Ever since Darwin first published The Origin of the Species, scientists have been striving to identify a last universal common ancestor of all living species. Paleontological, biochemical, and genomic studies have produced conflicting versions of the evolutionary tree. Now a team of researchers, led by a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and including area high school students, has developed a novel method to search the vast archives of known gene sequences to identify and compare similar proteins across the many kingdoms of life. Using the comparisons ...

The economic impact of the Olympics has not been the same for all host countries. According to the Olympic Studies Centre at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the games held in the Catalonian capital 20 years ago were a resounding and incomparable success. But it is not always the case. The Olympic Games have always been thought of as a great opportunity to give a long-term boost to the economy by taking advantage of a short-term event. But before embarking on the costly effort of organising the Olympics, each candidate city should evaluate their own goals and capacities ...

Pancreatic beta cells produce insulin, responsible for controlling blood sugar levels and thus essential for our survival. Among the numerous factors that affect the workings of these cells, a protein called Cx36 was identified a few months ago by a research team at the UNIGE. The scientists there had demonstrated that in transgenic mice, suitably modified so as not to produce any Cx36, synchronization of the beta cells ceased and insulin production went out of control. This de-synchronization of insulin secretion is the first measurable sign in people suspected of developing ...

In a statement on the chances and limits of using bioenergy, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina has come to the conclusion that in quantitative terms, bioenergy plays a minor role in the transition to renewable, sustainable energy sources in Germany at the present time and probably in the future. Bioenergy requires more surface area, is associated with higher greenhouse gas emissions and is more harmful to the environment than other renewable sources such as photovoltaic, solar thermal energy and wind energy. In addition, energy crops potentially compete ...

Amsterdam, July 26, 2012 - Surveys of drug use form an important basis for the development of effective drug policies, and also for measuring the effectiveness of existing policies. For the first time in history, scientists have now made direct comparisons of illicit drug use in 19 European cities by a cooperative analysis of raw sewage samples. To date, questionnaire-based studies have been the most common measurement method. Such studies are performed amongst different segments of society including partygoers, drug addicts and the general population. Additional information ...

Until now it was thought that fin whales in the Strait of Gibraltar and the Alboran Sea made up part of the distribution of this species of whale in the Mediterranean. However, an international team of scientists led by a Spaniard has revealed that their population has been overestimated by including specimens from the Atlantic that visit at certain times the western Mediterranean, where the noise generated by human activity affects their survival. In 1991 the fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) population in the Mediterranean Sea was estimated at 3500 specimens. A new study, ...

Brain tumors are the primary cause of cancer mortality in children. Even if a cure is possible, young patients often suffer from the stressful treatment which can be harmful to the developing brain. The most common childhood brain tumors are medulloblastoma and pylocytic astrocytoma. In order to find new target structures for more gentle treatment methods, cancer researchers are systematically analyzing all changes in the genetic material of such tumors. This is the mission of the PedBrain consortium, which was launched in 2010 as the first German part in the International ...

Chinese researchers have published the first evidence that a population of the recently discovered snub-nosed monkey, Rhinopithecus Strykeri, live in China. Until now researchers have been unable to photograph the monkey, whose upturned nostrils are said to make it sneeze in the rain. The paper is published in the American Journal of Primatology. The species was first discovered by a team led by Ngwe Lwin from the Myanmar Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association and described by Dr Thomas Geissman in the American Journal of Primatology in October 2010. It was ...

Cincinnati, OH. July 26, 2012 – Congenital hypothyroidism is thyroid hormone deficiency at birth that, if left untreated, can lead to neurocognitive impairments in infants and children. Although the World Health Organization recommends 200-300 µg of iodine daily during pregnancy for normal fetal thyroid hormone production and neurocognitive development, the US Institute of Medicine considers 1,100 µg to be the safe upper limit for daily ingestion. A case series scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics describes three infants who developed congenital hypothyroidism ...

This press release is available in German. Leipzig. The carcinogenic harmful substance benzene can seriously impact the soil and ground water following chemical accidents or at old industrial sites. Nevertheless, bacteria exist which can degrade this compound even in the absence of oxygen. Until now it was not clear which organisms take part in this process and how they work together. With modern analytical procedures scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have succeeded for the first time in tracking the path of this harmful substance through ...

Scientists led by the President of The University of Manchester have demonstrated a drug which can dramatically limit the amount of brain damage in stroke patients. Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, Professor Stuart Allan and their team have spent the last 20 years investigating how to reduce damage to the brain following a stroke. They have been testing the effectiveness of the drug Anakinra (IL-1Ra), which is already used for rheumatoid arthritis in experimental studies of stroke. This new study builds on previous research, although the big difference is that rats ...

Sixty years after the transistor began a technological revolution that transformed nearly every aspect of our daily lives, a new transistor brings innovations that may help to do so again. Developed at RIKEN, the device uses the electrostatic accumulation of electrical charge on the surface of a strongly-correlated material to trigger bulk switching of electronic state. Functional at room temperature and triggered by a potential of only 1 V, the switching mechanism provides a novel building block for ultra low power devices, non-volatile memory and optical switches based ...

