STANFORD, Calif. — A widely used combination of two common medications may cause unexpected increases in blood glucose levels, according to a study conducted at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University and Harvard Medical School. Researchers were surprised at the finding because neither of the two drugs — one, an antidepressant marketed as Paxil, and the other, a cholesterol-lowering medication called Pravachol — has a similar effect alone. The increase is more pronounced in people who are diabetic, and in whom the control of blood sugar levels ...

Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant damage have done more than reduce shipments of popular automobiles and car parts to the United States. Damage from the March disaster at Japanese chemical plants that produce raw materials for the electronics components, although modest in itself, has had some of the most severe impacts in history on the global electronics industry. That's the message from one story in a package of status reports on the disaster in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine. In the articles, C&EN ...

"Sweet wheat" has the potential for joining that summertime delight among vegetables — sweet corn — as a tasty and healthful part of the diet, the scientific team that developed this mutant form of wheat concludes in a new study. The report appears in the ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Just as sweet corn arose as a mutation in field corn — being discovered and grown by Native American tribes with the Iroquois introducing European settlers to it in 1779 — sweet wheat (SW) originated from mutations in field wheat. Toshiki Nakamura, Tomoya Shimbata and ...

The formation of abnormal strands of protein called amyloid fibrils — associated with two dozen diseases ranging from Alzheimer's to type-2 diabetes — may not be permanent and irreversible as previously thought, scientists are reporting in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Rather, protein molecules are constantly attaching and detaching from the fibrils, in a recycling process that could be manipulated to yield new treatments for Alzheimer's and other diseases. In a study that focused on the fibrils associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), Natàlia Carulla ...

Temptations to exceed the speed limit are always plentiful, but only reckless drivers give in to such impulses. Likewise, numerous growth factors always abound in our bodies, but only cancerous cells are quickly "tempted" by these chemicals to divide again and again. Healthy cells, in contrast, divide only after being exposed to growth factors for eight continuous hours. What happens during these eight hours in a healthy cell that resists the call to divide? And even more important, what fails to work properly in the cancerous cell during these same hours? Why do cancerous ...

The lab, though it may seem quiet and insulated, can be as full of background noise as a crowded train station when we're trying to catch the announcements. Our brains can filter out the noise and focus on the message up to a certain point, but turning up the volume on the loudspeakers – improving the signal-to-noise ratio – helps as well. Separating out the signal from the noise – increasing one while reducing the other – is so basic that much of scientific research could not take place without it. One common method, developed by the physicist Robert Dicke at Princeton ...

The molecular machines that defend our body against infection don't huff and puff, but some of them The molecular machines that defend our body against infection don't huff and puff, but some of them apparently operate on the same principle as a steam engine. Weizmann Institute scientists have discovered a mechanism that controls inflammation similarly to a steam-engine valve: Just when the inflammatory mechanism that protects cells against viruses reaches its peak of activity, the molecular "steam-release valve" interferes, restoring this mechanism to its resting state, ...

Establishing an economically and environmentally beneficial, 'bio-derived' Australian and New Zealand aviation fuels industry is a viable proposition, according to a report compiled by CSIRO in collaboration with the region's major aviation industry players.The report, Flight Path to Sustainable Aviation, predicts that over the next 20 years a new, sustainable, Australia-New Zealand aviation fuels industry could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent, generate more than 12,000 jobs and reduce Australia's reliance on aviation fuel imports by $2 billion per annum. "This ...

A team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and Bangor University have used a computer climate model to study how freshwater entering the oceans at the end of the penultimate Ice Age 140,000 years ago affected the parts of the ocean currents that control climate. A paper based on the research, co-authored by Professor Grant Bigg, Head of the University of Sheffield's Department of Geography, his PhD student Clare Green, and Dr Mattias Green, a Senior Research fellow at Bangor University's School of Ocean Sciences, is currently featured as an Editor's Highlight ...

Vitamin D is important for optimal reproductive function in both animals and humans. It has long been known that serum vitamin D level is important for reproductive function in various animals, but now researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen University Hospital have shown that this relationship can also be demonstrated in humans. A new study conducted in 300 normal men showed a positive correlation between the percentage of motile sperm and serum vitamin D levels. The study was recently published in the scientific journal Human Reproduction, and showed ...

Groundbreaking research has shown a quantum atom has been tracked inside a living human cell and may lead to improvements in the testing and development of new drugs. Professor Lloyd Hollenberg from the University of Melbourne's School of Physics who led the research said it is the first time a single atom encased in nanodiamond has been used as a sensor to explore the nanoscale environment inside a living human cell. "It is exciting to see how the atom experiences the biological environment at the nanoscale," he said. "This research paves the way towards a new class ...

Scientists have discovered an important enzyme molecule that may prevent fatal cardiac disorders associated with cardiac hypertrophy – the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes. Cardiac hypertrophy is a disease of the heart muscle where a portion of the tissue is thickened without any obvious cause. It is commonly linked to high blood pressure (hypertension) and excessive exercises and results in a shrinking of the heart chamber and a reduction of its blood-pumping volume. The condition is also associated with fatal cardiac disorders related to irregular ...

