Scientists have made fresh discoveries about the processes that govern plants' internal body clocks and help them adjust to changing seasons, triggering the arrival of flowers in spring. Researchers tested computer models of gene networks in a simple cress plant to determine the role played by a protein, known as TOC1, in governing these daily cycles. The model shows how 12 genes work together to run the plant's complex clockwork, and reset the clock at dawn and dusk each day. Researchers found that the TOC1 protein, which was previously associated with helping plants ...

Sirenians, or seacows, are a group of marine mammals that include manatees and dugongs; today, only one species of seacow is found in each world region. Smithsonian scientists have discovered that this was not always the case. According to the fossil record of these marine mammals, which dates back 50 million years ago, it was more common to find three, or possibly more, different species of seacows living together at one time. This suggests that the environment and food sources for ancient seacows were also different than today. The team's findings are published in the ...

Based on successful consumer research conducted through Facebook advertising, Avis Israel has launched its new "On Demand" car rental program. On Demand offers flexible and convenient access to short-term car rentals, without having to register or schedule ahead of time. Focused on younger, urban drivers who would usually use public transportation or borrow a parents' vehicle, the On Demand program provides an attractive option. Drivers can now rent a car for short periods, ranging in time from only one hour up through a long weekend of Thursday afternoon ...

More than 80 percent of radiation oncologists discuss the impact of cancer treatments on fertility with their patients of childbearing age, which can lead to improved quality of life for young cancer patients who are living much longer after their original diagnosis thanks to modern treatment options, according to a study in Practical Radiation Oncology (PRO), the official clinical practice journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). In the past, the clinical focus for young cancer patients was strictly survival. With the success of today's treatment ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A newly developed, genetically modified pig may hold the keys to the development of improved treatments and possibly even a cure for retinitis pigmentosa (RP), the most common inherited retinal disease in the United States. The pig model was developed by researchers in the University of Louisville Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences and at the National Swine Resource and Research Center at the University of Missouri. "We have previously relied mostly on rodent models to study the development and progression of this disease, and although very ...

Within a decade, personal robots could become as common in U.S. homes as any other major appliance, and many if not most of these machines will be able to perform innumerable tasks not explicitly imagined by their manufacturers. This opens up a wider world of personal robotics, in which machines are doing anything their owners can program them to do—without actually being programmers. Laying some helpful groundwork for this world is, a new study by researchers in Georgia Tech's Center for Robotics & Intelligent Machines (RIM), who have identified the types of questions ...

STONY BROOK, NY -- A team of scientists, led by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, used video cameras to count Caribbean reef sharks (Carcharhinus perezi) inside and outside marine reserves on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef in the Caribbean Sea. Using survey data collected from 200 baited remote underwater video (BRUV) cameras, nicknamed "chum cams," the scientists compared the relative abundance of these reef sharks in two marine reserves with those in two areas where fishing is allowed, and demonstrated that the sharks were more abundant ...

OzeVision Web Hosting repeats history by nabbing 15th position amongst the "Top 25 Most Poplar" web hosting companies in the category "Australian Web Hosting Directory" by WebHostDir.com and 7th position in the category "Australian Dedicated Servers Directory" by DedicatedServerDir.com for the month of February 2012. The awards pages can be viewed at: http://ozevision.com/web_hosting/top-25-most-popular-webhosting-awards.html http://ozevision.com/web_hosting/top-25-most-popular-dedicated-awards.html Every month WebHostDir.com and DedicatedServerDir.com ...

MADISON – New research with monkeys sheds light on how the drug methylphenidate may affect learning and memory in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The results parallel a 1977 finding that a low dose of the drug boosted cognitive performance of children with ADHD, but a higher dose that reduced their hyperactivity also impaired their performance on a memory test. "Many people were intrigued by that result, but their attempts to repeat the study did not yield clear-cut results," says Luis Populin, an associate professor of neuroscience at the University ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have successfully flushed latent HIV infection from hiding, with a drug used to treat certain types of lymphoma. Tackling latent HIV in the immune system is critical to finding a cure for AIDS. The results were presented today at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle, Washington. While current antiretroviral therapies can very effectively control virus levels, they can never fully eliminate the virus from the cells and tissues it has ...

A new discovery provides a crucial key to understanding how neutrinos – ghostly particles with multiple personalities – change identity and may help shed light on why matter exists in the universe. In an announcement today (Thursday, March 8), members of the large international Daya Bay collaboration reported the last of three measurements that describe how the three types, or flavors, of neutrinos blend with one another, providing an explanation for their spooky morphing from one flavor to another, a phenomenon called neutrino oscillation. The measurement makes possible ...

Seattle, Washington - The first findings from a nationally representative HIV survey were presented today at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2012) in Seattle, WA. The Swaziland HIV Incidence Measurement Survey (SHIMS) found that overall HIV prevalence, or percentage of the population living with HIV infection, is 31% among adults ages 18-49. This figure matches the 2006 Demographic Health Survey findings for the same age group, indicating that the HIV epidemic in Swaziland has stabilized over the past five years. "The country continues ...

