AUDIO: Cell PaperClip for Cell Volume 149 Issue 7 featuring an interview with author Dr. Dennis Kasper Click here for more information. Mice carrying a set of friendly microbes that are usually found in humans fail to develop a proper immune system and are left susceptible to illness as a result. The findings in the June 22nd issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, show that animals have coevolved with and rely on their own very special array of microbial partners. ...

ARLINGTON, Va. (June 21, 2012) – A team led by researchers at Winrock International, a U.S. environmental nonprofit organization, has developed an estimate of gross carbon emissions from tropical deforestation for the early 2000s that is considerably lower than other recently published estimates. The Winrock team, which included scientists from Applied GeoSolutions, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and University of Maryland, combined the best available spatially consistent datasets on gross forest loss and forest carbon stocks to track emissions from deforestation in ...

COLOGNE, Germany; AMHERST, MA, USA; MAGADAN, Russia. -- First analyses of the longest sediment core ever collected on land in the terrestrial Arctic, published this week in Science, provide documentation that intense warm intervals, warmer than scientists thought possible, occurred there over the past 2.8 million years. Further, these extreme warm periods correspond closely with times when parts of Antarctica were ice-free and also warm, suggesting strong inter-hemispheric climate connectivity. "The polar regions are much more vulnerable to change than we thought before," ...

According to a Wall Street Journal article, Indian government officials have introduced a bill into Parliament that will hand over power to the country's central bank to manage the microfinance sector. This sector is generally charged with lending money to small borrowers. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee introduced the Microfinance Institutions (Development and Regulations) Bill to Parliament so the Reserve Bank of India will set a maximum interest rate that can be charged by micro lenders. Abake Assongba, the founder of the nonprofit organization, Abake's Foundation, ...

Three Simon Fraser University scientists are engaging in a verbal battle with the federal government over its budget cuts and legislative changes in departments with environmental responsibilities, on a powerful stage. Science, a research journal with more than one million readers worldwide, has just published online (appearing in the June 22 hardcopy issue) a letter to the editor written by the SFU trio. In their letter, Canada's Weakening Aquatic Protection, Brett Favaro, a biology doctoral student, and biology professors John Reynolds and Isabelle Côté criticize ...

A research team led by astronomers at the University of Washington and Harvard University has discovered a bigger version of Earth locked in an orbital tug-of-war with a much larger, Neptune-sized planet as they orbit very close to each other around the same star about 1,200 light years from Earth. The planets occupy nearly the same orbital plane and on their closest approach come within about 1.2 million miles of each other – just five times the Earth-moon distance and about 20 times closer to one another than any two planets in our solar system. But the timing ...

Forbes has outlined five ways for business travelers to make the most out of their itineraries in a recent article by Dorie Clark. Aaron Beaston Blaakman, an international professional whose business has taken him around the world, believes that these tips are great for novice travelers. For veteran travelers, though, he recommends a more personal approach. In her article, Clark details the five ways that she believes travelers can best experience their business assignments without becoming distracted from the purpose of their trip. These include staying in locally ...

Digital technology is supposed to improve the ease with which individuals communicate. Through electronic mail, text messaging, and instant messaging, people can communicate with other individuals or groups quickly. Although digital technology has achieved its goal of improving the efficiency of communication, it has not necessarily improved the quality of the communication that is conducted. A recent article by the Huffington Post sheds light on the fact that digital communication may very well be ruining intimacy. This is an issue about which Ed Young, Dallas-based pastor, ...

CINCINNATI –Scientists have developed a small-molecule-inhibiting drug that in early laboratory cell tests stopped breast cancer cells from spreading and also promoted the growth of early nerve cells called neurites. Researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report their findings online June 21 in Chemistry & Biology. The scientists named their lead drug candidate "Rhosin" and hope future testing shows it to be promising for the treatment of various cancers or nervous system damage. The inhibitor overcomes a number of previous scientific challenges ...

Eating disorders are commonly seen as an issue faced by teenagers and young women, but a new study reveals that age is no barrier to disordered eating. In women aged 50 and over, 3.5% report binge eating, nearly 8% report purging, and more than 70% are trying to lose weight. The study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders revealed that 62% of women claimed that their weight or shape negatively impacted on their life. The researchers, led by Dr Cynthia Bulik, Director of the University of North Carolina Eating Disorders Program, reached 1,849 women ...

Few nighttime sights offer more drama than the full Moon rising over the horizon. Now imagine that instead of the Moon, a gas giant planet spanning three times more sky loomed over the molten landscape of a lava world. This alien vista exists in the newly discovered two-planet system of Kepler-36. "These two worlds are having close encounters," said Josh Carter, a Hubble Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "They are the closest to each other of any planetary system we've found," added co-author Eric Agol of the University of Washington. Carter, ...

Psoriasis is an autoimmune disorder in which skin cells proliferate out of control. For some hard-to-heal wounds, the problem is just the opposite: Restorative skin cells don't grow well or fast enough. In a paper published in the June 21, 2012 issue of Immunity, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine describe a molecule that may lead to new treatments for both problems. An international team of scientists led by principal investigator Richard L. Gallo, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and chief of UC San Diego's Division of Dermatology, ...

