Hundreds of small genetic variations are associated with autism spectrum disorders, including an area of DNA that may be a key to understanding why humans are social animals, according to a multi-site collaborative study led by researchers at Yale University. Published in the June 9 issue of the journal Neuron, the study reinforces the theory that autism, a disorder that develops in early childhood involving impairments in social interaction, language deficits and distinctive behaviors, is not caused by one or two major genetic defects, but by many small variations, each ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a gene and a novel signaling pathway, both critical for making the first hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in developing vertebrate embryos. The discovery has implications for developing stem cell-based therapies for diseases like leukemia and congenital blood disorders. HSCs are multipotent stem cells that give rise to all blood cell types, including red blood and immune cells. Existing medical treatments using HSCs are hampered by cell shortages and finding compatible matches between ...

Contact: Vanessa Meadu ccafs.comms@gmail.com 44-777-219-5317 Jeff Haskins jhaskins@burnesscommunications.com 254-729-871-422 Burness Communications REDD+ strategies lack plan for agriculture Even as countries cite farm expansion as main cause of forest loss, research finds gap between climate 'promises' and farm policies BONN, GERMANY (8 JUNE 2011)—The majority of countries participating in a major global effort to reduce greenhouse emissions caused by forest destruction cite agriculture as the main cause of deforestation, but very few provide details on how ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – A clinically extensive and mathematically powerful study of 1000 families with one autistic child and one unaffected sibling has validated a controversial theory of autism's complex genetic causation. The study for the first time estimates the minimum number of locations in the human genome -- 250 to 300 -- where gene copy number variation (CNV) can give rise to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It also sheds new light on the long observed but little understood "gender bias" of autism, an illness that typically manifests by age 3 and affects about ...

Archive Systems, Inc., a leading provider of records and document management services, today announced that it has launched a new business records facility serving the Washington DC metro area. The facility offers advanced solutions to help companies go paperless along with traditional records management services such as business records storage, document destruction and offsite data protection. "We are thrilled to be opening another new location in 2011 as we continue to increase our national footprint. This growth is a testament to our vision for the future of ...

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) is the latest telescope to be added to ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed in an enclosure immediately adjacent to the four VLT Unit Telescopes on the summit of Cerro Paranal under the pristine skies of one of the best observing sites on Earth. The VST is a wide-field survey telescope with a field of view twice as broad as the full Moon. It is the largest telescope in the world designed to exclusively survey the sky in visible light. Over the next few years the VST and its camera OmegaCAM will make ...

Boden, the multichannel retailer of apparel and accessories, emerged victorious as the CRM/Loylty category winner of Marketing Week's second Engage Awards. Announced at a glittering ceremony at the Grosvernor House Hotel in London, members of the Boden team were delighted by the recognition by judges and peers for their innovative CRM efforts. The award-winning "Love Story" campaign featured personalised mailing, addressed to a customer's first name with a J Loves logo at the front. A fold-out spread was completely unique to each customer based on their shopping ...

MADISON – A University of Wisconsin-Madison research team has solved a 25-year mystery that may lead to better treatments for people with learning deficits and mental retardation. Synaptophysin is the first protein and most abundant ever found on the membranes surrounding the tiny sacs that carry chemical messengers to synapses, the gaps where communication between nerve cells occurs. But even though the loss of synaptophysin has recently been linked to learning deficits and mental retardation, scientists have been unable for more than a quarter-century to explain what ...

The planet's soils are under greater threat than ever before, at a time when we need to draw on their vital role to support life more than ever, warns an expert from the University of Sheffield today (9 June 2011) in the journal Nature. Professor Steve Banwart from the University's Kroto Research Institute, will be helping to tackle this challenge as part of a new programme of international research, called Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs), funded initially by the USA National Science Foundation and the European Commission. In some parts of the world, losses due ...

Clothing retailer Boden reported a doubling of response on its latest enquirer conversion campaign in Summer 2011. Investment in an integrated multichannel approach to enquirer mailings with high level of personalisation paid off with improved ROI compared to past campaigns. In May, Boden mailed Royal Wedding themed postcards to its enquirers, each featuring a personalised URL leading to a tailored micro site. Visitors were able to enter a competition to instantly win GBP1,000 worth of Boden clothing. Those that weren't lucky enough to scoop the prize were awarded with ...

A new treatment for colon cancer that combines a chemotherapy agent approved to treat breast cancer and a cancer-fighting antibody is ready for clinical trials, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. More than 150,000 cases of colorectal cancer are diagnosed each year, and about 50,000 people die from colorectal cancer yearly. Currently there are limited chemotherapy treatments for colorectal cancer with little that has been in the pipeline in recent years. Wafik S. El-Deiry, M.D. Ph.D., American Cancer Society Research Professor and Rose Dunlap Professor ...

Air and water meet over most of the earth's surface, but exactly where one ends and the other begins turns out to be a surprisingly subtle question. A new study in Nature narrows the boundary to just one quarter of water molecules in the uppermost layer – those that happen to have one hydrogen atom in water and the other vibrating freely above. Such molecules straddle gas and liquid phases, according to senior author Alexander Benderskii of the University of Southern California: The free hydrogen behaves like an atom in gas phase, while its twin below acts much like ...

The League for Innovation in the Community College has announced that two exciting workshops will be offered in conjunction with the 2011 STEMtech conference being held October 2-5, at the JW Marriott Indianapolis. Educators, industry leaders, and others will gather to discuss increasing student access into and success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and careers. The 2011 STEMtech conference will also help educators explore the strategic use of information technology to better serve their students, campuses, and communities. Complete conference ...

