VIDEO: This video shows the micropipette adhesion frequency assay used to study the mechanical interactions between a T cell and an antigen presented on a red blood cell. Click here for more information. Researchers have for the first time mapped the complex choreography used by the immune system's T cells to recognize pathogens while avoiding attacks on the body's own cells. The researchers found that T cell receptors – molecules located on the surface of the T cell ...

The discovery of an ancient fossil, nicknamed 'Mrs T', has allowed scientists for the first time to sex pterodactyls – flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs between 220-65 million years ago. Pterodactyls featured prominently in Spielberg's Jurassic Park III and are a classic feature of many dinosaur movies where they are often depicted as giant flying reptiles with a crest. The discovery of a flying reptile fossilised together with an egg in Jurassic rocks (about 160 million years old) in China provides the first direct evidence for gender in these extinct ...

In 2008, an international team of scientists studying an exotic new superconductor based on the element ytterbium reported that it displays unusual properties that could change how scientists understand and create materials for superconductors and the electronics used in computing and data storage. But a key characteristic that explains the material's unusual properties remained tantalizingly out of reach in spite of the scientists' rigorous battery of experiments and exacting measurements. So members of that team from the University of Tokyo reached out to theoretical ...

Scientists from the University of Leeds have made a fundamental step in the search for therapies for amyloid-related diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes mellitus. By pin-pointing the reaction that kick-starts the formation of amyloid fibres, scientists can now seek to further understand how these fibrils develop and cause disease. Amyloid fibres, which are implicated in a wide range of diseases, form when proteins misfold and stick together in long, rope-like structures. Until now the nature of the first misfold, which then causes a chain reaction of ...

The anti-diuretic hormone "vasopressin" is released from the brain, and known to work in the kidney, suppressing the diuresis. Here, the Japanese research team led by Professor Yasunobu OKADA, Director-General of National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), and Ms. Kaori SATO, a graduate student of The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, clarified the novel function of "vasopressin" that works in the brain, as well as in the kidney via the same type of the vasopressin receptor, to maintain the size of the vasopressin neurons. It might be a useful result for ...

Humans use their senses to help keep track of short intervals of time according to new research, which suggests that our perception of time is not maintained by an internal body clock alone. Scientists from UCL (University College London) set out to answer the question "Where does our sense of time come from?" Their results show that it comes partly from observing how much the world changes, as we have learnt to expect our sensory inputs to change at a particular 'average' rate. Comparing the change we see to this average value helps us judge how much time has passed, ...

For centuries, some of the greatest names in math have tried to make sense of partition numbers, the basis for adding and counting. Many mathematicians added major pieces to the puzzle, but all of them fell short of a full theory to explain partitions. Instead, their work raised more questions about this fundamental area of math. On Friday, Emory mathematician Ken Ono will unveil new theories that answer these famous old questions. Ono and his research team have discovered that partition numbers behave like fractals. They have unlocked the divisibility properties of ...

SPOKANE, Wash.— Washington State University sleep researchers have determined that the air traffic controller in the crash of a Lexington, Ky., commuter flight was substantially fatigued when he failed to detect that the plane was on the wrong runway and cleared it for takeoff. Writing in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, the researchers come short of saying his fatigue caused the accident. But they say their findings suggest that mathematical models predicting fatigue could lead to schedules that reduce the risk of accidents by taking advantage of workers' ...

The ESHRE Task Force on Ethics and Law acknowledges the benefits that IMAR may bring to those choosing this approach and concludes that certain forms of IMAR are morally acceptable under certain conditions. The group advises to evaluate each request for IMAR individually, based on four ethical principles in health care: the respect for autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence and justice. The Task Force explains that the right for individual autonomy is elementary: any individual should have the principle of choice with whom to reproduce. It is understandable that couples ...

Depending on the level of smoking and dietary vitamin C intake, vitamin E supplementation may extend the life-span of restricted groups of men, according to a study published in the Age and Ageing. Several large randomized trials of humans found that vitamin E supplementation does not reduce mortality. However, the average effect on mortality in a group of people with a wide age range may mask an effect of vitamin E on the life-span. Dr. Harri Hemila, and Professor Jaakko Kaprio, of the University of Helsinki, Finland, studied the age-dependency of vitamin E effect ...

Out of every 1000 patients, two at most wake up during their operation. Unintended awareness in the patient is thus classified as an occasional complication of anesthesia—but being aware of things happening during the operation, and being able to recall them later, can leave a patient with long-term psychological trauma. How to avoid such awareness events, and what treatment is available for a patient who does experience awareness, is the subject of a report by Petra Bischoff of the Ruhr University in Bochum and Ingrid Rundshagen of the Charité Berlin in the current issue ...

Unemployment has a negative impact on a worker's future salary if it continues for a long time, particularly in countries such as Spain, Italy and Portugal. This is the conclusion of a study carried out by Spanish researchers, who have analysed the impact of job loss on relative salaries in six European countries. "Out of the countries studied, Spain, Italy and Portugal are the European Union countries in which long-term unemployment is likely to have the most negative effect on salary when the individual in question returns to work", Carlos García Serrano, a researcher ...

