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High-powered microscopes reveal workings of the cell – results could impact treatment of Down’s Syndrome, lissencephaly or cancer
A ‘faster-ticking clock’ indicates the early solar system may have evolved faster than we think, say researchers
Weight loss led to reduction in inflammation
Children with Juvenile Arthritis Have Higher Rates of Bacterial Infection
Chemical Engineers Discover a High-Yield Method for Producing Everyday Plastics from Biomass
Lactoferrin protein heals wounds, boosts immunity and protects from cancer
From Decade to Decade: What’s the Status of our Groundwater Quality?
Family life impedes political participation by women
Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers
Avastin and Lucentis are equivalent in treating age-related macular degeneration
Devastating disease provides insight into development and death of motor neurons
Study Shows Halting an Enzyme Can Slow Multiple Sclerosis in Mice
Modern hybrid corn makes better use of nitrogen, study shows
Molecular Spectroscopy Tracks Living Mammalian Cells in Real Time as They Differentiate
Multitasking may hurt your performance, but it makes you feel better
A New Drug to Manage Resistant Chronic Pain
Obesity affects job prospects for women, study finds
Electric charge disorder: A key to biological order?
Superconducting strip could become an ultra-low-voltage sensor

High-powered microscopes reveal workings of the cell – results could impact treatment of Down’s Syndrome, lissencephaly or cancer

Posted: 01 May 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Scientists using high-powered microscopes have made a stunning observation of the architecture within a cell – and identified for the first time how the architecture changes during the formation of gametes, also known as sex cells, in order to successfully complete the process.

A ‘faster-ticking clock’ indicates the early solar system may have evolved faster than we think, say researchers

Posted: 01 May 2012 06:46 AM PDT

Our solar system is four and a half billion years old, but its formation may have occurred over a shorter period of time than we previously thought, says an international team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and universities and laboratories in the US and Japan.

Weight loss led to reduction in inflammation

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 09:48 PM PDT

Postmenopausal women who were overweight or obese and lost at least 5 percent of their body weight had a measurable reduction in markers of inflammation, according to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Children with Juvenile Arthritis Have Higher Rates of Bacterial Infection

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 09:24 PM PDT

Children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) have higher rates of hospitalized bacterial infection than children without JIA according to an observational study appearing in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). The findings show that the risk of infection among JIA patients was significantly increased with use of high-dose glucocorticoids (steroids).

Chemical Engineers Discover a High-Yield Method for Producing Everyday Plastics from Biomass

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 01:54 PM PDT

A team of chemical engineers led by Paul J. Dauenhauer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered a new, high-yield method of producing the key ingredient used to make plastic bottles from biomass. The process is inexpensive and currently creates the chemical p-xylene with an efficient yield of 75-percent, using most of the biomass feedstock, Dauenhauer says. The research is published in the journal ACS Catalysis.

Lactoferrin protein heals wounds, boosts immunity and protects from cancer

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 12:32 PM PDT

Lactoferrin is an important iron-binding protein with many health benefits. The major form of this powerful protein, is secreted into human biofluids (e.g. milk, blood, tears, saliva), and is responsible for most of the host-defense properties. Because of the many beneficial activities associated with it, researchers are starting to use lactoferrin as a potential therapeutic protein. And, in contrast to many other therapeutic proteins, which need to be injected into patients, lactoferrin can be orally active.

From Decade to Decade: What’s the Status of our Groundwater Quality?

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 12:23 PM PDT

There was no change in concentrations of chloride, dissolved solids, or nitrate in groundwater for more than 50 percent of well networks sampled in a new analysis by the USGS that compared samples from 1988-2000 to samples from 2001-2010. For those networks that did have a change, seven times more networks saw increases as opposed to decreases.

Family life impedes political participation by women

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 11:03 AM PDT

Women who start a family tend to get less involved in their communities, while men who have children do the opposite.

This insight comes from new analyses of data from the 2010 survey of 40,990 respondents in Latin America and the Caribbean by The Latin American Public Opinion Project, which was founded by Mitchell Seligson, Centennial Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt, and is housed in the political science department at Vanderbilt.

Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 10:58 AM PDT

“Love thy neighbor” is preached from many a pulpit. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people.

