PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — With enough sunlight falling on home roofs to supply at least half of America's electricity, scientists today described advances toward the less-expensive solar energy technology needed to roof many of those homes with shingles that generate electricity. Shingles that generate electricity from the sun, and can be installed like traditional roofing, already are a commercial reality. But the advance ― a new world performance record for solar cells made with "earth-abundant" materials ― could make them more affordable and ease the ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — The American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, is holding a special symposium today honoring Rudy M. Baum, editor-in-chief of its weekly newsmagazine, whose thought-provoking editorials and editorial leadership made Baum an icon among ACS' more than 164,000 members. "Rudy Baum's editorials focused on some of the greatest challenges facing humanity," said ACS President Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, Ph.D., who organized the symposium. It is part of the 244th ACS National Meeting & Exposition, a scientific extravaganza ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — Scientists today reported progress toward a 40-year-old dream of extracting uranium for nuclear power from seawater, which holds at least 4 billion tons of the precious material. They described some of the most promising technology and an economic analysis showing uranium from the oceans could help solidify nuclear energy potential as a sustainable electricity source for the 21st century. Their reports were part of a symposium at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — Working with units of material so small that it would take 50,000 to make up one drop, scientists are developing the profiles of the contents of individual brain cells in a search for the root causes of chronic pain, memory loss and other maladies that affect millions of people. They described the latest results of this one-by-one exploration of cells or "neurons" from among the millions present in an animal brain at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2012 — The refreshing chill of today's fudge-brownie cookie-crumble ice cream cone ― will it really last? Or can ice cream actually stoke the body's metabolic furnace and make you feel even hotter? How about a few ice-cold brews? Or should you add a dash of the counter-intuitive to your summer menu with the sweat-inducing, mouth-on-fire, tear-provoking taste of chili peppers? With millions of people already weather-worn after a summer punctuated by record heat, and some of the hottest days still ahead, the American Chemical Society (ACS) ...

New York City (August 21, 2012) – Treating very young infants with antibiotics may predispose them to being overweight in childhood, according to a study of more than 10,000 children by researchers at the NYU School of Medicine and the NYU Wagner School of Public Service and published in the online August 21, 2012, issue of the International Journal of Obesity. The study found that on average, children exposed to antibiotics from birth to 5 months of age weighed more for their height than children who weren't exposed. Between the ages of 10 to 20 months, this translated ...

August 21, 2012, Shenzhen, China – An international team led by New York University School of Medicine and BGI, the largest genomics organization in the world, has completed the first genome-wide and single-nucleotide resolution DNA methylomes of two ant species: Camponotus floridanus and Harpegnathos saltator. It provides new insights into the relationship between epigenetic regulation and caste differentiation of ants and also shed light on the epigenetic mechanism involved in social behavior, neurobiology and life-span of other animals. The latest study was published ...

SEATTLE - (August 21, 2012) – Research on a unique vertebrate called the sea lamprey shows that more than a thousand genes are shed during its early development. These genes are paradoxically lost all throughout the developing embryo except in a specialized compartment called "primordial germ cells" or PGCs. The PGCs can be thought of as embryonic stem cells and are used, ultimately, for making the next generation of lampreys. Based on computational analysis, a significant number of genes that are lost in the embryo have signatures of "pluripotency," which suggests that ...

How abnormal protein deposits in the brains of Alzheimer's patients disrupt the signalling between nerve cells has now been reported by researchers in Bochum and Munich, led by Dr. Thorsten Müller from the Medizinisches Proteom-Center of the Ruhr-Universität, in the journal Molecular and Cellular Proteomics. They varied the amount of APP protein and related proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease in cell cultures, and then analysed how this manipulation affected other proteins in the cell. The result: the amount of APP present was related to the amount of an enzyme ...

The research relates to a family of molecules firstly discovered in Melbourne that applied to blood cell development. One of these, granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor or GM-CSF, acts as a messenger between cells acting at a site of inflammation. Professor John Hamilton has posed the question: could blocking GM-CSF action lead to a new treatment for inflammatory diseases? In experimental models of rheumatoid arthritis, Professor Hamilton and Dr Andrew Cook had previously shown that blocking GM-CSF function with an antibody suppressed the disease leading to ...

Numerous viruses are used in the service of science today. They serve as gene taxis to transfer therapeutic genes into body cells or as therapeutic viruses targeted to infect and destroy cancer cells. For such applications, the viruses are often equipped with additional genes, such as for immune mediators or for proteins inducing programmed cell death. However, these gene products can harm the body if they are released at the wrong moment or at excessive levels. "Ideally, we want to be able to turn on and off the transferred genes at a specific time," says Dr. Dirk Nettelbeck, ...

A pioneering surgical blood salvage technology developed at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, is set to transform the way major surgery is carried out by reducing blood loss in patients. HemoSep is set to revolutionise the health care sector after gaining the CE mark and receiving Canadian national approval, following highly successful clinical trials in the world leading University of Kirikkale University Hospital in Ankara, Turkey. The device is designed to recover blood spilled during open-heart and major trauma surgery and concentrate the blood cells for transfusion ...