A prototype computer game has been developed to help improve decision making skills in all aspects of our lives. Supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), a team at Queen's University Belfast has developed a prototype that could be built on by commercial games manufacturers and turned into an e-learning or training tool for professionals in all walks of life – and for the general public too. Alternatively, some of its features could be incorporated into existing computer games that have a strategy element. The team has explored ...

A Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET) or cell phone mesh network uses software to transparently hook together numerous active cell phones in a location to provide greater bandwidth and better network connections by allowing users to share "spare" resources while they use their phones, making data transfers faster and smoother. However, the usefulness of such ad hoc networks can be offset by vulnerabilities. Like any network, a MANET can be susceptible to attack from people with malicious intent. Illicit users might, for instance, hook up to such a network and impersonate a ...

Research conducted at the University of Granada warns about the negative effects of the so-called "benevolent sexism", a term used for apparently "positive" ideas and attitudes of men towards women, which are based on the assumption that men must take care of and sacrifice themselves for women. The research revealed that when individuals are told that a man has attitudes socially considered as "good" towards his wife –even although those attitudes are sexist– they tend to justify sexual violence within the couple and to exonerate the man (as they consider that he is entitled ...

A new study reports on the success of growing human liver cells on resorbable scaffolds made from material similar to surgical sutures. Researchers suggest that this liver tissue could be used in place of donor organs during liver transplantation or during the bridge period until a suitable donor is available for patients with acute liver failure. Findings of this study appear in the February issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. As of January 2011, more than 16,000 ...

Women who have survived childhood cancer should be advised to breastfeed if they can, in order to offset some of the negative health effects of their earlier cancer treatment. According to Susan Ogg and colleagues from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, making women aware of the benefits of breastfeeding should be part of routine post-cancer diet and healthy lifestyle recommendations. Their work is published online in Springer's Journal of Cancer Survivorship. It is estimated that one in every 640 young adults between the ages of 20 and 39 will ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new device that represents a significant advance for computer memory, making large-scale "server farms" more energy efficient and allowing computers to start more quickly. Traditionally, there are two types of computer memory devices. Slow memory devices are used in persistent data storage technologies such as flash drives. They allow us to save information for extended periods of time, and are therefore called nonvolatile devices. Fast memory devices allow our computers to operate quickly, but aren't able ...

A curious contagious cancer, found in dogs, wolves and coyotes, can repair its own genetic mutations by adopting genes from its host animal, according to a new study in the journal Science. Scientists at Imperial College London have uncovered an unusual process that helps the cancer survive by stealing tiny DNA-containing 'powerhouses' (known as mitochondria) from the cells of the infected animal, to incorporate as its own. They say this may be because genes in the tumour's own mitochondria have a tendency to mutate and degenerate. The results are surprising because mitochondria ...

A small pool of stem cells replenishes the human body with about 200 billion new blood cells daily. But the elaborate circuitry that determines if a cell will develop into a T cell, red blood cell, or one of the nine or more other blood cell types remains largely unknown. A research team led by scientists from the Broad Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital has taken a systematic approach to help decipher this circuitry, compiling a comprehensive catalog of the factors that determine a blood cell's fate. Their work appears in the January 21 issue of Cell. The researchers ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — It's easy for American society to label young killers as simply crazy. But new research suggests that a complex array of factors – from bullying to lack of parental support to ineffective mental health services – are potentially involved when a student turns to violence. The study, co-authored by Michigan State University's Hyunkag Cho, examined the risk factors of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings by 23-year-old student Seung-Hui Cho that left 33 people, including the gunman, dead. According to the study, which appears in the current issue of the ...

Patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who are on long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) have more to worry about than breathing difficulties. According to a new study by researchers in Sweden, COPD patients on LTOT today face an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease and other non-respiratory ailments. The study's results suggest physicians need to carefully monitor for these conditions and treat them to help decrease the risk of mortality in these patients. The findings were published online ahead of the print edition of the American ...

A new study published in The American Journal on Addictions reveals that illicit use of HGH (human growth hormone) has become common among young American male weightlifters. Additionally, illicit HGH use in this population is often associated with polysubstance abuse involving both performance-enhancing and classical drugs. HGH, once an expensive performance-enhancing drug used exclusively by elite athletes, has become cheaply available for illicit users on the street. Researchers led by Brian P. Brennan, MD, MSc, of McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, evaluated ...

JILA researchers have developed a laser-based source of terahertz radiation that is unusually efficient and less prone to damage than similar systems. The technology might be useful in applications such as detecting trace gases or imaging weapons in security screening. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Terahertz radiation—which falls between the radio and optical bands of the electromagnetic spectrum—penetrates materials such as clothing and plastic but can be used to detect ...

An international research team working with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists at the Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML) in Charleston, S.C., has suggested for the first time that mercury cycling in the flora and fauna of the Arctic may be linked to the amount of ice cover present. Their study* is the latest work reported from the Seabird Tissue Archival and Monitoring Project (STAMP), a multiyear joint effort of NIST, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to track trends ...