It would appear reasonable to assume that two closely related plant species would have similar genetic blueprints. However, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, working in cooperation with an international research team have now decoded, for the first time, the entire genome of the lyre-leaved rock cress (Arabidopsis lyrata), a close relative of the thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), the model plant used by geneticists. They discovered that the genome of the lyre-leaved rock cress is fifty percent bigger than that of the thale ...

The happiest countries and happiest U.S. states tend to have the highest suicide rates, according to research from the UK's University of Warwick, Hamilton College in New York and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The new research paper titled Dark Contrasts: The Paradox of High Rates of Suicide in Happy Places has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. It uses U.S. and international data, which included first-time comparisons of a newly available random sample of 1.3 million Americans, and another on suicide decisions ...

Collar Planet, Tampa Florida's luxury pet boutique, has announced the addition of the supercoller Leash and Collar System to their Online Catalog The supercoller is a hybrid dog collar and leash system all-in-one, designed to replace the traditional separate collar and leash. Convenience and control are what this unique alternate will provide to dog owners. The supercoller offers the convenience of a built in leash that retracts and attaches to the collar when not in use. Each cable of the built in leash is manufactured to handle 100lbs. The supercoller is made for dogs ...

A new procedure devised by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and colleagues can improve polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods of detecting plant disease organisms. PCR-based tests are prized tools for diagnosing plant diseases that can cause yield losses and diminished markets among other economic harm. But the test's ability to obtain a "genetic fingerprint" conclusively identifying a culprit pathogen hinges on there being a minimum number of its cells. Otherwise, the pathogen's genetic material can't be probed and multiplied in amounts necessary ...

A lawn of regionally native grasses would take less resources to maintain while providing as lush a carpet as a common turfgrass used in the South, according to a study by ecologists at The University of Texas at Austin's Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. "We created a lawn that needs less mowing and keeps weeds out better than a common American lawn option," said Dr. Mark Simmons, director of the center's Ecosystem Design Group, noting that this new approach could have a huge impact on pocketbooks and the environment. Simmons led the study comparing common Bermudagrass ...

Scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany have discovered a new, hitherto unknown mechanism of Salmonella invasion into gut cells: In this entry mode, the bacteria exploit the muscle power of cells to be pulled into the host cell cytoplasm. Thus, the strategies Salmonella use to infect cells are more complex than previously thought. According to the World Health Organization, the number of Salmonella infections is continuously rising, and the severity of infections is increasing. One of the reasons for this may be the sophisticated ...

Fresh insight into the survival strategy of the parasite that causes sleeping sickness could help inform new treatments for the disease. Scientists have found that the parasite, which can transform itself into either of two physical forms, has developed a careful balance between these. One of these types ensures infection in the bloodstream of a victim, and the other type is taken up by the tsetse fly and spread to another person or animal. The parasite maintains a trade-off between maintaining enough parasites to beat off the immune response and cause infection, and ...

The positive effects of mindfulness meditation on pain and working memory may result from an improved ability to regulate a crucial brain wave called the alpha rhythm. This rhythm is thought to "turn down the volume" on distracting information, which suggests that a key value of meditation may be helping the brain deal with an often-overstimulating world. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report that modulation of the alpha rhythm in response to attention-directing cues was faster ...

Church attendance in western democracies has declined; yet, a new University of Missouri study shows religious beliefs still influence people at the polls. Chris Raymond, a graduate instructor of political science in the MU College of Arts and Science, said that many political experts consider voters around the world as "floating without party loyalties," and that religion does not influence voters. Raymond's new study says religion still has a large impact on how people vote and helps define many of the platforms represented in the party system. In the study, Raymond ...

ANN ARBOR, MICH. -- A Data and Safety Monitoring Committee (DSMC) has determined that patients in a phase III clinical trial given atrasentan in addition to a standard chemotherapy regimen for advanced prostate cancer did not have longer survival or longer progression-free survival than patients on the same chemotherapy regimen who got a placebo rather than atrasentan. Almost 1,000 patients who had advanced, hormone-refractory prostate cancer were given up to 36 weeks of chemotherapy with docetaxel and prednisone. These patients were randomized so that one half got an ...

Acupuncture provides long-lasting relief to hot flashes, heart palpitations and anxiety due to side effects of the hormone given to counteract testosterone, the hormone that induces prostate cancer, according to a study published in the April issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, an official journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). The main treatments for men with metastatic prostate cancer are either surgery or hormone therapy to significantly reduce the level of testosterone in the body. Eliminating testosterone ...

A discovery by Johns Hopkins scientists about how a single-celled fungus survives in low-oxygen settings may someday help humans whose immune systems are compromised by organ transplants or AIDS. A report on the discovery in a yeast called Schizosaccharomyces pombe appears April 22 in Molecular Cell. Previous work by the Hopkins team showed that Schizosaccharomyces pombe, a model organism that's often used to study individual genes, contains a protein named Sre1 that allows the organism to adapt to conditions in which oxygen is very low or missing altogether. To find ...

