PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Sleeping worms have much to teach people, a notion famously applied by the children's show "Sesame Street," in which Oscar the Grouch often reads bedtime stories to his pet worm Slimy. Based on research with their own worms, a team of neurobiologists at Brown University and several other institutions has now found that "Notch," a fundamental signaling pathway found in all animals, is directly involved in sleep in the nematode C. elegans. "This pathway is a major player in development across all animal species," said Anne Hart, associate ...

Washington, D.C. – Most African-Americans report calling a friend instead of 911 when faced with the symptoms of a stroke, according to a new study that surveyed those hospitalized for a stroke. The findings, published today online in the journal Stroke, indicate that most people, who didn't call for emergency help, believed their symptoms were not serious enough and/or did not require treatment. The survey, conducted by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center, is critical to understanding why many delay getting to a hospital where emergent care, such as ...

Larry Burke, publisher of the popular greenmauiguide.com, has released a new website: Mauifrugal.net. His goal is to explain why it is reasonable for people to move to Maui as an island paradise in contrast to other places outside the U.S. He examines all aspects of Hawaii from lifestyle and economic standpoints. Mauifrugal.net highlights 30 free things you can do in Maui as well as 20 "Budget Busters." Mauifrugal.net covers everything from buying a house in Maui to paying taxes. Larry has a BA in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., May 5, 2011 – Early in embryonic development, the neural crest – a transient group of stem cells – gives rise to parts of the nervous system and several other tissues. But little is known about what determines which cells become neurons and which become other cell types. A team led by Dr. Alexey Terskikh at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) recently found that expression of a gene called SOX2 maintains the potential for neural crest stem cells to become neurons in the peripheral nervous system, where they interface with muscles ...

As a rule all mammals have the same number of vertebrae in their necks regardless of whether they are a giraffe, a mouse, or a human. But both sloths and manatees are exceptions to this rule having abnormal numbers of cervical vertebrae. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal EvoDevo shows how such different species have evolved their unusual necks. Birds, reptiles and amphibians have varying number of vertebrae in their necks, swans have 22-25, but mammals, regardless of size of animal or the animal's neck, only have seven. Aberrant neck vertebrae ...

Exposure to even moderate levels of arsenic in drinking water is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, especially among smokers, finds a study published on bmj.com today. Arsenic is a natural element of the Earth's crust and high concentrations in groundwater pose a public health threat to millions of people worldwide. High levels of arsenic exposure from drinking water have already been related to an elevated risk of heart disease. Given the huge burden of heart disease worldwide, a small increased risk associated with moderate arsenic exposure could ...

Energy Digital and TradeFair Group announce their partnership for LDC Gas Forums - Mid Continent, which is taking place September 12th to the 14th . The LDC Gas Forums, comprised of 5 regional conferences held annually in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Canada (in conjunction with IGUA), are the premier events where the Natural Gas Industry meets. The conferences are highly regarded by the industry for their excellent content and as the premier networking event for bringing together buyers and sellers in the natural gas marketplace. This conference will be taking ...

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – A new study from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) offers an explanation for why our brains produce fewer and fewer neurons with age, a phenomenon thought to underlie age-related cognitive decline. The study, published as the cover story in the May 6 issue of Cell Stem Cell, suggests that this drop in production is due to the shrinking cache of adult stem cells in our brains. "It's only recently that scientists have found hard evidence for the importance of new neuron production in the adult brain's hippocampus, a region critical for memory ...

Basic scientific curiosity paid off in unexpected ways when Rice University researchers investigating the fundamental physics of nanomaterials discovered a new technology that could dramatically improve solar energy panels. The research is described in a new paper this week in the journal Science. "We're merging the optics of nanoscale antennas with the electronics of semiconductors," said lead researcher Naomi Halas, Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering. "There's no practical way to directly detect infrared light with silicon, but ...

Global warming is likely already taking a toll on world wheat and corn production, according to a new study led by Stanford University researchers. But the United States, Canada and northern Mexico have largely escaped the trend. "It appears as if farmers in North America got a pass on the first round of global warming," said David Lobell, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford University. "That was surprising, given how fast we see weather has been changing in agricultural areas around the world as a whole." Lobell and his colleagues ...

A new study identifies the mutation that underlies a rare, inherited accelerated-aging disease and provides key insight into normal human aging. The research, published by Cell Press online May 5 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, highlights the importance of a cellular structure called the "nuclear envelope" in the process of aging. "Aging is a very complex process which affects most biological functions of an organism but whose molecular basis remains largely unknown," explains Dr. Carlos López-Otín from the University of Oviedo in Spain. "Over the last few ...

Fantazzle, a fantasy sports games website and an exciting new sports entertainment website, Mojingo , jointly announce the formation of a strategic partnership. The partnership is designed to help bring two great game concepts to sports fans. Both companies are excited to offer their users even more fun ways to win free cash prizes every day, week and year. "We are happy to have had this opportunity present itself and be able to work with the guys over at Mojingo. We have similar beliefs and will continue to provide interesting and unique games for our users to ...

TORONTO, ON – Scientists at the University of Toronto, Stanford and Columbia Universities have developed a way to measure the action and function of candidate prescription drugs on human cells, including the response of individual cells, more quickly and on a larger scale than ever before. The researchers say their "mass cytometry" technology has the potential to transform the understanding of a variety of diseases and biologic actions, and will provide a better tool to understand how a healthy cell becomes diseased. Clarifying the underlying biochemistry of cells may ...

