Scientists at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen have used a new method to assemble a massive catalogue of data on proteins. This gives them unprecedented insight into a process called protein phosphorylation. The research was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. Postdoc Alicia Lundby, from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research, says: "Phosphorylation changes are really important to our understanding of cancer and other diseases. Although the study of phosphorylation ...

Over the last decade, an average of 60,000 km2 of the Baltic Sea bottom has suffered from hypoxia without enough oxygen to support its normal ecosystem. Several large-scale geo-engineering interventions are currently on the table as proposed solutions to this problem. Researchers from Lund University are calling for geo-engineering efforts that mix oxygen into the Deep Baltic to be abandoned. In the June 28 edition of Nature, researchers warn of the unforeseen effects of geo-engineering to relieve the lack of oxygen in bottom waters. "Such radical remediation measures ...

Research carried out at the University of Southampton has concluded that participants in drug trials should be better informed about the potential significant benefits and possible side-effects of placebos. Placebos are traditionally thought of as 'inert' pills, given in trials to act as a yardstick or constant by which to measure the effects of new 'active' drugs, known in clinical trials as the 'target treatment'. However, placebos themselves have been shown to create substantial health changes in patients. "We believe the health changes associated with placebos ...

Scientists have discovered a new gene in the influenza virus that helps the virus control the body's response to infection. Although this control is exerted by the virus, surprisingly it reduces the impact of the infection. The findings will help researchers better understand how flu can cause severe infections, as well as inform research into new treatments. Researchers found when the virus gene – called PA-X – was active, mice infected with flu subsequently recovered. When the PA-X gene did not work properly, the immune system was found to overreact. This made ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – June 28, 2012 – Taser shots to the chest are no more dangerous than those delivered to other body locations, according to a new study by one of the country's leading experts on the devices. William P. Bozeman, M.D., an associate professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, and colleagues reviewed 1,201 cases of real-life Taser uses by law enforcement agencies but found none in which the devices could be linked to cardiac complications, even when the Taser probes landed on the upper chest area and may have delivered a shock ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The Secure Shell, or SSH, is a popular program that lets computer users log onto remote machines. Software developers use it for large collaborative projects, students use it to work from university servers, customers of commercial cloud-computing services use it access their accounts, and system administrators use it to manage computers on their networks. First released in 1995, SSH was designed for an Internet consisting of stationary machines, and it hasn't evolved with the mobile Internet. Among other problems, it can't handle roaming: If you close ...

If popular karaoke bars and the long audition lines for American Idol demonstrate anything, it's that people like to express themselves through song — and the bigger the audience, the better. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have found the same trait in small, rodent-like mammals called hyraxes, indigenous to Africa and the Middle East. According to Prof. Eli Geffen and PhD candidate Amiyaal Ilany of TAU's Department of Zoology, hyrax vocalizations or "songs" go a long way towards communicating the singer's unique identity. Each one has unique songs that communicate ...

Bethesda, MD—Not only does the type of flu virus affect a patient's outcome, but a new research report appearing in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology suggests that the number of viruses involved in the initial infection may be important too. Scientists from Canada found that when mice were infected by relatively high concentrations of the flu virus, they not only developed immunity against the virus that infected them, but this also promoted the generation of a type of immune cell in the lungs poised to rapidly react against infections with other strains of the flu, as well. ...

In searching for better flame retardants for home furnishings—a large source of fuel in house fires—National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers defied the conventional wisdom and literally hit a wall, one made of clay. It wasn't a dead end, but rather a surprising result that may lead to a new generation of nonhalogenated, sustainable flame retardant technology for polyurethane foam. The thick, fast-forming coating that the NIST team created has a uniformly high concentration of flame-inhibiting clay particles, and it adheres strongly to the Swiss ...

Montreal, June 28, 2012 – Poetry has been following the rules for centuries. From the strict structure of the haiku to the rhythmic rhyme of the ballad, verse can be daunting to both professional poets and amateur auteurs. But poems are also media for the masses and one Concordia researcher is using mass media to put them back in the hands of the people. Jason Lewis's work is an integral part of Concordia's Department of Design and Computation Arts, with projects ranging from computer game development to typographic design. A poet as well as a techie, the associate professor ...

In an important step towards more practical quantum information processing, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of California, San Diego; and the Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy, have demonstrated the first heralded single photon source made from silicon. This source complements two other recently developed silicon-based technologies—interferometers for manipulating the entanglement of photons and single photon detectors—needed to build a quantum optical circuit or a secure quantum communication system. The ...

New Rochelle, NY, June 28, 2012—Games that promote health can improve the well-being of employees, saving employers direct and indirect health care costs. Employers can more readily reap these benefits by offering game-based services that educate their employees about health and wellness and improve physical and psychological fitness, according to an Editorial in Games for Health Journal a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The Editorial is available free on the Games for Health Journal website. "Wellness programs using health games have the potential ...

(Boston) -- In a genome-wide association (GWA) study, researchers from Boston University Schools of Medicine (BUSM) and Public Health (BUSPH) have identified several genes which influence degeneration of the hippocampus, the part of the brain most associated with Alzheimer disease (AD). The study, which currently appears online as a Rapid Communication in the Annals of Neurology, demonstrates the efficacy of endophenotypes for broadening the understanding of the genetic basis of and pathways leading to AD. AD is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder for which there ...

