Certain kinds of viruses such as those that cause the common cold, SARS, hepatitis, and encephalitis, copy themselves using a unique mechanism, according to a team of Penn State University scientists that includes David Boehr, an assistant professor of chemistry and a co-leader of the research team. The discovery sheds light on a previously identified, but never-before-understood region of an enzyme associated with the process of replicating genetic material. The research is an important step toward the improvement of existing vaccines, as well as toward the design of vaccines ...

Korean scientists have used tiny stars, squares and triangles as a toolkit to create live neural circuits in a dish. They hope the shapes can be used to create a reproducible neural circuit model that could be used for learning and memory studies as well as drug screening applications; the shapes could also be integrated into the latest neural tissue scaffolds to aid the regeneration of neurons at injured sites in the body, such as the spinal cord. Published today, 20 July, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Neural Engineering, the study, by researchers at the Korea Advanced ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Breast cancer treatments such as Herceptin that target a marker called HER2 have dramatically improved outcomes for women with this type of cancer. But nearly half of these cancers are resistant to Herceptin from the start and almost all of them will eventually become resistant. Now, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered one reason why the cancer cells become resistant: They turn on a completely different pathway, one that is involved in inflammation, fueling the cancer independently of HER2. The pathway ...

VANCOUVER - While clinical trial results are being released regarding drugs intended to decrease amyloid production - thought to contribute to decline in Alzheimer's disease - clinical trials of drugs targeting other disease proteins, such as tau, are in their initial phases. Penn Medicine research presented today at the 2012 Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) shows that an anti-tau treatment called epithilone D (EpoD) was effective in preventing and intervening the progress of Alzheimer's disease in animal models, improving neuron function and ...

Hundreds of mutations exist in leukemia cells at the time of diagnosis, but nearly all occur randomly as a part of normal aging and are not related to cancer, new research shows. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that even in healthy people, stem cells in the blood routinely accumulate new mutations over the course of a person's lifetime. And their research shows that in many cases only two or three additional genetic changes are required to transform a normal blood cell already dotted with mutations into acute myeloid leukemia ...

For children receiving kidney transplants, a potentially correctable blood condition present in about one in four recipients is associated with a moderately increased risk of the graft's later failure, suggesting that clinicians should weigh whether transplant is advisable when the condition is present, according to UC Davis research presented today at the 24th International Congress of the Transplantation Society in Berlin. Children with chronic kidney disease often have the condition, called low serum albumin, as a result of inflammation or malnutrition, among other ...

Chemical batteries power many different mobile electronic devices, but repeated charging and discharging cycles can wear them out. An alternative energy storage device called an ultracapacitor can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times without degrading, but ultracapacitors have their own disadvantages, including a voltage output that drops precipitously as the device is discharged. Now a researcher from the University of West Florida has designed an ultracapacitor that maintains a near steady voltage. The novel constant-voltage design, which may one day help ultracapacitors ...

VIDEO: The difference between the cognitive styles of two monkeys is clearly visible in the neural population vectors for hand movement direction. The instant the target (green) appears, monkey H plans... Click here for more information. Anyone who has looked at the jagged recording of the electrical activity of a single neuron in the brain must have wondered how any useful information could be extracted from such a frazzled signal. But over the past 30 years, researchers ...

New treatments to lessen the severity of the more than 21,000 Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) cases that occur in Australia each year are on the horizon. Published today in the leading neurology journal, Brain, a study led by researchers from Monash University's Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD) revealed how inhibiting certain enzymes decreased the severity of TBI, providing a target for future treatments. Caused by a blow to the head, often suffered during falls or road crashes, severe TBI can result in long-term disability or death. Effects can include impairments ...

Los Angeles, CA (July 19, 2012) As communities seek new ways to emerge from the recession, many may look to growing their population as a strategy. However, the belief that population growth will bring jobs and economic prosperity for local residents is a myth. These findings are published in a new study in the latest issue of Economic Development Quarterly (published by SAGE). "Growth may be associated with economic development success; however, it is not the cause of that success," wrote study author Eben Fodor. Fodor examined the relationship between growth and economic ...

Philadelphia, PA, July 19, 2012 – Neuroeconomics experts and guest editors of the Biological Psychiatry special issue Carla Sharp, John Monterosso, and P. Read Montague in an introductory paper define neuroeconomics as "an interdisciplinary field that brings together psychology, economics, neuroscience, and computational science to investigate how people make decisions." Neuroeconomics is a relatively new field that traditionally has studied the decision-making process of healthy individuals. It does so by using neuroimaging techniques in conjunction with behavioral ...

Belgian scientists of the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, Belgium made a breakthrough in bridging high tech molecular biology research on microbial pathogens and the needs of the poorest of the poor. After sequencing the complete genome of Leishmania donovani (a parasite causing one of the most important tropical diseases after malaria) in hundreds of clinical isolates, they identified a series of mutations specific of 'superparasites' and developed a simple assay that should allow tracking them anywhere. This EU-funded research was done in collaboration ...

Synapses are modified through learning. Up until now, scientists believed that a particular form of synaptic plasticity in the brain's hippocampus was responsible for learning spatial relations. This was based on a receptor type for the neurotransmitter glutamate: the NMDA receptor. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg and Oxford University have now observed that mice develop a spatial memory, even when the NMDA receptor-transmitted plasticity is switched off in parts of their hippocampus. However, if these mice have to resolve a conflict ...

