La Jolla, CA, February 2, 2011 – Embargoed by the journal Science until February 3, 2011, 2 PM, Eastern time - A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has discovered a new way to stabilize proteins — the workhorse biological macromolecules found in all organisms. Proteins serve as the functional basis of many types of biologic drugs used to treat everything from arthritis, anemia, and diabetes to cancer. As described in the February 4, 2011 edition of the journal Science, when the team attached a specific oligomeric array of sugars called a "glycan" to ...

In a discovery that may lead to a new treatment for breast cancer that has spread to the bone, a Princeton University research team has unraveled a mystery about how these tumors take root. Cancer cells often travel throughout the body and cause new tumors in individuals with advanced breast cancer -- a process called metastasis -- commonly resulting in malignant bone tumors. What the Princeton research has uncovered is the exact mechanism that lets the traveling tumor cells disrupt normal bone growth. By zeroing in on the molecules involved, and particularly a protein ...

Australian scientists have successfully cleared a HIV-like infection from mice by boosting the function of cells vital to the immune response. A team led by Dr Marc Pellegrini from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute showed that a cell signaling hormone called interleukin-7 (IL-7) reinvigorates the immune response to chronic viral infection, allowing the host to completely clear virus. Their findings were released in today's edition of the journal Cell. Dr Pellegrini, from the institute's Infection and Immunity division, said the finding could lead to a cure for chronic ...

The human brain works incredibly fast. However, visual impressions are so complex that their processing takes several hundred milliseconds before they enter our consciousness. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main have now shown that this delay may vary in length. When the brain possesses some prior information − that is, when it already knows what it is about to see − conscious recognition occurs faster. Until now, neuroscientists assumed that the processes leading up to conscious perception were rather rigid and that ...

One of the most significant socioeconomic changes in the history of humanity took place around 10,000 years ago, when the Near East went from an economy based on hunting and gathering (Mesolithic) to another kind on agriculture (Neolithic). Farmers rapidly entered the Balkan Peninsula and then advanced gradually throughout the rest of Europe. Various theories have been proposed over recent years to explain this process, and now physicists from the University of Girona (UdG) have for the first time presented a new model to explain how the Neolithic front slowed down as ...

Massive Art Multimedia in Austria and CoSi Elektronik in Germany have a history of collaboration on successful technical projects. A brainstorming session between their developers produced the idea of bringing together many aspects of the modern computing world and applying them specifically to the one group in society that is least likely to already feel those benefits - senior citizens. As with so many projects of this nature, the funding for development was out of reach of two SMEs. By facilitating the funding process EUREKA permitted the development of the project now ...

Conservationists across the United States are racing to discover a solution to White-Nose Syndrome, a disease that is threatening to wipe out bat species across North America. A review published in Conservation Biology reveals that although WNS has already killed one million bats, there are critical knowledge gaps preventing researchers from combating the disease. WNS is a fatal disease that targets hibernating bats and is believed to be caused by a newly discovered cold-adapted fungus, Geomyces destructans, which infects and invades the living skin of hibernating bats. ...

Using a generic drug to treat hypertension and heart failure, instead of branded medicines from the same class, could save the UK National Health Service (NHS) at least £200 million in 2011 without any real reduction in clinical benefits. That is the key finding of a systematic review, statistical meta-analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis just published online by IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice. Researchers from University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust looked at 14 hypertension and heart studies published between 1998 and 2009 ...

The genes that make up the human genome were mapped by HUGO, the Human Genome Organisation, and published in 2001. Now the project is expanding into the HUPO, the Human Proteome Organisation. Within the framework of this organisation, many hundreds of researchers around the world will work together to identify the proteins that the different genes give rise to in the human body. "The 'proteome', the set of all human proteins, is significantly more complicated than the genome. There are over 20 000 proteins coded by the genome in the human body and each protein can have ...

Up to seven per cent biodiesel blended in regular diesel will presumably not cause greater health risks for the population than the use of pure fossil diesel. This is the main conclusion in a memorandum from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the Climate and Pollution Control Agency (formerly SFT) to the Ministry of Health and Care Services and the Ministry of the Environment in Norway. "A higher content of biodiesel (up to 20 per cent) requires more research to assess health effects. This must include different types of biofuels and blending ratios, as well ...

University of Manchester scientists have shown that a protein involved in blood clotting can be used to diagnose and subsequently monitor the treatment of a group of childhood genetic diseases. In the study, published in the Journal of Inherited Metabolic Disease, the researchers were able to show that the clotting agent, heparan cofactor II/Thrombin (HCII/T) complex, could be used as a 'biomarker', or biological tell, in individuals with mucopolysaccharide (MPS) diseases. MPS diseases are severe metabolic conditions caused by a genetic defect that affects the body's ...

University of Granada scientists have been the first to analyze the relation between drug abuse and recognition of basic emotions (happiness, surprise, wrath, fear, sadness and disgust) by drug-abusers. Thus, the study revealed that drug-abusers have difficulty to identify negative emotions by their facial expression: wrath, disgust, fear and sadness. Further, regular abuse of alcohol, cannabis and cocaine usually affects abusers' fluency and decision-making. Consuming cannabis and cocaine negatively affects work memory and reasoning. Similarly, cocaine abuse is associated ...

