That feeling of being in, and owning, your own body is a fundamental human experience. But where does it originate and how does it come to be? Now, Professor Olaf Blanke, a neurologist with the Brain Mind Institute at EPFL and the Department of Neurology at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, announces an important step in decoding the phenomenon. By combining techniques from cognitive science with those of Virtual Reality (VR) and brain imaging, he and his team are narrowing in on the first experimental, data-driven approach to understanding self-consciousness. In ...

You may have heard of virtual keyboards controlled by thought, brain-powered wheelchairs, and neuro-prosthetic limbs. But powering these machines can be downright tiring, a fact that prevents the technology from being of much use to people with disabilities, among others. Professor José del R. Millán and his team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have a solution: engineer the system so that it learns about its user, allows for periods of rest, and even multitasking. In a typical brain-computer interface (BCI) set-up, users can send ...

NEW YORK (February 17, 2011) – Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have discovered that the skeleton acts as a regulator of fertility in male mice through a hormone released by bone, known as osteocalcin. The research, led by Gerard Karsenty, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University Medical Center, is slated to appear online on February 17 in Cell, ahead of the journal's print edition, scheduled for March 4. Until now, interactions between bone and the reproductive system have focused only on the influence ...

Scientific advice on the consequences of specific policy options confronting government decision makers is key to managing global biodiversity change. That's the view of leading scientists anxiously anticipating the first meeting of a new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)-like mechanism for biodiversity at which its workings and work program will be defined. Writing in the journal Science, the scientists say the new mechanism, called the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), should adopt a modified working approach ...

The most popular model used by geneticists for the last 35 years to detect the footprints of human evolution may overlook more common subtle changes, a new international study finds. Classic selective sweeps, when a beneficial genetic mutation quickly spreads through the human population, are thought to have been the primary driver of human evolution. But a new computational analysis, published in the February 18, 2011 issue of Science, reveals that such events may have been rare, with little influence on the history of our species. By examining the sequences of nearly ...

VIDEO: Glen Lehman discusses his research. Click here for more information. WASHINGTON (February 17) –Todd Kuiken, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Center for Bionic Medicine and Director of Amputee Services at The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), designated the "#1 Rehabilitation Hospital in America" by U.S. News & World Report since 1991, will present the latest in Targeted Muscle Reinnervation (TMR), a bionic limb technology, during the opening press briefing and ...

INDIANAPOLIS – Unrealistic expectations about genomic medicine have created a "bubble" that needs deflating before it puts the field's long term benefits at risk, four policy experts write in the current issue of the journal Science. Ten years after the deciphering of the human genetic code was accompanied by over-hyped promises of medical breakthroughs, it may be time to reevaluate funding priorities to better understand how to change behaviors and reap the health benefits that would result. In addition, the authors say, scientists need to foster more realistic understanding ...

Fairbanks, ALASKA—Black bears show surprisingly large and previously unobserved decreases in their metabolism during and after hibernation according to a paper by scientists at the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and published in the 18 February issue of the journal Science. "In general, an animal's metabolism slows to about half for each 10 degree (Celsius) drop in body temperature. Black bears' metabolism slowed by 75 percent, but their core body temperature decreased by only five to six degrees," said Øivind Tøien, IAB research scientist ...

Star formation is one of the most important processes in shaping the Universe; it plays a pivotal role in the evolution of galaxies and it is also in the earliest stages of star formation that planetary systems first appear. Yet there is still much that astronomers don't understand, such as how do the properties of stellar nurseries vary according to the composition and density of the gas present, and what triggers star formation in the first place? The driving force behind star formation is particularly unclear for a type of galaxy called a flocculent spiral, such as ...

A corrective strategy used by astronomers to sharpen images of celestial bodies can now help scientists see with more depth and clarity into the living brain of a mouse. Eric Betzig, a group leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus, will present his team's latest work using adaptive optics for biology at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. during a press conference on Thursday, Feb., 17, and a panel discussion on Friday, Feb. 18. A key problem in microscopy is that when ...

Plants have for the first time been cloned as seeds. The research by aUC Davis plant scientists and their international collaborators, published Feb. 18 in the journal Science, is a major step towards making hybrid crop plants that can retain favorable traits from generation to generation. Most successful crop varieties are hybrids, said Simon Chan, assistant professor of plant biology at UC Davis and an author of the paper. But when hybrids go through sexual reproduction, their traits, such as fruit size or frost resistance, get scrambled and may be lost. "We're ...

Scientists have identified the gene that allows the Rubella virus to block cell death and reverse engineered a mutant gene that slows the virus's spread. Tom Hobman and a team of researchers at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry believed that RNA viruses were able to spread by blocking the pathways in cells that lead to cell suicide, and isolated the responsible gene in Rubella, also known as German measles. They then created a mutant version of this gene that made the virus spread more slowly. These results are reported in PLoS Pathogens. The ...

MADISON — Most people cross borders such as doorways or state lines without thinking much about it. Yet not all borders are places of limbo intended only for crossing. Some borders, like those between two materials that are brought together, are dynamic places where special things can happen. For an electron moving from one material toward the other, this space is where it can join other electrons, which together can create current, magnetism or even light. A multi-institutional team has made fundamental discoveries at the border regions, called interfaces, between ...

