CHICAGO --- In the moments before you "stop and smell the roses," it's likely your brain is already preparing your sensory system for that familiar floral smell. New research from Northwestern Medicine offers strong evidence that the brain uses predictive coding to generate "predictive templates" of specific smells -- setting up a mental expectation of a scent before it hits your nostrils. Predictive coding is important because it provides animals -- in this case, humans -- with a behavioral advantage, in that they can react more quickly and more accurately to stimuli ...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Modern medicine's ability to save lives through organ transplantation has been revolutionized by the development of drugs that prevent the human body from rejecting the transplanted organ. But those antirejection drugs have their own side effects — sometimes serious. A group of researchers led by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University has discovered the process that may be causing many of those side effects. And the discovery means those side effects likely can be dealt with cheaply and easily — with a class of widely used drugs that are often ...

Philadelphia, PA, October 6, 2011 – Bone marrow-derived cells (BMDCs) participate in the growth and spread of tumors of the breast, brain, lung, and stomach. To examine the role of BMDCs, researchers developed a mouse model that could be used to track the migration of these cells while tumors formed and expanded. Their results, published in the November issue of The American Journal of Pathology, strongly suggest that more effective cancer treatments may be developed by exploiting the mechanism by which bone marrow cells migrate to tumors and retard their proliferation. "Our ...

Increasing levels of high-density lipoproteins, better known as HDL or "good" cholesterol, reduced the risk for heart attack and stroke among patients with diabetes. That's according to a new study appearing online today in The American Journal of Cardiology. The observational study, one of the largest of its kind, examined the medical records of more than 30,000 patients with diabetes and also found that patients whose HDL levels decreased had more heart attacks and strokes. Researchers studied patients with diabetes because they are more prone to heart disease ...

Cultivars of popular ornamental woody plants that are being sold in the United States as non-invasive are probably anything but, according to an analysis by botanical researchers published in the October issue of BioScience. Tiffany M. Knight of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and her coauthors at the Chicago Botanic Garden write that the claims of environmental safety are in most cases based on misleading demographic evidence that greatly underestimates the plants' invasive potential. What is more, the offspring of cultivars do not usually "breed true" and ...

New York, NY, October 7, 2011—A new set of strategies released today by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System could dramatically improve how the U.S. health care system serves vulnerable populations—those in the U.S. who are uninsured, low-income, or members of racial and ethnic minority groups. According to the new report, Ensuring Equity: A Post-Reform Framework to Achieve High Performance Health Care for Vulnerable Populations, closing the health care divide will require a three-pronged policy framework that ensures adequate access to ...

Most people know that some planets have moons but would be surprised to know that some asteroids do, too. According to Joshua Emery, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, about 20 percent of them do. Emery is part of an international team of planetary astronomers, led by Franck Marchis of the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., searching for moons around asteroids. The discovery of moons around asteroids is important because it can provide clues to the asteroid's formation. Emery ...

Boulder, CO, USA - Space is a violent place. If a star explodes or black holes collide anywhere in our part of the Milky Way, they'd give off colossal blasts of lethal gamma-rays, X-rays and cosmic rays and it's perfectly reasonable to expect Earth to be bathed in them. A new study of such events has yielded some new information about the potential effects of what are called "short-hard" interstellar radiation events. Several studies in the past have demonstrated how longer high-energy radiation bursts, such as those caused by supernovae, and extreme solar flares can ...

New findings of researchers from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Mauro Mandrioli, Valentina Monti and Gian Carlo Manicardi) show that in aphids the two X chromosomes have a different inheritance. The study was published in Comparative Cytogenetics. Aphids are insects with a sex determination model based on the presence of two X chromosomes (XX) in females and a single X chromosome (XO) in males. Previous studies suggested that X chromosome loss during male determination was random and that both X chromosomes have the same probability to be inherited in males. ...

Researchers at Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve often encounter signs of mountain lion activity, from lion scat to the occasional deer carcass covered with leaves. But few have actually caught a glimpse of the shy feline. Now, images captured by remote wildlife cameras confirm that mountain lions (also called pumas or cougars) make regular visits to Stanford's 1,189-acre preserve in the hills five miles west of the main campus. Since September 2009, a network of motion-activated infrared cameras has recorded more than 40 photographs and videos of mountain ...

Biological invasions, i.e. the spread of introduced, non-native species, not only serve as ecological model systems, but also bring out the importance of economic activities on ecological processes. Two recent books have shown the extent and variety of the interaction of economics with invasion science and also the variety of approaches to tackling these problems. Three researchers, lead by Mark Williamson from the University of York, England, argue in the latest issue of the open access journal NeoBiota that the ecological and economic dimensions of the problem of invasive ...

Cities are generally regarded as hostile for wildlife and urbanization a dramatic form of destruction of natural habitats. Still, they are far from dead zones. Their biodiversity may even exceed that of surrounding landscapes, owing to heterogeneous environments and frequent localization in naturally rich areas that historically supplied diverse resources for their human inhabitants. "This is definitely the case of the city of Prague, Czech Republic", says the lead author Prof. Vojtěch Jarošík of the study published in the open access journal NeoBiota. "Prague contains ...

The company smartphone, the private cellphone, keys for house and car, wallet – the objects we carry around with us every day are becoming more numerous all the time. Which is why many people also use their business smartphone for personal purposes. It may be convenient, but employees and the IT department have different interests: most employees would prefer unlimited use of their smartphones, installing and using whatever programs they like. But this can also open the door to hackers in search of ways of attacking. As a result, IT departments often try to limit the use ...