Marine bacteria of the Roseobacter clade are found to be spread widely throughout the oceans of this planet from the tropics to as far as Antarctica. They live freely in the water, in sediments and as symbiotic partners of algae. Special photosynthetic pigments are responsible for their pink colour. Marine bacteria distinguish themselves through an unusually diverse metabolism, which opens interesting opportunities for biotechnological applications. A reconstruction of their evolutionary development will provide a key for scientists to understand the secret for their ecological ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Physicists Andrea Pocar and Krishna Kumar of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, part of an international research team, recently reported results of an experiment conducted at the Enriched Xenon Observatory (EXO), located in a salt mine one-half mile under Carlsbad, New Mexico, part of a decades-long search for evidence of the elusive neutrino-less double-beta decay of Xenon-136. Pocar, Kumar and the team of 60 scientists using an instrument called the EXO-200 detector, succeeded in setting a new lower limit for the half-life of this ephemeral ...

A new model shows how an elusive type of black hole can be formed in the gas surrounding their supermassive counterparts. In research published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, scientists from the American Museum of Natural History, the City University of New York, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics propose that intermediate-mass black holes—light-swallowing celestial objects with masses ranging from hundreds to many thousands of times the mass of the Sun—can ...

A joint study carried out by The University of Nottingham and the multinational food company Unilever has found for the first time that fat in food can reduce activity in several areas of the brain which are responsible for processing taste, aroma and reward. The research, now available in the Springer journal Chemosensory Perception, provides the food industry with better understanding of how in the future it might be able to make healthier, less fatty food products without negatively affecting their overall taste and enjoyment. Unveiled in 2010, Unilever's Sustainable ...

What do you get when you dissect 10 000 fruit-fly larvae? A team of researchers led by the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in the UK and the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI) in Freiburg, Germany has discovered a way in which cells can adjust the activity of many different genes at once. Their findings, published in the journal Science, overturn commonly held views and reveal an important mechanism behind gender differences. Asifa Akhtar's laboratory, previously at EMBL now at MPI, studies precisely how flies regulate an important ...

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare on July 19, 2012, beginning at 1:13 AM EDT and peaking at 1:58 AM. Solar flares are gigantic bursts of radiation that cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to harm humans on the ground, however, when strong enough, they can disrupt the atmosphere and degrade GPS and communications signals. The flare is classified as an M7.7 flare. This means it is weaker than the largest flares, which are classified as X-class. M-class flares can cause brief radio communications blackouts at the poles. Increased numbers of flares are currently ...

PHILADELPHIA - Silymarin, an extract of milk thistle commonly used to treat chronic liver disease by millions of people around the World, does not offer significant improvements for patients, according to a new study conducted by a nationwide group of researchers including faculty at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Milk thistle fruit extracts have been widely used by patients in treating liver disease based on previous evidence showing that it has anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and potentially anti-viral properties. However, the new ...

A new study from Lund University in Sweden has opened the way for new approaches to slowing the development of AIDS in HIV-1-infected patients. It is hoped that this could lead to better treatment methods and preventive measures to combat HIV and AIDS. The findings have just been published in the distinguished scientific journal New England Journal of Medicine. The most common type of the virus that causes AIDS – HIV-1 – is less aggressive when it infects a person already carrying the milder HIV-2. The study looked at how the disease developed in those who had been ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A ratings system developed by a group of Kansas State University researchers could keep bridges safer and help prevent catastrophic collapses. Hayder Rasheed, associate professor of civil engineering, and Yacoub Najjar, professor of civil engineering, are collaborating to better detect and measure damage in concrete bridges. Ahmed Al-Rahmani, doctoral student in civil engineering, United Arab Emirates, has also been involved in the project. The researchers have created a bridge health index, which is a rating system that more accurately describes ...

Big data needs big power. The server farms that undergird the Internet run on a vast tide of electricity. Even companies that have invested in upgrades to minimize their eco-footprint use tremendous amounts: The New York Times estimates that Google, for example, uses enough electricity in its data centers to power about 200,000 homes. Now, a team of Princeton University engineers has a solution that could radically cut that power use. Through a new software technique, researchers from the School of Engineering and Applied Science have opened the door for companies to ...

NEW YORK (July 19, 2012)— A dramatic photo of a male leopard dragging a massive gaur (or Indian bison) calf in Karnataka's Bandipur Tiger Reserve turned out to be the same animal photographed by a WCS camera trap nearly eight years ago. The photo, taken by Indian photographer Vinay S. Kumar, was initially submitted to Conservation India, a not-for-profit portal to enable conservation action. Intrigued by the picture, CI's editors sent it to researchers at Wildlife Conservation Society's India Program who have been running a tiger-monitoring program for over two decades ...

Tired? Scientists have discovered another possible benefit of a night of restful and uninterrupted sleep. According to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health fragmented or interrupted sleep could predict future placement in a nursing home or assisted living facility. The study is featured in the July 2012 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and outlines the association between objectively measured sleep and subsequent institutionalization among older women. "Sleep disturbances are common in older people," ...