Addictive drugs are known to induce changes in the brain's reward circuits that may underlie drug craving and relapse after long periods of abstinence. Now, new research, published by Cell Press in the September 9 issue of the journal Neuron, uncovers a specific neural mechanism that may be linked to persistent drug-seeking behavior and could help to guide strategies for development of new therapies for cocaine addiction. Previous research has shown that the ventral tegmental area (VTA) is a brain region that is activated when cocaine users experience a craving for cocaine ...

New York (September 8, 2010) – In a surprising and unexpected discovery, scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center have found that a single type of gene acts as a master organizer of motor neurons in the spinal cord. The finding, published in the September 9, 2010 issue of Neuron, could help scientists develop new treatments for diseases such as Lou Gehrig's disease or spinal cord injury. The "master organizer" is a member of the Hox family of genes, best known for controlling the overall pattern of body development. By orchestrating a cascade of gene expression in ...

A team of scientists, led by University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers, has synthesized hundreds of new compounds with the potential of reducing the production of the A-beta 42 peptide, a primary component of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In mouse models, one tested compound specifically reduced levels of A-beta 42, which is believed to be responsible for the destruction of neurons, but left other essential enzymatic activities in the brain unaffected, said Steven Wagner, PhD, a project scientist in the UCSD Department of Neurosciences. The ...

A group of international astronomers in the UK, France and the USA, led by the University of Leicester, have found proof to confirm the distance and brightness of the most extreme ultra-luminous X-ray source, which may herald a new type of Black Hole. The X-ray source, HLX-1, is the most extreme member of an extraordinary class of objects – the ultra-luminous X-ray sources – and is located in the galaxy ESO 243-49 at a distance of ~300 million light years from the Earth. The astronomers' findings confirm that the extreme luminosity (which is a factor of ~100 above ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A type of neuron that, when malfunctioning, has been tied to epilepsy, autism and schizophrenia is much more complex than previously thought, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory report in the Sept. 9 issue of Neuron. The majority of brain cells are called excitatory because they ramp up the action of target cells. In contrast, inhibitory cells called interneurons put the brakes on unbridled activity to maintain order and control. Epileptic seizures, as well as symptoms of autism and schizophrenia, have been tied to dysfunctional ...

SAN DIEGO -- In the Sept 9, 2010 issue of Neuron, Neurogenetic Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NGP) reports proof of concept studies that show its proprietary compound, NGP 555, is effective in preventing the amyloid pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in a transgenic mouse model. The study further demonstrates that following chronic treatment with the gamma secretase modulator (GSM) compound from NGP, the mice were devoid of gastrointestinal side effects, an adverse finding commonly associated with gamma secretase inhibitors (GSIs). A major pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's ...

Scientific research published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) reports on a study of genetic variants that influence human susceptibility to peripheral arterial disease (PAD), made possible by leveraging electronic medical records (EMRs; also called EHRs or electronic health records). A team of authors from the Mayo Clinic Divisions of Cardiovascular Diseases and Biomedical Informatics and Statistics conducted the study and concluded that EMR-based data, used across institutions in a structured way, "offer great ...

NOAA's Fisheries Service has designated the eastern North Pacific basking shark, a "species of concern" because it has suffered a dramatic decline in population despite decreasing fishing pressure. The label "species of concern" may be given to a species when there are concerns regarding the population status. The eastern Pacific basking shark is not being considered for listing pursuant to the Endangered Species Act, rather it is a species of concern because it has been over fished and its population has apparently not responded to conservation measures implemented ...

An international study has discovered the reason why some people who eat a high-fat diet remain slim, yet others pile on the weight. The study, led in Australia by the Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute (MODI) at Monash University, found a high-fat diet causes brain cells to become insulated from the body preventing vital signals, which tell the body to stop eating and to burn energy, from reaching the brain efficiently. MODI director and Australian Life Scientist of the Year Professor Michael Cowley said there were two clear outcomes from the findings. 'We discovered ...

LOS ANGELES – Sept. 7, 2010 – Researchers in Cedars-Sinai's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences have reported people who undergo massage experience measureable changes in their body's immune and endocrine response. Although there have been previous, smaller studies about the health benefits of massage, the Cedars-Sinai study is widely believed to be the first systematic study of a larger group of healthy adults. The study is published online at http://www.liebertonline.com/loi/acm. It also will be published in the October printed edition of ...

Consuming energy drinks during team sports could help young people perform better, a study suggests. Sports scientists found that 12-14 year olds can play for longer in team games when they drink an isotonic sports drink before and during games. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh measured the performance of 15 adolescents during exercise designed to simulate the physical demands of team games such as football, rugby and hockey. They showed for the first time that sports drinks helped the young people continue high intensity, stop-start activity for up to ...

The tomb was discovered during the excavation of a large mound – the Great Tumulus – at Vergina in 1977. Along with many treasures including ceremonial military equipment, bronze utensils, silver tableware, and gold wreaths, the tomb contained two sets of skeletal remains. Those of a man were found in a gold casket in the main chamber and those of a woman in a smaller gold casket in the second chamber. Both individuals had been cremated and evidence of a wooden funerary house containing a pyre was also found near the tomb. Dr Jonathan Musgrave of the University of ...