The farmer casts a worried gaze at his potato field: where only recently a lush green field of plants was growing, much of the foliage has now turned brown – presumably the result of a fungal disease. Usually, by the time the disease becomes visible, it is already too late. The course of the disease is then so advanced that there is little the farmer can do to counteract the damage done. To determine early on whether and how severely his plants are diseased, he would have to submit samples to a laboratory on a regular basis. There, researchers usually employ the ELISA method, ...

It is 7:30 a.m. and high time she left the house; she mustn't be late for her 8 o'clock appointment. But the young lady still feels the need to check that she closed all her windows, because the forecast is for thunderstorms that afternoon. Later, in the car, she realizes that she forgot to check one of the rooms when she went round the house. In situations like this, window contacts can make life easier and give peace of mind. These little electronic helpers are fitted onto window handles, and they can tell from the position of the handle whether the window is wide open, ...

Many of you might know that Congenital Dyserythropoietic Anemia type II (CDA II) is a rare blood disorder, due to a failure in final part of erythropoiesis. What will surprise you is the fact that some mutations responsible for the disease can be tracked 3.000 years back. A study led by the ENERCA member Prof. Achille Iolascon, from CEINGE Advanced Biotechnologies (Naples, Italy) and the University of Naples Federico II, analyzes two mutations (E109K and R14W) of the SEC23B gene and discovers one of them is responsible for the higher frequency of CDA II in Italian population. ...

A new University of Guelph study shows that gray jays hoping to survive and reproduce through Canada's harsh winters need to be able to store food in the right kinds of trees. The study appears in Oecologia and was co-authored by Prof. Ryan Norris, Department of Integrative Biology; Brian Kielstra, an undergraduate student in the Department of Geography; and Dan Strickland, retired chief naturalist of Algonquin Park in Ontario. Unlike most birds that migrate for winter, gray jays are year-round residents in the Canadian boreal forest. In winter, they rely on berries, ...

Contrary to the traditional views of the music industry, removal of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions can actually decrease piracy, according to new research from Rice University and Duke University. Marketing professors Dinah Vernik of Rice and Devavrat Purohit and Preyas Desai of Duke used analytical modeling to examine how piracy is influenced by the presence or absence of DRM restrictions. They found that while these restrictions make piracy more costly and difficult, the restrictions also have a negative impact on legal users who have no intention of ...

Parents of young caffeine consumers take heed: that high-calorie energy drink or soda might present more than just obesity risk. In fact, according to a double-blind, placebo-controlled study that examined responses to stimulants, an individual's subjective response to caffeine may predict how he or she will respond to other stimulant drugs, possibly reflecting differences in risk for abuse of other more serious drugs of abuse, such as amphetamine and cocaine. The new findings are reported in the November issue of the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence by Stacey Sigmon, ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Using one of the most sensitive neutrino detectors on the planet, an international team including physicists Laura Cadonati and Andrea Pocar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are now measuring the flow of solar neutrinos reaching earth more precisely than ever before. The detector probes matter at the most fundamental level and provides a powerful tool for directly observing the sun's composition. Pocar, Cadonati and colleagues report in the current issue of Physical Review Letters that the Borexino instrument has now measured with high precision ...

Monaco Yacht Show 2011 marked the end of the summer season in the Mediterranean, and charter yachts are readying to head towards warmer climates. Second in size only to the combined charter grounds of the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the Bahamas offer over 10,000 islands, islets, reefs and cays cruising. Luxury charter yachts in the Caribbean - M/Y Seven Sins - launched in 2005, Seven Sins has a proven charter record for delivering excellence at sea. Cherry wood has been chosen to give the interior a warm and welcoming feel whilst Indonesian ...

For immediate release – October 7, 2011 – (Toronto) – A new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has found evidence that a specific gene is linked to suicidal behaviour, adding to our knowledge of the many complex causes of suicide. This research may help doctors one day target the gene in prevention efforts. In the past, studies have implicated the gene for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in suicidal behaviour. BDNF is involved in the development of the nervous system. After pooling results from 11 previous studies and adding their own study ...

Friday, October 7, 2011, Cleveland: Researchers have discovered a cellular pathway that promotes inflammation in diseases like asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and multiple sclerosis. Understanding the details of this pathway may provide opportunities for tailored treatments of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Discovery of this pathway was the work of an active collaboration between Xiaoxia Li, Ph.D., and Thomas Hamilton, Ph.D., Department Chair, both of the Department of Immunology at Lerner Research Institute of Cleveland Clinic. ...

BATON ROUGE – A major concern related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 was the impact on people living in coastal areas. News reports provided anecdotal evidence that those living along the coast and reliant on the fishing or oil and gas industries for their livelihoods were very distressed and worried about the impact of the spill on their future. Two decades of social science research has reported that people who are more attached to their communities are better off. They are happier, less depressed and physically healthier than those who have weak attachments ...

A series of novel imaging agents could make it possible to "see" tumors in their earliest stages, before they turn deadly. The compounds, derived from inhibitors of the enzyme cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and detectable by positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, may have broad applications for cancer detection, diagnosis and treatment. Vanderbilt University investigators describe the new imaging agents in a paper featured on the cover of the October issue of Cancer Prevention Research. "This is the first COX-2-targeted PET imaging agent validated for use in animal models ...