Plants producing flower pollen must not leave anything to chance. The model plant thale cress (Arabidopsis), for instance, uses three signalling pathways in concert with partially overlapping functions. The yield becomes the greatest when all three processes are active; however, two are sufficient to form an acceptable quantity of flower pollen. In a new study, Peter Huijser and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne offer fascinating insights into the rich range of proteins that are used by seed plants to develop stamens and form ...

As many as ten to 20 per cent of nurses and nursing students may have substance abuse and addiction problems, but the key to tackling this difficult issue - and protecting public safety - is support and treatment, not punishment. That is the key message in a paper in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. Researchers have recommended six key points that could be built into alternative-to-dismissal (ATD) strategies after reviewing the latest research and professional guidance from countries such as the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK. They ...

The temperature of water situated in the subtropical Atlantic experienced a drop of 0.15ºC between 1998 and 2006. This has been revealed by a study led by the IEO (Spanish Oceanography Institute) which suggests that circulation caused by wind could be responsible for this "unusual" behaviour. Whilst the water temperature in this area, situated along the 24.5º north parallel, from the African coast to the Caribbean, rose by 0.27ºC between 1957 and 1998, researchers have recorded a drop of 0.15ºC in the same area between 1998 and 2006. "In the ocean there are very ...

'Difficult' patient-clinician encounters have a negative impact on patients' health outcomes in the short-term, according to a new study by Sheri Hinchey from the Tripler Army Medical Centre in Honolulu and Jeffrey Jackson from the Zablocki VA Medical Centre in Milwaukee. Their findings1 show that nearly 18 percent of patients are perceived as difficult by their physicians and are less likely to trust or be satisfied with their doctor. Importantly, these patients are also more likely to report worse symptoms two weeks after the consultation. Hinchey and Jackson's work has ...

For 60 years, scientists have puzzled over the possibility of a hepatic osmoreceptor that influences blood pressure regulation. Now, researchers of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) of the MDC and Charité and the Hannover Medical School (MHH) appear to have made a breakthrough discovery. Dr. Stefan Lechner and Professor Gary R. Lewin (both of MDC), Professor Friedrich C. Luft (ECRC) and Professor Jens Jordan (ECRC; now MHH) have discovered a new group of sensory neurons in the mouse liver ...

Tel Aviv — The most common connective tissue cell in animals is the fibroblast, which plays an important role in healing wounds. But Dr. Neta Erez of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine has now demonstrated that fibroblasts can also do a body great harm, helping to "recruit" immune cells for tumor growth. At the onset of a tumor's creation when cancer cell proliferation is beginning, fibroblasts rush to the scene to aid in healing. However, Dr. Erez's research shows that these ordinarily helpful cells can actually be turned against the body, enhancing ...

The operating system (OS) is the backbone of your computer. If the OS is compromised, attackers can take over your computer – or crash it. Now researchers at North Carolina State University have developed an efficient system that utilizes hardware and software to restore an OS if it is attacked. At issue are security attacks in which an outside party successfully compromises one computer application (such as a Web browser) and then uses that application to gain access to the OS. For example, the compromised application could submit a "system call" to the OS, effectively ...

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have developed a novel system for delivery of growth factors to chronic wounds such as pressure sores and diabetic foot ulcers. In their work published in the Jan. 18 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team from the MGH Center for Engineering in Medicine (CEM) reports fabricating nanospheres containing keratinocyte growth factor (KGF), a protein known to play an important role in wound healing, fused with elastin-like peptides. When suspended in a fibrin gel, these nanoparticles improved the healing of ...

This press release is available in French. Montreal, January 26, 2011 – Not all trout are created equal. Those swimming up the streams of British Columbia might resemble their cousins from Quebec, yet their genetic makeup is regionally affected and has an impact on how they reproduce, grow and react to environmental stressors. Such regional variance makes transplanting fish species – to bolster dwindling populations – tricky business. These are some of the findings of a compelling review published in Heredity, a journal from the Nature Publishing Group, which examined ...

DURHAM, N.H. – New research from the University of New Hampshire suggests that China should establish a unified supervisory agency, similar to what is used in Singapore, to oversee its complex financial sector. The new research by Honggeng Zhou, associate professor of decision sciences, and Wenjuan Xie, assistant professor of finance, both at UNH, is presented in the working paper "Challenges for the Unified Financial Supervision in the Post-crisis Era: Singaporean Experience and Chinese Practice." The paper is co-authored by Jing Geng of Harvard University and GuiBin ...

KNOXVILLE -- Four letter words may offend you more depending on which television channel you watch, according to a recent study out of Florida State University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. This study, published in the January issue of Mass Communication and Society, found that some TV viewers believe swearing on premium channels and cable is less offensive than vulgarity on broadcast channels. Similarly, viewers are more tolerant of swearing on the premium channels than they are on the advertiser supported cable channels. This differs from previous research, ...

St. John's, CANADA —January 26, 2011— According to a new study, dominant CEOS, who are powerful figures in the organization as compared to other members of the top management team, drive companies to extremes of performance. Unfortunately for shareholders, the performance of a company with an all powerful CEO can be either much worse than other companies, or much better. But there is one solution to an all powerful CEO: a strong board of directors. Companies with strong boards counteract powerful CEOS, and swing the tide of performance to the plus side. This study on dominating ...

