OAK RIDGE, Tenn, March, 23, 2011 -- Structural studies of some of nature's most efficient light-harvesting systems are lighting the way for new generations of biologically inspired solar cell devices. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used small-angle neutron scattering to analyze the structure of chlorosomes in green photosynthetic bacteria. Chlorosomes are efficient at collecting sunlight for conversion to energy, even in low-light and extreme environments. "It's one of the most efficient ...

In the first study of its kind, urologists and biostatisticians at Henry Ford Hospital have found that robot-assisted surgery to remove cancerous prostate glands is safe over the long term, with a major complication rate of less than one percent. The findings, published online this month by the journal European Urology, follow an earlier Henry Ford study that found nearly 87 percent of patients whose cancerous prostates were removed by robot-assisted surgery had no recurrence of the disease after five years. "We have always felt that robotic surgery for prostate cancer ...

Arthritis researchers from North America and Europe will convene in Chicago this week to present new osteoarthritis research that could lead to better ways to detect, treat, prevent and cure osteoarthritis (OA), which affects 27 million Americans. Hosted by the Arthritis Foundation, the Segal North American Osteoarthritis Workshop (SNOW) on March 25-27 will focus on specific forms of OA, such as those that follow joint trauma, obesity and the aging process. Arthritis is the leading cause of disability in the United States, affecting 50 million adults. The most common ...

A Syracuse University chemist has developed a way to use very low frequency light waves to study the weak forces (London dispersion forces) that hold molecules together in a crystal. This fundamental research could be applied to solve critical problems in drug research, manufacturing and quality control. The research by Timothy Korter, associate professor of chemistry in SU's College of Arts and Sciences, was the cover article of the March 14 issue of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. The journal, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, is one of the most prestigious ...

The UK public have been urged to back a petition which highlights the importance of lollipop people and road safety in the community. The petition, which can be signed at www.surveymonkey.com/savethelollipop, was organised by Kwik-Fit Insurance, one of the world's leading car insurance distributors, through its Lollipop Person of the Year campaign. The Kwik-Fit Insurance Lollipop Person of the Year awards, which have been supporting lollipop people across the country for since 2005, encouraged every primary school in Britain to nominate their lollipop person and ...

AUDIO: James Perfield discusses how the oil is similar to many vegetable oils currently on the market. Click here for more information. COLUMBIA, Mo. – Scientists have known for years that belly fat leads to serious medical problems, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found a plant oil that may be able to reduce belly fat in humans. In his latest study, James Perfield, assistant professor of ...

But Ronny Skog of http://trend-chart.com's newly launched STOCK MARKET THERMOMETER is confident in his ability to forecast the next bear market. The free stock market meter measures the current strength of the U.S stock market and give early warnings when a stock market crash is developing, says Skog, a native of Oslo. Although the algorithm will remain my secret, the stockmeter readings are based upon movement of smart money in the market - how much money is flowing into, or out of, the U.S stock market. According to Skog, the inventor of the stock market thermometer, ...

New York, NY, March 23, 2011 – Since their discovery in the 1990s, microRNAs have proven to play a complex role in normal and abnormal functioning of many organ systems. In the April issue of Translational Research, entitled "MicroRNAs: A Potential New Frontier for Medicine," an international group of medical experts explores several themes related to our current understanding of microRNAs and the role they may play in the future of medicine. A commentary by Monty Montano, Department of Medicine, Boston University, provides a general introduction to this single-topic ...

WASHINGTON — Clinical practice guidelines and systematic reviews of the evidence base for health care services are supposed to offer health care providers, patients, and organizations authoritative guidance on the comparable pros and cons of various care options, but too often they are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines, leading to variability in the handling of conflicts of interest, appraisals of evidence, and the rigor of the evaluations. Two new reports from the ...

The U.S. Department of Energy's costs for securing its facilities that house nuclear weapons and material have increased from $550 million in 2002 to around $930 million in 2010. UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING RISK IN SECURITY SYSTEMS FOR THE DOE NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX, a congressionally requested report from the National Research Council, examines whether risk-based approaches, including probabilistic risk assessment, could be used to improve methods for determining security requirements at these facilities. ###Advance copies of the report will be available to reporters ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Time marches on, and thanks to Michigan State University research, models of wildlife habitat now can monitor changes over time more accurately and more easily. "Monitoring and projecting future changes are essential for sustainable management of coupled human and natural systems, including wildlife habitat," said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at MSU. "Innovative computer models are urgently needed for effective monitoring and projection." Mao-Ning Tuanmu, doctoral student in MSU's Center for Systems Integration and ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Like bad neighbors who decide to go wreck another community, prostate and breast cancer usually recur in the bone, according to a new University of Michigan study. Now, U-M researchers believe they know why. Prostate cancer cells specifically target and eventually overrun the bone marrow niche, a specialized area for hematopoietic stem cells, which make red and white blood cells, said Russell Taichman, professor at the U-M School of Dentistry and senior author of the study. Once in the niche, the cancer cells stay dormant and when they become active ...

BETHESDA, Md., March 24, 2011 – We all know the adage: A little bit of a good thing can go a long way. Now researchers in London are reporting that might also be true for a large protein associated with wound healing. The team at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at Imperial College reports in the Journal of Biological Chemistry that a protein generated when the body is under stress, such as in cases of physical trauma or disease, can affect how the protective housing that surrounds each cell develops. What's more, they say, tiny pieces of that protein may one day ...