Berkeley, CA– New research by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory finds strong evidence that homes with solar photovoltaic (PV) systems sell for a premium over homes without solar systems. "We find compelling evidence that solar PV systems in California have boosted home sales prices," says the lead author Ben Hoen, a researcher at Berkeley Lab. "These average sales price premiums appear to be comparable with the average investment that homeowners have made to install PV systems in California, and of course homeowners also benefit ...

April 21, 2011 − (BRONX, NY) − Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have for the first time observed the activity of a single gene in living cells. In an unprecedented study, published in the April 22 online edition of Science, Einstein scientists were able to follow, in real time, the process of gene transcription, which occurs when a gene converts its DNA information into molecules of messenger RNA (mRNA) that go on to make the protein coded by the gene. Robert Singer, Ph.D., co-director of the Gruss Lipper Biophotonics ...

According to a new study, severely obese adolescents are no more likely to be depressed than normal weight peers. The study, which has been released online in the Journal of Adolescent Health, did find that white adolescents may be somewhat more vulnerable to psychological effects of obesity. This three-year study – performed by researchers from the Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) and the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts Medical School – analyzed the relationship between severe obesity ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In the arid Namib Desert on the west coast of Africa, one type of beetle has found a distinctive way of surviving. When the morning fog rolls in, the Stenocara gracilipes species, also known as the Namib Beetle, collects water droplets on its bumpy back, then lets the moisture roll down into its mouth, allowing it to drink in an area devoid of flowing water. What nature has developed, Shreerang Chhatre wants to refine, to help the world's poor. Chhatre is an engineer and aspiring entrepreneur at MIT who works on fog harvesting, the deployment of devices ...

Scientists at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are developing a technique based on a new discovery which could pave the way towards detecting Alzheimer's disease in its earliest stages - and could help to develop urgently-needed treatments. The technique uses the ratio of detected fluorescence signals to indicate that clusters of peptide associated with the disease are beginning to gather and to have an impact on the brain. Current techniques are not able to see the peptide joining together until more advanced stages but a research paper from Strathclyde describes ...

A better understanding of corrosion resistance may be possible using a data-mining tool, according to Penn State material scientists. This tool may also aid research in other areas where massive amounts of information exist. In data mining -- a branch of computer science -- computer programs categorize large amounts of data so they become more useful. Different types of data-mining programs can find correlations between data on specific subjects, or in different areas of a single subject. Data mining finds similarities and differences among data parameters that frequently, ...

Online retailer HMV reveals the most popular gadgets, CDs, DVDs and video game titles available for pre-order and release during April through their online store at hmv.com. Movies The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest DVD - Release date: 4th April 2011 The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest is the explosive final installment of Stieg Larsson's trilogy which began with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Leading on from the conclusion of The Girl who Played with Fire, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is under police custody and about to face the murder trial that has ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A study of DNA rearrangements in roundworm chromosomes may offer new insight into large-scale genome duplications that occur in developing tumors. A report of the research led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine scientists was published in the April 22 online edition of the journal Science. The study focused on telomeres, a region of repetitive DNA sequence that protects the ends of chromosomes from deterioration or from fusing with other chromosomes. In many organisms, including humans, chromosome ends are capped by ...

There's no question, drugs work in treating disease. But can they work better, and safer? In recent years, researchers have grappled with the challenge of administering therapeutics in a way that boosts their effectiveness by targeting specific cells in the body while minimizing their potential damage to healthy tissue. The development of new methods that use engineered nanomaterials to transport drugs and release them directly into cells holds great potential in this area. And while several such drug-delivery systems — including some that use dendrimers, liposomes ...

April 18, 2011 – Illicit drug overdose deaths declined dramatically after the establishment of North America's first supervised injection facility located in Vancouver, Canada, according to the findings of a groundbreaking new study published in The Lancet. In the first peer-reviewed study to assess the impact of supervised injection sites on overdose mortality, researchers observed a 35% reduction in overdose deaths in the immediate vicinity of a pilot injection facility called Insite located in Vancouver, Canada, following its opening in September 2003. By contrast, ...

PITTSBURGH—Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute have leveraged the latest browser technology to create GigaPan Time Machine, a system that enables viewers to explore gigapixel-scale, high-resolution videos and image sequences by panning or zooming in and out of the images while simultaneously moving back and forth through time. Viewers, for instance, can use the system to focus in on the details of a booth within a panorama of a carnival midway, but also reverse time to see how the booth was constructed. Or they can watch a group of plants sprout, ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Earth may be able to recover from rising carbon dioxide emissions faster than previously thought, according to evidence from a prehistoric event analyzed by a Purdue University-led team. When faced with high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising temperatures 56 million years ago, the Earth increased its ability to pull carbon from the air. This led to a recovery that was quicker than anticipated by many models of the carbon cycle - though still on the order of tens of thousands of years, said Gabriel Bowen, the associate professor ...

What is a dental bridge? A dental bridge is a solution for missing teeth. Using a false tooth, a dental bridge is attached to two porcelain crowns and affixed to your adjacent teeth to hold it into place. Once in place, the false tooth restores symmetry, function, and beauty to your smile. Can a dental bridge be used to replace several teeth? Depending on how many teeth you need to have replaced, there are three different types of dental bridges. Traditional fixed bridges and cantilever bridges can be used to replace several missing teeth at one time. Resin-bonded ...