Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered a new drug target that could improve the effectiveness of radiation for hard-to-treat cancers. The finding, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, focuses on the role of the enzyme cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2). This enzyme promotes development and functioning of blood vessel networks that feed malignant tumors, enabling them to overcome the effects of radiation. They have also identified a drug that stops production of the enzyme. Inhibiting the enzyme can stop ...

Elevated levels of a growth protein in the brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients is linked to impaired neurogenesis, the process by which new neurons are generated, say researchers at the University of California, San Diego in today's edition of The Journal of Neuroscience. Eliezer Masliah, MD, professor of neurosciences and pathology in the UC San Diego School of Medicine and colleagues report that increased levels of BMP6 – part of a family of bone morphogenetic proteins involved in cell signaling and growth – were found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and ...

The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest recorded since satellites began measuring sea ice extent in 1979, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center. While this year's September minimum extent was greater than 2007 and 2008, the two record-setting and near-record-setting low years, it is still significantly below the long-term average and well outside the range of natural climate variability, according to CU-Boulder's NSIDC scientists. Most researchers believe the shrinking ...

Chronic stress acts as a sort of fertilizer that feeds breast cancer progression, significantly accelerating the spread of disease in animal models, researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have found. Researchers discovered that stress is biologically reprogramming the immune cells that are trying to fight the cancer, transforming them instead from soldiers protecting the body against disease into aiders and abettors. The study found a 30-fold increase in cancer spread throughout the bodies of stressed mice compared to those that were not stressed. ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have discovered a caste of genetically identical "warrior worms" –– members of a parasitic fluke species that invades the California horn snail. The findings are reported in the early online version of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "We have discovered flatworms in colonies with vicious, killer morphs defending the colony," said Armand M. Kuris, professor of zoology, in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology. "These flukes have a strongly developed social organization, much like some insects, ...

When fish or tiny, shrimp-like krill get together, it appears they follow the same set of "rules." According to a new study published online on September 16th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, shoals of fish and swarms of krill hang out in groups that take on the same overall shape; it's not a simple sphere, a cylinder, or ovoid, but something more akin to an irregular crystal, the researchers say. "The fact that several species of fish and krill that live in very different locations—from the tropics to polar oceans—form shoals that are the same shape suggests ...

In today's increasingly urbanized world, the lights in many places are always on, and according to a report published online on September 16 in of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that's having a real impact on the mating life of forest-breeding songbirds. "In comparison to chemical and noise pollution, light pollution is more subtle, and its effects have perhaps not received the attention they deserve," said Bart Kempenaers of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany. "Our findings show clearly that light pollution influences the timing of breeding ...

VIDEO: This is an informal conversation with Mr. Stephen Fleming . This video relates to an article that is appearing in the Sept. 17, 2010, issue of Science, published by AAAS.... Click here for more information. A specific region of the brain appears to be larger in individuals who are good at turning their thoughts inward and reflecting upon their decisions, according to new research published in the journal Science. This act of introspection—or "thinking about your ...

An international research group led by scientists from the University of Bristol has developed a new approach to quantum computing that could soon be used to perform complex calculations that cannot be done by today's computers. Scientists from Bristol's Centre for Quantum Photonics have developed a silicon chip that could be used to perform complex calculations and simulations using quantum particles in the near future. The researchers believe that their device represents a new route to a quantum computer – a powerful type of computer that uses quantum bits (qubits) ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Take a cursory look at the moon, and it can resemble a pockmarked golf ball. The dimples and divots on its surface are testament that our satellite has withstood a barrage of impacts from comets, asteroids and other space matter throughout much of its history. Because the geological record of that pummeling remains largely intact, scientists have leaned on the moon to reconstruct the chaotic early days of the inner solar system. Now a team led by Brown University planetary geologists has produced the first uniform, comprehensive catalog ...

Cambridge, Mass. and Manaus, Brazil – September 16, 2010 – Environmental engineers who might better be called "archeologists of the air" have, for the first time, isolated aerosol particles in near pristine pre-industrial conditions. Working in the remote Amazonian Basin north of Manaus, Brazil, the researchers measured particles emitted or formed within the rainforest ecosystem that are relatively free from the influence of anthropogenic, or human, activity. The finding, published in the September 16 issue of Science, could provide crucial clues to understanding cloud ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In a paper appearing in the Sept. 16 online edition of Science, Matthew Vander Heiden assistant professor of biology and member of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and researchers at Harvard University report a previously unknown element of cancer cells' peculiar metabolism. They found that cells can trigger an alternative biochemical pathway that speeds up their metabolism and diverts the byproducts to construct new cells. The finding could help scientists design drugs that block cancer-cell metabolism, essentially ...

Tool use is so rare in the animal kingdom that it was once believed to be a uniquely human trait. While it is now known that some non-human animal species can use tools for foraging, the rarity of this behaviour remains a puzzle. It is generally assumed that tool use played a key role in human evolution, so understanding this behaviour's ecological context, and its evolutionary roots, is of major scientific interest. A project led by researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Exeter examined the ecological significance of tool use in New Caledonian crows, a species ...