Free will may be an illusion. Yet we persist in believing we are the masters of our fates—and that belief affects how we act. Think you determine the course of your life and you're likely to work harder toward your goals and feel better about yourself too. Think you don't, and you're likelier to behave in ways that fulfill that prophesy. "Folk psychology tells us if you feel in control, you perform better," says Davide Rigoni, an experimental psychologist now at the University of Marseille. "What is crucial is that these effects are present at a very basic motor level, ...

WORCESTER, Mass. – Looking at the dark stripes on the tiny zebrafish you might not expect that they hold a potentially important clue for discovering a treatment for the deadly skin disease melanoma. Yet melanocytes, the same cells that are are responsible for the pigmentation of zebrafish stripes and for human skin color, are also where melanoma originates. Craig Ceol, PhD, assistant professor of molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and collaborators at several institutions, used zebrafish to identify a new gene responsible for promoting ...

This press release is available in French. Montreal, March 23, 2011 – Researchers at Concordia University have pioneered a computer-based method to detect epileptic seizures as they occur – a new technique that may open a window on the brain's electrical activity. Their paper, "A Novel Morphology-Based Classifier for Automatic Detection of Epileptic Seizures," presented at the annual meeting of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, documents the very successful application of this new seizure-detection method. An epileptic seizure, which is caused by disruptions ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– A portion of the "code" of life has been unraveled by a UC Santa Barbara graduate student from the town of Jojutla, Mexico. Annia Rodriguez worked with John Perona, professor in UCSB's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, to decipher intramolecular communication within a large RNA-protein enzyme responsible for expressing the genetic code for the amino acid glutamine. To their surprise, the experiments by Rodriguez captured a partial glimpse of how the genetic coding of life may have emerged. The results of the study are published in ...

For his generous heart and giving spirit, Dr. Frederick S. Hecht, of Staten Island Dental Care was the recipient of the 2011 Humanitarian Dentist of the Year Award at the Crown Council 16th Annual Event in Phoenix, Arizona on February 5th. The Frances Hammond Humanitarian Award recognizes an individual, who, in the spirit of Frances Hammond, has shown a commitment to the humanitarian ideals she so lovingly gave in a lifetime of service to others. Dr. Ron Arndt says: "Dr. Hecht is this rather robust, outspoken, often imposing and loud man's outside persona. But just ...

A highly sensitive sensor that combines a variety of testing means (electrochemistry, spectroscopy and selective partitioning) into one device has been developed at the University of Cincinnati. It's already been tested in a variety of settings – including testing for components in nuclear waste. The sensor is unusual in that most sensors only have one or two modes of selectivity, while this sensor has three. In practical terms, that means the UC sensor has three different ways to find and identify a compound of interest. That's important because settings like a nuclear ...

Tana, a female French bulldog, was brought to a veterinary centre for her first vaccination. Specialists there were alerted by the size of her clitoris, which was "larger than normal", and they started to carry out tests. These revealed the first ever genetic alteration ever detected in the reproductive system of this breed – the female puppy had cryptorchid testicles (outside the scrotum). Genetic alteration of the reproductive system or sexual reversal "has been described in many species, such as goats, pigs, horses and even human beings", Marcos Campos, lead author ...

HAMILTON, ON (March 23, 2011) - A lot of chatter goes on inside each one of us and not all of it happens between our ears. Researchers at McMaster University discovered that the "cross-talk" between bacteria in our gut and our brain plays an important role in the development of psychiatric illness, intestinal diseases and probably other health problems as well including obesity. "The wave of the future is full of opportunity as we think about how microbiota or bacteria influence the brain and how the bi-directional communication of the body and the brain influence metabolic ...

CHICAGO --- Exposure to alcohol in the womb doesn't affect all fetuses equally. Why does one woman who drinks alcohol during pregnancy give birth to a child with physical, behavioral or learning problems -- known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder -- while another woman who also drinks has a child without these problems? One answer is a gene variation passed on by the mother to her son, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. This gene variation contributes to a fetus' vulnerability to even moderate alcohol exposure by upsetting the balance of thyroid hormones ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — When it comes to producing more offspring, larger female hyenas outdo their smaller counterparts. A new study by Michigan State University researchers, which appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society, revealed this as well as defined a new way to measure spotted hyenas' size. "This is the first study of its kind that provides an estimate of lifetime selection on a large carnivore," said MSU graduate student Eli Swanson, who published the paper with MSU faculty members Ian Dworkin and Kay Holekamp, all members of the BEACON Center for the Study ...

Researchers at Rice University have created a synthetic material that gets stronger from repeated stress much like the body strengthens bones and muscles after repeated workouts. Work by the Rice lab of Pulickel Ajayan, professor in mechanical engineering and materials science and of chemistry, shows the potential of stiffening polymer-based nanocomposites with carbon nanotube fillers. The team reported its discovery this month in the journal ACS Nano. The trick, it seems, lies in the complex, dynamic interface between nanostructures and polymers in carefully engineered ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. - Mayo Clinic researchers have found that cardiac pacing may help epilepsy patients with seizure-related falls due to ictal asystole, an unusual condition in which the heart stops beating during an epileptic seizure. The study was recently published in the journal Epilepsia. "During seizures, a patient's heart rate most often increases significantly, but in about 1 percent of this population, a seizure will lead to the heart stopping for a brief period of time," says Jeffrey W. Britton, M.D., a Mayo Clinic neurologist and member of the research team. ...