PASADENA, Calif.-They're bright and blue-and a bit strange. They're a new type of stellar explosion that was recently discovered by a team of astronomers led by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Among the most luminous in the cosmos, these new kinds of supernovae could help researchers better understand star formation, distant galaxies, and what the early universe might have been like. "We're learning about a whole new class of supernovae that wasn't known before," says Robert Quimby, a Caltech postdoctoral scholar and the lead author on a paper to be ...

June 8, 2011 — (Bronx, NY) — Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have identified a key player in the spread of breast cancer. The findings, published today in the online edition of Nature, identify a critical molecule that helps cancer spread beyond the primary tumor. The research highlights a potential new strategy against metastatic disease. The study's senior author is Jeffrey Pollard, Ph.D., professor of developmental and molecular biology and of obstetrics & gynecology and women's health at Einstein. He also holds the Louis Goldstein ...

This week it was announced that a dark matter detector about 700 meters below the ground in a Minnesota mine has recorded a seasonal modulation in staggeringly faint electrical pulses. One possible reason: this could be the result of dark matter particles called WIMPs that envelope the Milky Way galaxy and collide with atoms in the detector's germanium crystal. This seems possible because the results are consistent with modulation in signals first recorded more than a decade ago by the DArk MAtter/Large sodium Iodide Bulk for RAre processes (DAMA/LIBRA) experiment at ...

Birds and people both enjoy urban woodlands that have been cleared to just the right degree. This is the conclusion of scientists at the University of Gothenburg who have carried out large-scale field experiments in urban woodlands in south-western Sweden. "Three out of four people want a mixture of open and untouched forest for rambling. At the same time, we can see that birds do well and continue to nest in woodlands where less than 50% has been cleared", says Erik Heyman of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Gothenburg. The natural ...

Named "The Height of Luxury" by The Washington Post, Turnberry Tower was the Washington, DC-area's top-selling luxury condominium project in 2010. The ultra-luxury residential tower is breaking records again in 2011, with $70 million in new sales to date this year -- at an average price of over $1.3 million. This places Turnberry Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Dan Riordan, with a spectacular view of Turnberry Tower's future as the area's tallest residential condominium project. The 26-story, sapphire-blue spire is a beacon adjacent to the Key Bridge, offering ...

The swine flu outbreak of winter 2009-2010 was much more widespread than was previously realised, research suggests. Blood samples taken from Scottish adults in March last year at the end of the H1N1 flu season showed that almost half were carrying antibodies to the virus. Most of the 44 per cent who tested positive had contracted swine flu, although some had acquired immunity from a previous bout of flu, or had been vaccinated. The research, led by the University of Edinburgh, shows that many cases of swine flu went unreported. Only 100,000 people consulted their ...

It looks like a credit card…it slips into a wallet or purse…but it could mean the difference between life and death in a medical emergency. The MyCare Card stores personal medical data (e.g. information on existing medical conditions, allergies and medication being taken) and plugs into a laptop's USB port, enabling the data to be accessed in just a few moments. It is the first device of its type to have been trialled in the UK. This working prototype has been developed by City University London and Coventry University, with funding from the Engineering and Physical ...

The study, published yesterday in the journal Ecology Letters, analyzed the species richness and the structure of their communities throughout the different regions of the European territory from the Ural Mountains to the Iberian Peninsula. The selection of this family of insects was motivated by their high dispersal ability and because their food sources (mainly cattle and sheep dung) are present throughout the continent. Research by the Spanish National Research Council reveals that the large impacts occurred during the last ice age maintain their effects on the current ...

When a person has a family history of cancer, their worry about developing the disease may lead to them refusing to have preventive tests. Advice from genetic counselling units reduces their anxiety but, until now, nobody knew how much. Now, a scientific team has validated the 'Escala de Preocupación por el Cáncer - EPC' (equivalent of the Cancer Worry Scale), the first of its kind in the Spanish language, in order to evaluate it. "Excessive concern about cancer can result in two kinds of behaviour. Some people undergo excessive and unnecessary diagnostic tests, while ...

The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina has submitted an ad-hoc statement on energy research to Prof. Annette Schavan, the German Federal Minister of Education and Research. Against the backdrop of the events in Fukushima, the statement contains twelve key declarations that mainly address research-policy issues connected to the restructuring of Germany's energy system. The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina compiled the statement, entitled "Energiepolitische und forschungspolitische Empfehlungen nach den Ereignissen in Fukushima" (Energy- and research-policy ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Researchers from Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, R.I., report that medical management may be preferred over surgery for children with orbital cellulitis, an acute infection of the tissues surrounding the eye. They have determined the criteria for surgical intervention should be dependent upon the size of a subperiosteal abscess (SPA). The research is published in the journal Ophthalmic Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery and is now available online in advance of print. Orbital cellulitis is most often the result of bacteria from a sinus infection, ...

As millions of acres of farmland in the U.S. Midwest and South recover from Mississippi River flooding, scientists report that river flooding can increase levels of potentially harmful flame retardants in farm soils. But the higher levels apparently do not find their way into the milk produced by cows that graze on these lands, according to a study in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. Iain Lake and colleagues note that the flame retardants, called PBDEs, are found in a variety of household products including furniture upholstery, textiles, cars, plastics, ...