Palo Alto, CA—Scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology have taken a new approach on examining a proposal to fix the warming planet. So-called geoengineering ideas—large-scale projects to change the Earth's climate—have included erecting giant mirrors in space to reflect solar radiation, injecting aerosols of sulfate into the stratosphere making a global sunshade, and much more. Past modeling of the sulfate idea looked at how the stratospheric aerosols might affect Earth's climate and chemistry. The Carnegie researchers started out differently ...

Even children of a healthy weight who have an imbalanced metabolism due to poor diet or exercise may be at increased risk of asthma, according to new research, which challenges the widespread assumption that obesity itself is a risk factor for asthma. "Our research showed that early abnormalities in lipid and/or glucose metabolism may be associated to the development of asthma in childhood," said lead author Giovanni Piedimonte, M.D., who is professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at West Virginia University School of Medicine, physician-in-chief at WVU ...

VIDEO: The following video relates to a Science paper featuring contributing author Preston Marx, a Tulane University virologist. The article, "Island Biogeography Reveals the Deep History of SIV, " is embargoed until... Click here for more information. The HIV-like virus that infects monkeys is thousands of years older than previously thought, according to a new study led by researchers from Tulane University. Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which is the ...

Berkeley — Research on a drug commonly prescribed to Alzheimer's disease patients is helping neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, better understand perceptual learning in healthy adults. In a new study, to be published online Thursday, Sept. 16, in the journal Current Biology, researchers from UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and School of Optometry found that study participants showed significantly greater benefits from practice on a task that involved discriminating directions of motion after they took donepezil, sold under the ...

The response time to antidepressants, such as Prozac, is around three weeks. How can we explain this? The adaptation mechanisms of the neurons to antidepressants has, until now, remained enigmatic. Research, published this week by the teams of Odile Kellermann (Inserm Unit 747 Cellules souches, Signalisation et Prions, Université Paris-Descartes) and of Jean-Marie Launay (Inserm Unit 942 Hôpital Lariboisière, Paris and the mental health network, Santé Mentale), sheds new light on the mechanisms of action of these drugs which have been used for more than 30 years and are ...

What, in nature, drives the incredible diversity of flowers? This question has sparked debate since Darwin described flower diversification as an 'abominable mystery.' The answer has become a lot clearer, according to scientists at the University of Calgary whose research on the subject is published today in the on-line edition of the journal Ecology Letters. Drs. Jana Vamosi and Steven Vamosi of the Department of Biological Sciences have found through extensive statistical analysis that the size of the geographical area is the most important factor when it comes to biodiversity ...

An ancestor of HIV that infects monkeys is thousands of years older than previously thought, suggesting that HIV, which causes AIDS, is not likely to stop killing humans anytime soon, finds a study by University of Arizona and Tulane University researchers. The simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, is at least 32,000 to 75,000 years old, and likely much older, according to a genetic analysis of unique SIV strains found in monkeys on Bioko Island, a former peninsula that separated from mainland Africa after the Ice Age more than 10,000 years ago. The research, which appears ...

The moon is more geologically complex than previously thought, scientists report Sept. 17 in two papers published in the journal Science. Their conclusion is based on data from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), an unmanned mission to comprehensively map the entire moon. The spacecraft orbits some 31 miles above the moon's surface. The new data reveal previously unseen compositional differences in the moon's crustal highlands and have confirmed the presence of material surprisingly abundant in silica — a compound ...

Catalan researchers have studied the factors relating to urban transport service provision in 45 European cities, including Barcelona, Bilbao and Madrid. The study, published in the latest issue of Transportation research part E-logistics and transportation review, concludes that Central European cities have the best urban transport service provision in Europe. Capital cities are at the head of the league, both in terms of supply and demand. "The geographic variables we studied show that Mediterranean countries have the least developed (offer the poorest range) in terms ...

Some intensive care patients develop post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) after the trauma of a difficult hospital stay, and this is thought to be exacerbated by delusional or fragmentary memories of their time in the intensive care unit. Now researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care have found that if staff and close relatives make a diary for patients, featuring information about their stay and accompanied by photographs, PTSD rates can be significantly reduced. Professor Richard Griffiths and Christina Jones from the University of Liverpool, ...

People who have used cocaine run a great risk of becoming addicted, even after long drug-free periods. Now researchers at Linköping University and their colleagues can point to a specific molecule in the brain as a possible target for treatment to prevent relapses. Drugs are addictive because they "hijack" the brain's reward system, which is actually intended to make it pleasurable to eat and have sex, behaviors that are necessary for survival and reproduction. This "hijacking" is extremely long-lived and often leads to relapses into abuse, especially when the individual ...

London, UK (September 16, 2010) – Amid growing concern that synthetic life sciences pose biosecurity and biosafety risks, scrutiny is increasing into the burgeoning DNA sequence trade. Research published today in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, looks at the necessity of a global regulator for DNA trade, and the significant barriers to creating one. Synthetic life sciences are making breakthroughs at a breakneck pace, and could offer technological fixes for our future ecological, technological, and biomedical challenges. But these benefits also ...