To the surprisingly inventive uses for banana peels — which include polishing silverware, leather shoes, and the leaves of house plants — scientists have added purification of drinking water contaminated with potentially toxic metals. Their report, which concludes that minced banana peel performs better than an array of other purification materials, appears in ACS's journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. Gustavo Castro and colleagues note that mining processes, runoff from farms, and industrial wastes can all put heavy metals, such as lead and copper, into ...

Scientists are reporting an "important step" toward development of a universal blood product that would eliminate the need to "type" blood to match donor and recipient before transfusions. A report on the "immunocamouflage" technique, which hides blood cells from antibodies that could trigger a potentially fatal immune reaction that occurs when blood types do not match, appears in the ACS journal, Biomacromolecules. Maryam Tabrizian and colleagues note that blood transfusions require a correct match between a donor and the recipient's blood. This can be a tricky proposition ...

In its 27th survey of American spending priorities since 1973 conducted as part of its General Social Survey (GSS), NORC at the University of Chicago Wednesday released a report on its most recent findings. By a notable margin, education and health care were the top two spending priorities of Americans. And Americans are consistent in that: those two categories have finished in the top two in each of the ten surveys since 1990. The spending priorities report is derived from recently released data of the 2010 General Social Survey which NORC has conducted for forty years. ...

Scientists have developed a programmable "molecular robot" — a sub-microscopic molecular machine made of synthetic DNA that moves between track locations separated by 6nm. The robot, a short strand of DNA, follows instructions programmed into a set of fuel molecules determining its destination, for example, to turn left or right at a junction in the track. The report, which represents a step toward futuristic nanomachines and nanofactories, appears in ACS's Nano Letters. Andrew Turberfield and colleagues point out that other scientists have developed similar DNA-based ...

Mom's comforting tuck-them-in-words — "Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite"— is becoming an impossible dream for millions of people as the world experiences a resurgence of an ancient scourge that is fostering human misery, financial burdens and the risk of exposure to potentially toxic materials. That's the message from the cover story of the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine. In the article, C&EN News Editor William G. Schulz points out that bedbugs represent a growing epidemic that is difficult to control. The bugs ...

Scientists are untangling how the tiniest pollution particles – which we take in with every breath we breathe – affect our health, making people more vulnerable to cardiovascular and respiratory problems. While scientists know that air pollution can aggravate heart problems, showing exactly how it does so has been challenging. In a study published recently in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, scientists showed that in people with diabetes, breathing ultrafine particles can activate platelets, cells in the blood that normally reduce bleeding from a wound, ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Hybrid plants with multiple genome copies show evidence of preferential treatment of the genes from one ancient parent over the genes of the other parent, even to the point where some of the unfavored genes eventually are deleted. Brian Dilkes, an assistant professor of genetics at Purdue University, worked with a team of scientists at the University of California Davis and University of Southern California to study the genome of Arabidopsis suecica, a hybrid species with four chromosome sets formed tens of thousands of years ago from a cross between ...

So-called model organisms have long been at the core of biomedical research, allowing scientists to study the ins and outs of human disorders in non-human subjects. In the ideal, such models accurately recapitulate a human disorder so that, for example, the Parkinson's disease observed in a rat model would be virtually indistinguishable from that in a human patient. The reality, of course, is that rats aren't human, and few models actually faithfully reflect the phenotype of the disease in question. Thus, in the strictest sense of the word, many "models" aren't truly ...

FINDINGS: Whitehead Institute scientists have created a method that uses the enzyme sortase A to site-specifically modify proteins. Using this technique, researchers were able to increase potency, slow the metabolism, and improve thermal stability of several proteins, including interferon alpha 2 (IFN-alpha 2) and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor 3 (GCSF-3). IFN-alpha 2 is used to treat a variety of diseases, including leukemia, melanoma, and chronic hepatitis C, while GCSF-3 (known as filgrastim and marketed as Neupogen®) is administered to patients with neutropenia. RELEVANCE: ...

Although thousands of people commit suicide worldwide each year, researchers and doctors do not have any method for evaluating a person's likelihood of thinking about or trying to commit suicide. An international group of scientists, in which the Hospital del Mar Research Institute (IMIM) has participated, has devised the first risk index in order to prevent suicides. "It is of key importance to identify suicidal thoughts among people at increased risk. The most important contribution that our study has made is an international risk index to estimate the likelihood of ...

A polite act shows respect. But a new study of a common etiquette—holding a door for someone—suggests that courtesy may have a more practical, though unconscious, shared motivation: to reduce the work for those involved. The research, by Joseph P. Santamaria and David A. Rosenbaum of Pennsylvania State University, is the first to combine two fields of study ordinarily considered unrelated: altruism and motor control. It is to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "The way etiquette has been ...

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Rutgers researchers have identified a class of high-strength metal alloys that show potential to make springs, sensors and switches smaller and more responsive. The alloys could be used in springier blood vessel stents, sensitive microphones, powerful loudspeakers, and components that boost the performance of medical imaging equipment, security systems and clean-burning gasoline and diesel engines. While these nanostructured metal alloys are not new – they are used in turbine blades and other parts demanding strength under extreme conditions – ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – March 9, 2011) Despite dramatically improved survival rates for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), relapse remains a leading cause of death from the disease. Work led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators identified mutations in a gene named CREBBP that may help the cancer resist steroid treatment and fuel ALL's return. CREBBP plays an important role in normal blood cell development, helping to switch other genes on and off. In this study, researchers found that 18.3 percent of the 71 relapsed-ALL patients carried alterations ...

