences of families by examining changes in the amount of time youths spent with their parents from early to ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Children exposed to ethnic and political violence in the Middle East are more aggressive than other children, a new study shows. And the younger children are, the more strongly they are affected, in a "chain of violence" that goes from political and ethnic strife, to violence in communities, schools, and families, and ends with their own aggressive behavior. "Our results have important implications for understanding how political struggles spill over into the everyday lives of families and children," says psychologist Paul Boxer, lead author of the ...

VIDEO: A new survey by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons shows that 89 percent of women want to see what breast reconstruction surgery results would look like before undergoing treatment... Click here for more information. A new survey released today by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) shows that 89 percent of women want to see what breast reconstruction surgery results would look like before undergoing treatment for breast cancer,* prompting the world's ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – New magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) research shows that changes in brain blood flow associated with vein abnormalities are not specific for multiple sclerosis (MS) and do not contribute to its severity, despite what some researchers have speculated. Results of the research are published online in the journal Radiology. "MRI allowed an accurate evaluation of cerebral blood flow that was crucial for our results," said Simone Marziali, M.D., from the Department of Diagnostic Imaging at the University of Rome Tor Vergata in Rome. MS is a disease of the ...

VIDEO: Blood vessel development in tadpoles with and without the common antifungal drug thiabendazole shows how the drug is a "vascular disrupting agent. " Click here for more information. AUSTIN, Texas — An inexpensive antifungal drug, thiabendazole, slows tumor growth and shows promise as a chemotherapy for cancer. Scientists in the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin made this discovery by exploiting the evolutionary relatedness ...

"This is a beautiful piece of property. The ground is ideal for horses, cattle, investment or your dream home," said John Nicholls, president of the company. "Our out-of-state seller has instructed us to market and sell this 32+/- acre parcel and that equates to an amazing opportunity for you to buy at Auction!" "The property at auction consists of 32.95 acres of vacant land that is two-thirds cleared and zoned AOC (agricultural open conservation), "said Craig Damewood, Nicholls Auction Marketing Group Coordinator. "The properties' ...

Direct from his own show in Las Vegas, Comedy Hypnotist Don Barnhart will turn the audience into the stars of the show each night releasing their hidden talents. Barnhart has been named, "America's Funniest Hypnotist" and stars in the new movie, Finding The Funny. This is a special return engagement with regular PG 13 shows Nov 1st-3rdth and Nov 8-10th with two R rated "Adult's Only Naughty Shows" Sunday Nov 4th & 11th. Showtimes are 8pm nightly with an additional 10:30 show on Fri/Sat. Tickets are $10.00 and can be purchased by calling the ...