A team of researchers led by UC Davis Health System has found that human alpha-defensin 6 (HD6) – a key component of the body's innate defense system – binds to microbial surfaces and forms "nanonets" that surround, entangle and disable microbes, preventing bacteria from attaching to or invading intestinal cells. The research describes an entirely new mechanism of action for defensins, an important group of molecules known to bolster the defenses of circulating white blood cells, protect cellular borders from invasive pathogens and regulate which "friendly" microbes can ...

Gut bacteria's key role in immunity is tuned to the host species, researchers have found, suggesting that the superabundant microbes lining our digestive tract evolved with us—a tantalizing clue in the mysterious recent spike in human autoimmune disorders. A new study reports that the superabundance of microbial life lining our GI tracts has coevolved with us. These internal bacteria, which are essential for a healthy immune system, are ultimately our evolutionary partners. In other words, humans may have coevolved with gut bacteria unique to humans, which are not immunologically ...

Parents must be considered when states decide to expand genetic screening programs for newborns, according to a new study that looked at mandatory testing panels and political pressure by advocacy groups. Nearly all infants in the United States undergo a heel prick within days of birth for a simple blood test to detect rare genetic disorders. For decades, state-based mandatory newborn screening programs have focused on disorders such as phenylketonuria (PKU) or hypothyroidism in which a prompt diagnosis and treatment could prevent disability or even death. In recent ...

PHILADELPHIA -- Memory devices for computers require a large collection of components that can switch between two states, which represent the 1's and 0's of binary language. Engineers hope to make next-generation chips with materials that distinguish between these states by physically rearranging their atoms into different phases. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have now provided new insight into how this phase change happens, which could help engineers make memory storage devices faster and more efficient. The research was conducted by Ritesh Agarwal, associate ...

Tightening or relaxing the tension on a drumhead will change the way the drum sounds. The same goes for drumheads made from graphene, only instead of changing the sound, stretching graphene has a profound effect on the material's electrical properties. Researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland have shown that subjecting graphene to mechanical strain can mimic the effects of magnetic fields and create a quantum dot, an exotic type of semiconductor with a wide range of potential uses in electronic devices. The ...

Researchers have started to unveil the genetic heritage of Ethiopian populations, who are among the most diverse in the world, and lie at the gateway from Africa. They found that the genomes of some Ethiopian populations bear striking similarities to those of populations in Israel and Syria, a potential genetic legacy of the Queen of Sheba and her companions. The team detected mixing between some Ethiopians and non-African populations dating to approximately 3,000 years ago. The origin and date of this genomic admixture, along with previous linguistic studies, is consistent ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have uncovered a new signal transduction pathway specifically devoted to the regulation of alternative RNA splicing, a process that allows a single gene to produce or code multiple types of protein variants. The discovery, published in the June 27, 2012 issue of Molecular Cell, suggests the new pathway might be a fruitful target for new cancer drugs. Signal transduction in the cell involves kinases and phosphatases, enzymes that transfer or remove phosphates in protein molecules in a cascade or ...

Researchers at McGill University have discovered the cause of an inherited form of epilepsy. The disease, known as double-cortex syndrome, primarily affects females and arises from mutations on a gene located on the X chromosome. Drs. Susanne Bechstedt and Gary Brouhard of the Department of Biology have used a highly advanced microscope to discover how these mutations cause a malformation of the human brain. The results of their study are published in the journal Developmental Cell. When the brain develops in the uterus, new brain cells are born deep within the brain, ...

During the past 2.8 million years extreme warm periods occurred in the Arctic at irregular intervals. Analytical results from the longest sediment core that has ever been drilled in the terrestrial areas of the Arctic have shown temperatures that were previously considered impossible for the Arctic Circle. In addition, a notable correlation of the warm periods in the Arctic with large melting events in Antarctica points to previously unknown interactions between the Polar Regions. These are the findings of an international research team led by Professor Martin Melles of ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A new study of lake sediment cores from Sanak Island in the western Gulf of Alaska suggests that deglaciation there from the last Ice Age took place as much as1,500 to 2,000 years earlier than previously thought, opening the door for earlier coastal migration models for the Americas. The Sanak Island Biocomplexity Project, funded by the National Science Foundation, also concluded that the maximum thickness of the ice sheet in the Sanak Island region during the last glacial maximum was 70 meters – or about half that previously projected – suggesting ...

STANFORD, Calif. — A study spearheaded by a Stanford University School of Medicine scientist has tracked the trajectories of key immune cells in response to short-term stress and traced, in great detail, how hormones triggered by such stress enhance immune readiness. The study, conducted in rats, adds weight to evidence that immune responsiveness is heightened, rather than suppressed as many believe, by the so-called "fight-or-flight" response. The study's findings provide a thorough overview of how a triad of stress hormones affects the main cell subpopulations of the ...

UCLA researchers have combined two tools – gene expression and the use of peripheral blood -- to expand scientists' arsenal of methods for pinpointing genes that play a role in autism. Published in the June 21 online edition of the American Journal of Human Genetics, the findings could help scientists zero in on genes that offer future therapeutic targets for the disorder. "Technological advances now allow us to rapidly sequence the genome and uncover dozens of rare mutations," explained principal investigator Dr. Daniel Geschwind, the Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished ...

New Haven, Conn.—Global warming may cause more extinctions than predicted if scientists fail to account for interactions among species in their models, Yale and UConn researchers argue in Science. "Currently, most models predicting the effects of climate change treat species separately and focus only on climatic and environmental drivers," said Phoebe Zarnetske, the study's primary author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. "But we know that species don't exist in a vacuum. They interact with each other in ways that deeply ...