Pacific Northwest farmers could someday be filling up their machinery's tanks with fuels produced from their own fields, according to ongoing research by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists. Since 2003, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) microbiologist Hal Collins and agronomist Rick Boydston have been studying safflower, camelina, soybeans, mustard, canola, wheat, corn and switchgrass to assess their potential for bioenergy production. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency, and this research supports the USDA priority of developing ...

Moving to a new country is difficult—learning the cultural rules and meanings of your new home is especially challenging. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that this process is easier for children, but quickly becomes more difficult after about the age of 15. Psychological scientists have found that many aspects of learning and development have a critical window—if a developmental event doesn't happen by a particular age, it never will. For example, learning perfect pitch or learning to see with ...

Camden, N.J., February 3, 2011– Studies show drinking V8® 100% vegetable juice may be a simple way for people to increase their vegetable intake and may help them manage their weight – two areas of concern outlined in the newly released 2010 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans.1 A study conducted by researchers at the University of California-Davis found that adults who drank one, 8-ounce glass of vegetable juice each day, as part of a calorie-appropriate Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, got nearly twice as many vegetable servings a day than those ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers have discovered the 100 million-year-old ancestor of a group of large, carnivorous, cricket-like insects that still live today in southern Asia, northern Indochina and Africa. The new find, in a limestone fossil bed in northeastern Brazil, corrects the mistaken classification of another fossil of this type and reveals that the genus has undergone very little evolutionary change since the Early Cretaceous Period, a time of dinosaurs just before the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana. The findings are described in a paper in the open access ...

MBL, WOODS HOLE, MA—The ubiquitous freshwater "water flea," Daphnia pulex, may be too small to see, but it has amply proven its value as an "sentinel species" for the presence of toxins and pollutants in the environment. Daphnia's response to exposure to toxic metals and other chemical pollutants is well studied, and this information is routinely used by groups such as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to define regulatory limits, and to monitor industrial and municipal discharges. This week, Daphnia pulex is receiving an enormous pat on the back from the ...

Earth observation scientists at the University of Leicester have recorded stunning images of tropical cyclone Yasi by orbiting satellites. Japanese Meteorological Agency and European Space Agency satellite instruments have been observing the intense storm over Australia from their vantage points in space. University of Leicester scientists have used two instruments, MTSAT-2 and MERIS, which have enabled the scientists to follow the progress of the storm as it headed towards and then struck the Australian coast. They have provided unique views from space of a storm ...

Cancer researchers have discovered that a type of regulatory RNA may be effective in fighting ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer isn't typically discovered until it's in the advanced stages, where it is already spreading to other organs and is very difficult to fight with chemotherapy. This new discovery may allow physicians to turn back the clock of the tumor's life cycle to a phase where traditional chemotherapy can better do its job. Scientists at the Ovarian Cancer Institute Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found in initial tests that a regulatory ...

New experiments show that common scientific rules can apply to significantly different phenomena operating on vastly different scales. The results raise the possibility of making discoveries pertaining to phenomena that would be too large or impractical to recreate in the laboratory, said Cheng Chin, associate professor in physics and the James Franck Institute at the University of Chicago. Chin and associates Chen-Lung Hung, Xibo Zhang and Nathan Gemelke published their results in the Jan. 26 Advance Online Publication (Feb. 10 print edition) of the journal Nature. Chin ...

ATLANTA – The American College of Rheumatology today announced the release of two new provisional definitions of rheumatoid arthritis remission, which are to be applied to future RA clinical trials. According to research presented in the March issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a person with RA who is enrolled in a clinical trial would need to meet one of the following definitions to be considered in remission: 1. Tender joint count, swollen joint count (on 28 joint counts), C-reactive protein (in mg/dl), and patient global assessment scores (on a scale of zero to 10) ...

Food versus fuel -- this rivalry is gaining significance against a backdrop of increasingly scarce farmland and a concurrent trend towards the use of bio-fuels. Researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) are helping to resolve this rivalry: They are working to effectively utilize residual field crop material – which has been difficult to use thus far – for the industrial production of bio-ethanol. They took a closer look at bacteria that transform cellulose into sugar, thereby increasing the energy yield from plants utilized. If this approach works, both ...

Mountain biking, also known as off-road biking, is a great way to stay physically active while enjoying nature and exploring the outdoors. The good news is that mountain biking-related injuries have decreased. A new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital found the number of mountain bike-related injuries decreased 56 percent over the 14-year study period (1994 to 2007) – going from a high of more than 23,000 injuries in 1995 to just over 10,000 injuries in 2007. "The large ...

Training community birth attendants in rural Zambia in a simple newborn resuscitation protocol reduced neonatal deaths by nearly 50 percent – a finding that shows high potential to save lives in similar remote settings, a team of Boston University School of Public Health [BUSPH] international health researchers is reporting. Findings published Feb. 3 in the BMJ by the team from the BU Center for Global Health and Development show that training and equipping Zambian traditional birth attendants to perform a neonatal resuscitation intervention led to a net reduction of ...

Madison WI, FEBRUARY 03, 2011 – The growing development and implementation of renewable biofuel energy has considerable advantages over using declining supplies of fossil fuels. However, meeting the demands of a fuel-driven society may require utilizing all biofuel sources including agricultural crop residues. While a useful biofuel source, crop residues also play a crucial role in maintaining soil organic carbon stock. This stock of organic carbon preserves soil functions and our global environment as well ensures the sustainable long-term production of biofuel feedstock. In ...