Engaged workers—those who approach their work with energy, dedication, and focus—are more open to new information, more productive, and more willing to go the extra mile. Moreover, engaged workers take the initiative to change their work environments in order to stay engaged. What do we know about the inner workings of work engagement, and how can employers enhance it to improve job performance? In a new article to be published in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science , a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Arnold B. Bakker ...

PASADENA, Calif.—Artificial intelligence has been the inspiration for countless books and movies, as well as the aspiration of countless scientists and engineers. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have now taken a major step toward creating artificial intelligence—not in a robot or a silicon chip, but in a test tube. The researchers are the first to have made an artificial neural network out of DNA, creating a circuit of interacting molecules that can recall memories based on incomplete patterns, just as a brain can. "The brain is incredible," ...

Often enough, in science as in life, unexpected knowledge has a personal impact. Researchers seeking rare gene variants in just a few individuals with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) discovered that one patient had a novel combination of two mutations. Those mutations caused a different disease, unrelated to ADHD—a blood disorder called idiopathic hemolytic anemia. Although the man had long contended with the blood disease, "idiopathic" meant that physicians were unable to determine the cause of his particular anemia—until now, say authors of a new study. As ...

SALT LAKE CITY – A team of researchers from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University has developed a mouse model of focal dermal hypoplasia, a rare human birth defect that causes serious skin abnormalities and other medical problems. This animal model not only provides insight into studying the cause of focal dermal hypoplasia (FDH), but also offers a novel way to study a signaling pathway that is crucial for embryonic development. The findings were published July 19, 2011, online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. FDH is an uncommon ...

JACKSON, Miss. – A group of researchers from the University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School and the University of Mississippi Medical Center has constructed the world's most detailed genetic map, a tool scientists can use to better understand the roots of disease and how DNA is passed generationally to create diversity in the human species. About 5,000 Jackson-area volunteers were included in a group of nearly 30,000 African-Americans whose genetic information the scientists used to create the map. The map pinpoints genome locations where people splice together DNA ...

Melanoma is devastating on many fronts: rates are rising dramatically among young people, it is deadly if not caught early, and from a biological standpoint, the disease tends to adapt to even the most modern therapies, known as VEGF inhibitors. University of Rochester researchers, however, made an important discovery about proteins that underlie and stimulate the disease, opening the door for a more targeted treatment in the future. This month in the journal Cancer Research, Lei Xu, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biomedical Genetics at the University of Rochester Medical ...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — July 20, 2011 — A new drug targeting the PI3K gene in patients with advanced breast cancer shows promising results in an early phase I investigational study conducted at Virginia G. Piper Cancer at Scottsdale Healthcare, according to a presentation by oncologist Dr. Daniel D. Von Hoff at the 47th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). The drug under investigation, GDC-0941, manufactured by Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, Calif., targets the PI3K gene, which is abnormal in about 20-30 percent of patients with advanced ...

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a computer modeling method to accurately predict how a peripheral nerve axon responds to electrical stimuli, slashing the complex work from an inhibitory weeks-long process to just a few seconds. The method, which enables efficient evaluation of a nerve's response to millions of electrode designs, is an integral step toward building more accurate and capable electrodes to stimulate nerves and thereby enable people with paralysis or amputated limbs better control of movement. To increase the accuracy of the ...

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (July 20, 2011) – University of Minnesota Medical School and College of Biological Sciences researchers have made a key discovery showing that male sex must be maintained throughout life. The research team, led by Drs. David Zarkower and Vivian Bardwell of the U of M Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, found that removing an important male development gene, called Dmrt1, causes male cells in mouse testis to become female cells. The findings are published online today in Nature. In mammals, sex chromosomes (XX in female, XY ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A University at Buffalo-led research team has developed a mathematical framework that could one day form the basis of technologies that turn road vibrations, airport runway noise and other "junk" energy into useful power. The concept all begins with a granular system comprising a chain of equal-sized particles -- spheres, for instance -- that touch one another. In a paper in Physical Review E this June, UB theoretical physicist Surajit Sen and colleagues describe how altering the shape of grain-to-grain contact areas between the particles dramatically ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Instead of calming fears, the death of Osama bin Laden actually led more Americans to feel threatened by Muslims living in the United States, according to a new nationwide survey. In the weeks following the U.S. military campaign that killed bin Laden, the head of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, American attitudes toward Muslim Americans took a significant negative shift, results showed. Americans found Muslims living in the United States more threatening after bin Laden's death, positive perceptions of Muslims plummeted, and those surveyed were ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Esses are everywhere. From economic trends, population growth, the spread of cancer, or the adoption of new technology, certain patterns inevitably seem to emerge. A new technology, for example, begins with slow acceptance, followed by explosive growth, only to level off before "hitting the wall." When plotted on graph, this pattern of growth takes the shape of an "S." While this S-curve has long been recognized by economists and scientists, a Duke University professor believes that a theory he developed explains the reason for the prevalence of this ...

Los Angeles, (July 2011) — Despite helping to push Hosni Mubarak and his regime from power, Egypt's liberals and pro-democracy activists are having trouble moving from revolution to politics, according to a recent article in the World Policy Journal (published by SAGE). In this in-depth look at the Egyptian political landscape, the article's author, Jenna Krasjeki, examines various groups vying for influence and public support in the run-up to elections this fall. One common characteristic that Krasjeski notes is the lack of organization in the groups of young, liberal ...

