After eight years of work, researchers have unearthed what has been a well-kept secret of our immune system's success. The findings published online on June 9th in Immunity, a Cell Press publication, offer an explanation for how specialized immune cells are able to kill infected or cancerous cells without killing themselves in the process. The focus of the study is a molecule known as perforin, whose job it is to open up a pore in cells targeted for destruction. With that pore in place, proteases known as granzymes can enter target cells and destroy them. Perforin ...

Following its victory at the 2010 British Insurance Awards, in the Broking Initiative of the Year category, avantia is delighted to announce it's nomination for the 2011 British Insurance Awards - this time in the Business Transformation Deal of the Year category. avantia has been nominated in recognition of a joint initiative with comparison site giant Confused.com which led to the first proper comparison site proposition for people who normally struggle to find insurance because of where they live or their background. "The British Insurance Awards showcase ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Given how much patients invest in in vitro fertilization (IVF), both financially and emotionally, tools to inform couples about what they might expect during their treatment can be welcome. A study by researchers at Brown University and Women & Infants Hospital shows that as the IVF cycle is beginning, a blood test for levels of a hormone called AMH, or antimullerian hormone, can help predict the number of eggs that will be harvested. "Clinicians can measure AMH before or during ovarian stimulation to counsel couples about their likelihood ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — It's time for the United States to consider establishing higher standards for math teachers if the nation is going to break its "vicious cycle" of mediocrity, a Michigan State University education scholar argues in Science magazine. As American students continue to be outpaced in mathematics by pupils in countries such as Russia and Taiwan, William Schmidt recommends adopting more rigorous, demanding and internationally benchmarked teacher-preparation standards for math teachers. "Our research shows that current teacher-preparation programs for ...

An alarming new article in Respirology issues a serious warning of massive rises in deaths from asbestos-related lung diseases in Asia. Dr Ken Takahashi, Acting Director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Occupational Health, and his team put together important data on asbestos use in 47 Asian countries in this landmark article. Cyprus, Israel and Japan had the highest age-adjusted mortality rates in Asia. This study published in Respirology, a journal of the Asian Pacific Society of Respirology, will serve as an important reference document for health authorities in Asian-Pacific. Asian ...

Available beginning September 1, 2011, the Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls will once again offer its wildly popular Pawpaw Spa Facial, along with a special pawpaw menu and pawpaw infused cocktails, all of which debuted to rave reviews in 2010. Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls Spa Director, Randall Wellman LMT, MS, studied the homegrown wild pawpaw and its innate ability to soften and moisturize the skin and provide a natural anti-wrinkle treatment, then developed this proprietary spa facial treatment. "In their spa benefits, pawpaws are a super food ingredient, offering ...

A new study uncovers a brain mechanism that could be targeted for new medications designed to help people quit smoking without gaining weight. This research, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, shows that a specific subclass of brain nicotinic receptor is involved in nicotine's ability to reduce food intake in rodents. Prior research shows that the average weight gain after smoking is less than 10 pounds, but fear of weight gain can discourage some people who would like to quit. In the study, to be published ...

On rare occasion, the light-sensing photoreceptor cells in the eye misfire and signal to the brain as if they have captured photons, when in reality they haven't. For years this phenomenon remained a mystery. Reporting in the June 10 issue of Science, neuroscientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered that a light-capturing pigment molecule in photoreceptors can be triggered by heat, as well, giving rise to these false alarms. "A photon, the unit of light, is just energy, which, when captured by the pigment rhodopsin, most of the time causes ...

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, June 9, 2011 – A unique, international summit of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and future leaders from around the world has concluded with the release of the Equinox Summit: Energy 2030 Communiqué. The event's preliminary report includes visionary proposals for transformative action to reduce the electricity-related emissions that drive global warming. The full Equinox Communiqué is now available at: http://wgsi.org/files/EquinoxCommunique_June9_2011.pdf The Communiqué identifies a group of technological approaches and implementation ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A Detroit entrepreneur surprised university engineers here recently, when he invented a heat-treatment that makes steel 7 percent stronger than any steel on record – in less than 10 seconds. In fact, the steel, now trademarked as Flash Bainite, has tested stronger and more shock-absorbing than the most common titanium alloys used by industry. Now the entrepreneur is working with researchers at Ohio State University to better understand the science behind the new treatment, called flash processing. What they've discovered may hold the key to making ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have developed a new type of imaging technology to diagnose cardiovascular disease and other disorders by measuring ultrasound signals from molecules exposed to a fast-pulsing laser. The new method could be used to take precise three-dimensional images of plaques lining arteries, said Ji-Xin Cheng, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and chemistry at Purdue University. Other imaging methods that provide molecular information are unable to penetrate tissue deep enough to reveal the three-dimensional structure of the plaques, ...

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The low pressure system that has been bringing rainfall to the northwestern Philippines has strengthened into the fifth tropical depression of the Northwest Pacific Ocean's hurricane season. Tropical Depression 05W (TD05W) also known as Dodong in the Philippines was caught by infrared NASA satellite imagery on June 8 at 1741 UTC (1:41 p.m. EDT). The infrared data showed some powerful thunderstorms with very cold cloud top temperatures near the threshold of AIRS data of -63 Fahrenheit and -52 Celsius. That indicates the coldest, strongest thunderstorms within the tropical ...