CHICAGO (January 26, 2011) – A first of its kind surgical quality improvement program for children has the potential to identify outcomes of children's surgical care that can be targeted for quality improvement efforts to prevent complications and save lives. The results of a study of the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program-Pediatric (ACS NSQIP Peds) phase 1 pilot were published in the January issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. A partnership of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and the American Pediatric ...

New Rochelle, NY, January 26, 2011—An innovative genetic strategy for rendering T-cells resistant to HIV infection without affecting their normal growth and activity is described in a paper published in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The paper is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/hum A team of researchers from Japan, Korea, and the U.S. developed an anti-HIV gene therapy method in which a bacterial gene called mazF is transferred into CD4+ T-cells. The MazF protein is an enzyme (an mRNA interferase) ...

PITTSBURGH—University of Pittsburgh researchers have recorded neuron activity in adolescent rat brains that could reveal the biological root of the teenage propensity to consider rewards over consequences and explain why adolescents are more vulnerable to drug addiction, behavioral disorders, and other psychological ills. The team reports in the Journal of Neuroscience that electrode recordings of adult and adolescent brain-cell activity during the performance of a reward-driven task show that adolescent brains react to rewards with far greater excitement than adult brains. ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Parents who share caregiving for their preschool children may experience more conflict than those in which the mother is the primary caregiver, according to a new study. Results showed that couples had a stronger, more supportive co-parenting relationship when the father spent more time playing with their child. But when the father participated more in caregiving, like preparing meals for the child or giving baths, the couples were more likely to display less supportive and more undermining co-parenting behavior toward each other. The results were ...

Everybody who has been aboard a ship has heard the advice: if you feel unsteady, look at the horizon. For a study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers measured how much people sway on land and at sea and found there's truth in that advice; people aboard a ship are steadier if they fix their eyes on the horizon. Thomas A. Stoffregen of the University of Minnesota has been studying "body sway" for decades—how much people rock back and forth in different situations, and what this has to do with motion sickness. ...

A recent study confirmed that low socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher risk of depressive symptoms in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Statistically significant differences in race, public versus tertiary-care hospital, disability and medications were found between depressed and non-depressed patients. Study findings are reported in the February issue of Arthritis Care & Research, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). Roughly 1.3 million Americans are affected by RA—a chronic autoimmune ...

Waterhemp has done it again. University of Illinois researchers just published an article in Pest Management Science confirming that waterhemp is the first weed to evolve resistance to HPPD-inhibiting herbicides. "A fifth example of resistance in one weed species is overwhelming evidence that resistance to virtually any herbicide used extensively on this species is possible," said Aaron Hager, U of I Extension weed specialist. Waterhemp is not a weed species that can be adequately managed with one or two different herbicides, Hager said. This troublesome weed requires ...

Scientists found that in 14 independent studies, the yields of two Agave species greatly exceeded the yields of other biofuel feedstocks, such as corn, soybean, sorghum, and wheat. Additionally, even more productive Agave species that have not yet been evaluated exist. According to bioenergy analyst, Sarah Davis, "We need bioenergy crops that have a low risk of unintended land use change. Biomass from Agave can be harvested as a co-product of tequila production without additional land demands. Also, abandoned Agave plantations in Mexico and Africa that previously supported ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — It's commonly known, at least among microbiologists, that microbes have an additional option to living or dying — dormancy. Dormant microbes are less like zombies and more like hibernating bears. What isn't known, however, is how large numbers of dormant microorganisms affect the natural environments when they act as microbial seed banks. In the current issue of Nature Reviews: Microbiology, Jay Lennon, Michigan State University assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, examines the cellular mechanisms that allow microbes to hibernate ...

CHICAGO (January 26) – Scientists at The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), designated the "#1 Rehabilitation Hospital in America" by U.S. News & World Report since 1991, report that, thanks to improvements in technology and data analysis, our understanding of the functional principles that guide the development and operation of the brain could improve drastically in the next few years. The advances could herald a neuroscientific revolution, much as increasing processor speeds paved the way for the computing revolution of the last half century. In the February, ...

A new target for the prevention of adverse immune responses identified as factors in the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been discovered by researchers at the University of South Florida's Department of Psychiatry and the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair. Their findings are published online in the Journal of Neuroscience (http://www.jneurosci.org/). The CD45 molecule is a receptor on the surface of the brain's microglia cells, cells that support the brain's neurons and also participate in brain immune responses. Previous studies by the ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine describes a key molecular mechanism in nerve fibers that ensures the rapid conductance of nervous system impulses. The findings appear online Jan. 27, 2011 in the journal Neuron. Our hard-wired nerve fibers or axons rely on an insulating membrane sheath, the myelin, made up of fatty white matter to accelerate the rate of transmission of electrical impulses from the brain to other parts of the body. Myelin thus acts to prevent electrical current from leaking or prematurely ...

Scientists are reporting discovery of a potential biochemical basis for the apparent cancer-fighting ability of broccoli and its veggie cousins. They found for the first time that certain substances in the vegetables appear to target and block a defective gene associated with cancer. Their report, which could lead to new strategies for preventing and treating cancer, appears in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Fung-Lung Chung and colleagues showed in previous experiments that substances called isothiocyanates (or ITCs) — found in broccoli, cauliflower, watercress, ...