Research led by the University of Warwick's Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy has found that not only did the events of 9/11 produce an immediate shift in favour of the Republican party among new young US voters but that shift persisted into later years. The research shows that party strategists should focus on winning over voters when they are young. The researchers Professor Sharun Mukand, from the University of Warwick, and Professor Ethan Kaplan, from Stockholm University and the University of Maryland, looked at whether the mere act of registering ...

For many patients with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), direct antiviral agents (DAA) offer a potential cure for the disease. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved two new DAAs, telaprevir and boceprevir, and with that clinicians must now decide who should be the first to receive this treatment. Discussion of this timely topic is now available in the June issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates up to 170,000 million ...

Scientists are reporting development and successful testing of a promising new way of using a troublesome byproduct of the global steel industry as raw materials for bricks that can be used in construction projects. Their study appears in ACS' Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. In the report, Ana Andrés and colleagues note that steel mills around the world produce vast quantities of waste dust each year — 8 million – 12 million tons in the United States, for instance, and 700,000 tons in the European Union countries. The dust often is converted into a rock-like ...

Female drink-drivers are more likely to be older, better-educated and divorced, widowed or separated, research has shown. The study by academics at The University of Nottingham found that emotional factors and mental health problems were common triggers in alcohol-related offences committed by women. And they also discovered that rehabilitation programmes that force women to face the consequences of their crime can intensify their feelings of guilt and shame, leading them to turn to alcohol and increasing the risk that they will re-offend. In a paper to be published ...

In the first study of its kind on K-12 Christian education in North America, University of Notre Dame sociologist David Sikkink, in partnership with Cardus – a public policy think tank – found that while Protestant Christian school graduates show uncommon commitment to their families and churches, donate more money than graduates of other schools, and divorce less, they also have lower incomes, less education, and are less engaged in politics than their Catholic and non-religious private school peers. The two-year study surveyed a representative sample of religious school ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – By the age of 20, most people have reached skeletal maturity and do not grow any taller. Until recently it was assumed that skeletal enlargement elsewhere in the body also stopped by age 20. But a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found evidence that, even though you're not getting taller anymore, the pelvis ("hipbones") does continue to widen as people advance in age from 20 years to 79 years. "I think it's a fairly common human experience that people find themselves to be wider at the age of 40 or 60 ...

This press release is available in French.Montreal, May 25, 2011 – Birds do it. Bees do it. Fish, lobsters, frogs and lizards do it, too. But when it comes to securing a mate in the animal world, variety is literally the spice of life. A group of scientists from Simon Fraser University, Concordia University and Dalhousie University has found flexibility in mating rituals is the key to reproductive success when males outnumber females. The research team pored through hundreds of investigations on mating trends in mammals, insects, fish, crustaceans, amphibians and reptiles. ...

A class of decorative, flower-like defects in the nanomaterial graphene could have potentially important effects on the material's already unique electrical and mechanical properties, according to researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Georgia Tech. In a new paper,* the team for the first time describes a family of seven defects that could occur naturally or be induced to occur in graphene, one of which already has been observed. Graphene is renowned for its strength and conductivity, both of which are a result of its structure. For ...

A new, free software tool from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) could prove to be a breath of fresh air for architects and designers of ventilation systems for "green" commercial buildings. With the Climate Suitability Tool,* building design teams can evaluate whether the local climate is suitable for cooling a prospective building with natural ventilation or requires a hybrid system that supplies supplemental cooling capacity. The tool is based on a model of the heat-related characteristics of a building configured to take full advantage of ambient ...

A recent study* at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may have revealed the optimal characteristics for a new type of computer memory now under development. The work, performed in collaboration with researchers from George Mason University (GMU), aims to optimize nanowire-based charge-trapping memory devices, potentially illuminating the path to creating portable computers and cell phones that can operate for days between charging sessions. The nascent technology is based on silicon formed into tiny wires, approximately 20 nanometers in diameter. ...

BATON ROUGE – The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and a committee of taxonomists from around the world announced their picks for the top 10 new species described in 2010. Among their top picks is Halieutichthys intermedius, a pancake batfish recently discovered by Prosanta Chakrabarty, curator of fishes at LSU's Museum of Natural Science, and colleagues. Halieutichthys intermedius, more commonly referred to as the Louisiana pancake batfish, gained some notoriety during the spring and summer of 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon ...

Research expenditure has increased in Spain, as has the focus on research performance. However, the internal services that universities provide to support research, both in terms of infrastructure and staff, have not improved, according to a study published in the journal The Service Industries Journal, which also shows that public universities outperform private ones in this respect. "The Ministry of Science and Innovation provides Spanish universities with access to databases. However, we have seen that in many cases there are no research support staff to explain how ...

A team of 21 researchers from 11 nations, including professor Robert "JJ" Orth of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, has completed the first-ever study of the risk of extinction for individual seagrass species around the world. The 4-year study, requested by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), shows that 10 of the 72 known seagrass species (14%) are at an elevated risk of extinction, while 3 species qualify as endangered. The authors caution that loss of seagrass species and seagrass biodiversity will seriously impact marine ecosystems ...