A simple cut to the skin unleashes a complex cascade of chemistry to stem the flow of blood. Now, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have used evolutionary clues to reveal how a key clotting protein assembles. The finding sheds new light on common bleeding disorders. The long tube-shaped protein with a vital role in blood clotting is called von Willebrand Factor (VWF). Made in cells that form the inner lining of blood vessels, VWF circulates in the blood seeking out sites of injury. When it finds them, its helical tube unfurls to catch ...

Flooding along the Missouri River continues as shown in recent Landsat satellite images of the Nebraska and Iowa border. Heavy rains and snowmelt have caused the river to remain above flood stage for an extended period. A Landsat 5 image of the area from May 5, 2011 shows normal flow. In contrast, a Landsat 7 image from July 17 depicts flood conditions in the same location. A national overview map of streamflow provided by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) WaterWatch graphically portrays the immense geographic extent of flooding in the Missouri River basin. Monitoring ...

In the fight to improve global health, alleviate hunger, raise living standards and empower women in the developing world, chickens have an important role to play. Jagdev Sharma, a researcher at the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute has been investigating the advantages of a more productive species of chicken for villagers in rural Uganda. He reports his findings this week at the American Veterinary Medical Association Meeting in Saint Louis, Missouri. The star of this developing story is a type of chicken ...

Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced the observation of a new particle, the neutral Xi-sub-b. This particle contains three quarks: a strange quark, an up quark and a bottom quark (s-u-b). While its existence was predicted by the Standard Model, the observation of the neutral Xi-sub-b is significant because it strengthens our understanding of how quarks form matter. Fermilab physicist Pat Lukens, a member of the CDF collaboration, presented the discovery at Fermilab on Wednesday, July 20. The ...

The GOES-13 satellite captured a triple-header in the tropics today when it captured three tropical cyclones in one image in the Northern Hemisphere. A visible image taken from the GOES-13 satellite on July 20 at 14:45 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT) and shows a consolidating low pressure area called System 99L in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Bret several hundred miles east of South Carolina, and a large Hurricane Dora off the west coast of Mexico. The image was created by the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. System ...

Birds use their bills largely to forage and eat, and these behaviors strongly influence the shape and size of a bird's bill. But the bill can play an important role in regulating the bird's body temperature by acting as a radiator for excess heat. A team of scientists have found that because of this, high summer temperatures have been a strong influence in determining bill size in some birds, particularly species of sparrows that favor salt marshes. The team's findings are published in the scientific journal Ecography, July 20. Scientists at the Smithsonian Migratory ...

Take a second look at your iced or steaming tea. Guided by scientific experts, three New York City high school students using tabletop DNA technologies found several herbal brews and a few brands of tea contain ingredients unlisted on the manufacturers' package. The teen sleuths also demonstrated new-to-science genetic variation between broad-leaf teas from exported from India versus small-leaf teas exported from China. Guided by DNA "barcoding" experts at The Rockefeller University, an ethno-botanist at Tufts University and a molecular botany expert at The New York ...

Two-thirds of people with severe and otherwise untreatable epilepsy were completely cured of their frequent seizures after undergoing neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, according to a new study that examined 143 of these patients two years after their operations. The new study not only shows the promise of this type of neurosurgery at treating severe epilepsy, it also highlights how research into brain imaging may help to further improve results for people who have such operations. "Surgery can be a powerful way to stop this ...

July 20, 2011 – BGI (previously known as the Beijing Genomics Institute), the largest genomics organization in the world, and Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, together published the whole sequence variation map of rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) in Genome Biology on July 6th, 2011 (http://genomebiology.com/2011/12/7/R63). The study provides available resources for evolutionary and biomedical research. Rhesus macaque, also called the Rhesus monkey, is one of the best known species of old world monkeys. Human and Rhesus macaque share a most recent ...

LOS ANGELES (July 20, 2011) –Neurologist Michele Tagliati, MD, director of the Movement Disorders Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, served on an elite international task force commissioned by the Movement Disorder Society to provide insights and guidance on deep brain stimulation for dystonia, an uncommon condition that causes sustained, sometimes crippling muscle contractions. The resulting articles, describing the data reviewed and outlining the group's conclusions, recommendations and points to be addressed in future research, published online last month in ...

A recent study into the interactions between aminoglycoside antibiotics and their target site in bacteria used computer simulations to elucidate this mechanism and thereby suggest drug modifications. In the article, which will be published on July 21st in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, researchers from University of Warsaw, Poland, and University of California San Diego, USA, describe their study of the physical basis of one bacterial resistance mechanism - mutations of the antibiotic target site, namely RNA of the bacterial ribosome. They performed ...

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have uncovered the evolutionary mechanisms that have caused increases or decreases in the numbers of chromosomes in a group of yeast species during the last 100-150 million years. The study, to be published on July 21st in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, offers an unprecedented view of chromosome complement (chromosome number) changes in a large group of related species. A few specific cases of chromosome number changes have been studied in plants and animals, for example the fusion of two great ape chromosomes that gave ...