This press release is available in German. Pulsars are superlative cosmic beacons. These compact neutron stars rotate about their axes many times per second, emitting radio waves and gamma radiation into space. Using ingenious data analysis methods, researchers from the Max Planck Institutes for Gravitational Physics and for Radio Astronomy, in an international collaboration, dug a very special gamma-ray pulsar out of data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The pulsar J1838-0537 is radio-quiet, very young, and, during the observation period, experienced the strongest ...

Patients with the most common type of lung cancer are notoriously insensitive to chemotherapy drugs, including cisplatin. New findings related to the cellular pathways that regulate responses to cisplatin have now been published by Cell Press on July 26th in the journal Cell Reports. The findings reveal a potential biomarker that can be used to predict how these patients will respond to chemotherapy, as well as the patients' overall prognosis, paving the way for personalized treatment strategies. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related ...

A team of scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences has just completed an airborne measurement campaign that allowed for the first time to measure large-scale methane emissions from the extensive Arctic permafrost landscapes. The study area extended from Barrow, the northernmost settlement on the American mainland, across the entire North Slope of Alaska, to the Mackenzie Delta in the Northwest Territories of Canada. The airborne measurements (Airborne ...

Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have developed the world's first device designed for mapping the human brain that combines whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology. MEG measures the electrical function and MRI visualizes the structure of the brain. The merging of these two technologies will produce unprecedented accuracy in locating brain electrical activity non-invasively. We expect that the new technology will improve the accuracy of brain mapping of patients with epilepsy. It may also improve the diagnosis of ...

Roofers and road construction workers who use hot asphalt are exposed to high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published this week in the British Medical Journal Open shows that roofers have higher PAH blood-levels after a shift than before and that these high levels of PAHs are linked with increased rates of DNA damage, and potentially with higher cancer risk. "We've known for some time that roofers and road workers have higher cancer rates than the general population, but we also know roofers have a higher ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The secret to the deadly 2011 E. coli outbreak in Germany has been decoded, thanks to research conducted at Michigan State University. The deadliest E. coli outbreak ever, which caused 54 deaths and sickened more than 3,800 people, was traced to a particularly virulent strain that researchers had never seen in an outbreak before. In the current issue of the academic journal PLoS ONE, a team of researchers led by Shannon Manning, MSU molecular biologist and epidemiologist, suggests a way to potentially tame the killer bacteria. The strain, E. coli ...

WASHINGTON—A study by the Genographic Project has shown that not all individuals carrying the Romanian "Basarab" surname, the first dynasty of Wallachian kings that included the real-life Dracula, can be direct biological descendants of the Basarab dynasty. The Basarab dynasty ruled Wallachia, the historical and geographical southern region of present-day Romania, for almost three centuries (1330-1601) and had among its members Vlad III the Impaler, commonly known as Dracula. The ethnic origin of the Basarab family has long been a dispute among historians, with both an ...

New Rochelle, NY, July 26, 2012— Administering high-doses of interleukin-2 (IL-2) has been the preferred treatment for patients with stage IV metastatic melanoma. An article published in the current issue of Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (http://www.liebertpub.com), explores whether or not this regimen is still the most effective. The article is available free online at the Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals website (http://www.liebertpub.com/cbr). In the article "Should High-Dose Interleukin-2 ...

We all know that, for the most part, it's wrong to kill other people, it's inappropriate to wear jeans to bed, and we shouldn't ignore people when they are talking to us. We know these things because we're bonded to others through social norms – we tend to do things the same way people around us do them and, most importantly, the way in which they expect us to do them. Social norms act as the glue that helps to govern social institutions and hold humans societies together, but how do we acquire these norms in the first place? In a new article published in the August ...

Predictors of disease severity in human papillomavirus-derived head and neck cancer, tobacco use, and the dramatic benefits of robotic surgery in people with head and neck cancer are among landmark research presented by Mount Sinai School of Medicine at the Eighth International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer. The meeting took place from July 21-25, 2012 in Toronto. Highlights of Mount Sinai research at the American Head and Neck Society conference: Transoral Robotic Surgery Shows Significant Promise in Hard-to-Treat Smokers with Head and Neck Cancer In a retrospective ...

A team of researchers from Tel Aviv University has uncovered a hoard of real-life buried treasure at the Crusader castle of Arsur (also known as Apollonia), a stronghold located between the ancient ports of Jaffa and Caesarea, in use from 1241 to its destruction in 1265. The hoard, comprised of 108 gold coins, mostly dinars dated to the Fatimid Period (ca. 900 to 1100 AD), was discovered in a pot by a university student. The coins bear the names of sultans and blessings, and usually include a date and a mint name that indicates where a coin was struck. This fascinating ...

RICHMOND, Va. (July 26, 2012) – Patients suffering from the chronic lung condition COPD, which is the third-leading cause of death and disability in the United States, may benefit greatly from a three-times-a-week dose of an antibiotic, according to a study by Virginia Commonwealth University physicians published in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Approximately 24 million Americans suffer from COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which creates recurrent, acute episodes of severe shortness of breath, cough and sputum production. Every ...

URBANA – A lot of time, effort, and money are spent by agencies, municipalities, and other non-governmental organizations to inform and educate the public about environmental concerns. Could these groups collaborate to inform the public about an environmental concern even though their beliefs may be very different? Two studies suggest that they can and should. University of Illinois professional geographer Bethany Cutts tracked messages to the public about water quality and usage from a variety of sources in Phoenix, Arizona. She found that considerable overlap in the ...