PHILADELPHIA — Neuroeconomic research at the University of Pennsylvania has conclusively identified a part of the brain that is necessary for making everyday decisions about value. Previous functional magnetic imaging studies, during which researchers use a powerful magnet to determine which parts of a subjects brain are most active while doing a task, have suggested that the ventromedial frontal cortex, or VMF, plays an evaluative role during decision making. Now, Joseph Kable, an assistant professor of psychology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences, has demonstrated ...

LA JOLLA, CA—The seeds sprouting in your spring garden may still be struggling to reach the sun. If so, they are consuming a finite energy pack contained within each seed. Once those resources are depleted, the plant cell nucleus must be ready to switch on a "green" photosynthetic program. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies recently showed a new way that those signals are relayed. In a study published in the May 24, 2011, issue of the journal Current Biology, a team led by Joanne Chory, Ph.D., professor and director of the Plant Molecular and Cellular ...

A team of scientists from Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have shown how proteins involved in controlling genes work together to carry out their functions in stem cells and demonstrated for the very first time, how they can change interaction partners to make other types of cells. The work highlighted the collaborative nature of modern biology in which techniques and knowledge from bioinformatics analysis, structural biology, biochemistry and stem cell molecular biology were used together to find the specific ...

Washington, DC – Researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center say the number of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood is a "powerful predictor" to help physicians more reliably assess treatment benefit for patients with metastatic breast cancer. The findings from a large analysis using pooled data from international cancer centers will be presented during a poster session on Monday, June 6th, at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. "The current standard of care for monitoring patients with metastatic ...

Washington, D.C. -- A new treatment regimen for patients with metastatic colon cancer appears to offer clinical benefit even when used after multiple other treatments have failed, say research physicians at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, a part of Georgetown University Medical Center. The research team found that combining a PARP inhibitor with chemotherapy (temozolomide) offers significant benefit in patients who had no further treatment options. However, the study is small, and does not include a comparison arm, so further investigation is needed, ...

ATS 2011, DENVER – Despite their beneficial effects in treating heart disease, neither aspirin nor simvastatin appear to offer benefit to patients suffering from pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH), according to a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study conducted at four U.S. medical centers. This was the first NIH-funded randomized clinical trial (RCT) in PAH. The results of the study will be presented at the ATS 2011 International Conference in Denver. PAH is a progressive, incurable disease characterized by increased blood pressure in the arteries of the ...

ATS 2011, DENVER - Children whose mothers or grandmothers smoked during pregnancy are at increased risk of asthma in childhood, but the underlying causes of this are not well understood. Now a new study indicates changes in a process called DNA methylation that occurs before birth may be a root cause. The study will be presented at the ATS 2011 International Conference. DNA methylation is a process that can alter a gene's usual function. These altered genes can be passed along from parent to child. In this case, researchers observed DNA methylation-related changes ...

SALT LAKE CITY, May 18, 2011 – A University of Utah study shows that men hit harder when they stand on two legs than when they are on all fours, and when hitting downward rather than upward, giving tall, upright males a fighting advantage. This may help explain why our ape-like human ancestors began walking upright and why women tend to prefer tall men. "The results of this study are consistent with the hypothesis that our ancestors adopted bipedal posture so that males would be better at beating and killing each other when competing for females," says David Carrier, ...

Doctors who treat children with the most common form of childhood cancer – acute lymphoblastic leukemia – are often baffled at how sometimes the cancer cells survive their best efforts and the most powerful modern cancer drugs. Now a team of scientists led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have uncovered the basis for this drug resistance: BCL6, a protein that leukemia cells use to stay alive. Targeting this protein may be the key to fighting drug-resistant leukemia, a discovery that may make cancer drugs more powerful and help doctors formulate ...

Today, the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA) urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to retract its November, 2010 Guidance Memorandum that encourages state permitting authorities to measure industrial stormwater discharges through numeric effluent limits rather than use the traditional and effective best management practices (BMP) approach. "This Memorandum goes well beyond simply updating a policy as EPA suggests," says ARA's CEO Michael E. Wilson. "Rather, it appears to represent a major shift in how best to measure stormwater discharges - ...

The inner core of the Earth is simultaneously melting and freezing due to circulation of heat in the overlying rocky mantle, according to new research from the University of Leeds, UC San Diego and the Indian Institute of Technology. The findings, published tomorrow in Nature, could help us understand how the inner core formed and how the outer core acts as a 'geodynamo', which generates the planet's magnetic field. "The origins of Earth's magnetic field remain a mystery to scientists," said study co-author Dr Jon Mound from the University of Leeds. "We can't go and ...

A new gene expression technique adapted for single molecule sequencing has enabled researchers at the RIKEN Omics Science Center (OSC) to accurately and quantitatively measure gene expression levels using only 100 nanograms of total RNA. The technique, which pairs RIKEN's Cap Analysis of Gene Expression (CAGE) protocol with the Helicos® Genetic Analysis System developed by Helicos BioSciences Corporation, opens the door to the detailed analysis of gene expression networks and rare cell populations. In recent years, next-generation DNA sequencers have produced an increasingly ...

Penile enlargement is one of the most controversial topics today. Many physicians claim that there is no medical proof that the non-surgical methods for increasing the penile size actually work. In addition to that, there are many people online abusing this topic, which is one of the main reasons why everyone is so skeptic about it. With the growing popularity of the penile extenders, one of the most reputable medical journals BJUI (British Journal of Urology International), which is issued as the official journal of the British Association of Urological Surgeons, have ...