Cancer becomes life-threatening when tumor cells start leaving their primary site. They travel through the lymph and blood streams to other tissues where they grow into metastases. This transition to malignancy is associated with characteristic changes in the cancer cells. The activity of several genes is reprogrammed and, thus, the production of proteins anchoring cells to a tissue is reduced. On the other hand, the amount of surface markers which make a cancer cell mobile increases. Professor Dr. Heike Allgayer heads a Clinical Cooperation Unit of DKFZ and UMM. She ...

Originally discovered from Australia by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop early in the nineteenth century, NGC 300 is one of the closest and most prominent spiral galaxies in the southern skies and is bright enough to be seen easily in binoculars. It lies in the inconspicuous constellation of Sculptor, which has few bright stars, but is home to a collection of nearby galaxies that form the Sculptor Group [1]. Other members that have been imaged by ESO telescopes include NGC 55 (eso0914 - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0914/), NGC 253 (eso1025 - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1025/, ...

Mycoplasmas are responsible for a variety of important diseases, including atypical pneumonia in humans and mastitis in cows, sheep and goats, which results in loss of milk production. Mycoplasmal mastitis represents a particular problem in the dairy industry and is thus a subject of intense study. One of the most important mastitis agents in sheep and goats is Mycoplasma agalactiae, which has been under investigation by the group of Renate Rosengarten and Rohini Chopra-Dewasthaly at the Institute of Bacteriology, Mycology and Hygiene at the University of Veterinary Medicine, ...

Philadelphia, PA, 8 September, 2010 - In groups with high rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as the survivors of the Nazi Death Camps, the adjustment problems of their children, the so-called "Second Generation", have received attention by researchers. Studies suggested that some symptoms or personality traits associated with PTSD may be more common in the Second Generation than the general population. It has been assumed that these trans-generational effects reflected the impact of PTSD upon the parent-child relationship rather than a trait passed biologically ...

Scientists at the UK's National Physical Laboratory have developed a new strategy for quicker and more precise detection of biomarkers – proteins which indicate disease. The work could pave the way for new tools to detect early stages of Alzheimer's and cancer at the molecular level. All diseases have proteins specifically linked to them called biomarkers. Identifying these in body fluid such as blood can be a powerful tool in identifying diseases in their early stages. This would help doctors increase the success rate of treatment through early intervention and help ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2010 — Biodiesel fuel could be produced from municipal sewage sludge at a cost that is within a few cents a gallon of being competitive with conventional diesel refined from petroleum, according to the latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning podcast series, "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions." To boost biodiesel production, sewage treatment plants could use microorganisms that produce higher amounts of oil, says study leader David M. Kargbo, Ph.D., with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).That step alone ...

PHILADELPHIA, September 8, 2010 -- The American College of Physicians (ACP) today released a new position paper that provides ethical guidance for using incentives to promote personal responsibility for health. In "Ethical Considerations for the Use of Patient Incentives to Promote Personal Responsibility for Health: West Virginia Medicaid and Beyond (http://www.acponline.org/running_practice/ethics/issues/policy/personal_incentives.pdf)," ACP stresses that innovative programs designed to motivate behavior change should be part of a comprehensive strategy for well-being ...

Frog Skin May Provide Antimicrobial Peptides Effective Against Multidrug-Resistant Infections Antimicrobial peptides from the skin of frogs may protect against life-threatening, multidrug-resistant infections such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa say researchers from Italy. They detail their findings in the September 2010 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. P. aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that causes some of the most prevalent life-threatening infections such as eye and ear infections, burn wound infections and lung infections in cystic ...

A North Carolina State University researcher and colleagues have figured out a way to make an aluminum alloy, or a mixture of aluminum and other elements, just as strong as steel. That's important, says Dr. Yuntian Zhu, professor of materials science and the NC State researcher involved in the project, because the search for ever lighter – yet stronger – materials is crucial to devising everything from more fuel-efficient cars to safer airplanes. In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, Zhu and his colleagues describe the new nanoscale ...

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers and their university colleagues have sequenced the majority of the genome of Meleagris gallopavo, the domesticated turkey, creating the first-ever turkey genome map. The nearly complete map could help growers to more efficiently produce bigger, meatier turkeys. The research is reported today in PLoS Biology, an online journal of the Public Library of Science. Americans consume about 17.6 pounds of turkey per capita every year, and the U.S. produces nearly 6 billion pounds of turkey meat annually. "Turkey is the fourth ...

For 70 years the world has mismanaged the common good of antibiotics. The result is a growing global burden of antibiotic resistance, threatening to take health care back to an era where ordinary infections might once again become fatal. At a historic three day conference at Uppsala University, Sweden, 190 delegates representing 45 countries and many leading stake holders – civil society, academia, industry, governments, authorities, supranational organizations – agreed on Wednesday to turn a new page and move towards concerted action on antibiotic resistance. "This ...

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have developed new software that greatly improves the speed at which scientists can analyze RNA sequencing data. RNA sequencing is used to compare differences in gene expression to identify those genes that switched on or off when, for instance, a particular disease is present. However, sequencing instruments can produce billions of sequences per day, which can be time-consuming and costly to analyze. The software, known as Myrna, uses "cloud computing," an Internet-based method of sharing computer resources. ...

By integrating remote satellite imagery with revelations from door-to-door interviews, Stanford University geographer Eric Lambin and his colleagues are exploring the complex conditions that give rise to a broad range of land-use challenges – from the reforestation of Vietnam to the spread of Lyme disease in Belgium. For decades, orbiting satellites have peered downward to gather information about the surface of the Earth, giving scientists an unprecedented view of the planet. Using this data, researchers have created maps of deforestation and other land-use changes over ...