Study finds highly religious people are less motivated by compassion to show generosity than are non-believers

Avastin and Lucentis are equivalent in treating age-related macular degeneration

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 10:49 AM PDT

At two years, Avastin (bevacizumab) and Lucentis (ranibizumab injection), two widely used drugs to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), improve vision when administered monthly or on an as needed basis, although greater improvements in vision were seen with monthly administration for this common, debilitating eye disease, according to researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Devastating disease provides insight into development and death of motor neurons

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 10:46 AM PDT

Researchers at UCLA have been searching for the cause of a rare disease that virtually no one has ever heard: PCH1, or pontocerebellar hypoplasia type 1, which attacks the brain and the spine.

It's a particularly cruel disorder, occurring mostly in infants, who begin manifesting symptoms at or soon after birth, with poor muscle tone, difficulty feeding, growth retardation and global developmental delay.

Study Shows Halting an Enzyme Can Slow Multiple Sclerosis in Mice

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 10:41 AM PDT

Researchers studying multiple sclerosis (MS) have long been looking for the specific molecules in the body that cause lesions in myelin, the fatty, insulating cells that sheathe the nerves. Nearly a decade ago, a group at Mayo Clinic found a new enzyme, called Kallikrein 6, that is present in abundance in MS lesions and blood samples and is associated with inflammation and demyelination in other neurodegenerative diseases. In a study published this month in Brain Pathology, the same group found that an antibody that neutralizes Kallikrein 6 is capable of staving off MS in mice.

Modern hybrid corn makes better use of nitrogen, study shows

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 10:24 AM PDT

Today's hybrid corn varieties more efficiently use nitrogen to create more grain, according to 72 years of public-sector research data reviewed by Purdue University researchers.

Tony Vyn, a professor of agronomy, and doctoral student Ignacio Ciampitti looked at nitrogen use studies for corn from two periods – 1940-1990 and 1991-2011. They wanted to see whether increased yields were due to better nitrogen efficiency or whether new plants were simply given additional nitrogen to produce more grain.

Molecular Spectroscopy Tracks Living Mammalian Cells in Real Time as They Differentiate

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 10:20 AM PDT

Knowing how a living cell works means knowing how the chemistry inside the cell changes as the functions of the cell change. Protein phosphorylation, for example, controls everything from cell proliferation to differentiation to metabolism to signaling, and even programmed cell death (apoptosis), in cells from bacteria to humans. It’s a chemical process that has long been intensively studied, not least in hopes of treating or eliminating a wide range of diseases.

Multitasking may hurt your performance, but it makes you feel better

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 09:49 AM PDT

People aren’t very good at media multitasking - like reading a book while watching TV - but do it anyway because it makes them feel good, a new study suggests. The findings provide clues as to why multitasking is so popular, even though many studies show it is not productive.

A New Drug to Manage Resistant Chronic Pain

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 09:36 AM PDT

Neuropathic pain, caused by nerve or tissue damage, is the culprit behind many cases of chronic pain. It can be the result of an accident or caused by a variety of medical conditions and diseases such as tumors, lupus, and diabetes. Typically resistant to common types of pain management including ibuprofen and even morphine, neuropathic pain can lead to lifelong disability for many sufferers.

Obesity affects job prospects for women, study finds

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 09:20 AM PDT

Obese women are more likely to be discriminated against when applying for jobs and receive lower starting salaries than their non-overweight colleagues, a new study has found.

Electric charge disorder: A key to biological order?

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 09:15 AM PDT

Theoretical physicist Ali Naji from the IPM in Tehran and the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues have shown how small random patches of disordered, frozen electric charges can make a difference when they are scattered on surfaces that are overall neutral. These charges induce a twisting force that is strong enough to be felt as far as nanometers or even micrometers away. These results, about to be published in EPJ E, could help to understand phenomena that occur on surfaces such as those of large biological molecules.

Superconducting strip could become an ultra-low-voltage sensor

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:48 AM PDT

Researchers studying a superconducting strip observed an intermittent motion of magnetic flux which carries vortices inside the regularly spaced weak conducting regions carved into the superconducting material. These vortices resulted in alternating static phases with zero voltage and dynamic phases, which are characterised by non-zero voltage peaks in the superconductor. This study, which is about to be published in EPJ B, was carried out by scientists from the Condensed Matter Theory Group of the University of Antwerp, Belgium, working in collaboration with Brazilian colleagues.