Researchers exploring human metabolism at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have uncovered a handful of chemical compounds that regulate fat storage in worms, offering a new tool for understanding obesity and finding future treatments for diseases associated with obesity. As described in a paper published this month in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, the UCSF team took armies of microscopic worms called C.elegans and exposed them to thousands of different chemical compounds. Giving these compounds to the worms, they discovered, basically made them ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic researchers found that dopamine agonists used in treating Parkinson's disease result in impulse control disorders in as many as 22 percent of patients. Mayo Clinic first reported on this topic in 2005. The follow-up study was published online in the February 2011 issue of Parkinsonism and Related Disorders. Dopamine agonists, a class of drugs that include pramipexole (Mirapex) and ropinirole (Requip), are commonly used to treat Parkinson's disease. The drugs stimulate the brain's limbic circuits, which are thought to be pathways for emotional, ...

CHICAGO --- Could it be the potato salad? Young adults who frequently attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age as young adults with no religious involvement, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. This is the first longitudinal study to examine the development of obesity in people with various degrees of religious involvement. "We don't know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity, but the upshot is these findings highlight a group that could benefit from targeted efforts at obesity ...

Philadelphia, PA, March 23, 2011 – Although acupuncture is commonly used for pain control, doubts about its effectiveness and safety remain. Investigators from the Universities of Exeter & Plymouth (Exeter, UK) and the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine (Daejeon, South Korea) critically evaluated systematic reviews of acupuncture as a treatment of pain in order to explore this question. Reporting in the April 2011 issue of PAIN®, they conclude that numerous systematic reviews have generated little truly convincing evidence that acupuncture is effective in reducing pain, ...

The 2011 Arctic sea ice extent maximum that marks the beginning of the melt season appears to be tied for the lowest ever measured by satellites, say scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center. The CU-Boulder research team believes the lowest annual maximum ice extent of 5,650,000 square miles occurred on March 7. The maximum ice extent was 463,000 square miles below the 1979-2000 average, an area slightly larger than the states of Texas and California combined. The 2011 measurements were tied with those from 2006 as the lowest ...

Researchers from Osaka University and the National Institute for Basic Biology, Japan, have found a highly significant connection between the molecular mechanisms underlying genetic and environmental sex determination. The scientists report in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics the identification of a gene responsible for the production of males during environmental sex determination in the crustacean Daphnia. Ways in which an individual organism's sex is determined are diverse among animal lineages and can be broadly divided into two major categories: genetic and ...

Weight gain in adults coincided with increased consumption of added sugars, in a study reported today at the American Heart Association's Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism/Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention 2011 Scientific Sessions. Added sugars are sugars and syrups added to foods during processing, preparation, or at the table. Researchers reviewed added sugars intake and patterns of body weight over 27 years using data collected in the Minnesota Heart Survey, a surveillance study of adults ages 25 to 74 living in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan ...

Contrary to intuition, people who suffer from the motor and vocal tics characteristic of Tourette syndrome actually perform behavioral tests of cognitive motor control more accurately and quickly than their typically developing peers do. According to evidence reported online on March 24 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that enhanced control arises from structural and functional changes in the brain that likely come about from the need to constantly suppress tics. "The motor outputs of children with Tourette syndrome are under greater cognitive control," ...

Researchers in Texas have discovered thousands of human artifacts in a layer of earth that lies directly beneath an assemblage of Clovis relics, expanding evidence that other cultures preceded the Clovis culture in North America. This pre-Clovis toolkit appears to be between 13,200 and 15,500 years old and it includes biface and blade technology that may have later been adapted—and improved upon—by the Clovis culture. The Clovis people, whose tools were known for their distinctive "fluted" points, were once thought to be the original settlers of North America about 13,000 ...

Most regular online slots players have their good nights when they get lucky and have a fun winning streak. But, to win $10,000 or more on every game you try is every online casino player's dream. This dream came true at JackpotCapital.com last week when one lucky player tried six online slot machines during a two-day period and walked away with a total of $139,957.77 in winnings. "I had played Aladdin's Wishes before. In fact, I had a bit of luck on it last time I played so I started there. I couldn't believe it when I won $29,305!" said the winner from the undisclosed ...

Researchers excavating a creek bed in central Texas have found evidence suggesting humans settled in North America some two thousand years earlier than previously estimated. The findings are reported in the March 25 issue of Science. Earth scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago determined the age using an optical dating technique. They linked sediment and mineral samples to human artifacts and tools found in a single stratigraphic layer located below younger, previously dated Paleo-Indian Clovis-culture artifacts. Texas A&M University anthropologist Michael ...

PHILADELPHIA - Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center have discovered a novel way of treating pancreatic cancer by activating the immune system to destroy the cancer's scaffolding. The strategy was tested in a small cohort of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, several of whose tumors shrank substantially. The team believes their findings – and the novel way in which they uncovered them -- could lead to quicker, less expensive cancer drug development. The authors call the results, published in the March 25 issue of Science, a big ...

COLLEGE STATION, March 24, 2011— New discoveries at a Central Texas archaeological site by a Texas A&M University-led research team prove that people lived in the region far earlier – as much as 2,500 years earlier – than previously believed, rewriting what anthropologists know about when the first inhabitants arrived in North America. That pushes the arrival date back to about 15,500 years ago. Michael Waters, director of Texas A&M's Center for the Study of First Americans, along with researchers from Baylor University, the University of Illinois-Chicago, the University ...