An innovative new eGreetings website, www.iAttachments.com, officially opens for business today. For a $20 annual fee subscribers can send an unlimited number of greetings over the Internet. The distinctiveness of the service is 1) a short film with a song or a lyric video that tells a story appropriate for the greeting occasion, and 2) the core greeting is customized by the sender with an animated "envelope" preceding the film and an animated digital closing personalized with a message to the recipient follows the film. Subscribers may also use the site's licensed ...

ST. PAUL, MN—Five years after the launch of a global effort to protect the world's most important food crop from variants of Ug99, a new and deadly form of wheat rust, scientists say they are close to producing super varieties of wheat that will resist the potent pathogen, while boosting yields by as much as 15 percent. According to research to be presented at a global wheat rust symposium in Minneapolis starting June 13, scientists report that variants of the Ug99 strain of stem rust are becoming increasingly virulent and are being carried by wind beyond the handful of ...

What is Amazing Forest? Yes, the Amazon rainforest is being cut down as you read this. 17% is already gone. The world's lungs - as it's referred to - is decreasing in size. Yes, everyone knows this. But what can we really do about it? The Amazing Forest is a chance to do something right from where you are, sitting in your chair, a few clicks and US$60 away. Amazing Forest is the venue where people from all over the world are combining their efforts into one single strain to restore the Amazon rainforest to its original state. We sell trees. Not trees to be delivered ...

Strong thunderstorms are the life's blood of tropical cyclones, and infrared and radar satellite data from NASA today confirms that the eastern Pacific Ocean's first hurricane has plenty of them and they're over 9 miles high. Adrian exploded in growth overnight from a tropical storm on June 8 to a major hurricane today. NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Hurricane Adrian this morning at 8:29 UTC (1:59 a.m. EDT), and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument took an infrared snapshot of the storm's many strong thunderstorms and warm ocean water below. The infrared data ...

New research shows how the protein missing in fragile X syndrome – the most common inherited form of intellectual disability – acts as a molecular toggle switch in brain cells. The fragile X protein, called FMRP, hooks up with a group of molecules called microRNAs to switch the production of other proteins on and off in response to chemical signals, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered. The results appear in the June 10 issue of Molecular Cell. "For learning and memory to take place, neurons need to be able to make new proteins on demand, ...

GOES-13 satellite imagery on June 9 shows that the pesky low pressure area in the north Caribbean Sea is stretching out and bringing soaking rains to Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-13 captured an image of this low on June 9 at 1740 UTC (1:40 p.m. EDT) System 94L, and the cloud cover appears centered over eastern Cuba and Jamaica while the outer portion of the low stretches over Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and now south Florida. The elongated low has a minimum central pressure of 1001 millibars and ...

In April 2007, teacher Irka Elsevier and then-graduate student Biance Moebius-Clune began their second inquiry unit designed to enable high school students to better understand soil science concepts through their own research and experiments. Moebius-Clune was an NSF fellow in the Cornell Science Inquiry Partnerships (CSIP) program, which allowed the pair to develop inquiry curriculum to guide students through the process of doing research themselves. Soil is fundamental to life and relevant to some of today's most pressing global issues, such as climate change and demand ...

NASA's Aqua satellite and the GOES-13 satellite both captured their own unique views of the eruption of the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano in Chile this week. One satellite provided a high-resolution image of the ash plume while the other provided a video showing the plumes movement over several days. NASA's GOES Project released a satellite animation of the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano that shows the movement of the ash plume over several days. The NASA GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. created the animation from images obtained ...

Some asteroids may have been like "molecular factories" cranking out life's ingredients and shipping them to Earth via meteorite impacts, according to scientists who've made discoveries of molecules essential for life in material from certain kinds of asteroids and comets. Now it appears that at least one may have been less like a rigid assembly line and more like a flexible diner that doesn't mind making changes to the menu. In January, 2000, a large meteoroid exploded in the atmosphere over northern British Columbia, Canada, and rained fragments across the frozen surface ...

AMARILLO – A two-year study by a Texas AgriLife Research team in Amarillo has helped bring a new product to market that could allow the cattle feeding industry to realize efficiencies in mills and more weight on cattle, according to Dr. Jim MacDonald. MacDonald, an AgriLife Research beef cattle nutritionist, finished his second trial of cattle early this year studying starter diets in feedlots during the transition phase from pasture to feed yard. Typically, a steer or heifer will come off of a forage diet when it goes into the feedlot, he explained. For the first ...

NASA's Dawn mission to the doughnut-shaped asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which launched in September 2007, is now approaching Vesta, a protoplanet that is currently some 143 million miles from Earth. Many surprises are likely awaiting the spacecraft. "We often refer to Vesta as the smallest terrestrial planet," said Christopher T. Russell, a UCLA professor of geophysics and space physics and the mission's principal investigator. "It has planetary features and basically the same structure as Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. But because it is so small, it does ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- In recent years, UC Santa Barbara scientists showed that they could reproduce a basic superconductor using Einstein's general theory of relativity. Now, using the same theory, they have demonstrated that the Josephson junction could be reproduced. The results are explained in a recent issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. The Josephson junction, a device that was first discovered by Brian David Josephson in the early 1960's, is a main ingredient in applications of superconductivity. Gary Horowitz, professor of physics at UCSB, said ...