The first systematic, multidisciplinary results to come out of research conducted on the edge of the Serengeti at the rich palaeoanthropological site in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania since that produced by Louis and Mary Leakey's team, have recently been published in a special issue of the prestigious Journal of Human Evolution. Professor Marion Bamford, deputy director of the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, and Professor Ron Clarke from the Institute of Human Evolution – both at the University of the Witwatersrand – contributed papers to the 191-page ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — How do stem cells preserve their ability to become any type of cell in the body? And how do they "decide" to give up that magical state and start specializing? If researchers could answer these questions, our ability to harness stem cells to treat disease could explode. Now, a University of Michigan Medical School team has published a key discovery that could help that goal become reality. In the current issue of the prestigious journal Cell Stem Cell, researcher Yali Dou, Ph.D., and her team show the crucial role of a protein called Mof in preserving ...

A new study of nine coastal cities around the world suggests that Shanghai is most vulnerable to serious flooding. European cities top the leader board for their resilience. These finding are based on a new method to calculate the flood vulnerability of cities, developed by a team of researchers from the Netherlands and the University of Leeds. The work is published in the latest edition of the journal Natural Hazards. The index does not just look at the likelihood of a city's exposure to a major 'once in a hundred years' flood. The researchers have been careful to ...

The UK government has failed to apply laws that protect working women in the wake of the economic crisis, suggests a new study from Queen Mary, University of London. The article analyses The Fawcett Case, a high-profile legal challenge to the 2010 emergency budget on the grounds that it would have a disproportionately negative impact on women. The paper also charts how equality legislation has created opportunities for women's rights groups to influence industrial relations; traditionally, trade union territory. The research was carried out by Dr Hazel Conley, from ...

Many Brits who move to Turkey are failing to grasp local and international laws, leaving them financially at risk when making legal transactions, such as buying property, a study from Queen Mary, University of London has found. Being unable to speak or read Turkish has made navigating such issues a "legal minefield" for many Brits who emigrate in a quest for the affordable "good life" on the Aegean coast. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the study focuses on British citizens settling in Mugla, a popular tourist spot in Turkey, and their social and legal experiences ...

This press release is available in Spanish and in French - The Nek9 protein is required for chromosomes to separate into two identical groups. - Nek9 exerts its action between two molecules of interest for the pharmaceutical industry as anti-tumoral agents, and for which inhibitors are already in advanced stages of clinical trials. Nek9 could be added to the list of candidates. A study by the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and the Center for Genomic Regulation (acronym in Catalan CRG) highlights the protein Nek9 as a decisive factor in cell ...

Two rare species of forget-me-nots have been added to Flora of New Zealand. These new species were discovered in the mountains of the South Island during an expedition led by Dr. Carlos A. Lehnebach. These new species have been described and illustrated in an article published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. The expedition was part of a major endeavour by a group of botanists at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in partnership with Landcare Research aiming to describe and list all forget-me-nots (Myosotis) found in New Zealand. Dr. Lehnebach, who is a ...

A research team from King's College London and the University of Exeter Medical School has identified how a genetic mutation acts during the development of nerves responsible for controlling eye muscles, resulting in movement disorders such as Duane Syndrome, a form of squint. The findings could provide the key to reversing the condition and unlocking the causes of movement disorders in other parts of the body. The research is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As nerves develop in the womb they respond to signals that tell them in which ...

A new paper from North Carolina State University calls for more research on how to help homeless families with children who are facing mental-health problems, as well as changes in how shelters are treating these families. "We wanted to lay out the specific mental-health challenges facing homeless parents and children living in shelters and transitional housing," says Dr. Mary Haskett, a professor of psychology at NC State and co-author of the paper. "This is important, because at any point in time there are approximately one million families with children who are homeless ...

For six centuries, the ancient Maya flourished, with more than a hundred city-states scattered across what is now southern Mexico and northern Central America. Then, in A.D. 695, the collapse of several cities in present day Guatemala marked the start of the Classic Maya's slow decline. Prolonged drought is thought to have played a role, but a study published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters adds a new twist: The Maya may have made the droughts worse by clearing away forests for cities and crops, making a naturally drying climate drier. "We're not ...

People with Parkinson's disease performed markedly better on a test of working memory after a night's sleep, and sleep disorders can interfere with that benefit, researchers have shown. While the classic symptoms of Parkinson's disease include tremors and slow movements, Parkinson's can also affect someone's memory, including "working memory." Working memory is defined as the ability to temporarily store and manipulate information, rather than simply repeat it. The use of working memory is important in planning, problem solving and independent living. The findings underline ...

Bewildered by the array of antioxidant fruit juices on display in the supermarket and the promises they make? To sort out the antioxidant properties of fruits and berries, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine turned to fruit flies for help. They found that a commercially available acai berry product can lengthen the lives of fruit flies, when the flies' lives are made short through additional oxidative stress. Under certain conditions (a simple sugar diet) acai supplementation could triple flies' lifespans, from eight to 24 days. Acai could also counteract ...

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – August 21, 2012 – The Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, an international leader in cardiovascular research, today announces the online publication of a study in EP Europace that raises serious concerns about St. Jude Medical defibrillator leads. The study found that a new copolymer of silicone and polyurethane (Optim™) might not prevent insulation abrasions that can result in electronic malfunction. The paper is authored by Foundation researchers Robert Hauser, Raed Abdelhadi, Deepa McGriff and Linda Retel, and it is another in a series of Foundation ...