A team of researchers from the United States and Europe has identified a single genetic mutation in the CUBN gene that is associated with albuminuria both with and without diabetes. Albuminuria is a condition caused by the leaking of the protein albumin into the urine, which is an indication of kidney disease. The research team, known as the CKDGen Consortium, examined data from several genome-wide association studies to identify missense variant (I2984V) in the CUBN gene. The association between the CUBN variant and albuminuria was observed in 63,153 individuals with ...

VIDEO: Ganglion cells preferentially form synapses with those amacrine cells whose dendrites run in the direction opposite -- seen from the ganglion cell - to the preferred direction of motion (amacrine... Click here for more information. The sensory cells in the retina of the mammalian eye convert light stimuli into electrical signals and transmit them via downstream interneurons to the retinal ganglion cells which, in turn, forward them to the brain. The interneurons ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Tomorrow's nonvolatile memory devices – computer memory that can retain stored information even when not powered – will profoundly change electronics, and Cornell University researchers have discovered a new way of measuring and optimizing their performance. Using a very fast oscilloscope, researchers led by Dan Ralph, the Horace White Professor of Physics, and Robert Buhrman, the J.E. Sweet Professor of Applied and Engineering Physics, have figured out how to quantify the strength of current-induced torques used to write information in memory devices ...

Satellites have been busy this week covering severe weather across the U.S. Today, the GOES-13 satellite and NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of the huge stretch of clouds associated with a huge and soggy cold front as it continues its slow march eastward. Earlier this week, NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite captured images of severe weather that generated tornadoes over Louisiana. Today the eastern third of the U.S. is being buffered by a large storm that stretches from southeastern Minnesota east to Wisconsin and Michigan, then south through ...

International Panel Revises "McDonald Criteria" for Diagnosing MS -- Use of new data should speed diagnosis -- Publication coincides with MS Awareness Week An international panel has revised and simplified the "McDonald Criteria" commonly used to diagnose multiple sclerosis, incorporating new data that should speed the diagnosis without compromising accuracy. The International Panel on Diagnosis of MS, organized and supported by the National MS Society and the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis, was chaired by Chris H. Polman, MD, PhD ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In the fall of 1917, a new strain of influenza swirled around the globe. At first, it resembled a typical flu epidemic: Most deaths occurred among the elderly, while younger people recovered quickly. However, in the summer of 1918, a deadlier version of the same virus began spreading, with disastrous consequence. In total, the pandemic killed at least 50 million people — about 3 percent of the world's population at the time. That two-wave pattern is typical of pandemic flu viruses, which is why many scientists worry that the 2009 H1N1 ("swine") flu ...

Researchers from Rice University and Georgia Institute of Technology have found support for the theory that the brain has three concentric layers of working memory where it stores readily available items. Memory researchers have long debated whether there are two or three layers and what the capacity and function of each layer is. In a paper in the March issue of the Journal of Cognitive Psychology, researchers found that short-term memory is made up of three areas: a core focusing on one active item, a surrounding area holding at least three more active items, and a ...

Children who are taught how to think and act like scientists develop a clearer understanding of the subject, a study has shown. The research project led by The University of Nottingham and The Open University has shown that school children who took the lead in investigating science topics of interest to them gained an understanding of good scientific practice. The study shows that this method of 'personal inquiry' could be used to help children develop the skills needed to weigh up misinformation in the media, understand the impact of science and technology on everyday ...

A new study sheds light--both literally and figuratively--on the intricate brain cell connections responsible for anxiety. Scientists at Stanford University recently used light to activate mouse neurons and precisely identify neural circuits that increase or decrease anxiety-related behaviors. Pinpointing the origin of anxiety brings psychiatric professionals closer to understanding anxiety disorders, the most common class of psychiatric disease. A research team led by Karl Deisseroth, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and bioengineering, identified ...

DALLAS – March 10, 2011 – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a chemical compound that may eventually lead to a drug that fights cancers that are dependent on a particular anti-viral enzyme for growth. The researchers are testing the compound's effectiveness at fighting tumors in mice. If it is successful, they will then work to develop a drug based on the compound to combat pancreatic and non-small cell lung cancer, two cancer types in which this particular enzyme, TBK-1, often is required for cancer cell survival. "Our prediction is that ...

U.S. researchers who collaborate with international scientists are more likely to have their work cited than peers who do not utilize overseas expertise, according to a new study released this week by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. U.S. collaborators with international scientists are also more likely to receive greater recognition and produce work with greater impact. The study, "International Stem Cell Collaboration: How Disparate Policies Between the United States and the United Kingdom Impact Research," was authored by Kirstin Matthews, a fellow ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A new study led by a University of Florida researcher uses tracking data of three shark species to provide the first evidence some of the fish swim directly to targeted locations. Researchers found tiger and thresher sharks showed the ability to orient at large distances, with tiger sharks swimming in direct paths at least 4 miles away and reaching specific resource areas about 30 miles away, said lead author Yannis Papastamatiou, a marine biologist in the division of ichthyology at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. A research ...