DALLAS, May 5, 2011 – A UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher has identified the most comprehensive measurement to date of estrogen's effect on breast cancer cells, showing for the first time how immediate and extensive the effect is. The findings, published online today and in the May 13 print edition of the journal Cell, could lead to a new set of therapeutic applications and provide a model for understanding rapid signal-dependent transcription in other biological systems. "We found that estrogen signaling immediately and directly regulates a strikingly large ...

Kidney disease affects 1 in 9 US adults, and by 2020 more than 750,000 Americans will be on dialysis or awaiting kidney transplant. Despite this growing health problem, every year fewer US medical students adopt nephrology as a career, according to a review appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). The review by ASN Workforce Committee Chair Mark G. Parker, MD (Division of Nephrology and Transplantation, Maine Medical Center) and colleagues highlights the declining interest of medical students in the US in nephrology. ...

A protein that helps the brain develop early in life can fight the mental fuzziness induced by sleep deprivation, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "It's interesting that NOTCH, a protein that plays such a prominent role in development, also has important functions in the adult brain," says senior author Paul Shaw, PhD, associate professor of neurobiology. "To our surprise, we found if NOTCH activity is boosted in the brains of sleep-deprived fruit flies, the flies can continue to stay sharp and learn after sleep deprivation. ...

Energy Digital and Energy Exposition announces their partnership for Energy Exposition 2011, which is taking place June 15th to June 16th. Energy Exposition 2011 is where 250 companies from 32 States and 2 Provinces exhibited last year, bringing with them upwards of 1,000 exhibitors and drawing a crowd of 4,500 people from the oil & gas industry and general community. The Energy Exposition is free and open to the public over the age of 18. With very reasonable booth fees and a relaxed atmosphere, the Expo is a valuable and affordable investment for everyone from small ...

Arsenic exposure and smoking each elevate the risk of disease. But when combined together, the danger of dying from cardiovascular disease is magnified, a new study finds. Exposure to high or even moderate levels of the toxin arsenic through drinking water can elevate the risk of cardiovascular disease mortality, according to a new study published in British Medical Journal. Exposed individuals who smoke were hit with a dangerous double whammy: a combined mortality risk that exceeded the influence of either factor alone. "Cigarette smoking is pervasive all over the ...

HUNTSVILLE, TX -- Researchers at Sam Houston State University and the University of Texas at Austin will team up with representatives from the criminal justice system in Houston to establish protocols to determine when sexual assault kits need to be tested by crime labs. "This is a problem-solving project that seeks to determine why so many kits are not being tested," said Dr. William Wells, who is leading the research project at Sam Houston State University. "The goal is to create appropriate solutions that can be implemented and to determine if there are ways that forensic ...

(Edmonton) The obesity problem plaguing Canadians is a story heard frequently these days. For Katerina Maximova, making connections between the rising body mass index, or BMI, among native-born Canadian versus immigrant children has been the focus of a recent study. In a journal article recently published in the Annals of Epidemiology, Maximova, an assistant professor with the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, analyzed data from approximately 6,400 low-income children in an inner-city Montreal neighbourhood who were followed for more than five years. ...

TEMPE, Ariz. – Obesity is socially contagious, according to research published in the past few years. How it is "caught" from others remains a murky area. But findings from Arizona State University researchers published online May 5 in the American Journal of Public Health shed light on the transmission of obesity among friends and family. Shared ideas about acceptable weight or body size play only a minor role in spreading obesity among friends, according to the findings published in the article "Shared Norms and Their Explanation for the Social Clustering of Obesity." "Interventions ...

OAKLAND, Calif., May 5, 2011-- Parental exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) during pregnancy is associated with decreased birth weight of offspring, compared with offspring from families without parental BPA exposure in the workplace, according to Kaiser Permanente researchers. The observational study is published in the current online issue Reproductive Toxicology. Researchers explained that there was a greater magnitude of decrease in birth weight in children whose mothers were directly exposed to high BPA levels in the workplace during pregnancy, followed by those whose ...

Transformative changes in markets, policy and science, rather than just incremental changes in farming practices and technology, will be critical if the United States is to achieve long-term sustainability in agriculture, according to a nationwide team of agriculturists that includes a University of California, Davis, animal scientist. The team's recommendations, first published as a 2010 report by the U.S. National Research Council, appear as a Policy Forum piece in the May 6 issue of the journal Science. Lead author on the paper is John Reganold, Regents Professor of ...

Tests of a new antibody-based "biosensor" developed by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science show that it can detect marine pollutants like oil much faster and more cheaply than current technologies. The device is small and sturdy enough to be used from a boat. Testing of the biosensor in the Elizabeth River and Yorktown Creek, which both drain into lower Chesapeake Bay, shows that the instrument can process samples in less than 10 minutes, detect pollutants at levels as low as just a few parts per billion, and do so at a cost of just pennies per sample. ...

The Hand and Wrist Institute, the leading hand specialist experts in the State of California now offers a "Where Does It Hurt" tool on their website, www.handandwristinstitute.com. The Hand and Wrist Institute is a medical center that focuses primarily on the surgery of hands and wrists. This institute is backed by Dr. John T. Knight, one of the top medical experts in the field of hand and wrist surgery. Dr. John T. Knight is a board certified Orthopedic Surgeon who oversees the operations of the Hand and Wrist Institute at DISC to ensure that all of their ...