FitnessCouponClub.com has launched a service that helps to bring fitness professionals and companies together with fitness conscious consumers. By offering a group buying opportunity on the website, fitness companies can offer their services to fitness enthusiasts and fanatics who are looking for a deal on fitness classes, personal training and other fitness services or products. They even offer the opportunity to market worldwide if the service or product meets certain standards. Following group buying trends, many companies have increased their clientele by offering ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---When local residents are allowed to make rules about managing nearby forests, the forests are more likely to provide greater economic benefits to households and contain more biodiversity, two University of Michigan researchers and a colleague conclude from an analysis of forest practices in tropical developing countries of East Africa and South Asia. Lauren Persha and Arun Agrawal of the University of Michigan and Ashwini Chhatre of the University of Illinois used evidence from more than 80 forest sites in six tropical countries to test how local participation ...

Stroke patients who received electrical brain stimulation coupled with swallowing exercises showed greater improvement in swallowing ability than patients who did not receive this stimulation, according to a pilot study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. Difficulty swallowing, known as dysphagia, is a common and serious stroke complication. It can lead to aspiration, when food or foreign matter accidentally enters the lungs causing pneumonia. Aspiration and aspiration pneumonia are common complications after stroke and can be deadly. The ...

Patients who have suffered a "mini stroke" are at twice the risk of heart attack than the general population, according to research reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. These mini-strokes, called transient-ischemic attacks, or TIAs, occur when a blood clot temporarily blocks a blood vessel to the brain. Although the symptoms are similar to a stroke, a TIA is shorter ─ usually lasting only minutes or a few hours ─ and does not cause long-term disability. A TIA, also called a "warning stroke," signals a high risk of a subsequent, larger ...

In an industry characterised by the need for strong technical skills, the development of the interpersonal side of things is often forgotten. If you're aiming for your first job post qualification or rising through the managerial ranks, Michael Page Finance knows that it's your soft skills that can set you apart from the crowd. Recruiters on the lookout Accountancy jobs can demand a varying set of skills. A range of different employers, from small businesses to FTSE-listed multinationals rely on us to recruit their finance professionals. With exposure to so ...

Researchers from China, Leicester and Oxford have discovered a remarkable fossil which sheds new light on an important group of primitive sea creatures. The 525-million-year-old fossil belongs to a group of tentacle-bearing creatures which lived inside hard tubes. Previously only the tubes have been seen in detail but this new specimen clearly shows the soft parts of the body including tentacles for feeding. Details of the discovery have been announced today in the journal Current Biology. The study was funded by the Royal Society and the National Natural Foundation ...

The variety on offer at the Foire de Paris means everyone is likely to find something they are interested in at the exhibition, with stands ranging from travel destinations to cooking gadgets. It runs from April 28th to May 8th 2011 and features three sections: home, leisure and world culture. Visitors will find plenty of inspiration for luxury holidays and property renovations at the event, with exhibitors sharing top tips on how people can spend their cash. To add to the fun, challenges and awards will be handed out during the fair for visitors and products. The ...

Children with Tourette syndrome could benefit from behavioural therapy to reduce their symptoms, according to a new brain imaging study. Researchers at The University of Nottingham discovered that the brains of children with Tourette syndrome (TS) develop in a unique way — which could suggest new methods of treating the condition. The study, published in the journal Current Biology, found that many children with TS experience a 'reorganisation' of the brain structure in their teens, as their brain compensates for the condition and allows them to gain control over their ...

A study published today provides a new perspective on the Great Depression of the 1930s. A widely held view is that there were remarkable improvements in life expectancy of over five years. Using data from urban populations, researchers found that it was actually associated with an increase in suicides but reduction in motor-vehicle accidents, a pattern consistent with the impacts of the current recession in Europe and the U.S. The study, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, is published in today's issue of the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Senior ...

Your CV is first-class, your interview skills are impeccable and you've researched the company inside out and back-to-front, but there's one further hurdle you may need to overcome before that job is yours - the personality test. Employers are increasingly incorporating pre-set personality tests into the interview process to quickly establish a candidate's suitability for the role and compatibility within the larger organisation. Personality tests tend to follow a standardised format of quick-answer, true-or-false or multiple-choice questions (up to 500 in some instances). ...

DALLAS – March 24, 2011 – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered a hormone pathway that potentially could lead to new ways of treating type 1 diabetes independent of insulin, long thought to be the sole regulator of carbohydrates in the liver. Results of this new study will be published March 25 in Science. Another hormone, fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19), has insulin-like characteristics beyond its role in bile acid synthesis. Unlike insulin, however, FGF19 does not cause excess glucose to turn to fat, suggesting that its activation could lead ...

Bar Harbor, Maine -- A Jackson Laboratory research team, working in collaboration with researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, show that RNA granules--key players in messenger RNA (mRNA) processing--can affect eye development, leading to juvenile cataracts in humans and mice. The research, published in the March 25 issue of Science, also demonstrates the first connection between RNA granules and glaucoma, as the humans and mice in the study developed glaucoma. In the laboratory of Jackson Professor and Howard Hughes Medical ...