Scientists have discovered that blocking PD-1 (programmed death-1), an immune molecule that inhibits the immune response to viral infections, can have a significant effect on HIV-like illness in nonhuman primates. In earlier research, the scientists showed that PD-1 blockade could restore T and B cell function against SIV. Now they have new findings about the effects of PD-1 blockade along with antiretroviral therapy (ART). Vijayakumar Velu, PhD, a scientist at Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Emory Vaccine Center presented the information at the 19th ...

The hair cells of the inner ear have a previously unknown "root" extension that may allow them to communicate with nerve cells and the brain to regulate sensitivity to sound vibrations and head position, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered. Their finding is reported online in advance of print in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The hair-like structures, called stereocilia, are fairly rigid and are interlinked at their tops by structures called tip-links. When you move your head, or when a sound ...

Now clients may have applicants take 4 different tests available online and receive a report within 10 minutes 24/7. The web tests may be placed on the clients site or a simple link may be placed to B.R. Garrisons generic testing site. The new Internet system combines B. R. Garrisons 26 years in the testing business with new technology. The website tests include: Personality Profile in English, Spanish and French and Italian Sales Aptitude in English and Spanish IQ test in English and Spanish Math & verbal test Great for consultants, small business and ...

BINGHAMTON, NY – Nanoparticles are everywhere. From cosmetics and clothes, to soda and snacks. But as versatile as they are, nanoparticles also have a downside, say researchers at Binghamton University and Cornell University in a recent paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. These tiny particles, even in low doses, could have a big impact on our long-term health. According to lead author of the article, Gretchen Mahler, assistant professor of bioengineering at Binghamton University, much of the existing research on the safety of nanoparticles has been on ...

A recent announcement from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying that new capabilities would be granted to the state Department of Financial Services to help penalize medical care providers who abuse the state's no-fault system highlights the problems New York and other no-fault states have had keeping suspect claims out of those systems, according to OnlineAutoInsurance.com. No-fault or personal injury protection (PIP) coverage was originally designed to be an affordable car insurance policy that got its cost savings from keeping car accident victims out of the court room. ...

DALLAS -- UT Southwestern Medical Center investigators have identified a genetic manipulation that increases the development of neurons in the brain during aging and enhances the effect of antidepressant drugs. The research finds that deleting the Nf1 gene in mice results in long-lasting improvements in neurogenesis, which in turn makes those in the test group more sensitive to the effects of antidepressants. "The significant implication of this work is that enhancing neurogenesis sensitizes mice to antidepressants – meaning they needed lower doses of the drugs to affect ...

New York, March 8, 2012 — A new JDRF-funded study shows that many of the genes known to play a role in type 1 diabetes (T1D) are expressed in pancreatic beta cells, suggesting that the cell responsible for producing insulin may be playing a part in its own destruction to lead to T1D. Published in the March issue of PLoS Genetics, researchers in Belgium suggest this interpretation after producing an extensive catalogue of more than 15,000 genes expressed in human islets, forming the most extensive characterization of human islets reported to date. The researchers, ...

URBANA – When faced with a choice between a deluge or a controlled deluge in May 2011 that would protect the city of Cairo, Illinois, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers chose the latter by ordering an intentional breach of the Mississippi River levee at Bird's Point, but was it the right decision? "The decision was a difficult and complex engineering problem with significant social and political trade-offs between loss of human lives and loss of properties in urban and rural areas," said University of Illinois researcher Ken Olson. "But it was a calculated risk built on ...

(BALTIMORE, MD.) – The scientific journal Clinical Infectious Diseases has released its March Special Supplement focusing entirely on the research design of and pilot data from the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) Project, which seeks to identify the causes of pneumonia among the world's most vulnerable populations. PERCH, led by the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in collaboration with 7 research centers worldwide, is the largest and most comprehensive study of the etiology of childhood ...

If you're a woman, older adult, or have higher levels of education, you're less likely to be sufficiently physically active. Those are some of the findings of a new University of Alberta study examining people's actual and perceived access to sport fields as catalysts for physical activity. "We know there are many studies indicating that the actual or perceived access to facilities is associated with physical activity, but it is not clear whether the perceived environment or objective environment exert stronger influences on physical activity," says study author Nicoleta ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have tapped into the extraordinary power of carbon "nanotubes" to increase the speed of biological sensors, a technology that might one day allow a doctor to routinely perform lab tests in minutes, speeding diagnosis and treatment while reducing costs. The new findings have almost tripled the speed of prototype nano-biosensors, and should find applications not only in medicine but in toxicology, environmental monitoring, new drug development and other fields. The research was just reported in Lab on a Chip, a ...

Researchers announce today that they have completed the genome sequence for the gorilla, the last genus of the living great apes to have its genome decoded. While confirming that mankind's closest relative is the chimpanzee, the team shows that much of the human genome more closely resembles the gorilla than it does the chimpanzee genome. This is the first time scientists have been able to compare the genomes of all four living great apes: humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. This study provides a unique perspective on human origins and is an important resource ...

Johns Hopkins scientists have published laboratory data refuting studies that suggest blood vessels that form within brain cancers are largely made up of cancer cells. The theory of cancer-based blood vessels calls into question the use and value of anticancer drugs that target these blood vessels, including bevacizumab (Avastin). "We don't question whether brain cancer cells have the potential to express blood vessel markers and may occasionally find their way into blood vessels, but we do question the extent to which this happens," says Charles Eberhart, M.D., Ph.D., ...