CHESTNUT HILL, MA (June 28, 2012) – Harnessing the power of the sun has inspired scientists and engineers to look for ways to turn sunlight into clean energy to heat houses, fuel factories and power devices. While a majority of this research focuses on energy production, some researchers are looking at the potential uses of these novel solar technologies in other areas. Boston College Assistant Professor of Chemistry Dunwei Wang's work with silicon nanowires and his related construct, Nanonets, has shown these stable, tiny wire-like structures can be used in processes ...

Archaeologists working at the site of La Corona in Guatemala have discovered a 1,300-year-old-year Maya text that provides only the second known reference to the so-called "end date" of the Maya calendar, December 21, 2012. The discovery, one of the most significant hieroglyphic finds in decades, was announced today at the National Palace in Guatemala. "This text talks about ancient political history rather than prophecy," says Marcello A. Canuto, director of Tulane's Middle American Research Institute and co-director of the excavations at La Corona. Since 2008, Canuto ...

Training sessions for Team GB's swimmers have been getting a helping hand from a new system incorporating cutting-edge movement tracking and sensor technologies. From starting dives to tumble turns the state-of-the-art coaching aid is the first of its kind to be able to track movement wirelessly through water. The system has been developed at Loughborough University's Sports Technology Institute in conjunction with British Swimming, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Other partners are UK Sport, Imperial College London ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Clergy's practice of putting others first can be detrimental to their own health, say researchers at Duke University. Pastors have been found to have higher-than-average rates of chronic disease and depression. But it may be difficult to get pastors to seek care because they typically default to caring for others first. Duke researchers have been trying to design health programs that will be more effective for clergy, given these tendencies. "Clergy recognize the importance of caring for themselves, but doing so takes a back seat to fulfilling their ...

Transplanting previously frozen ovarian tissue back into female cancer survivors can lead to long-term hormonal function and preservation of fertility, according to a new study by Samuel Kim from the University of Kansas Medical Center in the US. His work¹, which shows that hormonal function was restored in five women 12-20 weeks after transplantation, and in one case lasted for more than seven years, appears online in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics², published by Springer. Many female cancer patients want to remain fertile, and choose to freeze some ...

URBANA -- Steve Moose, an associate professor of maize functional genomics at the University of Illinois and his graduate student Wes Barber think they may have discovered a new source of heterosis, or hybrid vigor, in maize. They have been looking at small RNAs (sRNAs), a class of double-stranded RNA molecules that are 20 to 25 nucleotides in length. "Hybrid vigor" refers to the increased vigor or general health, resistance to disease, and other superior qualities arising from the crossbreeding of genetically different plants. "We've always known that there's a genetic ...

Athens, Ga. – Weedy plants, many introduced to the U.S. for sale through plant nurseries, are responsible for extensive environmental damage and economic costs. Although legislation restricts the introduction of certain species, the procedures used to select species for inclusion on the restricted list are haphazard and out of date. To meet the need for more systematic weed risk analysis, researchers at the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology and the University of California, Davis have developed a "cost-sensitive" model to determine when importing a given plant ...

CHICAGO --- Today's senior citizens are reporting fewer visual impairment problems than their counterparts from a generation ago, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. Improved techniques for cataract surgery and a reduction in the prevalence of macular degeneration may be the driving forces behind this change, the researchers said. "From 1984 until 2010, the decrease in visual impairment in those 65 and older was highly statistically significant," said Angelo P. Tanna, M.D., first author of the study. "There was little change in visual impairments in adults ...

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, will hold a seminar early in the morning on July 4 to announce the latest results from ATLAS and CMS, two major experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that are searching for the Higgs boson. Both experimental teams are working down to the wire to finish analyzing their data, and to determine exactly what can be said about what they've found. "We do not yet know what will be shown on July 4th," says Ian Hinchliffe, a theoretical physicist in the Physics Division at the U.S. ...

For the first time comparable migration data is available for almost every country of the world. To date, records were incompatible between nations and especially by gender and age, nonexistent. Emilio Zagheni from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany, for the first time provides a rich migration database by compiling the global flow of millions of e-mails. "Where estimates of demographic flows exist, they are often outdated and largely inconsistent," says MPIDR researcher Emilio Zagheni. Official records are difficult to use for ...

Researchers at the Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML) and four partner organizations have measured for the first time concentrations of 13 perfluoroalkyl compounds (PFCs) in five different endangered species of sea turtles. While PFC toxicology studies have not yet been conducted on turtles, the levels of the compounds seen in all five species approach the amounts known to cause adverse health effects in other animals. PFCs are man-made compounds that have many uses including stain-resistant coatings, fire-fighting foams and emulsifiers in plastics manufacturing. They have ...

In yet another Olympian feat of measurement, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently calibrated a tape that will be used to measure out the distance of this summer's Olympic marathon—a distance of 26 miles 385 yards—to 1 part in 1,000. Measurement is a vital aspect of the Olympic Games. Officials measure the height of jumps, the speed of races, and the mass of weights to determine who wins a medal and who goes home. The marathon is no different. Because of the difficulties in measuring out the distance, the International Association ...