Glaucoma – a leading cause of vision loss and blindness worldwide – runs in families. A team of investigators from Vanderbilt University and the University of Florida has identified a new candidate gene for the most common form of the eye disorder, primary open angle glaucoma (POAG). The findings, reported Feb. 17 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, offer novel insights into glaucoma pathology and could lead to targeted treatment strategies. Elevated pressure inside the eye is a strong risk factor for POAG. Pressure increases because of increased resistance to the ...

Cases of ventilator-associated pneumonia — the most lethal and among the most common of all hospital-associated infections — dropped by more than 70 percent in Michigan hospitals where medical staff used a simple checklist designed by Johns Hopkins researchers. Such pneumonias kill an estimated 36,000 Americans each year. The findings, published online in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, show how a relatively simple series of steps, coupled with an education program and a culture that promotes patient safety, can save tens of thousands of lives ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 17 – Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have been awarded funding for two projects that will place brain-computer interfaces (BCI) in patients with spinal cord injuries to test if it is possible for them to control external devices, such as a computer cursor or a prosthetic limb, with their thoughts. The projects build upon ongoing research conducted in epilepsy patients who had the interfaces temporarily placed on their brains and were able to move cursors and play computer games, as well as in monkeys that through interfaces guided a robotic ...

NEW YORK, Feb. 17, 2011 – A research group led by a New York University School of Medicine scientist discovered a genetic variant that allows a fish in the Hudson River to live in waters heavily polluted by PCBs. In a study published in the February 18, 2011, online issue of Science, they report that a population of Hudson River fish apparently evolved rapidly in response to the toxic chemicals, which were first introduced in 1929, and were banned fifty years later. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications, especially ...

(Millbrook, N.Y. – Feb 17, 2011) Forest biomass could replace as much as one quarter of the liquid fossil fuel now being used for industrial and commercial heating in the Northeastern United States. That's according to a new report released today by the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. But the report also has sharp caveats: The potential for forest biomass varies widely within the region, and forest resources must be carefully managed to protect the other important services and goods they provide. Under the right circumstances, however, the report found that forest ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified the motors that move non-infectious prion proteins (PrPC) – found within many mammalian cells – up and down long, neuronal transport pathways. Identifying normal movement mechanisms of PrPC may help researchers understand the spread of infectious prions within and between neurons to reach the brain, and aid in development of therapies to halt the transport. Their study is published in the February 18 edition of the journal Cell. The small prion protein is found in the cell membrane ...

For 30 years, two General Electric facilities released about 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into New York's Hudson River, devastating and contaminating fish populations. Some 50 years later, one type of fish—the Atlantic tomcod—has not only survived but appears to be thriving in the hostile Hudson environment. Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have joined colleagues from New York University (NYU) and NOAA to investigate this phenomenon and report that the tomcod living in the Hudson River have undergone a rapid evolutionary ...

New findings from researchers at New York Medical College suggest that when Social Security benefits are improved, people over the age of 65 benefit most, and may even live longer. According to a new study published in the Journal of Public Health Policy, Americans over the age of 65 experienced steep declines in the rate of mortality in the periods that followed the founding of and subsequent improvements to Social Security. The authors urge that as Congress and the President discuss changes to Social Security they consider the benefit of reduced mortality and improved ...

Deakin University medical scientists have created the world's first cancer stem cell-targeting chemical missile, placing them a step closer to creating a medical 'smart bomb' that would seek out and eradicate the root of cancer cells. The Deakin researchers have worked with scientists in India and Australia to create the world's first RNA aptamer, a chemical antibody that acts like a guided missile to seek out and bind only to cancer stem cells. The aptamer has the potential to deliver drugs directly to the stem cells (the root of cancer cells) and also to be used to ...

The only acute treatment for a stroke currently available is thrombolysis. This uses drugs that dissolve the blood clot responsible for the stroke, but it only reaches around 10 per cent of stroke patients in time to prevent lasting damage. For other patients, there are no other effective drugs that reduce the loss of brain function following a stroke. Researchers at the Laboratory for Experimental Brain Research in Lund, together with American researchers, have discovered a substance that reinforces the brain's self-healing functions after a stroke. It has long been ...

Ensuring the sustainability of the products we use is a fundamental challenge for society, and is becoming ever more important for consumers and companies. A researcher from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) has come up with an eco-labelling system that provides environmental information, showing the carbon footprints generated by the goods and services in question during their "life cycle". "This study provides an alternative means of efficiently communicating environmental information to companies, consumers and interested parties – the eco-label. This ...

A unique strategy developed by researchers at Cardiff University is opening up new possibilities for improving medical imaging. Medical imaging often requires getting unnatural materials such as metal ions into cells, a process which is a major challenge across a range of biomedical disciplines. One technique currently used is called the 'Trojan Horse' in which the drug or imaging agent is attached to something naturally taken up by cells. The Cardiff team, made of researchers from the Schools of Chemistry and Biosciences, has taken the technique one step further with ...