Many of the prescriptions issued by GPs for paracetamol either give less than recommended doses to older children or exceed recommended doses in young children. Under-dosing may result in insufficient pain relief and over-dosing can damage a person's liver. "Getting the dose right can become even more complicated when parents also give their children additional paracetamol that they have bought over the counter," says James McLay, a senior member of the research team who studied this issue. The findings are published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. Paracetamol ...

The ability to image single biological molecules in a living cell is something that has long eluded researchers; however, a novel technique, using the structure of diamond, may well be able to do this and potentially provide a tool for diagnosing, and eventually developing a treatment for, hard-to-cure diseases such as cancer. In a study published today, Thursday, 19 May, in the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, researchers have developed a technique, exploiting a specific defect in the lattice structure of diamond, to externally ...

Free bingo site City Bingo has gone yet further in order to reward customers at the site. With existing promotions sending members to locations such as New York City and Barcelona and daily games of free bingo no deposit required, the Break the Bank deal is specifically for those logging on to City Bingo on a daily basis. As the site has been claiming on the website - "Regular Players Can Always Feel a Buzz in the City - and our Break the Bank Promotion is the Talk of the Town!" With the site quickly becoming one of the premier free bingo brands with its distinctive ...

Until a recent discovery, theories about the origins and evolutionary relationships of snakes barely had a leg to stand on. Genetic studies suggest that snakes are related to monitor lizards and iguanas, while their anatomy points to amphisbaenians ("worm lizards"), a group of burrowing lizards with snake-like bodies. The debate has been unresolved--until now. The recent discovery by researchers from the University of Toronto Mississauga and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Germany of a tiny, 47 million-year-old fossil of a lizard called Cryptolacerta hassiaca provides ...

Genetic Variant Raises Risk of Fatal Pulmonary Fibrosis Max Seibold, PhD, will extend findings recently reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, which identified a common genetic variant associated with a 7 to 22 fold increased risk for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and familial interstitial pneumonia. The discovery not only identifies a major risk factor for pulmonary fibrosis, but also points scientists in an entirely new direction for research into the causes and potential treatments for this difficult and deadly disease. Muc5b is the Predominant Mucin Expressed ...

With time, your facial skin begins to lose its structure and volume. The result is unpleasant wrinkles that can make you feel old and unattractive. There are three injectable gel forms of hyaluronic acid, a natural complex sugar found in all living cells that can help mask the effects of aging: Juvederm, Restylane and Elevess. The complex sugar in the hyaluronic acid gel is one of the major components of your skin. This gel makes wrinkle correction possible by retaining water much like a sponge. In fact, it can absorb more than 1,000 times its weight, helping to attract ...

In the United States, older patients with advanced lung cancer make much less use of hospital and emergency room services at the end of life than their counterparts in Ontario but use far more chemotherapy, according to a study published May 18th online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Government-financed health care covers elderly patients in both Canada and the U.S., but coverage at the end of life differs. In the U.S., Medicare covers hospice care for qualified patients. Ontario, the most populous Canadian province, has no hospice program comparable ...

University of Notre Dame astronomer David Bennett is co-author of a new paper describing the discovery of a new class of planets — dark, isolated Jupiter-mass bodies floating alone in space, far from any host star. Bennett and the team of astronomers involved in the discovery believe that the planets were most likely ejected from developing planetary systems. The study is described in a paper appearing in the May 19th issue of the journal Nature. The discovery stems from an analysis of observations of the central bulge of the Milky Way galaxy taken in 2006 and 2007 by ...

Over four billion years of evolution, plants and animals grew far more complex than their single-celled ancestors. But a new comparison of proteins shared across species finds that complex organisms, including humans, have accumulated structural weaknesses that may have actually launched the long journey from microbe to man. The study, published in Nature, suggests that the random introduction of errors into proteins, rather than traditional natural selection, may have boosted the evolution of biological complexity. Flaws in the "packing" of proteins that make them more ...

Does the mere thought of going to the dentist make you uneasy? Do you routinely put off important dental work because of an irrational fear about the entire process? You are not alone. While dental anxiety often stems from a bad experience, sometimes just the sound of dental equipment or the prospect of a certain procedure can set patients on edge, even if they have no bad memories to draw from. Dental anxiety is more common than you might think. To help patients relax and safely receive the dental treatment(s) they need, many dentists now offer sedation dentistry (also ...

Researchers at King's College London have used cells found naturally in the body, to re-educate the immune system to prevent rejection of an organ transplant while remaining capable of fighting infections and cancer. Currently, patients must take immunosuppressant drugs to prevent a new organ from being rejected after transplantation. However, these drugs suppress the entire immune system, leaving the patient susceptible to infections and tumours. Scientists say this new approach using immune cells, called regulatory T cells (Tregs), from the body could eliminate ...

HOUSTON — For women with breast cancer undergoing radiation therapy, yoga offers unique benefits beyond fighting fatigue, according to new research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. While simple stretching exercises improved fatigue, patients who participated in yoga that incorporated yogic breathing, postures, meditation and relaxation techniques into their treatment plan experienced improved physical functioning, better general health and lower cortisol (stress hormone) levels. They also were better able to find meaning in their cancer experience. ...