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Cellular aging increases risk of heart attack and early death
Babies Know What’s Fair
Autoinjectors offer way to treat prolonged seizures
Chemists reveal why sea urchins are no easy prey
Antibodies to Intracellular Cancer Antigens Combined with Chemotherapy Enhance Anti-Cancer Immunity
Color is key in controlling flies, UF researchers find
Nationwide Radium Testing of Groundwater Shows Most Susceptible Regions are Central U.S. and East Coast
Plasmas Torn Apart: Caltech researchers make discovery that hints at origin of phenomena like solar flares
Neuron memory key to taming chronic pain
How globular star clusters survive collisions
Stretching helices help keep muscles together
Black Hole Came from a Shredded Galaxy

Cellular aging increases risk of heart attack and early death

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 06:58 AM PST

Every cell in the body has chromosomes with so-called telomeres, which are shortened over time and also through lifestyle choices such as smoking and obesity. Researchers have long speculated that the shortening of telomeres increases the risk of heart attack and early death. Now a large-scale population study in Denmark involving nearly 20,000 people shows that there is in fact a direct link, and has also given physicians a future way to test the actual cellular health of a person.

Babies Know What’s Fair

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 06:46 AM PST

That’s not fair!” It’s a common playground complaint. But how early do children acquire this sense of fairness? Before they’re 2, says a new study. “We found that 19- and 21-month-old infants have a general expectation of fairness, and they can apply it appropriately to different situations,” says University of Illinois psychology graduate student Stephanie Sloane, who conducted the study with UI’s Renée Baillargeon and David Premack of the University of Pennsylvania.

Autoinjectors offer way to treat prolonged seizures

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 08:37 PM PST

Drug delivery into muscle using an autoinjector, akin to the EpiPen used to treat serious allergic reactions, is faster and may be a more effective way to stop status epilepticus, a prolonged seizure lasting longer than five minutes, according to a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

The University of Michigan Health System was the clinical coordinating center for the multi-center study.

Chemists reveal why sea urchins are no easy prey

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 08:32 PM PST

Nature invented a hi-tech composite material millions of years ago. Scientists from the Electron and Scanning Probe Microscopy Unit in the University of Bristol's School of Chemistry were part of an international network of institutes specialising in materials characterisation who have helped solve a decades-long debate on the nature of the sea urchin spine. The newly discovered structure, which combines the properties of thin calcite nanocrystals and a disordered chalk layer surrounding them, could provide inspiration for the design and synthesis of new hi-tech composite materials.

Antibodies to Intracellular Cancer Antigens Combined with Chemotherapy Enhance Anti-Cancer Immunity

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 12:39 PM PST

An international team of scientists in Japan, Switzerland, and the United States has confirmed that combining chemotherapy and immunotherapy in cancer treatment enhances the immune system’s ability to find and eliminate cancer cells, even when the cancer-associated proteins targeted by the immune system are hidden behind the cancer cell membrane.

Color is key in controlling flies, UF researchers find

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 11:23 AM PST

As a carrier of as many as 100 types of germs, the common house fly is hardly as innocuous as its name might suggest.

Military personnel know this firsthand, and their need for effective fly control has helped University of Florida researchers create an innovative new fly control device.

Known as the Florida Fly-Baiter, the device is blue — in contrast to the yellow fly control devices on the market — and is far more effective, said Phil Koehler, a professor of urban entomology with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Nationwide Radium Testing of Groundwater Shows Most Susceptible Regions are Central U.S. and East Coast

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 11:20 AM PST

Groundwater in aquifers on the East Coast and in the Central U.S. has the highest risk of contamination from radium, a naturally occurring radioactive element and known carcinogen.

Plasmas Torn Apart: Caltech researchers make discovery that hints at origin of phenomena like solar flares

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 10:58 AM PST

January saw the biggest solar storm since 2005, generating some of the most dazzling northern lights in recent memory.

Neuron memory key to taming chronic pain

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 10:48 AM PST

For some, the pain is so great that they can’t even bear to have clothes touch their skin. For others, it means that every step is a deliberate and agonizing choice. Whether the pain is caused by arthritic joints, an injury to a nerve or a disease like fibromyalgia, research now suggests there are new solutions for those who suffer from chronic pain.

How globular star clusters survive collisions

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 10:41 AM PST

Our Milky Way galaxy is surrounded by some 200 compact groups of stars, which, viewed through small telescopes, look like snowballs. These globular clusters are 13 billion years old, which is almost as old as the universe itself. Now a team of astronomers from Germany and the Netherlands have conducted a novel type of computer simulation. Their surprising findings: these giant clusters of stars are the only survivors of a massacre that destroyed their smaller siblings.

Stretching helices help keep muscles together

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 10:19 AM PST

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Hamburg, Germany, have discovered that the elastic part of this protein can stretch to two and a half times its original length, unfolding in a way that was hitherto unknown.

Black Hole Came from a Shredded Galaxy

Posted: 15 Feb 2012 07:44 AM PST

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a cluster of young, blue stars encircling the first intermediate-mass black hole ever discovered. The presence of the star cluster suggests that the black hole was once at the core of a now-disintegrated dwarf galaxy. The discovery of the black hole and the star cluster has important implications for understanding the evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies.